Time to Embrace UCI as a Respected Sports School

• Tweet
• Email

• Tweet
• Email

Don’t look now, but UC Irvine was crowned the 2006-07 Division 1-AAA sports school of the year. Translation: the best sports school without a football team. Essentially, it’s the best award our sports program could have possibly received.
Few would argue that UCI is labeled as a school for video game junkies before it’s regarded as a ‘sports’ school. Our very own colleagues don’t hesitate to proclaim the sports section as the most disregarded part of the school paper (I get it, I’m wasting my time).
Obviously, UCI isn’t oozing with sports fans. It would be more appropriate if we were ranked the nation’s best Halo and World of War Craft school. Nevertheless, we have an elite group of student athletes.
So without boring you ‘non-sports fans’ with an endless list of UCI’s sports achievements, let’s recognize the major factors that landed us this award. We had the best men’s college volleyball team in the world, our baseball team finished third in the College World Series, the men’s and women’s golf teams each won Big West Conference titles and even the men’s swimming and diving team won the Big West Conference Championship. UCI has no real history of being a powerful sports program, which is why last year’s dominant sports performance came as a surprise to virtually everyone, except probably the athletes. But let this award serve as the last wake-up call

Popularity: unranked [?]