Impact Stories

1988: SCIAC All-Sports Trophy Sweep

The 1987-88 year was a first, as CMS won all three SCIAC All-Sports trophies

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic department has made a habit of placing bulk orders for SCIAC trophies. The Stags and Athenas have won 343 SCIAC titles, almost 100 more than any other SCIAC institution, despite getting a late start with their first year coming in 1958-59, more than 40 years after the Bulldogs, Poets, Tigers and Sagehens were up and running.

The 1987-88 academic year, though, was a first, as CMS was able to win all three of the All-Sports trophies that the league offers, capturing the most points in the men’s, women’s and combined standings.

The 1988 SCIAC Women’s All-Sports Trophy was a first for the Athenas, who started their half of the athletic department in 1976-77 when Claremont McKenna first went co-ed. CMS had plenty of women’s sports success quickly, with the cross country team winning a SCIAC crown in 1978 in only its second season, but having enough overall success to win the trophy was a slow and steady process.

Over the course of the 1987-88 academic year, CMS had a ridiculous amount of success across the board, going 10-for-17 winning SCIAC titles: women’s cross country, women’s soccer, women’s basketball, men’s water polo, men’s swimming, men’s soccer, men’s tennis, football, baseball and men’s basketball

Four of the other teams came in second, with women’s swimming and diving, women’s track and field, women’s tennis and men’s track and field also finishing as runner-up.

Since the 1988 sweep, CMS has won all three of the SCIAC All-Sports trophies 22 of 32 years, including a stretch of 12 in a row from 1993-2004 before Redlands temporarily took over the mantle in the second half of the decade. By 2010-11, the Athenas and Stags were back to sweeping, and CMS has now won 29 of the last 30 possible trophies, missing out only on the men’s all-sports trophy in 2018, which traveled 1500 feet down the road for 12 months before returning back the following year.