UChicago: The Stanford of DIII Sports?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

Men’s and women’s soccer are both in the top 5; women’s volleyball in the top 15; m and w cross country both in the top 20

And, last year, an overall ranking of #12 in the country for sports.

(This year the overall finish will probably be in the top ten.)

And keep in mind, while MIT is high up in the sports rankings, they play sports almost no other DIII school plays - rifelry, fencing, etc.

I was talking to a buddy of mine who played soccer like 20 years ago at Chicago, and he said now there is no comparison - the current team is way better.

How did this happen? The high us news ranking draws the athletes in?

2

Schools that have excellent academics often get the pick of a certain group of athletes because these kids aren’t choosing between academics and athletics in any division. Some of the other D3 powerhouses are schools like Williams and Tufts. There is a pattern… It makes it easier to build good teams.

3

We toured many D3 and some D1 programs before choosing track and xc at UChicago. The facilities are better then most D3 and some D1 programs. In the non-revenue sports D1 schools don’t over invest. On top of that my son wanted somewhere where he could get the best education first. I doubt he would have chosen Stanford or Princeton over UChicago because he felt the D1 atmosphere would have made him an athlete first.

Before you start saying UChicago is the Stanford of D3, I think you have to beat the Purple Cow. When we visited their program, the track coach was literally using NCAA track championship trophies as paper weights and door stops.

4

I imagine this is supposed to be facetious? Stanford has the most NCAA DI Championships of all time. It has also produced the most Olympic medalists of any university on the planet.

The comparison between Stanford and UChicago Athletics, even across divisions, is not even remotely close. UChicago has a horrendous sports history unless you go way way back to the 19th century when even schools like Yale and Columbia has good sports programs. To put this in this perspective for you: Princeton, Rutgers, and Columbia have the oldest football programs in the United States (professional or collegiate). Princeton has the most claimed national titles of any collegiate football program. Columbia defeated Stanford in the 1934 Rose Bowl. If Stanford played any of the above teams in 2018 they’d have to stop the game before half-time it’d be such a blow out.

Further, there are issues with you premise. Saying any school is the “Stanford of DIII” is like saying a minor league baseball team is the “Yankees of Triple A”.

Lastly, while Ivy League sports programs are certainly more competitive than DIII, no one takes Ivy League football seriously. There are Ivy League sports programs which compete with DI schools like Stanford, Duke, UVA, etc. For example, Yale’s rowing team won the national championship last year. Columbia’s tennis team is Top 5 DI along with Stanford, USC, UVA, Wake Forest. Harvard’s squash team is probably the best in the nation even though Trinity won the national title and Columbia won the Ivy League title. Cornell’s wrestling team is a DI juggernaut. Columbia’s baseball team has been the 3 seed in the NCAA Baseball Championship 4 of the last 6 years. Princeton basketball is somewhat of a contender in the NCAA tournament.

And as to Cue’s comment about fencing - that’s totally not accurate. The best fencing programs in the nation are Notre Dame, Columbia and Ohio State. Notre Dame and Columbia have split the last 4 national championships equally. Notre Dame and Ohio State have enormous sports programs if you didn’t know.

5

A few weeks ago, all of U of Colorado fall sports teams were ranked. All of them. All FIVE of them. Yep, we were cruising along, but there are only 5 varsity sports in the fall (football, men’s and women’s xc, women’s soccer and volleyball). Now that’s good, but in no way makes it a sports powerhouse.

6

We can let the D3 ncaa history by sport speak for itself, starting on p33. Chicago has never won a national championship in any sport, but has had some individual champs. It will take effort, investment and recruiting over a good number of years for Chicago to achieve sports strength, relative to D3 schools with a history of athletic excellence.
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/Overall.pdf

7

WashU might have a better claim to being the Stanford of D3 sports…at least given the number of UAA championships.

8

I would probably choose Williams as historically best D3 sports school, they have quite a few championships across several sports, and when you consider the total number of students (small!), the achievements are very impressive. Kenyon’s dominance in men’s and women’s swimming/diving is unmatched though.

9

I would also choose Williams as historically the best D3 sports school. The Ephs have won the Directors Cup 21 times over the past 23 years.

10

From a December 1985 piece by the still-greatly-missed Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko:

"It seems that before most of us were born, the University of Chicago went in for football, at a time when college football was far more popular than the professional game, which was considered a scruffy pastime for oversized bums. And the U. of C. team, coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg, was one of the best in the country in those days, when some players didn`t wear helmets. They were so good that some fans took to calling them the Monsters of the Midway.

Well, along came an egghead chancellor who decided that football was for violent lunks and wasn`t nearly as important as thinking deep thoughts. So the university dropped the terribly violent game. (Later, the university went on to split the atom. Talk about violence!)

About the time the university gave up football, the Bears became the dominant team of the early years of the professional game.

And some mindless sportswriter took it upon himself to shift the name Monsters of the Midway to them, and it stuck.

It didnt make sense then, because the midway is on the South Side, and in those days the Chicago Cardinals were the South Sides favorite team.

And the name makes even less sense now.

People along the midway at the University of Chicago don`t think about football. They ponder the mystery of black holes in deepest space.

A scientific survey once showed that male students at the U. of C. have the thinnest arms of any student body in America. And theyre proud of it. They believe that its sexist for a male person to have larger biceps than his girlfriend`s.

Anyway, that`s how the Bears got so inappropriate a name, and it is time for it to be dropped.

And I`m sure those at the university would agree.

Why, if you took William ‘‘The Fridge’’ Perry out to the university and pointed him out as a Monster of the Midway, the students and faculty would say:

‘‘Oh, you mean he is a mugger?’’ "

(NB: The Fridge was the nicest guy in the world and the pride of Clemson. No mugger he. He helped bring Da Bears to Superbowl victory the following month).

11

What some of the solemn commenters above are missing is an element of whimsy in the OP’s subject line. That’s an old tradition at the U of C. Ivy leaguers and Stanfordians who don’t get it can be forgiven.

12

An unrelated correction before I respond to your main points: The first atom was not split at UChicago. The first atom was split at Columbia (hence - the Manhattan Project) by Enrico Fermi & Co. Fermi then reluctantly moved/was forced over to UChicago where the first nuclear chain reaction was achieved.

JB, I think you’re fetishizing the early history of UChicago’s football program. In the good ole days, UChicago was a doormat for regional rivals like Michigan. The best football teams in the nation were Yale and Princeton throughout the early 20th century (What do you think “Big Three” refers to? Academic quality? HA!). UChicago didn’t even play Ivy League teams. Further, If you look at the early history of many long standing football programs including Tufts, Brown, Swarthmore, Cornell, etc. you’ll see that all these schools held national prominence on the football field.

As to UChicago kids being uninterested in football - most students at elite schools have absolute zero interest in football. The stands at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Columbia and even Penn games are 75% empty. Entire sections of the Yale Bowl are deserted even during games against juggernauts like Princeton.

I really am not falling for this romantic picture of UChicago intellectualism you are painting.

13

@EliteCulture331 you have just underscored @marlowe1’s post #10. And I suggest you take your issues up with Royko.

14

@JBStillFlying That’s a really weak cop-out. It’s pretty clear what Cue’s intention was with this post. I agree his argument is absurd and could be perceived as a joke, but it’s pretty clear from the rankings he cited, etc. that he was being serious.

No safe spaces on CC. I’m not taking my opinions elsewhere because they make you uncomfortable.

15

@EliteCulture331 - relax. It’s OK. I’m very concerned you are starting to show signs of UCDS.

16

@JBStillFlying This is very disappointing. Didn’t think UChicago grads would be THAT easy to roll over. UCDS - having looked it up it seems that the syndrome is a creation of the UChicago forum and perhaps JB himself. In truth, UCDS is merely a hallucination of those with UCIC - University of Chicago Inferiority Complex. UChicago grads don’t seriously think that their school is that respected do they?

17

@EliteCulture331: UChicago Derangement Syndrome. A not-uncommon occurrence on the UChicago threads. I wouldn’t call it “safe”.

18

Perhaps you should read my updated post. There’s only one place to find the definition of UCDS - the UChicago forum on CC.

19

@EliteCulture331 - you are correct in word and deed.

20

@JBStillFlying @marlowe1 UCDS is to UChicago what Fake News is to Trump