Carolina Lands Top 10 Finish in Learfield Directors’ Cup

Posted on July 11, 2024

A national championship in field hockey, a trip to Omaha for the College World Series and a fourth consecutive top-five finish in men’s golf led Carolina to a seventh-place finish in the 2023–24 Learfield Directors’ Cup standings.

This is UNC’s fifth consecutive top-10 finish and eighth top-10 finish in nine years in the all-sports competition. The Tar Heels totaled 1,035.75 points in 18 sports.

University of Texas-Austin finished first with 1,377 points. Stanford finished second, followed by University of Tennessee, University of Florida, Virginia, Texas A&M, UNC, University of Alabama, UCLA and University of Notre Dame.

UNC won the inaugural Learfield Director’s Cup in 1994. Carolina, Stanford and UT-Austin are the only schools to win the cup. (Stanford won the cup for 25 consecutive years, from 1995 to 2019, and again in 2022–23.)

The Learfield Directors’ Cup honors all-sport champions in NCAA Divisions I, II and III and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, according to their website. NCAA DI schools are awarded points in a predetermined number of sports — four of which must be baseball, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball.

Men’s cross country placed sixth at nationals, and men’s basketball and women’s tennis each placed ninth for a total of nine top-10 programs. Parker Wolfe, a rising senior, added an individual national outdoor track and field championship title in the 5,000 meters, making the combined total points for men’s cross country and indoor and outdoor track 188.50.

Women’s basketball, women’s lacrosse and women’s swimming and diving all enjoyed top-20 finishes.

UNC’s average finish since the inception of the Directors’ Cup is seventh. Virginia has the next-best ACC average finish at 15th.

— Cameron Hayes Fardy ’23