"I love winning ... It's like, you know, better than losing!" -- Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh, "Bull Durham"As I look out the window of my office on a beautiful fall morning, I see our students going back and forth on their busy days, going to the chapel, coming over to Melby and Kennedy to work out. And I'm seeing a lot of smiles on people's faces, especially our student-athletes. Winning can have that kind of effect on a person.
Right now, all four of our fall "team" sports at Augsburg have winning records -- football is 3-0, volleyball is 10-8, men's soccer is 5-1-3 and women's soccer is 6-1-3. (Plus, the four fall "individual" sports -- men's and women's golf and men's and women's cross country -- are all showing strong improvement as their conference meets approach).
How rare is that feat? Well, since women's soccer started in 1985, having all four fall team sports finish with .500-or-above records has NEVER happened at Augsburg. In fact, since 1985, even having three of the fall team sports finish at .500-or-above has happened just once -- last year, when football finished 5-5, men's soccer finished 9-9-0 and women's soccer finished 9-7-3. And since volleyball started varsity play in 1973, the football, men's soccer and volleyball teams all achieved the .500-or-better trifecta just three times (1973, 1974 and 1980).
In my 12 years here at Augsburg, I've seen a slow and steady change in attitudes around here regarding athletic success. Teams are starting to win, our student-athletes are succeeding in both the playing field and the classroom, and the general attitude has become much more positive. Sure, we're not curing cancer or solving the economic crisis, but having athletic teams that are showing success brings a special kind of pride to the entire campus (and not to give short shrift to our other extracurricular activities, either. Our music, theatre and fine arts programs have always been outstanding). We talk a lot about the "Augsburg Community" around here, and we are like a small town in the middle of the big city. We care about what our students do, and celebrate their victories and mourn their losses.
It's fun to walk around campus and have faculty, staff and others stop me and want to chat about sports. "Say, the football team is doing great." "The women's soccer team is really playing well," and so on and so on. Hopefully, we'll get to keep celebrating as the fall goes along.
