Which BYU sport best “Reps the Y”?
By Adam Gibby
Tier Three: Teams that have an argument, but not a strong one
Gymnastics
The gymnastics team always finds themselves ranked inside the Top 40. Unfortunately for them, they’re normally closer to No. 40 than they are to the Top 10. In fact, their highest finish ever came in 1979 when they finished in seventh place overall.
Despite not reaching the Top 10 often, they have had 19 All-Americans since 1990, which is how they’re able to just jump ahead of Women’s Basketball.
But it wasn’t a clean landing.
Baseball
Baseball is a sport that if successful can be a strong candidate to be the “school’s sport”. Cal State Fullerton and Oregon State can make this claim, so it’s possible for a D1 school to be best represented by baseball.
BYU has had a few good years of baseball in the past, but for the most part the Cougars find themselves with a roughly 60% winning percentage. The Cougars have never been a real threat to win the National Championship and haven’t even made it to College World Series since 1971.
The Cougars do currently have 12 former players either in the Minors or Majors, which is more than any other sport.
Softball
The softball team is a lot like the baseball team, except they’ve had a bit more success in recent years. The baseball team has struggled to be the top team in the WCC whereas softball has been extremely dominant in conference play. The Cougars have won 10 straight conference championships and 13 since 2000 (when the softball program started).
In that same time span they’ve made it to 15 NCAA Regionals. Unfortunately though, they’ve only advanced to the Super Regional once and never to the College World Series.
On top of being a tough sport to represent a school, the softball team is going to have to have more postseason success to have a real argument.
Men’s Golf
The men’s team has had its highs, including a National Championship in 1981 and eight straight Top Five finishes, and has had a few professional players make an impact on the PGA tour (Mike Weir, Daniel Summerhays, Zac Blair).
But their recent play hasn’t been nearly as elite. The Cougars have only had ten Top 25 finishes nationally since 1984, and for a team like golf to be considered “the school’s sport” you really have to be Top 10 year in and year out.
Women’s Cross Country
Did you know that the Women’s Cross Country team has four National Championships? Between 1997 and 2002, the Cougars won 4 titles. The other years…2nd place. In fact, the Cougars have 20 Top Ten finishes since 1981.
Lack of prominence and recent success are really hurting the team, though. Since 2006, the Cougars have only finished in the top ten once. In fact, they failed to even qualify for the National Championship meet four times and placed lower than 25th place four other times. They are on their way back, finishing 10th and 11th the last two seasons (and currently ranked No. 9 nationally) so they could find themselves in the discussion in the future.
Men’s/Women’s Track and Field
There have been 73 individual national champions for the track and field team, which is incredible. However there are a few setbacks for the team to keep them from making Tier Two.
The first issue is that BYU does not have a lot of success in field and sprinting events. Of the 73 championships only 24 of them are on field and sprinting events, which make up over 65% of the events at a track meet. Most of their success in track comes from cross country events, which will be brought up later.
Another thing holding track and field from being in a higher tier is the lack of recent success and National Championships. While the men shared a National Championship in 1970, in the last ten years the Cougars can only claim four events where they’ve been the top finisher.