Mythical national championship

A mythical national championship (sometimes abbreviated MNC) is a colloquial term used to question the validity of national championship recognition that is not explicitly competitive. The term is commonly used in reference to American college football because the NCAA does not sponsor a playoff-style tournament or recognize official national champions for the Football Bowl Subdivision. The term is typically applied to recognition from various entities, including coach polls and media ballots, which have attempted to recognize their own national champions for decades.

College football

“	If there are any Big Ten teams that shoot for a national championship, they're damn fools...You play to win the Big Ten championship, and if you win it and go to the Rose Bowl and win it, then you've had a great season. If they choose to vote you number one, then you're the national champion. But a national champion is a mythical national champion, and I think you guys ought to know that. It's mythical.	”
—Bo Schembechler of Michigan, July 1989[1]

Main article: College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS

"Mythical national champion" is a term used since at least 1923^[2] for a championship won by a NCAA Division I football team, especially for titles won before the current Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system began in 1998. Before the BCS, polls in which coaches and/or sportwriters voted, such as the AP, UPI, and USA Today polls, awarded championships. This led to seasons in which two or even more teams could claim to have won a national championship.

The BCS attempts to eliminate uncertainty by ranking college teams and inviting the top two teams at the end of the regular season to play in a championship game. These teams are determined by the BCS ranking formula, which itself uses a combination of human voter polls and computer rankings. The process of selecting the two best teams for the BCS championship game has, nonetheless, resulted in controversy almost every season of its existence.

College basketball

Main article: NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship

The national championship of collegiate basketball that is officially recognized by the main governing body for collegiate athletics in the United States, the NCAA, has been awarded to the champion of an annual national post-season tournament run by the NCAA since 1939. Prior to advent of national post-season college basketball tournaments beginning with the NAIA national men's basketball championship in 1937, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1938 and the NCAA Tournament in 1939, various third-party organizations awarded college basketball national championships in a manner similar to the selection of national champions for college football described above. The most notable of the pre-tournament era selections, and the only ones listed in the Official NCAA Men's Basketball Records Book, are those from the Helms Athletic Foundation.^[3] However, only the champions of its own post-season tournament are counted towards official NCAA National Championship totals.^[4]

The Helms Athletic Foundation named a college basketball national champion from 1901 to 1982, with its selections from 1901-1941 being awarded retroactively. The Helms Champion, for the years in which a national post-season tournament was played, matched the winner of the 1938 NIT and the winners for all years of the NCAA Tournament except for 1939, 1940, 1944 and 1954.^[5] However, despite these discrepancies, as well as the arguable notion that the NIT was equivalently regarded to, or more prestigious than, the NCAA Tournament during some of its early years,^[6] the NCAA Tournament Champions are often regarded as National Champions. However, it must be noted that, until 1954, the NIT had more ranked teams, or a higher percentage of participating teams that were ranked (or both), in every single season. In both 1944 and 1949, the NCAA champion (Utah in 1944 and Kentucky in 1949) suffered elimination in the NIT before going on to win the NCAA. Until at least 1954, there is no clear separation between the NIT and NCAA tournaments. The 1946 NIT winning Kentucky team has as much a claim to the National Championship as the 1949 NCAA winning Kentucky team.

Schools that officially claim pre-NCAA Tournament basketball championships

Various schools officially claim or recognize national championships selected by the Helms Athletic Foundation. However, some schools claim pre-tournament era national championships awarded from different selectors resulting in seasons that have multiple schools claiming championships. For instance, LSU officially claims the 1935 championship awarded to them by winning the American Legion Bowl National Championship game against Pittsburgh.^[7] In addition, Butler University, who won the AAU's collegiate tournament, and a 26-0 North Carolina team who was named Helms Athletic Foundation National Champion, both claim national titles for 1924.

The following table is a partial list of schools that officially claim a national championship from the pre-NCAA Tournament era of college basketball. See also Helms Athletic Foundation Basketball National Champions. Not all schools officially recognize third-party national championships that they were selected for.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Year	School	Source
1912	Wisconsin	Helms Athletic Foundation
1914	Wisconsin	Helms Athletic Foundation
1915	Illinois	Helms Athletic Foundation
1916	Utah Wisconsin	AAU Helms Athletic Foundation
1917	Washington State	Helms Athletic Foundation
1918	Syracuse	Helms Athletic Foundation
1922	Kansas	Helms Athletic Foundation
1923	Kansas	Helms Athletic Foundation
1924	North Carolina Butler	Helms Athletic Foundation AAU
1926	Syracuse	Helms Athletic Foundation
1927	Notre Dame	Helms Athletic Foundation
1928	Pittsburgh	Helms Athletic Foundation
1929	Butler Montana St.	Veteran Athletes of Philadelphia Helms Athletic Foundation
1930	Pittsburgh	Helms Athletic Foundation
1931	Northwestern	Helms Athletic Foundation
1932	Purdue	Helms Athletic Foundation
1934	Wyoming	Helms Athletic Foundation
1935	LSU	American Legion
1936	Notre Dame	Helms Athletic Foundation
1937	Xavier	Helms Athletic Foundation
1941	Southern	National Invitational Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament

High school sports

Main article: High school football national championship

Because high school sports in the United States such as football and basketball are state-centered sports involving thousands of schools, it would be almost impossible to have a national championship playoff. A single-game playoff for football, however, was attempted in 1938 and 1939, particularly difficult at that time due to many states' prohibition of postseason games. Nearly all states crown several champions in different classifications, which are not uniform from state to state, based upon school enrollments.

Some publications and internet sites release nationwide rankings for high school sports based on polls or mathematical formulas which take into account various factors like average margin of victory and strength of schedule. Schools that finish atop these rankings, particularly the USA Today poll, often claim to be national champions, and the press calls them "mythical national champions".^[8]

National Football League

In the earliest days of the National Football League, the NFL championship was determined by a formula and by the votes of the NFL owners. In two instances, 1921 and 1925, this led to disputed titles. In 1932, two teams tied atop the standings led to a one-game playoff for the championship, which was made permanent the next year. There has been some sort of NFL playoff ever since, and as the league grew, so too did the tournament, which eventually took form as the single-elimination tournament it is today.

References

1. ^ Moran, Malcolm (1989-08-27). "COLLEGE FOOTBALL '89; Defining the 80's? No Easy Task". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D6173EF934A1575BC0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. 
2. ^ "Syracuse and Cornell Still Top Gridders". The Reading Eagle: p. 12. 1923-11-12. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Or8tAAAAIBAJ&pg=5470%2C2495096. Retrieved 2011-03-05. 
3. ^ Official 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Records Book, The National Collegiate Athletic Association, pg. 82, date=2008-10, ISSN 1089-5280, accessdate=2009-03-05
4. ^ Official 2009 NCAA Men's Final Four Records Book, The National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2009-01, pg. 18, ISSN 0267-1017, accessdate=2009-04-02
5. ^ Rauzulu's Street: Helms Foundation NCAA Division I Champions, accessdate=2009-03-05
6. ^ F.R. Penn, Steeped in Tradition - A History of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, accessdate=2009-03-05
7. ^ 2008-2009 LSU Basketball Media Guide, pg. 41, 2008, accessdate=2009-03-05
8. ^ McMurphy, Brett (2011-03-29). "In Houston, Faded Visions of Phi Slama Jama". The New York Times. pp. B17. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/sports/ncaabasketball/29houston.html?_r=1&src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fsports%2Fncaabasketball%2Findex.jsonp. Retrieved March 29, 2011. 

See also

• Undisputed Champion (boxing)