In college sports, it's quite a year

Hampden-Sydney's baseball team is just back from Grand Chute, Wis. (known far and wide as Tree City USA). The Virginia Union men's hoopsters are just back from the White House. James Madison's football kingpins have become a very warm ticket. The baseball squads from VCU and Virginia spent last weekend at NCAA regionals.
And have I mentioned Virginia Tech yet?
From gyms to white-lined playing fields, from fall of 2004 through spring of 2005, it's been a pretty nifty sports year for colleges in our fair dominion. We've spawned national championships for teams and individuals. We've sent our emissaries to Norfolk, N'awlins and Nawth Dakota in search of wins and trophies (forgive me if I've missed your faves) -- and brought back a fair share of each. We've fueled a cottage industry of commemorative T-shirts and ball caps.
JMU got things rolling in December by claiming Division I-AA's football championship and has since exceeded its previous best for season-ticket sales. Three months later, the VUU men's basketball squad journeyed to Grand Forks, N.D., and snared the program's third Division II title.
Dave Robbins and the guys shared space with President Bush on Monday. No word on whether Luqman Jaaber got a job offer from the defense department.
Also on the basketball front, the Randolph-Macon women's team had a bell-ringing campaign -- winning 30 games, reaching the Final Four in Norfolk and advancing to the championship game before falling for only the second time all year.
Fellow ODAC members Bridgewater (football) and Hampden-Sydney (baseball) had teams to brag on as well. The Eagles were undefeated against league rivals for the fourth straight year. The Tigers won a school-record 27 games and became the first ODAC squad ever to advance to the Division III championships.

And have I mentioned Virginia Tech yet?
Closer to home, VCU and Richmond had some noteworthies. The Rams claimed CAA championships in baseball and women's soccer and sent their men's basketball squad to the NIT and men's soccer team to the NCAA quarterfinals. As for the Spiders, the field hockey team encountered no A-10 losses for the third year in a row, and women's basketball got an at-large bid to the NCAAs.
Up the road in Charlottesville, there was a flood of ACC championships for U.Va. in men's and women's soccer, men's tennis, men's swimming and diving and women's rowing. Women's lacrosse made it to the NCAA final, men's lacrosse to the Final Four. And baseball scaled the 40-win barrier for the second straight year .
Now, about those Hokies . . .
Everybody figured ACC membership would be bery, bery good for Tech, but no one reckoned it'd deliver a mini-bonanza. In the first 11 years of the Directors' Cup, a survey that measures all-sports success (Stanford routinely wins), Tech never finished higher than 63rd. In its ACC maiden voyage, the Blacksburg contingent is currently 49th and might rise (Virginia, for those keeping score, is 20th).
The Hokies excelled in the marquee sports of football (ACC champs, Sugar Bowl bid, player-of-year honors for Bryan Randall, coach-of-year award for Frank Beamer) and men's basketball (picked 10th and finished fourth, NIT second round, coach-of-year award for Seth Greenberg) -- but the positive vibes didn't end there.
In the fall, women's soccer made the NCAAs for the first time, and the wrestlers followed suit in the winter by finishing second at the ACC tournament and producing two individual champions. Women's basketball made the NCAA field. So did softball.
Best of all, Spyridon Jullien, a junior from Greece with Atlas-like muscles, earned Tech's first national championship -- individual or team -- in the 35-pound weight throw at the NCAA indoor games last March 11. He's ranked No. 1 nationally in the hammer throw heading into this week's NCAA outdoor meet. So his/our haul might not be complete.

BOB LIPPER