Talk:List of NCAA schools with the most NCAA Division I championships

Ohio State

Am I missing something? In the list of most NCAA Div I championships on this page, Ohio State is not listed. Ohio State has 57 team championships according to their Wikipedia page (which would put the university in the top 5 on this list). Please explain. Thanks. 99.88.137.237 (talk) 20:52, 15 December 2013 (UTC)Me

Please take a look at the reference from the NCAA that is cited. ElKevbo (talk) 03:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Ohio State might be counting all their synchronized swimming titles. Although it is a varsity sport at OSU, and it had been an AIAW sport, it has never been an NCAA sport.

Jeff in CA (talk) 07:58, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

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Objection to the term paper in Section 3

Section 3 contains this (bolding mine):

"There is also a separate column providing a weighted combined championship total, in which individual championships are given only 1/4 (one-fourth) the weight of a team championship. It could be argued that individual championships should carry the same weight as a team championship, because an individual champion has to be the single best athlete in the sport, beating hundreds (or in some sports thousands) of individual athletes, whereas a team champion only has to beat out dozens (or in some sports hundreds) of competing teams.

On the other hand, an argument can be made that team championships should count for more than an individual championship, because teams are made up of multiple athletes, requiring a joint effort of many players. One solution to this debate, and to derive a particular weighting figure, is to see how many team versus individual championships the top athletic colleges own. Looking at the top five colleges in terms of total championships, the top five have 394 total team championships, and 1717 total individual championships. That means the top colleges have roughly 4 times as many individual championships as they do team championships. This could be interpreted to indicate that team championships are 4 times more difficult to obtain than individual championships. Thus, giving individual championships 1/4 (one-fourth) the weight of team championships is a reasonable to weight individual versus team championships."

This is objectionable for inclusion in a Wikipedia article for several reasons. Wikipedia is not the place for term papers, and this looks like an excerpt from a poor one. The above paragraphs are entirely made-up calculations done for who knows what whimsy or purpose. They are completely arbitrary, and the assumptions are open to question. Wikipedia is not the place to declare what weightings could be used for this or that, or would be used, or that one favors, or that one does not favor, etc. This stuff belongs on a blog, not an encyclopedia. For lack of a better term and to be gentle, WP:OR is not permitted. How could this even be attributable to a reliable published source? The above paragraphs should be removed, along with the columns of weighted numbers in the table.

I also assert the same argument in regard to the columns recently inserted in the table in Section 1 as "titles per 1000 enrollment" and the ranking of such. Those columns should also be removed. Instead, a column for "titles per $100M endowment," is probably better, because the argument can be made and be interpreted and reasonably inferred that a measure based on money is a better predictor, or yields a better correlation, or just seems prettier. Jeff in CA (talk) 08:26, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with Jeff in CA. The weighting column and explanation for weighting provide useful information to reader interested in total combined championships, yet who feels that giving equal weight to individual championships (as team championships) may give misleading picture. Weighting individual championship as one-fourth the weight of team championships, with the explanation for that weighting, is encyclopedic, as it gives verifiable weighted total, and a rational basis for that weighting. The weighting is thus not "arbitrary," but useful to readers wanting a WEIGHTED combined total of some kind. Reader who disagrees with the weighting can ignore that column and focus only on the total UNWEIGHTED combined column. Readers interested in a weighted figure, however, benefit from the WEIGHTED combined column. Thus, that WEIGHTED combined column should be restored.

The same holds true for per 1000 enrollment column. Although people can disagree with relevant factors -- Jeff in CA believing endowment to be more relevant --- that doesn't mean per 1000 enrollment figure is not a useful piece of encyclopedic information to many users like myself. Cardbuff (talk) 23:19, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Who came up with the weighting system(s) and weights? If it's unique to Wikipedia, it's probably original research which is prohibited and unwelcome. ElKevbo (talk) 02:23, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

NCAA Championships vs. Other Championships (edits of May 14 & 19, 2015)

I have corrected the totals for several schools because they mistakenly included championships that are not official NCAA championships. This is a list of NCAA team championships only. The NCAA does not recognize a champion in Division I FBS football, so football championships should not be included here. This list should not include women's championships that were recognized by the AIAW before the NCAA took responsibility for women's sports. Nor should this list include championships recognized by the governing bodies in non-NCAA sports such as men's crew, rugby, sailing, synchronized swimming, and so forth. Nor should this list include championships that were won before the NCAA started holding an official championship event in the sport.

For example, Florida has 29 official NCAA team championships as of this date, rather than 34. Florida's 3 championships in football and 2 AIAW championships are not official NCAA team championships and should not be included here. Likewise, Oklahoma has 22 NCAA team championships, rather than 29, because Oklahoma's 7 football championships are not official NCAA team championships. Similarly, Michigan has 36 NCAA team championships, not 56. This list should not include Michigan's 11 football championships, 2 trampoline championships, and 7 men's swimming championships before 1937 (which was the first year the NCAA held an official men's swimming championship).

The NCAA's published list of championships as of July 2, 2014 is here -- http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/Overall.pdf I have updated the NCAA's list to include championships for the leading schools between the July 2, 2014 and May 14, 2015. Elmo McGee (talk) 17:29, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the approach of NCAA-only championships. However, Michigan's two trampoline championships were in fact NCAA championships. In the late 1960s, the NCAA removed trampoline from the gymnastics championship itinerary in order to conform to the international itinerary. To be fair to the specialists in that discipline (I suspect), the NCAA conducted two final years of a trampoline-only championship, both won by Michigan. In addition, in both boxing and swimming the NCAA conducted many years of championships prior to awarding official team championships. For example, unofficial NCAA team swimming titles were won by Michigan (7) and Northwestern (4) between 1924 and 1937, when the national championship only officially crowned the winners of races. However, major newspapers of the time declared the NCAA team champion at the conclusion of the NCAA meet each year without any qualification about it being official or not. The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor in particular published annually their lists of champions in all sports, which included the team winners of the NCAA swimming meet prior to 1937. The same is true for boxing before 1948. These team titles were indeed NCAA championsips.

Jeff in CA (talk) 18:30, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Once again for emphasis, 1924 was the first year the NCAA held an official men's swimming championship (not 1937).

Jeff in CA (talk) 18:17, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Boxing: 7 of the men's NCAA championship team titles included in the article's table are for boxing prior to 1948, which was the year that the NCAA started to award official team titles. These 7 pre-1948 titles include 4 for Wisconsin and one each for Penn State, Virginia and West Virginia. The similarity of the boxing and swimming situations is clear.

Jeff in CA (talk) 19:09, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Outdoor men's track and field: 3 of the men's NCAA championship team titles included in the article's table are for track and field championships in the years 1925-1927. The NCAA did not award team championships in those years, so they are "unofficial." These are included in the totals for Stanford, USC and Illinois. The similarity of the track and field, boxing and swimming situations is clear. Jeff in CA (talk) 19:40, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Wrestling: 4 of the NCAA championship team titles included in this article's table are for wrestling championships in the years 1928 and 1931-33. The NCAA did not award team championships in those years, so they are "unofficial." These are included in the totals for Oklahoma State (3) and Indiana (1). The similarity of the wrestling, boxing, track and field, and swimming situations is clear. Jeff in CA (talk) 07:10, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

NCAA "unofficial" team titles

Why are Michigan's, Navy's and Northwestern's 13 "unofficial" NCAA swimming team titles not included in their NCAA team totals, when for other sports, all such tabulations of a school's totals do include the unofficial team titles?

	Unofficial NCAA Championship Years				NCAA Division I Team Titles (as of May 29, 2015)
School	Swimming	Boxing	Wrestling	Track & Field	# Unofficial	# Official	Total titles credited
Catholic		1938			1	0	1
Idaho		1940, 1941			2	1	3
Illinois				1927	1	17	18
Indiana			1932		1	23	24
Iowa State			1933		1	12	13
Michigan	1927, 1928, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1935, 1936				7	36	36
Navy	1925, 1926				2	5	5
Northwestern	1924, 1929, 1930, 1933				4	8	8
Oklahoma State			1928, 1931, 1933		3	48	51
Penn State		1932			1	45	46
Stanford				1925	1	106	107
Syracuse		1936			1	12	13
USC				1926	1	99	100
Virginia		1938			1	21	22
Washington State		1937			1	1	2
West Virginia		1938			1	17	18
Wisconsin		1939, 1942, 1943, 1947			4	24	28
Number	13	12	5	3	33	475	495

Jeff in CA (talk) 10:16, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

That's how the NCAA reports them. See http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/Overall.pdf . Let's consolidate this discussion in one place, rather than spread it over several Talk pages. I've commented at Talk:Michigan_Wolverines; how about we continue there. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 13:29, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

How shall the Primary Conference column be maintained?

Currently, the Primary Conference column in the table serves mainly to avoid noting that the Big 12 used to be the Big 8, Pac-12 used to be the Pac-10 and before that the Pac-8, etc.

With massive conference realignment, should this column mean the conference in which most championships were won? E.g., shall Stanford and California be edited in a few months to say Atlantic Coast Conference, and UCLA and USC to say Big Ten Conference, erasing the Pac-12?

Or should someone have to keep count and not rename until these schools have more titles in their new conference than in their previous conferences, which could take decades?

Alternatively, should the column be renamed Current Conference? ClarkC162 (talk) 21:51, 16 April 2024 (UTC)