Stanford is lurking.
The Cardinal is surreptitiously gaining on us in a race that won’t end anytime soon.
And although we are eight paces ahead, UCLA is forced to walk briskly while Stanford is allowed to jog.
This sounds way too much like one of those obnoxious SAT word problems, but I’ll pose the question anyway: Who’s going to win?
Or better yet, when will Stanford take the lead?
The race, of course, is the ongoing race for the bragging rights that come with having the most NCAA team championships. UCLA won the first leg ““ we got to 100 first ““ and with the win, the stakes got higher.
UCLA’s major advertising and marketing explosion that promoted “First to 100″ showed that we really like being first, and we hold our title near and dear.
It’s not something we want to relinquish, especially after we made such a big deal of being No. 1.
Stanford currently holds the No. 2 spot, with 95 championships, and USC is a relatively close third with 86.
After that, there’s a major drop off. Fourth-place Oklahoma State has 48 titles and really has no shot at catching any of the top-three anytime soon.
So while we don’t have to worry about No. 4, we really should be worried a great deal about the Cardinal. Stanford is a private university ““ UCLA is a public institution. Stanford can fund as many sports as its boosters will pay for. UCLA has monetary constraints.
What it boils down to is that Stanford fields 29 NCAA athletic teams that can bring home titles, and UCLA has only 22.
That means Stanford has seven more shots at a banner than UCLA does each year. I could use another lame metaphor to explain that, but I think you get the picture.
Every year in Palo Alto, male fencers, gymnasts, swimmers and wrestlers wake up with the goal of bringing home a banner. Bruins interested in fencing trudge down to the IM Field.
The Stanford women have fencing, field hockey and lacrosse teams ““ UCLA, not so much.
Sure, the Bruins can maintain their lead if we maintain superior programs year in and year out. It is true that since winning No. 100 in 2007, UCLA can boast three titles to Stanford’s one.
But the point is that the Bruins are fighting an uphill battle against a school that gets seven mulligans a year.
There are a whole bunch of variables that can help keep us ahead, but the laws of numbers and probability aren’t on our side.
And neither is the ever-evolving NCAA. For the most part, the sports that are NCAA-registered have grown from sports monopolized by a handful of teams to sports that have a great deal of parity.
A vast number of UCLA’s championships came in clumps during dynasty-like eras that probably will never happen again.
In the most famous example, men’s basketball won 10 titles in an 11-year span starting in 1964.
Less well-known is that men’s tennis won eight titles in a 15-year period between 1950 and 1965. And men’s volleyball won its first 11 championships in a 14-year period starting in 1970.
Softball won seven titles in 10 years starting in 1982 when the sport was just taking hold.
I’m not suggesting that any of those championships were any less meaningful than current wins, but UCLA was simply a master at taking advantage of weak competition. They got good while everyone else was learning the ropes. They won early and often.
Now that there is more competition in every sport across the board, things should even out and the laws of probability will flex their muscles.
None of that is good for the Bruins.
Not if they enjoy leading the race.
If you think UCLA will be “First to 200,” e-mail Stevens at mstevens@media.ucla.edu.