Gator Country

The University of Florida swept the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group SEC All-Sports competition, winning the overall, men's and women's titles for the eighth time. Florida is the only program to collect the three titles in a single season.

The overall SEC All-Sports title is the 17th for Florida, while the Gator program also earned its 14th women’s and 12th men’s titles as well. The first overall SEC title for UF came in 1987-88, with the Gator program winning all but three of the last 20 overall titles.

The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group, which includes 14 newspapers throughout the Southeastern United States, awards trophies to the league school which captures each of those three all-sports titles. A first-place SEC finish is worth 12 points, second is given 11 points, and so on. A school’s point total is divided by the number of sports it fields to arrive at the average. The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group took over coordination of the SEC All-Sports rankings in 1994-95. Prior to that, the league tabulated the SEC All-Sports totals.

Florida won six regular-season SEC Championships in 2006-07 to raise its total to 44 since the 1997-98 academic year, the most by any conference school during the 10-year span. The Gators won the SEC crowns in men’s basketball, football, gymnastics, soccer, volleyball and shared the league crown for women’s tennis.

Florida finished this year with 155.5 total points in its 16 sports to win the overall all-sports title with an average of 9.72 points. Tennessee was second with an average of 9.40 (141 points in 15 sports).

The Florida’s men’s program finished first, totaling 68 points for an average of 9.71 points in its seven sports. Tennessee was second with 64 points for an average of 9.14.

The Florida women returned to the top with an average of 9.72 points (87.50 points in nine sports). Tennessee, winner of the last three SEC Women’s All-Sports Trophies, was second with 77 points (9.63 average for eight sports). Georgia was third with 81 points (9.00 average in nine sports).

UF is hopeful of finishing among the nation’s top 10 most successful overall athletic programs for the 24th consecutive year when final national all-sports rankings are released in June. Florida and UCLA are the only two schools in the country to finish among the nation’s top 10 overall most successful athletic programs each year since 1983.

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