FSU's ACC Championships

By Jim Joanos

So far, FSU has won fifty-four Atlantic Coast Conference team championships. On July 1, 1991 when Florida State University became a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference it was an accomplishment of great proportions. In the forty-four years from 1947 when Florida State College for Women was transformed into the coeducational Florida State University it had gone from a very humble beginning in the athletic world to membership in one of the premier athletic conferences in the nation.

The ACC was not FSU's first athletic conference. As early as 1948 it had belonged to one, the Dixie Conference, which existed for three years from 1948 to 1951. The Dixie Conference was composed of nine mostly small schools who held no intentions of competing with the major athletic programs of the country. In addition to FSU, they were Stetson, Tampa, Mississippi College, Millsaps, Mercer, Howard, Lambuath and Oglethorpe. One of the requirements of membership in the Dixie Conference was that no athletic scholarships could be given to the athletes.

From 1976 to 1991, FSU was a member of the Metro Conference, higher on the scale of importance. Other members of that conference when FSU joined were Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Memphis, Saint Louis, and Tulane. Later, Georgia Tech would leave and Virginia Tech, Southern Mississippi, and South Carolina, would join. However, the Metro was not considered to be one of the premier national conferences as it did not include competition in football, and was somewhat limited in other aspects.

Consequently, when FSU entered the ACC which included Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, and Wake Forest, it was its first entry into a big time conference. Since then, the ACC has been expanded and strengthened even more by the addition of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College.

When FSU joined the ACC, it was expected that FSU would win some conference championships in football, baseball and softball, as they were already regarded as national powers in those sports. The unknown was how the Seminoles would fare in other sports. Now looking back, some nineteen years later, it seems that FSU has done quite well in conference competition. No less than twelve of the nineteen teams that compete in intercollegiate competition for FSU have won ACC championships.

As expected, FSU's football team has led the way in ACC accomplishments, having won or shared the conference championship twelve times (1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, & 2005). FSU has not won an ACC football championship during the last four seasons, however, its overall ACC football success has been amazing. While FSU has won the conference crown those twelve times, no other teams have won it more than once except Virginia Tech (three times) and Georgia Tech (twice, shared it once with FSU and won it outright once).

Track and field is another sport in which FSU has excelled in conference competition by winning a total of twenty ACC championships. The men's team has won nine indoor ( 1994, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, & 2010) and eight outdoor (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) conference championships while the women have one indoor (2009) and two outdoor (2000, 2009) ones.

FSU's softball team which was expected to do well in ACC play has won nine ( 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004) conference crowns. That program has not won the conference title in the last five years but there is optimism for the future.

2010 ACC Baseball Champs

The baseball team has also done well in winning five ( 1995, 1997, 2002, 2004, 2010) conference championships. The women's cross country team has come along lately and won the last three conference championships in that sport (2007, 2008, 2009). In volleyball, FSU has two conference first place trophies (1998, 2009). In each of the following sports, FSU has won one conference championship: Men's Golf (2008), Men's Swimming & Diving (2007), and Women's Swimming & Diving (2006).

Only in men's and women's basketball, men's cross country, men's tennis, soccer, women's tennis and women's golf has FSU not won ACC championships. In several of those sports, FSU has been highly competitive and it should be just a matter of time until FSU adds some more teams to the list of conference winners. For instance the soccer team is a regular among those who compete annually for a national championship. Because the competition is so steep in the ACC, while the team has played for conference championships it has not yet won the final game necessary to nail down the job.

In summary, FSU has done exceptionally well in its first nineteen years in the ACC in winning conference championships. In recent years the pace has picked up. It would appear that there will be lots more conference championship trophies sitting on Seminole shelves in the future. We will watch and see.