On a weekend when UNC-CH, Clemson and Georgia Tech all advanced to the College World Series (with Miami still surviving), the Atlantic Coast Conference won another National Championship when Florida State won its first ever NCAA men’s track and field national championship in Sacramento, California. (Link)
The ACC garnered seven individual event titles on Saturday, running its four-day championship total to nine, setting the conference record for combined individual titles on both the men’s and women’s side at a championship. The win by the Seminoles marks the first NCAA Track & Field national championship by an ACC school. The Miami Hurricanes had the best finish on the women’s side tallying 30 points to finish in a tie for seventh.
NC State did not win any events among the four athletes the Wolfpack sent. Mitchell Pope finished 10th in the shot putt.
Additionally, last week the Virginia Cavaliers rolled over UMass to claim the men’s lacrosse national title before an NCAA championship record crowd of 47,062 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.(Link)
The championship is Virginia’s fourth NCAA championship and the sixth national title in program history. The Cavaliers become the first team in NCAA history to finish with a 17-0 record and the 12th team in NCAA history to win the national championship with an undefeated record.
Since the turn of the millenium, NC State/Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department is the only Atlantic Coast Conference school not to have participated in at least one National Championship game.
If Lee Fowler’s past comments are any true indication of his beliefs, State’s Baseball Coach Elliot Avent may be in for some stormy weather in the future with the AD. Fowler, a consumate excuse-monger, was quoted in February of 2004 as saying the following:
Question: What are your goals as an athletics director for the upcoming year, in terms of improving athletic programs and in improving facilities? How will those goals be measured? – Herb, Archdale, NC Class of 1987
Fowler: My goals are the same as when I came to NC State three years ago: we want to be top-25 program in all sports. I maintain that goal, and I feel it is very reachable. I think we are moving in that direction in most sports…
…We have to ask our coaches to take their programs toward those levels. But we also have to provide the facilities for them to at that level if we are going to demand those results. And I think that ‘t what we are doing.
By the end of ’05, we will have most of our programs in the types of facilities that coaches can be held accountable to. I don’t think that was the case when I first got here. I think we had teams competing against people with a lot more assets than we had.“
NC State’s Doak Field was renovated over two seasons ago. So, now that Avent and other coaches have the kind of facilities that Fowler cited as the reason why NC State couldn’t have a better athletics program, it will be interesting to see how Fowler exercises his “decision making” on the coaches.
In baseball, the ACC may place 4 schools in this year’s College World Series. Additionally Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Miami have EACH qualified for MULTIPLE CWS in the last decade while Avent’s Wolfpack haven’t qualified for a single CWS or won an ACC Title. This year, UNC-CH has earned its second CWS berth of the last 17 years.
Of course, in Fowler-land, State shouldn’t have expected to compete for a CWS because of poor facilities. But, the facilities have been completed for two years now and our ACC bretheren continue to rake in the success. How long will Fowler choose to sit back and wait to see what happens?
A key related entry can be found by clicking here.
