It is an understandable source of pride for U of T students when we can boast that our teams are ranked among the top ten in their sport in Canada. Similarly, it is embarrassing when we cannot.
Every week, the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) produces a Top Ten ranking of school teams across the country. Athletes, coaches, fans, and the university community at large will celebrate a team for its high ranking and berate a team for its low ranking. But the CIS Top Ten rankings are not only useful as a source of pride or consternation to the university-they are equally, if not more, valuable in their role as conduits to the media.
How many times has the Varsity expressed the success of a team by its CIS Top Ten ranking? How many times has the Toronto Star, or any smaller community newspaper, done the same? It makes sense. To say that a team is ranked third in the nation conveys the team’s success far more interestingly and effectively than rattling off its game results or record.
But, like so many things in life, the Top Ten rankings have to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt-a fact often ignored by those who use the rankings.
“They mean nothing,” insists the Blues women’s basketball team coach Michele Belanger. “They don’t reflect a team’s true position in any real way.”
Belanger is not just some unsuccessful coach, trying to explain away her team’s failure to make the Top Ten. In fact, Belanger and her team are the best in Ontario and have an impressive 9-1 record. Despite this near-perfect standing, the team has not made the list of Canadian Top Ten university teams.
The explanation seems to be the system used for selecting the Top Ten. Obviously, a points-based system (like the one used in timed, individual sports like track and field or swimming) cannot be used in sports like basketball, where teams from different divisions will normally not play one another until the national championships. Instead, the CIS currently asks all of the coaches to vote on their rankings.
“I don’t waste my time voting,” admits Belanger. “Everyone knows that the Atlantic and Ontario regions are the most honest and are going to be shut out by Canada West who tries to vote itself into the top five.”
Although the integrity of the coaches who vote cannot be judged, the current system does indicate some procedural problems. Firstly, many coaches do not want to put the time or effort into seeing how each team is doing and evaluating various conference strengths. Furthermore, if some coaches are abstaining, the vote must be getting skewed towards those coaches who do feel a vested interest in the results.
Currently, eight of the 10 teams on the women’s basketball list hail from the Canada West region of the CIS. Simon Fraser University, ranked sixth in the nation, has a losing record of 4-6. Calgary, listed eighth in Canada, clocks in with a mediocre 5-5. This is basketball not politics and regional representation does not have a place. That being said, who can fault Belanger for wondering why teams with losing records make the Top Ten list, while her team does not?
“It’s embarrassing,” admits Adrian Bradbury sports information coordinator at U of T and a member of the Committee of Marketing and Sports Information Directors of Canada, a group that meets twice yearly to discuss exactly these types of issues. “You should have to earn your spot on that list.”
U of T’s women’s basketball team’s lack of recognition is not the most egregious error to be found on these lists. Take, for example, Simon Fraser’s women’s volleyball team. Currently ranked tenth in Canada, that team boasts a 2-10 record. You have to wonder.
But it seems that there are actually no simple solutions to this situation. Although Bradbury’s committee discussed the Top Ten lists, they failed to come up with a solution. Some possibilities include having media vote (as is done in a select few sports-like men’s hockey and football), or having a small committee vote so that there is some degree of accountability in the procedure. Until then, however, forgotten U of T athletes will have to be satisfied by simply putting their best foot forward.
