There were lots of big, philosophical questions that popped up during these last two weeks of NCAA Championship meets. They’re questions that there is really no “right” or “wrong” answer to, there are only opinions. Some opinions may be more popular than others, but they’re all just opinions.
Throughout the weekend, we asked some of these questions over Twitter and got some great responses. Over the next few days, weeks, whatever, we’ll take some time to dig a little deeper into all of the questions and give our thoughts on the matter.
All commenters are welcome to disagree with our opinions and those of other readers, but this is meant to be civil, interesting, and informed debate. Because everyone will have an opinion (and it will be hard to definitively say who’s is right), fair warning: anyone who doesn’t adhere to those standards probably won’t make it by our moderators.
1. Is Michigan the Greatest Program Of All Time?
With their 12th NCAA Championship last night, the Michigan Wolverines moved past their rivals from Ohio State for the record of the most in history. Michigan also won three additional individual event titles, and their 163 is by far the most in history.
So does this make them the greatest program ever? Without a regular season, we have to focus primarily on NCAA Championship results, and the raw numbers indicate a clear “yes”.
If you qualify those numbers, though, does the story change? Are either Ohio State or Michigan the greatest program? Often times in these sort of sports rankings. titles from the early days of the NCAA are weighted less-heavily. That’s because when the sport was less developed, it was easier for one or two teams to dominate it. That would seem to be fairly true in swimming: Michigan won the first 5 titles, and from 1937-1959, the same three teams (Michigan, Ohio State, and Yale) won all of the titles.
To use a basketball analogy: UCLA has the most titles, with 12, but ten of them came between 1964 and 1975.Comparatively, Kentucky has won 8 titles, spread across the 40’s, 50’s, 70’s, 90, and most recently 2012. Which is more impressive?
Yale is the example of what we’re talking about here. They’ve got as many titles as Cal, and as many titles as Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee combined. Does that make Yale, all-time, a better program than Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee? Some would say yes, some might say no. See where the debate comes from?
Stanford sits 2nd behind Michigan for the most ever event titles with 145, and just this year (thanks largely to two brutal medley relay DQ’s) snapped a streak of 31 consecutive top-four finishes at NCAA’s. Nobody has been consistently that good for such a long time.
Then there’s the Texas program, who has the legendary diving to add to it and is probably the best program of the modern era. They were in the top two for the last five consecutive years before this season; and who could forget the legendary squads of the early 2000’s that was effectively an Olympic lineup on a pool deck? In 2001, Texas won 11 out of the 18 event titles! The year before, the dominated the scoring even more significantly, beating the then-defending-champs Auburn by 153 points.
Eddie Reese has been getting it done since winning his first title with the Longhorns back in 1981.
The legend of Doc Counsilman from the 1960’s and 1970’s in Indiana lives on nearly half-a-century later. He and USC’s Peter Daland are the two names from that era that still are well-known even by more casual swim fans. Those Indiana teams with legends like Charlie Hickox, Don McKenzie, Jim Henry, and the big two: Gary Hall Sr. and Mark Spitz.
Auburn has certainly entered the conversation in the last decade, winning 8 titles in the last 15 years and had some teams in the late 2000’s that were really just incredible (their average margin of victory in those 8 titles was just over 123 points, including 2003 where they won by just shy of 200 points; the following year they were an incredible 256.5 points ahead of 256.5.)
For all of that though, in my humble opinion, Michigan remains the greatest of all-time. Many of their 12 titles came early on, but they’ve won across the eras. They won under Matt Mann in the 30’s and 40’s; Gus Stager in the 50’s and 60’s; Jon Urbanchek in the 90’s; and now Mike Bottom in 2013. No program in the country has spread their titles over such a huge period of time. That establishes a culture of greatness that transcends one really good coach, a really good run of recruiting, or even just the support of the athletic department.
And, if there were a need for a tie-breaker, don’t forget their affiliations with the great Bob Bowman and Michael Phelps for a few seasons in the run-up to Beijing.
Four different coaches have won titles at Michigan. No other program has won titles under more than two coaches. Mathematically, no two teams can have won titles over a further span than Michigan’s 76 years, but nobody is actually close (Stanford won a title in 1967, and their most recent in 1998, Texas won in 1981 and again in 2010).
If I had to make a top 10 greatest programs of all time in men’s swimming, here’s what I’d go with:
1. Michigan (12 titles)
2. Texas (10 titles)
3. Stanford (8 titles)
4. Auburn (8 titles)
5. USC (9 titles)
6. Ohio State (11 titles)
7. Indiana (6 titles)
8. Cal (4 titles)
9. Florida (2 titles)
10. Arizona (1 title)
Texas #1. When Texas wins they do it with mainly American guys. Eddie see’s it as why would he train foreigners to take medals from Americans at the Olympics. I love that and wish more programs would follow suit.
i agree but not that many foreigners who train here at american universities are really taking away medals from Americans. Think about the last two olympics, name them?
Charlie Hickox at IU was certainly there with Gary Hall, John Kinsella and Jim Montgomery, all behind Mark. Why Charlie? Those two golds in 1968 in the two IMs at Mexico City. Plus, he was a great guy.
In the D1 world, yes. But Turk’s alma mater Kenyon College has 32 national titles for the men and 31 were consecutive. If we measure a program by its success rate Kenyon tops this list by far. Also turns out some serious D1 champs.
I know I’m a little late to this party but I second (and third and fourth…) the notion that Yale needs to be on the list. If you look at the list, every one of the schools can award athletic scholarships (which began in 1950). Yale actually one its last two NCAA Championships in 1951 and ’53 without scholarships. To use the argument that they only won four total disregards what they did in the Kiphuth years and forgets that since 1950 they had to compete with the scholarship schools.
The Ivy League schools continual excuse of not offering scholarships is a load of baloney. I know two swimmers that swam at Princeton and basically attended school for free since their folks were not wealthy enough to pay their tuition and fees etc.
Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia and the rest have huge multi-billion dollar endowments and are among the wealthiest schools on earth. Their “we don’t give athletic scholarships” is just another excuse for mediocrity. They have enough money to choke a million Blue Whales.
If we talk about throughout history, you have to go with the team with the most titles ever. So I have to respectively give the crown to Michigan. I was born in 1989 so I have never seen any of the titles except for one. So when I think about the greatest team ever I have to think about what I have seen with my own eyes. The two teams that automatically come to mind are Texas and Auburn. Texas comes to mind because of the days of Crocker, Piersol, and Hansen, which was just ridiculous. The other great thing about Texas is that they do with it all American swimmers, so I have to give them a lot of… Read more »
Because of the respect you have shown for the accomplishments of the Michigan and Ohio State programs prior to 1960, I think Yale should definitely been included. However, I think it would be interesting to know how many programs there were in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. I’m 67 and have a great respect for the pre 1960 programs, but for me, it’s Texas, Auburn, USC, Stanford, Indiana, and Cal.
I just finished my women’s swimming college career this past month and watching fellow collegiate athletes swim some of the fastest times in history and breaking barriers we never thought would happen is astounding. I am impressed with Michigan’s depth this year beating both Arizona, USC, and Cal who had standout swimmers in several events. As regards to whether Michigan is the best team of all time, I think their titles do give them consideration. However, is it more impressive to have a single coach lead a team to several championships over a period of time? I’m not sure.
Good list, but I agree with those who comment that Yale, Indiana and USC merit high ranking. Yale and Kiputh were really the gold standard for getting swimming established as a sport in the US; Doc Councilman and his IU teams both amassed the greatest colection of US olympic swim medalist ever seen, and Doc with his book Science of Swimming really deserves credit as the forefather of the dramatic application of science to swimming and stroke development which has led to the incredible time drops over the last 50 years, a movement that Pete Daland and his great USC teams also contributed greatly to. Bottom appears to be a very good coach, but he needs to win over a… Read more »
I remember hearing, from the younger brother of a former Michigan swimmer (an Olympian for another country at that) how, in the early 1970s, Michigan arrived at Indiana for a meet and found a sign on a board in their locker room “Anyone interested in swimming against Michigan sign up here.” That’s how confident Indiana was in those years.
And, having watched Kinsella swim in high school (and having been stunned by his size the first time he walked by me on a pool deck), I would echo the inclusion of his name (and Montgomery’s) in that Indiana pantheon.
On a related note, having had a father who swam for Brown in the 1940s and having heard a… Read more »