USC Equestrian Wins Second National Championship :: Hunt Seat earns third consecutive national title

I know some don't keep up with or even care about the nonrevenue or lesser sports, but I am very proud of all of USC's teams and very happy to announce that the Equestrian Team won their 2nd National Championship in 3 years and the Hunt Seat Team won their 3rd CONSECUTIVE National Championship.

Between them and the Female T&F Team, we have someone proudly carrying the USC banner!

Cool...congrats ladies.

Beat Georgia in the finals, too...

Congrats, Lady Gamecocks!

Uh....well......it is a championship. Go Cocks!

Question: Isn't it an "unofficial" national championship.....like it's an exhibition/club sport or something? Not NCAA sanctioned, perhaps?

I think it's official now, but I haven't done any research to back that up. I know what you're talking about though, and I think our first equestrian title two years ago might have fallen into that 'exhibition' category. Either that or the first title was the first year it was official.

I hope you are right about them now being recognized and one would think that they are every bit as legite as lacrosse, golf and numerous other minor, nonrevenue sports.

Here is what the NCAA site has for US(C):

Your reply inspired me to do the one minute of research I was too lazy to do previously. Equestrian is classified as a 'Varsity' NCAA sport, but it does not qualify for full NCAA championship status yet. There need to be 40 Division I/II schools participating to qualify for full status and right now there are only 23.

All that means is that our rivals will still say 'well you've only one real national title," but with only 23 varsity programs only the best in that nation are going to be performing at NCAA schools. And amongst those, USC is the best of the best this year.