To the editor:

The Big 12 all-sports standings are of great interest. The scoring system is designed to encourage representation in all sports, which may be commendable. However, the system used does not reflect a school’s competitive efficiency in the sports in which they participate. By awarding 12 points for first, 11 points for second, etc., no matter how many schools participate in an individual sport, all a school need do is field a team no matter how competitive that team may be.

Missouri, for example, earned 10 points for a third-place finish in men’s swimming, in which three schools compete, and eight points for wrestling in which they finished last out of five schools. If the Kansas men had fielded wrestling and swimming teams this year, no matter how competitive, KU would have finished at least fourth in the standings, rather than eighth.

A competitive scoring system would award three points for finishing first, two points for finishing second and one point for finishing third in a three-team league, and 12 points for finishing first, 11 for second, 10 for third, etc., in a 12-team league. If such a system were in place this year, MU would have fallen to eighth place, actually behind Kansas, finishing seventh in men’s sports.

As long as schools such as KU (four sports) and K-State (seven sports) earn zeroes for lack of participation, they have very little chance of rising to the highest levels of the Big 12, if that is indeed a goal. To put it another way, KU (which earned two first-place finishes in all sports, the same as Texas) would have had to finish at least second in every one of its 17 sports (17 times 11 equals 187) to approach Texas’ 188 points in 21 sports this year.

Bob Hohn,

Lawrence