Why winning the Directors' Cup matters

The LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup is given annually to the athletic department that earns the distinction of being the “most successful overall athletic program in each division of collegiate sports.” Each athletic department offers its best 19 sports for the standings, with baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball, and women’s soccer required for scoring. The more success in each sport, the more points accumulated.

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For the fourth time in five years, Texas emerged as the top athletic department in the nation thanks to two NCAA titles in softball and men’s swimming, seven national podium appearances, and 13 top-10 appearances along with eight Southeastern Conference titles.

“Your Longhorns have claimed The Cup as the nation’s premier all-sports athletic program for the second-straight year and fourth time in five years (how about that for absolute dominance!),” Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte said in his Forty Acres Insider. “YES, we are the champions, AGAIN!”

While many fans may not put much time and energy into following Dave O’Neill’s rowing team or care to count to individual All-Americans and national champions Bob Bowman’s swimming and diving program churns out regularly, there is something to be said about a winning culture.

Each program on the 40 Acres, through Del Conte’s own public statements, is expected to contend for a national championship and finish within the top five in end-of-season standings or rankings. That goes for the most prominent sports like football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball. That goes for the niche yet successful sports like softball and swimming. That goes for cherished Longhorn programs with fervent followers like baseball and volleyball.

And that type of cultural expectation can resonate across an entire department. Even Steve Sarkisian himself once noted that looking around and seeing Jerritt Elliott, John Fields, Mike White, and Vic Schaefer compete for or win national championships is as good of a motivation an athletic department can offer. Sure, Sarkisian is independently driven and has 10 million reasons helping him get up to go to work to bring a national title to Texas. But when he’s in head coaches’ meetings and he looks around and sees NCAA championship rings, it’s another motivation to help elevate the Longhorn football program further. Similar can be said for Sean Miller and others.

Of course, it’s great for the die-hard fan who likes seeing every single program do well. Texas is more than a one-trick pony… or bull. It’s not a school that just stockpiles swimming titles, as other fanbases may say on social media. It’s an everything school, and winning Directors’ Cups is motivation for coaches of individual programs to make sure they do their part to keep Texas as an everything school.

Del Conte deserves a considerable amount of credit. When he was hired in late 2017, he joined an athletic department that finished fifth in the Directors’ Cup standings. Next season, Texas climbed to fourth. The Directors’ Cup wasn’t awarded in 2019-20 due to Covid, but since then Texas has won it in every year save for 2022-23 when the Longhorns finished second to Stanford.

Successful athletic departments feature loss leaders of a certain type. Only football and men’s basketball return profits at Texas. Every other sport, yes, even baseball, operates at a loss. In an era where athletic departments look for every penny possible, Texas has not wavered in its effort to bring championships to the 40 Acres in every sport even as it made the move to the SEC. It provides coaches with the resources needed to compete at a high level.

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The Directors’ Cup stands as evidence of the efforts Del Conte has put in as UT’s athletic director and should function as proof that the Longhorns want to win in everything. Every. Thing.