Greenspun Cup ranks schools on academic and athletic performance of every sport

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Published Monday, Jan. 4, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Updated Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016 | 2:43 p.m.

The inaugural Greenspun Cup competition is modeled on the Capital One Cup in college athletics and ranks Southern Nevada high schools based on academic and athletic performance of every sport.

Whether it’s girls volleyball, cross country or football, each sport is calculated equally.

The champion — the school with the most points after the spring season — will receive the cup trophy at our Las Vegas Sun Standout Awards show in May. The winning school keeps the cup for the year, and it will be awarded during next year’s show to the 2016-17 champions.

The competition is for the 30-plus schools in Southern Nevada’s Division-I and Division 1-A classifications.

For athletics, 10 points are awarded for a state championship. It’s eight points for two or more playoff wins and five points for making the postseason. For sports with meets as the state tournament, such as cross country, the state team champion still receives 10 points. It’s nine points for second place, eight for third and so forth.

So Chaparral received eight points for winning two football playoff games, and Desert Pines received five points for making the playoffs but only winning once.

For academics, we’ve partnered with the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association to use the team grade-point averages it collects for the team-by-team Academic State Championship. If a team wins the Academic State title, it’s worth 10 points — equal to winning an athletic title.

For a GPA of 3.5 or better, it’s eight points in the standings. It’s five points for 3.0 or better, and three points for 2.5 or better.

Faith Lutheran leads the Cup standings with 123 points after the eight-sport fall season because it captured the state championship in girls volleyball, golf and soccer. The Crusaders also won the state academic state championship in girls cross country and scored eight points for high GPAs in boys tennis and girls volleyball.

Some schools didn’t turn in team GPAs to the NIAA and won’t be included in our standings. The NIAA requested that we don’t publish GPAs.

Bishop Gorman is second with 113 points and Palo Verde is third at 109. Clark is fourth at 107, and is followed by Coronado with 103 points in fifth and Green Valley in sixth at 102.

Finalists and their families will be invited to the show, which is open and free to the public. The seating is limited to 400.