When it comes to National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II sports, not many schools are faring better than Saint Leo University.
In the final fall standings for the Learfield Sports Division II Directors’ Cup, Saint Leo is sitting in fifth place with 242 points, best in its Sunshine State Conference. That is the highest current standing for any Florida school — the University of Tampa is currently 14th with 179 points.
(Courtesy of Saint Leo University)
In a competition that includes hundreds of schools, the Lions find themselves in a position that’s new to them.
“I have seen the good and the bad,” said Fran Reidy, director of athletics for Saint Leo University. “For a number of years we’d be happy if we were inside in the top 100.”
Reidy has been with the school for many of those years. Aside from heading up the athletic department since 1999, he’s been involved with the school for 27 years, including a role as their soccer coach.
In that time, he’s seen a renewed commitment to athletic play at the university. An increase in sports participation (the school had just 10 sports programs in 1998 compared to 19 today), commitment to hiring good coaches, and more resources in scholarships have led to a strong overall program. And that’s the key to a good showing in the Directors’ Cup.
Rather than judge a school’s best sport, the competition is a measure of all the sports in an athletic program. Schools receive points based on their finish in each respective sport. But if a school doesn’t participate in a particular sport, they get zero points. Saint Leo doesn’t have a football or women’s field hockey program, for example, so it did not receive points in those categories.
The university does have strong soccer programs, and with top-10 finishes for both the men’s and women’s teams they were able to collect the majority of their points. Good showings in cross-country and volleyball (all of their fall sports reached their respective post-seasons, which means they all collected points) rounded out the fall scoring.
While the fifth place ranking is the school’s highest, it’s really a continuation of its upward trajectory. Last year Saint Leo was 20th after the fall standings and finished 18th when winter and spring contests were completed. The men’s teams have won the conference’s Mayors’ Cup the past two years.
For a former soccer coach, serving as director of athletics allows Reidy to execute a game plan on a schoolwide scale, and see it play out across a number of sports.
“There’s a competitive atmosphere that’s exciting,” Reidy said.
Along with that competitive atmosphere is a feeling of camaraderie. Each sport’s athletes support the others in an effort to collect points for the school and move up the standings, Reidy said. Even though each team has its own goals, they also want to see the school finish higher in the standings, which requires success across a variety of sports.
If the fifth-place standing is good news for Saint Leo, the upcoming sports offer even more reasons for optimism. A total of 14 sports remain, including a few where the university really shined last year. Women’s tennis reached the semifinals in the national tournament last year, and the men’s swimming team already has some athletes whose times have already qualified for national competition. And while the baseball team hasn’t reached the tournament for years, Reidy said they were very close to qualifying last year and have a good opportunity to break through in 2015.
There are still several months to go before the final standings will be released. The winter schedule sports wrap up April 2. The spring schedule concludes the Directors’ Cup scoring June 4. The best finishes from 14 of a school’s programs will be counted in the standings.
The success in athletics has not come at the expense of the classroom. More than half of the student athletes have a grade point average above 3.2, and the average grade point average for all athletes is 3.17.
“Last year was our best academic year,” Reidy said.
With so many sports left to be counted, Reidy believes they can finish even better than last year. Another top-20 finish for the Lions would show that they have a strong foundation for all their programs, and last year’s good showing was no fluke.
“We want to make sure we’re building something that’s going to last, and that’s happening,” he said.
Published January 7, 2015
