From what I see, things are looking pretty good for Binghamton University athletics. Binghamton has shown the America East and the NCAA that it will be a fixture in Division I for years to come.

The quality of Binghamton teams has continued to improve since the school made the move to Division I. Last year, three Bearcat programs won an America East championship: men’s basketball, baseball and men’s tennis. Men’s soccer, volleyball and women’s tennis were all runner-ups to the championship last year with a handful of other teams getting to the semifinals or securing top-3 finishes. Across the board, other schools are seeing us as a legitimate powerhouse in the America East. Regardless of the sport, AE rivals need to see Binghamton as a threat, because we are.

For the last two years, I have had a unique position at Binghamton. I work for the athletics department and I am a member of the sports staff for Pipe Dream. Each of these commitments have given me very different and very close analyses of Bearcat athletics.

An inside look at the administrative workings of the athletics department have shown me that the school is committed to having quality teams in every sport. Despite the budget cutbacks that have plagued the entire school, the department has found ways around the financial strains to ensure that our teams are as well prepared and as well trained as they can be.

From a journalist’s point of view, I have seen the hard work of BU athletics and their teams displayed on the courts and fields. As would be expected, when we first arrived on the Division I scene in 2001, we were placed in the AE and were at the bottom of the conference in most sports. Binghamton completed the jump from Division III to Division I faster than any other school in history. Some teams were competitive so early in BU’s stint at D-1 that their successes didn’t get enough recognition.

The men’s soccer team has been the most successful program on campus. In 2003, the program not only won its first-ever AE title to get to the NCAA tournament, but they shocked Fairleigh Dickinson University in the first round with a 1-0 win. The team has been in the AE finals every year since then and has set a conference record for six consecutive finals appearances; the team also took home the AE title in 2006.

Binghamton volleyball won its only conference title and made its NCAA Division I debut in 2005 and has advanced to at least the AE semifinals for the last five years. The team was picked to finish first in the AE this season in the coaches’ preseason poll, bringing serious hope of another title for the successful program.

The school’s athletic successes just eight years into its D-1 existence speak not only to the commitment of the coaches and players but also to the administration’s hard work under athletic director Joel Thirer. Thirer engineered the historic jump through the bowels of the NCAA. He accomplished the feat not only in record time but preserved the ideals that Binghamton has always displayed: the premise that the players are indeed student-athletes.

Through all the successes in the games and matches, BU has also been strong in athletes’ cumulative grade point average. In the 2007-08 America East Academic Cup standings, Binghamton’s athletes secured a 3.04 cumulative grade point average. The men’s soccer team recorded the highest GPA in the nation among D-1 schools, 3.37, helping Binghamton become one of only five AE schools to post a 3.00 grade point average that year. The Academic Cup, established by the AE Board of Directors in 1995, is presented to the institution whose student-athletes post the highest grade point averages during that academic year.

The combination of success in competition with the intense focus on academics makes it easy for me to be so happy with the state of Bearcat athletics. There are issues and controversy with any school’s athletics, but our school overcomes negative hurdles by consistently displaying high standards and high quality on and off the field.

Programs like women’s lacrosse and softball are consistently bottom feeders in the AE, but they are not enough to disrupt BU’s new image. Not every program will adjust so quickly into a serious transition, but give those programs time and hopefully they will make BU as strong in those sports as it has become in so many others.