This article was written in March 2019, previous to the hiring of a new Athletic Director.
In view of the multimillion dollar enhancements which have been made to the Holy Cross (HC) athletic facilities in the past few years, primarily as a result of alumni donations, this analysis was undertaken to assess the trajectory of athletic success which has accompanied these developments. For this purpose, we have conducted an analysis of the win-loss records and winning percentages of all HC sports teams for which such records have been compiled in the Go Holy Cross website (including the men’s baseball, basketball, football, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer and tennis teams and the women’s basketball, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball teams) during the years 2013-2018. The analysis consisted of an examination of the win-loss records for each team for each year and the compilation of cumulative win-loss records and winning percentages for the entire study period as both overall results and conference-specific results.
Men’s teams:
Overall Records: Over the 5 years of the study, 4 of the 7 men’s teams achieved a winning record at least one year, all but one before 2015: baseball 2/5 (last 2017), basketball 1/5 ( 2013), Football 1/5 ( 2015) and Ice Hockey 1/5 ( 2015). None had an overall winning percentage, and 4 won less than 40% of their games over 5 years.
Conference records: Three teams had at least one winning season in conference play: Baseball 4/5 years (all but 2014), basketball 1/5 years (2013) and Ice Hockey 4/5 years (all but 2013). Two (baseball (0.74) and Ice Hockey (0.53) had winning conference percentages, while four of the other teams won 37% or less of their conference games over 5 years.
Women’s teams:
Overall Records: Three of the 8 women’s teams posted a winning record in at least one of the 5 years: Basketball 1/5 (2013), Ice Hockey 5/5, and soccer 1/5 (2014). Only Ice Hockey had an overall winning percentage (0.76) and 6 teams won 39% or less of their games over 5 years.
Conference Records: Two of the 8 teams posted at least one winning year in conference play: Basketball 3/5 (last 2015) and Ice Hockey 5/5, which was the only team with a winning percentage (0.75) over the 5 years while 6 won 39% or less of their conference games over the 5 years.
Summary:
During the study period, 7/15 teams posted at least one winning overall season for a total of 12 out of 75 (16%) seasons of play. In conference play, 5/15 teams posted winning seasons for a total of 17 out of 75 (0.22%) seasons of play. Over the five years, none of the men’s teams and only one of the women’s teams achieved a cumulative overall winning percentage of 50% or greater, while 10 of the 15 teams won less than 40% of their games. In conference play, two men’s teams and one women’s team posted cumulative winning records while 10 won less than 40% of their games.
In addition to these team sports which produce W-L records, two other categories of sport were reviewed: 1) individual sports which do not routinely report team scores (e.g. track/field; swimming/diving which could not be further assessed); and 2) team sports involving competition with several teams in which team scores are reported based on the team’s standing among the competing teams (e.g. cross country and golf). In reviewing the latter sports for this study, team records were rated based on whether the team scored in the top half of the total competing teams for each meet. Of these teams only the women’s cross country team recorded a winning record in one year (7-3 in 2014) out of a total of 20 seasons of play (5%).
Discussion:
At the time of his appointment as Athletic Director, the current Holy Cross AD was quoted (Holy Cross Magazine) as setting a goal for Holy Cross Athletic teams of winning conference championships in all sports in which teams were fielded by Holy Cross. From these data, during the study years, 2 men’s teams (Baseball and Ice Hockey) and 2 Women’s teams (Basketball and Ice Hockey) posted winning records in conference play in most years, which could be judged to approach this standard, although the last winning conference record for the women’s basketball team was in the 2015-16 season. In contrast, 4 men’s teams and 6 women’s teams never posted a winning season in any of the 5 years and their trajectories over the 5 year span were fairly flat, indicating little or no improvement. Clearly, if the stated goal of the Athletic Department is to be reached, especially for the latter teams, a strategy for accomplishing this is needed. There appear to be at least two possible courses of action to develop such a strategy (which are not mutually exclusive):
Specific sports (especially those without a history of winning) could be considered candidates for a change in their levels of intercollegiate competition, such as going down in Division of competition (e.g. from NCAA Div I to Div II or III or to a non-NCAA level) while keeping the successful (or revenue-generating) teams in the higher division). This option has worked well for schools such as The Johns Hopkins University which fields only one NCAA Div I team (Lacrosse) which is highly successful and usually nationally ranked while competing in a Div III conference quite successfully in all other sports. This would entail decisions about conference participation as well, especially for those teams which have traditionally been non-competitive in the current conference as noted above. Holy Cross has implemented a variant on this theme in the current year by upgrading the level of competition of the women’s hockey team from Div III to Div I. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing (February 2/12/19), this team, which achieved an enviable (and the best of all Holy Cross teams) prior 5 year overall record of 88-35 (winning %= 0.75) as a Div III team, currently has a record of 1-26-3 in Div I. Another strategy in this category would be to remove these teams from NCAA competition altogether and designate them as club teams, which several colleges have done very successfully at major savings in cost.
Consideration can also be made to initiate changes in the staffing of the team leadership, especially for teams which have a longstanding history of poor performance (e.g. beyond this 5 year window) under the same management. This could include both changing coaching staff and improving recruitment efficiency and practices. Again, Holy Cross has in the 2018-19 year hired a new football coach after the dismissal of the prior long-term coach with somewhat positive results (overall winning record went from 4-7 in the previous 2 years to 5-6 (although the record in 2015 was 6-5) and the conference record went from 3-3 to 4-2, the first conference winning record in the study period of 6 years. However, this option might be limited since the majority of both men’s and women’s coaches are of recent tenure (5 years or less).
Personal Reflection:
““...the Holy Cross student body deserve(s) at least some evidence of an attempt by the Holy Cross Athletic Department to carry out the laudable goals set forth by the Athletic Director at the time of his hiring.”
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As a member of the Holy Cross Class of 1959, I was fortunate to have experienced an era (1955-1959) of almost unparalleled success of the limited number of teams fielded by Holy Cross during my student career. The major sports teams (Football (22-13, pct 0.63); Basketball (66-35, pct 0.66 with one appearance in the NCAA tournament); and Baseball (47-13 for 3 years, pct. 0.78 with two bids to the NCAA College World Series) all had overall winning records (there was no conference at that time) for all years except for a 12-12 record for the basketball team in 1956-57. The one team with an overall losing record (Ice Hockey, 16-23, pct. 0.40) was dropped as an intercollegiate sport in the 1958-59 season due to lack of support. In addition, the sports of Lacrosse and Tennis saw substantial improvements in performance over the 4 years, with records going from 1-6 in ’55 to 7-3 in ’59 for Lacrosse and 5-4 to 8-2 for Tennis. The success described had a very salutary effect on the morale and enthusiasm of the student body and, of course, was very supportive of the student athletes. With this as background, it is my personal opinion that the Holy Cross student body and especially its student athletes as well as alumni (especially those donating large sums to the upgrading of the sports facilities) and the sports fans of the Worcester area deserve at least some evidence of an attempt by the Holy Cross Athletic Department to carry out the laudable goals set forth by the Athletic Director at the time of his hiring.