HERMOSA BEACH, California — Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth joined the podcast final month. Within the accompanying article that comes with every episode of SANDCAST, I discussed that Nuss is the very best paid NCAA seashore volleyball participant of all time.
A couple of days later, Jordan Cheng, a superb pal of mine and coach of Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng, requested how Nuss’ 139 wins may very well be greater than Hughes’ 190 wins.
He isn’t the primary to ask this query.
When Nuss broke the NCAA file in his last season in 2021, LSU rightly raised the difficulty. A short while later, Hughes’ coach at USC, Anna Collier, known as and requested how this might have occurred since Nuss wasn’t getting as many whole wins as Hughes.
Within the two years since then, at any time when I write about Hughes or Nuss and pay attention to his achievements at college, readers from each side of the LSU-USC divide will message me with digital pitchforks and torches.
Each will not be mistaken.
LSU is correct to congratulate Nuss because the highest-paid NCAA seashore volleyball participant of all time.
USC is correct to assert that Hughes is the highest-paid faculty seashore volleyball participant of all time.
Each gamers will go together with unwavering legacies within the sport. Hughes helped create essentially the most dynastic program in all faculty sports activities. Nuss helped put a daring LSU program on the map, an East Area staff match to problem the West. Each are at present in competition to qualify for the Olympic Video games, thought-about two of the highest three defensive gamers in the USA.
However what does it give? Who’s the actual queen of the School Seashore throne?
Each actually.
Hughes completed his profession at USC 190-8; Nuss capped his in LSU 139-21. The place the semantics are available in is when Hughes competed within the AVCA in his first two years at USC, the game was thought-about an “rising sport” till he was on the verge of 40 colleges adopting it as an formally sanctioned sport. The 2014 and 2015 seasons weren’t counted as they have been technically AVCA wins and never NCAA wins. 86 wins from the NCAA ledger leaves him with 104 NCAA wins.
Once more, semantics. And once more, neither fan base is mistaken. Hughes received 190 video games in 4 seasons at USC. Kelly Claes (now Cheng) received 181 and Nicolette Martin 141; these are all cumulatively larger totals, clearly, than Nuss’s 139. Each Cheng and Hughes have larger profession win percentages at college than Nuss, at 95.9% and 94.3%, respectively. 86.8% winner.
The worth of those wins is after all debatable, which makes the game enjoyable. Nuss had dozens of applications to compete with, extra proficient than Hughes, Cheng and Martin. After all, Hughes and Cheng competed within the West Area, which was rather more troublesome than the East.
It is all subjective.
Objectively, Nuss is the highest-paid NCAA Seashore Volleyball participant of all time.
Hughes is the very best paid faculty participant.
Two ideas, each are right.
So who’s the queen?
It is as much as you.
#queen #NCAA #Seashore #Volleyball
