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March Madness has come in like a lion and, once again, deprived the nation of its already-shaky attention span.
But as college basketball’s best 68 teams try to out-Duke the Blue Devils on the hardwood, the question of where a March Madness title belongs against some of college athletics’ toughest feats deserves to be called into play.
Here’s a look at the five toughest accomplishments in team or individual sports on the collegiate level.
5. NCAA TRACK & FIELD HAMMER THROW
Who is the last college athlete you should pick a fight against? That would be the guy who can lift you by your ankles and spin you around his head several times before turfing you many, many yards away from where you once stood.
The sport is the hammer throw and it’s the king among college sports’ pure individual feats of strength. All of the track and field throwing events require the muscle of the nation’s strongest amateur athletes, but the hammer is the confluence of the sheer power of the shot put combined with the agility of discus.
The bodies of hammer throwers resemble Frankenstein after multiple surgeries to repair ankles and knees, as well as hips, biceps and shoulders, among others.
Need further proof of the sheer athleticism of the collegiate track and field thrower? Look no further than Mississippi State discus tosser T.K. Kieras. The Lithuanian national parlayed a Bulldog discus record into a contract to play linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs after an impressive showing at Mississippi State’s pro day. Kieras is a Chief — NFL rules allow non-football players to sign contracts before the draft — despite having never played a down in his life.
4. NCAA WRESTLING TITLE
Think of it as football without the ball, set plays or pads.
Wrestlers are a different breed of athlete. And you won’t find a more disciplined sportsman than a wrestler trying to cut weight. As far as individual accolades go, there’s nothing more pure than mano-a-mano. It’s the only sport where a school such as Cornell (No. 7 in the nation) or Gardner-Webb can compete among the power conferences.
Title IX has stripped the SEC of its wrestling programs, save for newcomer Missouri. The Tigers still represented, finishing No. 6 in the nation at the NCAA championships on March 19 in Madison Square Garden. The Tigers were led by J’Den Cox, who earned an individual NCAA title in the 197-pound weight class.
Missouri wrestling's J'Den Cox won a national title after defeating Penn State's McIntosh. https://t.co/uYCWaMRMNI pic.twitter.com/kTTJNNjxst
— Columbia Missourian (@CoMissourian) March 20, 2016
3. HEISMAN TROPHY
What other sport announces its most valuable player to more fanfare than college football’s Heisman Trophy? What other sport announces their MVP on national television during primetime, for that matter? None. College Football’s Holy Grail is an honor bestowed upon one player out of more than 13,000 athletes to suit up during any given season.
Even more impressive and rare is earning the honor on the defensive side of the ball, as Michigan’s Charles Woodson is the only player to do so, edging out Tennessee’s Peyton Manning in the process.
2. COLLEGE WORLD SERIES
Imagine if March Madness featured best-of-three series. Welcome to the College World Series. Like the NCAA’s basketball tournament, baseball’s version also features 64 teams, but requires more games to crown a winner. Sure in hoops one loss sounds the death knell on your season, whereas in baseball a team can drop four contests and still earn ring.
How hard would a March Madness bracket be to fill out if you had to account for a loser’s bracket?
It took Vanderbilt 13 games (16 if you count the SEC tournament) in 2014 to earn the school’s first-ever national title. That meant surviving a regional (4 teams) and super regional (2 teams), both of which include double-elimination formats or best-of-three series to determine a winner before reaching Omaha for the College World Series.
How hard is it for a No. 1 seed to win a College World Series? Florida has been among the top seeds coming out of the super regional in seven of the last 10 years and has failed to win a title. In fact, the last ranked team after a super regional to actually win the College World Series was South Carolina in 2011.
1. COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF
One loss in the NCAA’s basketball tournament and your season is over. One loss during the college football regular season and you could easily suffer the same fate. And even after surviving a slate of a dozen games relatively unscathed, teams then have to impress a committee of distinguished athletic directors, hall of famers and former secretaries of state to make a slim postseason of four teams.
The football playoff system that we’ve clamored to get for years hasn’t just eliminated some of the guesswork and subjectivity behind crowning a champion, and it’s made earning a college football title more difficult in the process.
Any addition rounds and teams added to the postseason will make the fledgling tournament exponentially harder.
The SEC, specifically Alabama, is among the early leaders of the College Football Playoff, scoring a 2-1 overall record in the first two years of the tourney — tying the Big Ten (Ohio State and Michigan State).
Chris Wuensch is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers South Carolina and Tennessee.
