By Pat Dooley
Gainesville Sun sports writer
Florida didn’t make it a clean sweep again, but the Gator athletic program did keep its streak alive.
For the 12th consecutive academic year, Florida won the SEC All-Sports Award presented by GateHouse Media.
What was a close race turned into a rout when Florida won the SEC in baseball and men’s and women’s track and field on the same weekend. UF finished with a score of .76442 to second-place Georgia’s .68632.
“It’s always a credit to the talented student-athletes and coaches,” said Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin. “Florida is typically really good in the spring sports and this year we were as strong as ever. It’s a recipe that’s worked pretty well for the Gators.”
Georgia kept Florida from sweeping all three awards by taking the women’s title. The Georgia women edged Florida by .0051.
But the UF men easily outdistanced the field, beating second-place Texas A&M .8152 to .6630.
In the overall standings, Texas A&M finished third, Arkansas fourth and South Carolina fifth. Auburn was sixth and Alabama ninth. It wasn’t a good year for the “M’s” in the conference with Mississippi, Mississippi State and Missouri finishing in the last three spots.
Florida won six SEC titles this academic year — baseball, softball, men’s and women’s track and field, men’s swimming and diving and volleyball.
Florida has now won 240 SEC titles in its history (women’s lacrosse, where UF won the Big East title, is not scored because it is not an SEC sport).
The final standings are determined by awarding points based on the number of competing teams in a sport (e.g. — 14 teams compete in SEC baseball, giving the winner 14 points, second gets 13, etc. Four teams compete in equestrian, awarding four points to the winner). A program’s points total is divided by the total number of teams competing in the sports the school fields to create a final score.
The sports of cross country, indoor and outdoor track & field are combined. A program’s outdoor track finish makes up half, while the remaining two quarters are based on the cross country and indoor finishes.
This is the fourth year GateHouse Media, which owns The Gainesville Sun as well as dozens of other publications around the country, awards the overall, men’s and women’s SEC All-Sports trophies.
The Halifax Media Group awarded the 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 trophies. The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group gave the awards from the 1994-95 through 2010-11 seasons. Prior to that, the league tabulated the SEC All-Sports totals.
GateHouse SEC All-Sports Trophy
Final standings
School; Total teams; Points; Score
Florida 208 159 .76442
Georgia 212 145.5 .68632
Texas A&M 204 131 .64216
Arkansas 198 113 .57071
South Carolina 204 114 .55882
Auburn 212 117.5 .55425
Tennessee 200 104 .52000
Kentucky 208 106.5 .51202
Alabama 208 104 .50000
LSU 208 99.5 .47837
Vanderbilt 151 69 .45695
Ole Miss 178 78.5 .44101
Miss. State 178 77 .43258
Missouri 195 79.5 .40769
