Sailing World's College Rankings 2.26.09

Sailgroove News on February 26, 2009, 10:47am | More Posts

Here they are! The first rankings released this spring season. The rankings are compiled by Sailing World Magazine and determined by the coaches of the ICSA. In this new system, every coach gets 1 vote to rank all the teams. See below for details.

Latest Rankings (February 26, 2008)
Coed [#] = first-place votes received	Total Points
01. St. Mary's [16]	576	11. MIT	260
02. Boston College [13]	550	12. Boston Univ.	252
03. Roger Williams	507	13. South Florida	245
04. Georgetown	452	14. Stanford	231
05. Harvard	410	15. SUNY Maritime	221
06. Yale [1]	396	16. Eckerd	194
07. Charleston	379	17. Old Dominion	135
08. Navy	343	18. Hobart/ Wm. Smith	106
09. Brown	342	19. Connecticut College	89
10. Tufts	322	20. Vermont	66
Also receiving votes: UC Santa Barbara (37 points); Washington College (29); U. S. Merchant Marine Academy (24); UC Irvine (20); Coast Guard (13); Hawaii (12); USC (7); Tulane (4)
Women [#] = first-place votes received	Total Points
01. Charleston [3]	389	09. Stanford	190
02. Yale [4]	365	10. Connecticut College	155
03. Georgetown [17]	352	11. Old Dominion	141
04. Boston College [1]	328	12. Navy	139
05. St. Mary's [3]	303	13. University of Hawaii	71
06. Harvard University	292	14. Hobart/Wm. Smith	66
07. Brown [1]	246	15. Coast Guard	52
08. Dartmouth	219
Also receiving votes: Eckerd (50 points); South Florida (38); Boston Univ. (23); UCLA (10); Tufts (3)

From SailingWorld.com:

Sailing World's College Rankings: Overview

Bi-weekly rankings give one vote to every college sailing team in the country with a coach.

Feb 26, 2009

By The Editors of Sailing World

For as long as Sailing World has been doing college rankings—they go back to at least 1979, when Ken Legler did them on his own—we've been using a select panel of top coaches to do the honors.

There were a number of reasons for using this system, including the general lack of sailing programs with college coaches in the late 1970s and the prohibitive logistics involved with using a larger panel or opening it up to every college coach.

Times have changed, however, and we are proud to unveil a new system for our bi-weekly college sailing rankings, one that gives one vote to every team in the country with a coach.

Using an Internet polling site, every accredited coach can submit his or her list of the top 20 coed and 15 women's team in the country. Each place is worth a certain number of points (20 points for first in the coed rankings, 19 for second, on down to 1 for 20th; 15 points for first in the women's rankings, 14 for second, on down to 1 for 15th). All the points are tallied and the teams are ranked according to their respective point totals. Any team that receives at least two votes is listed as also receiving votes. The number of first-place votes a team receives is in brackets.

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to collegerankings@sailingworld.com. You can also sign up for Twitter updates which will alert you whenever a new ranking is posted, http://twitter.com/swrankings

College Sailing Home

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Updated on February 12, 2012, 5:16am

16 comments

some dude 3 years ago

Timme's is not a competitive regatta

NEISA Snob 3 years ago

...All I'm saying is that Wisco's win at Timme's is worth a vote. Apparently not...

It would be great to recognize them with a vote, but that would mean putting them ahead of the teams on there that people did vote for. Who among them would you bump to make a place for Wisco?

Anonymous 3 years ago

"Ben, I think the reason you do not see any MCSA teams recognized is that for one, coaches are at least attempting to be reasonable and unbiased"

MCSA teams don't have coaches to BE biased. Where is this bias for MCSA teams coming from?
All I'm saying is that Wisco's win at Timme's is worth a vote. Apparently not...

Anonymous 3 years ago

"wisco does not deserve anything close to a vote
neisa is 13+ teams deep all better than wisco"
Okay, but there are 29 teams that are ranked or receiving votes. What's your point?

3 years ago

Gtown women's gets 17 first place votes and isn't in first? Something is definitely wrong...

joking? 3 years ago

wisco does not deserve anything close to a vote
neisa is 13+ teams deep all better than wisco

anonymous 3 years ago

Wisco deserves a vote or two...

Outside Observer 3 years ago

I believe this new version gives much better results than the old system, I am not going to name any names but with only having three coaches you could definitely see some conflicts of interest in the previous ranking systems, especially from one coach in particular. This new systems brings our sport into line with other more prominent sports. As soon as I saw that rankings I thought College Hockey, this is the same way that hockey coaches poll the schools throughout the year and they are always touted as being very accurate.

I do find it pretty funny to see the lone schools with one first place vote, I wonder who cast that vote? Especially in the womens rankings
I do have to ask what all the BC hatred is about, first the video of the week and now this board, they are a very talented and deep team, I guess no one likes the guys that do well, Tufts in the 90s and Hawaii a couple of years ago e.g. the Brian Lake Banquet rule

Dont mess with TX 3 years ago

Maybe a teams worst and best ranking should be dropped?

Kerry Sullivan 3 years ago

Ben, I think the reason you do not see any MCSA teams recognized is that for one, coaches are at least attempting to be reasonable and unbiased. Arguably the regattas to be considered for this early ranking are Fall ACCs, Rose Bowl, Mendleblatt, and the Charleston Intersectional. A decent number of MCSA teams attended the Nelson Roltsch, but with only 14 teams attending, does it deserve the same consideration? Also, none placed higher than eighth, so are they worthy of ranking?
I think the lack of MCSA teams in the rankings reflects that coaches across the country are being fair in their votes.
One thing I always wonder about with the early spring rankings is how much speculation goes into the rankings, especially now. For teams that have not competed yet, but move up, how much of this is based on other teams moving down based on poor results, and how much is based on "who the players are"? I think this is highlighted in the movement of the women's rankings. Is this the right way to do things? Should the first rankings of the season be held off on until at least one major intersectional has taken place?
I guess it all comes down to the whims of the Sailing World editors.
Clearly Chris is right about the subjectivity of coaches' opinions this early in the season, hopefully in two weeks we'll have a better idea of well the new system will work.

3 years ago

I like that Yale got one first place vote let me guess what coach voted them number 1 ummmm..... o maybe the Yale coach.

Ben Spiller 3 years ago

College sailing doesn't have a firm beginning in the spring (unlike the fal). For most teams in the top 20, the season begins NEXT weekend (jackson/hall TR). For teams outside the top 20, it may even start a week or two later...

This is why rankings don't move much. BC is ranked where they should be. They even have a legitimate claim for not being #1. They did after all win the Rose Bowl.
The Spring season has a few regattas which are considered "pre-season". Schools don't want to spend money, and they aren't hurt in the rankings by not going to these regattas... its just the way college sailing is.
I was quite skeptical of the new system originally. I find it interesting that with all those MCSA schools, that no team was ranked or receiving votes....
What would really be interesting would be to make all of the coaches top 20 visible... see who's stretching their team a little high, see who was most accurate in recent rankings!
All in all, i am quite impressed with the results of the new system.

Rose Bowl 3 years ago

Um, as Chris mentioned, I'm pretty sure they won Rose Bowl. Just because they didn't swoop in for the Mendelblatt doesn't mean they shouldn't be up there.

BC? 3 years ago

Sorry. More like BS. I mean they are solid, but they haven't sailed one race yet this year and they are ranked #2?? I don't like that.

Relieved 3 years ago

I'm happy to see the old system go, this is so much better. I remember in Fall 2004 USC was ranked #1 for the first 2 months of the season w/o having sailed a regatta

Chris Love 3 years ago

How exciting is this!? The first rankings of the new coaches' poll! Let's break it down a little.

St. Mary's hold onto the top spot after their fantastic finish of the fall season. BC is next, climbing one spot since the fall, recognition for winning the rose bowl in January. Almost as many coaches (13) voted for BC for #1 as St. Mary's (16).

RW and Harvard drop one spot, having not competed since the fall, and Georgetown picks up a spot after a 3rd at Rose Bowl. Yale shoots up to the 6 spot after winning the Mendelblatt. They looked good at the start of the fall too. Can they keep it up? Charleston also kicking off the season with a bang--4th at Rose Bowl, 2nd at Charleston Intersectional.

The rest of the coed rankings see a fair bit of shifting, but no new teams since the fall, with the exception of UVM. They're back in competition, but they're going to have to start from the bottom with a ranking of 20.

To the women--what is going on here?! Of the 29 votes for first-place, Georgetown got 17 of them, yet they are ranked third! The problem is that coaches obviously have wildly varying opinions on who is the best, with six different teams getting votes for the #1 spot. The reason, I suppose, is that there just haven't been enough women's events with top teams competing since the fall.

So Charleston, who got 7th at USF Women's, moves to the top. Yale is next after Jane Mackey and Marla Menninger took second in B division at Charleston. The next rankings, in two weeks, should be more telling after more teams have hit the water.

What do you think of the rankings? Did they get it right? Anything interesting that I missed? What do you think of this new system?