100th title to usher in new era

It’s not often this school has a rally or a ceremony for a championship. Of course, this isn’t because championships don’t happen often ““ there’s been 14 of them in the past five years. But because they come so frequently, we take them for granted.

The 100th NCAA Championship for UCLA, which was captured by the women’s water polo team on Sunday, was very different, though.

People like nice round numbers. For purely psychological reasons, going from 99 to 100 championships is much more significant than going from 98 to 99, or 100 to 101, which may happen in the next few weeks.

The most important thing to come out of the celebration at Spaulding Field on Tuesday wasn’t the rally itself. It was what this means for the future.

Sure, it was fun to listen to championship coaches Al Scates, Sue Enquist and Adam Krikorian talk about what it takes to win and how special it is.

But what MC Ed Kezirian announced at the end of the rally will have more of an impact on UCLA athletics. UCLA will hold several events over the 2007-2008 academic year to promote the milestone of being the first to win 100 championships. Not only will they honor people involved in these championships at football and basketball games, the two sports that people around the country watch, but the athletic department has already launched an aggressive marketing campaign promoting the milestone.

The “First to 100″ logos are already being seen all over the place, and UCLA merchandise with that logo is already selling. Several TV crews were at the celebration on Tuesday, which is extremely rare for anything not involving football or men’s basketball. Winning 100 titles made its way around the local print media as well.

This is one of those rare milestones in college sports that can have a long life in the minds of the public. As soon as someone in a major sport wins a championship, sports fans move on to the next season when someone else wins.

But no one else is getting to 100 championships for at least two years, and even then it would take two monster years by Stanford’s athletic department (they have 93 titles). It could be three or four years until UCLA isn’t the only school with 100 titles. That’s a lot of time to market 100 titles.

The number “100” resonates with people. Whenever people watch a nationally televised men’s basketball or football game over the next couple of years, the number 100 will come up. More and more people will learn about the greatness of UCLA athletics and the university itself will become a bigger name.

All of that means it will make recruiting even easier for teams at UCLA, which will further increase the likelihood of future championships.

The women’s water polo team didn’t just win one more NCAA title. The team started a chain of events, rows and rows of dominoes falling on top of each other, gaining momentum along the way.

The championship ceremony largely overshadowed the Lexus Gauntlet ceremony that preceded it, but there was one great moment there. They asked the coaches who beat USC to pose for a picture around the severed-hand trophy. And even though USC is clearly inferior to UCLA, the Trojans are No. 3 in number of NCAA Championships (84).

The race for 100 is over, but the best may be to come.

E-mail Quiñonez at [email protected].