Always wondered but never took the time to ask until now…the UA Women’s Athletic programs are rather robust and highly successful with several teams ranked in the top 20 nationally and/or top half of the SEC. Significantly better than the Men’s programs.
Football and Basketball have been struggling seems like forever. Praise the Lord for Baseball, Golf and Track and Field. As for the Women’s, wow! Basketball, Soccer, Golf, Track and Field all nationally competitive.
Which begs the question, why are the Women’s Teams more successful than the Men’s? Facilities? Coaching? Has the UA been hiring the wrong coaches? Are the Men’s facilities not competitive with the best in the nation? Or possibly there’s less $$ in Women’s sports and thus less cheating/bag programs to influence recruiting?
Not complaining. Thrilled of our Women’s success. Would like to know why the Men’s programs are not as successful as the Women’s. If we can recruit high caliber women to the Hill, why not men too?
I think part of it is that there isn’t a long history to combat. Title IX kicked in in 1972 and was extended to women’s sports in 1975 under the Ford administration. The NCAA took over women’s sports from the AIAW in 1982, and the schools who were AIAW powers (like Immaculata, Delta State and La Tech) are no longer dominant. So everything is recent. Programs are also being built from scratch. Soccer was added in 1986; we floundered around for a while but Colby Hale has things rolling. We added gymnastics in 2003, and the Cooks got us up and running quickly. I think we have some very good coaches on the women’s side, of which MN is clearly one. Fortunately, boosters aren’t telling our AD who they want on that side
You listed for women, basketball, T&F, Soccer and golf as competitive nationally.
Of that men don’t have soccer. Men have been competitive nationally in T&F and Golf.
That leaves basketball. Women’s basketball had not been competitive nationally lately until this year, has it? It hasn’t been in Top 25 consistently until this year. It was in Top 25 briefly last year. I think men’s basketball has fared better than women’s after Gary Blair left. That is a long time.
Let’s hope women’s team follows up last night with big wins in the SEC. i thought that would happen after they beat Baylor but it didn’t.
You’re right, football has struggled for the last 8 years or so. Basketball just hasn’t been Sweet 16-ish. Football has been bad because, my opinion, CBB had never built a program before he came to Arkansas. We invested heavily in him; and it blew up the program. Reaching at straws we selected the Death Penalty after that. I’m amazed we won 3 games this year.
We are truly blessed to have such a stellar Women’s program. Hopefully the Men’s program will step up to the elite level. Baseball and Track and Field (including XC) are there. Need the others to bring it. If it’s leadership and hard work we need to follow the lead of the Women’s Program. Hopefully CSP and CEM will bring home the hardware and return the UA to it’s former glory years.
In the 2019 final Directors Cup standings, Florida (as usual) was the top SEC school, finishing third behind Stanford and Michigan. LSU, Kentucky and A&M were also in the top 20; 21-23 were all SEC schools with us in 23rd (winning two games in Omaha would have put us in the top 20).
