Live Oak — With South Carolina closing the final curtain at Rosenblatt Stadium last week, the Gamecocks not only ended the Rosenblatt era, but put a cap on the 2009-2010 college sports season.

The final thing left to do was crown the annual Director’s Cup award recipient, which recognizes the top collegiate athletic program in Division I, Division II, Division III and NAIA.  Not surprisingly, Stanford took home the trophy again.     

You see aside from North Carolina winning the inaugural award in 1993-94, Stanford claimed its 16th consecutive Director’s Cup award this past week.

The award symbolizes the best overall collegiate athletic program annually based on how successful a schools top ten male and female sports finish nationally. 

The problem is Stanford (1,508.50 points), which tallied points in 28 total sports including 17 top-10 finishes this season and two national titles in men’s volleyball and women’s tennis, has the advantage to pick and choose which sports it wants to count unlike other schools.

With 35 sports, they can choose the top 20 achievements each season. Unlike other schools which average around 20 sports and have no room for margin of error.

Stanford didn’t count women’s cross country, women’s field hockey, football, mens and women’s indoor track and field, women’s lacrosse, baseball and softball, yet counted points in several sports which the majority schools don’t field teams in like women’s rowing, men’s volleyball, women’s water polo, men’s water polo, fencing, men’s rowing, sailing, men’s gymnastics, men’s soccer, squash, syncronized swimming and wrestling.       

Florida (1310.25) finished a school record second place with just 18 sports out of 21 eligible, 8 in men’s and 10 in women’s. The Gators had 14 top-10 finishes including national championships in women’s swimming and men’s indoor track and field.

Since the inception of the annual all-sports awards, Florida is the only program in the nation to finish among the nations top ten in each of the 27 seasons. 

Over the last 17 years, Florida has finished second (twice), third (three times), fourth (twice), fifth (three times), sixth (four times), and seventh (three times).  

Virginia (1253.25) and UCLA (1124.00) finished third and fourth respectively. 

Florida State (1087.50) finished a school best fifth place with 19 sports (10 women, 9 men) earning points, twelve spots ahead of last year’s seventeeth place finish.

All 19 of the Seminoles teams participated in the postseason, highlighted by the mens basketball team advancing to its second straight NCAA tournament, the women’s basketball team advancing to the Elite 8 losing to eventual national champion U-Conn, women’s soccer getting to the Elite 8 again and the baseball team finishing tied for fifth at the College World Series.

Shouldn’t a better way to calculate the award be based on some sort of average between how many sports you have and how many points you have earned to make a level playing field.