By Pat Dooley
GateHouse Media Services
GAINESVILLE, Florida — It hasn’t taken Scott Stricklin long to get used to the athletic culture at the University of Florida.
“It’s amazing how quickly you become accustomed to it,” said the Florida athletic director between innings of the UF softball team’s winning performance in the NCAA softball tournament Sunday. “I’ve been here 6½ months and when one team has a bad day, you take it hard because you are so used to all of the success.”
Stricklin was speaking specifically about another SEC All-Sports Award for UF.
Florida won the SEC All-Sports Award for the 27th time, sweeping the three categories for the 16th time.
The award is presented by GateHouse Media, which owns The Tuscaloosa News, the Gainesville Sun and dozens of other publications around the country. The award will be handed to UF at a football game this fall.
“Obviously, it speaks to the unbelievable culture the coaches and Jeremy (Foley) and everyone has built,” Stricklin said. “It’s an amazing level of consistency to win it as often as the Gators have. And we swept the men and women for the 16th time and no other conference team has swept once.
“It’s fun to be around that level of excellence.”
The trophy is for the 2016-17 athletic year and results were finalized Saturday night when the baseball standings were completed. Florida and LSU tied for the SEC baseball crown.
Baseball was one of five SEC championships won by UF during the athletic season. The Gators also captured titles in women’s golf, softball, men’s swimming and diving and volleyball.
It was the second straight year Florida won five SEC titles.
The Gators finished with a score of of .810, easily outdistancing second-place Texas A&M, which recorded a score of .679. Kentucky finished third. The Wildcats were followed by Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina, LSU, Auburn and Tennessee in the standings. The bottom four were Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Missouri and Mississippi State.
Points are awarded based on the number of competing teams in a sport divided into the points awarded for the finish of teams in that sport. The sports of cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field are combined.
While the Florida women’s teams often do the heavy lifting on the GateHouse SEC All-Sports award, it was the men who were dominant this season, finishing with a score of .875, well ahead of A&M’s .690. The women also won with a score of .757 to A&M’s .670.
Kentucky was third in the women’s division while Arkansas was third on the men’s side.
The trophy was given out by the SEC in 1983-84 and the league continued to award a trophy until 1994. The New York Times Newspaper Group took over the award in 1995 and continued until 2012 when Halifax Media Group began giving the award.
This is the third year of the award for GateHouse.
SEC All-Sports Standings
Overall
(Team; # cont. teams; Points; Percentage)
Florida; 208; 168.5; 0.8101
Texas A&M; 204; 138.5; 0.67892
Kentucky; 208; 126; 0.60577
Georgia; 212; 124; 0.58491
Arkansas; 198; 110; 0.55556
Alabama; 208; 114.5; 0.55048
S. Carolina; 204; 109; 0.53431
LSU; 208; 108; 0.51923
Auburn; 212; 107; 0.50472
Tennessee; 200; 90; 0.45
Vanderbilt; 164; 73.5; 0.44817
Ole Miss; 178; 77; 0.43258
Missouri; 195; 84; 0.43077
Miss. State; 178; 72; 0.40449
Women
Team; total # of part. Teams; Points; Percentage
Florida; 116; 88; 0.7586
Texas A&M; 112; 75; 0.6696
Kentucky; 116; 71.5; 0.6164
Georgia; 120; 69; 0.5750
South Carolina; 112; 63.5; 0.5670
Tennessee; 108; 57; 0.5278
Auburn; 120; 62; 0.5167
LSU; 116; 59.5; 0.5129
Arkansas; 116; 59; 0.5086
Alabama; 116; 58.5; 0.5043
Missouri; 116; 58; 0.5000
Miss. State; 96; 41.5; 0.4323
Vanderbilt; 82; 34; 0.4146
Ole Miss; 96; 34.5; 0.3594
Men
Team; total # of part. Teams; Points; Percentage
Florida; 92; 80.5; 0.8750
Texas A&M; 92; 63.5; 0.6902
Arkansas; 82; 51; 0.6220
Alabama; 92; 56; 0.6087
Georgia; 92; 55; 0.5978
Kentucky; 92; 54.5; 0.5924
LSU; 92; 48.5; 0.5272
Ole Miss; 82; 42.5; 0.5183
S. Carolina; 92; 45.5; 0.4946
Auburn; 92; 45; 0.4891
Vanderbilt; 82; 39.5; 0.4817
Miss. State; 82; 30.5; 0.3720
Tennessee; 92; 33; 0.3587
Missouri; 79; 26; 0.3291
