The 2019 Daily Stampede Awards (Part 1)

The bad news is the USF athletic season ended unexpectedly early. Usually we make into June before the last event of the calendar takes place. The good news* is that means we can announce the 2019 TDS Awards!

* - depends on your definition of good news

As always, the TDS Awards celebrate the best, worst, funniest, and most controversial moments of the past USF athletics season. We’ll break them into two parts. Look for Part 2 tomorrow. Also, I finally got everyone to stop being so long-winded, so this post won’t run over 10,000 words like it did last year.

NOTE: Ryan Smith submitted a ballot, but it was rejected because he voted for Quinton Flowers in every category.

BEST TEAM

• Nathan: Men’s Tennis. Conference title will do that for you.
• Collin: Men’s basketball. Men’s tennis regained their Iron Throne, but hoops made me love again. They played so damn hard all year, and now USF has two exciting basketball teams for the first time in almost 50 years of trying.
• Bort: Men’s tennis? Let’s go with them.
• Carl: Men’s tennis continues to be utterly dominant in the conference. We’d be hard pressed to find a more successful program since the start of the AAC.
• Nick: I’ll bestow this honor upon men’s tennis for reclaiming their throne on top of the conference and making it to the second round of the NCAA tourney.
• Steeg: Men’s Tennis, pretty straightforward after they reclaimed their reign on top of the AAC.
• Vito: YOUR CBI CHAMPION SOUTH FLORIDA MEN’S BASKETBALL.
• Will: Men’s basketball. I didn’t watch tennis at all, so I can’t make a blind judgement about that. MBB was the most fun team to watch this season.
• Jamie: Men’s tennis made the NCAAs, won a round, and went out to the eventual national champs. Softball a close second, but it would be nice if they could win a couple more of these early headline games. Sailing gets honorable mention.

WORST TEAM

• Nathan: Track and field/Cross Country. We live in Florida and can’t find good athletes?
• Collin: Track and field. This is no longer acceptable if you’re going to put that stupid trophy out there. Fix it.
• Bort: How do we not have a good CC team, it’s running for Christ’s sake.
• Carl: track and field/xcountry. We support you guys, but...oof
• Nick: For the 1,000th time, it does not make sense how bad our track and field programs are.
• Steeg: Cross Country, both men’s and women’s are equally horrible
• Vito: Everything track and field and cross country related; I just don’t get it.
• Will: T&F. Second/third most talent rich area in the state and we can’t do a thing with it.
• Jamie: It’s unanimous, and it’s beyond time to call it out. Did you know the running sports count FIVE TIMES toward the War on I-4 all sports trophy? Do you ever want to win that thing? Then fix the running sports and stop throwing 30 points out the window every year. We don’t try at all in track and cross country and it shows. In TDS Slack, someone who only ran track in high school posted their own results from a meet and they would have been competitive with USF’s results.

BEST MALE ATHLETE

• Nathan: Alberto Barroso-Campos.
• Collin: When Alexis Yetna gets drafted, you heard it here first.
• Bort: My 5’5” large adult son Johnny Ford.
• Carl: Alberto Barroso-Campos. Unsung hero of the year for USF, being selected as a top-16 seed in the NCAA tournament is no joke.
• Nick: Alberto Barroso-Campos for locking down POY status in men’s tennis.
• Steeg: Alexis Yetna before his injury was an absolute menace.
• Vito: Alberto Barroso-Campos; he went 20-2 and is ranked 15th nationally.
• Will: David Collins. Just look at our Twitter header, that’s all the explanation you need.
• Jamie: Up until mid-October this was surely going to be Jordan Cronkrite but... yeah. I’ll take ABC. Special shoutout to Laquincy Rideau in Game 2 against DePaul for one of the all-time single game hot streaks I’ve ever seen a USF player have,

BEST FEMALE ATHLETE

• Nathan: Come on. Georgina Corrick.
• Collin: Evelyne Viens. She’s preposterous to watch play against that competition, and I know nothing about softball but our league is #bad and that’s who Corrick got that (shutout) streak against. It’s insane Evelyne is not on the 23-player roster for this World Cup. Suck it Christine (Sinclair) and Canada, that’s bullshit.
• Bort: Georgina Corrick, hands down.
• Carl: Tie of Evelyne Viens and Georgina Corrick. Even without 4 goals against Florida College, Viens breaks the program record for career goals, which itself is monumental. Corrick, however, was absurdly good and impossible not to mention.
• Nick: No doubt it’s Boss Jr. Georgina Corrick.
• Steeg: Georgina CorricK, and it shouldn’t be even close
• Vito: Georgina CorricK, cause she’s about to own every record in the books and it’s a shame she didn’t get the opportunity to single handedly win the conference tournament on the field.
• Will: Georgina Corrick. She’s British and throws a softball really well... what more could you want?
• Jamie: This was going to be Corrick across the board until I reminded everyone Evelyne Viens still plays here. She tied for the most goals in the country this season and smashed the USF career scoring record with a full season to go. Honestly I’m a bit surprised she hasn’t gone pro.

BEST COACHING JOB

No votes were tabulated because the answer is Brian Gregory.

MOST SURPRISING TEAM

No votes were tabulated because the answer is men’s basketball.

MOST DISAPPOINTING TEAM

• Nathan: Baseball, unfortunately, wasting Joe Genord’s ridiculous senior year.
• Collin: I know they had massive arm problems, but a baseball team in Florida can’t ever finish ninth of nine in a league with UConn and Cincy in it.
• Bort: I’d say football, but we spent MONTHS screaming about how they were gonna eat it down the stretch, so baseball. (Still h8u, Gilbert.)
• Carl: Football. There’s a lot to focus on here, but Charlie’s gotta take more responsibility for the skid.
• Nick: Actually not going to go with football here because no one had a grip of what that team would be back in August. I’ll say baseball in an all-around disappointing year for athletics at large.
• Steeg: Baseball missing out on the AAC tournament is an absolute shame.
• Vito: It’s football. Don’t really care what the expectation was, it sure wasn’t that. I stayed up until 1 a.m. to watch the Gasparilla Bowl in London ffs.
• Will: Baseball. So much hype... so little results.
• Jamie: It is not acceptable for baseball to finish under .500 and dead last in the conference.