ANNAPOLIS, Md.–Navy Athletics finished 98 out of 365 schools in the NACDA Learfield Directors Cup for the 2024-25 athletic season.  The Mids scored 191.8 points, which was the most of any Service Academy, the second-most of any Patriot League school (Boston University finished 73^rd with 314.5 points) and the second-most of any American Athletic Conference school (USF finished 78^th with 294.75 points).

The Learfield Directors Cup is given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics. Points for the NACDA Directors’ Cup are based on order of finish in various championships sponsored by the NCAA or, in the case of FBS football, the coaches’ poll and bowl wins.

A first-place finish in a sport earns 100 points, second place 90 points, third place 85 points, fourth place 80 points, and lesser values for lower finishes (exact numbers beyond fourth place depend on the sport.

NCAA Division I counts the top 19 sports at each school with the following breakdown: Four sports that must be counted are baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and women’s volleyball.  The next highest 15 sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, will be used in the standings (except men’s water polo, which is the only NCAA sponsored sport that NACDA does not give points for.  For FBS Football: the top 25 teams are awarded points based on their final rank in the coaches poll, while 26th place is considered a tie between every non-ranked bowl winner and the next available rank is considered a tie between every non-ranked bowl loser.

Navy scored 72 points in the fall (27 points by men’s cross country, 45 points by football), 85.5 points in the winter (32.5 points from men’s gymnastics and 53 points from wrestling) and 34.3 points in the spring (9.3 points by women’s golf and 25 points by women’s lac

The teams of Gage Basey/Thomas Hurst and Marine Kinna/Chloe Loreen captured top honors Sunday in the $60,000 Association of Volleyball Professionals’ Contender Series tournament in Virginia Beach. Each of those pairs split $9,750 first-place prizes.

People going by 12th Street and Atlantic Avenue on the weekend saw powerful spikes, diving digs and precise sets on the sand from players who are looking to break through to the AVP’s top-tier events.

The last player from Hampton Roads in the event was Ayden Keeter of Yorktown, who combined with his Webber International beach volleyball college teammate Carson Barnes of Ocean View, Delaware, to go 3-0 Saturday — 2-0 in pool play before a round-of-16 victory. They split $1,200 after a 21-14, 21-18 quarterfinal defeat to eventual semifinalists Diego Perez and Jeff Samuels.

Basey, from the University of Colorado, and Hurst, from Irvine, California, were seeded fifth. Those 21-year-olds outlasted top-seeded Derek Bradford of Porter Ranch, California, and Evan Cory of Metairie, Louisiana, 18-21, 21-19, 15-12 in the final for their third victory of the day. Bradford and Cory split $5,250.

In the women’s competition, Kinna and Loreen capped a dominant day with three straight-sets victories, beating 15th-seeded Piper Ferch and Hailey Hamlett 21-18, 21-13 for the championship.

Kinna, a 25-year-old from France, played for three colleges, including Division I Loyola Marymount. Loreen, 26, from Seattle, played for Santa Clara and the Washington Huskies.

After a three-set triumph Saturday in their second round of pool play, Kinna and Loreen never came close to losing a set in the elimination bracket.

Ferch, 21, a Cal Poly player, and Hamlett, from TCU, split $5,250. They defeated a pair of higher-seeded teams to reach the title match, including a 15-21, 21-18, 15-13 semifinal thriller over No. 4 Malia Gementera and Taylor Hagenah, a Long Beach State combination.

All of the teams that lost in the round of 16 split $600, the quarterfinal losers divided $1,200, and the semifinalists pocketed $2,700. The finalists earned wild-card berths in the higher-level AVP Manhattan Beach Open in California in August.

Whether he was defending passes in football or soaring through the air in track, Nick Humphries left his mark at North Allegheny.

Now he’s ready to make the leap all the way to Des Moines, Iowa.

The 2025 NA graduate departed in late June for Drake, where he will begin preparation for his first year with the Division I FCS football program.

“I’m very excited,” Humphries said. “It’s a new chapter in my life. Closing this one and opening a new one is always good. As a young kid, I always had a dream to play Division I football. This is very big for me, so I’m excited.”

Humphries, who was part of WPIAL champion teams in football and track, was set to leave for Drake on June 26 to start orientation, move into his dorm room and begin summer conditioning.

A lot has changed since Humphries, a 6-foot, 170-pound two-time all-conference defensive back, committed to Drake in October. Former Bulldogs coach Todd Stepsis departed in early December for Northern Iowa, and Joe Woodley, who had led crosstown Grand View to the 2024 NAIA national championship, was hired at Drake on
Dec. 23.

STEP INSIDE JOHN CHAPLIN’S world, and you quickly realize you’re not in a typical home. The walls are adorned with art collected from around the world, including woodcuts by his father, an internationally acclaimed artist. His den is filled with hundreds of books curated by an intellect … the Harvard Classics, the complete works of Spinoza, 15 volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia, and the book he believes is the finest of the 20th century, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.

The books share space with an eclectic liquor collection befitting a world traveler of discriminating taste. Chaplin holds a soft spot for Vintage Port, with Hungarian Tokaji and Lemon Grand Marnier from Argentina not far behind. 

The 2.5-acre Chaplin spread sits about seven miles outside of Pullman, off Highway 27, on the way to Palouse. Inside and out, the place is almost as interesting as the man himself. 

“As you can tell, this is where I belong,” Chaplin said in conversations with Cougfan.com over the last month-and-a-half. “This den is the 14th century without the TV set. This is a library den with a bar and that’s the best liquor collection in Eastern Washington.”

To talk with John Chaplin is to enter a place where history, philosophy, and blunt honesty matter more than any medal ever could. Asked about the news earlier this month that WSU is paring its track and field program down to just distance running, he delivers in straight-forward fashion.

“As an alumni who coached here for many years and led the program to worldwide success, WSU has delivered a strong message to current athletes, past athletes and coaches: you don’t give a damn. There are many ways to adjust budgets without throwing in the towel,” he said.

“To drop a bomb like this in the dark of night and then run off and hide from questions the media is asking is embarrassing. And the kids didn’t even find out from the athletic director — an associate AD, who couldn’t tell you if a track is pumped or stuffed, was sent.”

Efforts by Cougfan.com to reach WSU AD Anne McCoy and track coach Wayne Phipps for insight beyond the five-sentence June 16 press release announcing the gutting of the program have so far been unsuccessful.

CHAPLIN’S SPIRIT AND ENERGY, nearly nine decades in, suggest but one thought about the younger Chaplin who built a juggernaut on the Palouse: he must have been a perpetual motion machine.

In Man of the Oval: The International Legacy of John Chaplin and WSU Track & Field — the page-turning book about Chaplin that came out in 2023 — Chaplin recounts asking the doctor how his blood pressure was stacking up. The doctor replied, “Hell, John, you don’t have high blood pressure. You give it.”

Chaplin, 88, spends much of his time today reading and writing. Asked how he stays fit, he fires back, “Are you crazy? I don’t believe in physical exercise. As a former quarter-miler, I say anyone who runs more than one lap is missing their hole card.”

From 1965 with Gerry Lindgren to 1999 with Bernard Lagat, Washington State University was a world power in track and field, and Chaplin was part of all but a handful of those 34 years. In 1968 the legendary Jack Mooberry hired him as an assistant track and field coach and cross country head coach. For 21 years, from 1973-94, Chaplin ran the whole show and the results were downright storybook.

And it was storybook in colorful fashion. Chaplin was a walking quote factory and his recruiting — built on in-staters, walk ons and a marvelous array of international athletes — was nothing short of head turning.

When opposing coaches grumbled about his international pipeline, Chaplin ringed Mooberry Field with flagpoles flying the colors of every nation represented by his Cougars. By the time he retired in 1994, 31 different flags had flown at the track.