Whitman finishes with a record placement in Sports Directors’ Cup

According to the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, Whitman College ranked 56th nationally, with a total of 325 points, in the 2013-14 Division III Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup.

This is Whitman’s highest ever placement in the national Div. III all-sports race, and the college is the top-ranked school in the Northwest Conference. In the 2012-13 rankings, Whitman came in 75th with 231.5 points.

The NACDA awards points “based on each institution’s finish in up to 18 sports—nine women’s and nine men’s.”

Even though Whitman competes in only 14 sports, the college has risen in these rankings for eight consecutive years and is nearing the top 50 on a national level.

“The Directors’ Cup is a good measure of how we are competing on a national scale,” said Athletics Director Dean Snider. “One of my goals has always been to have our athletic success match our national academic ratings. We still have some work to do on that front, but I am exceedingly pleased that we are climbing this national scale with our typically academically minded Whitman students.”

During the fall, the Missionaries picked up 32 points from women’s cross country team, and added an additional 179 points this past winter thanks to national finishes by the men’s and women’s swimming teams, as well as the women’s basketball team’s second-place finish in the NCAA tournament.

The spring semester brought in 114 points from men’s and women’s tennis, with the men finishing ninth nationally (64 points) and the women coming in 17th in the NCAA (50 points).

“I am proud of our coaches, who have worked so hard to recruit outstanding students and to create valuable learning experiences in the classroom of competitive sport,” Snider said.

This year’s winner of the Learfield Cup trophy was Williams College in Massachusetts, which took its 17th consecutive trophy with a total of 1,225.25 points.