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Message: [QUOTE="LETTERL, post: 5106337, member: 4687"] I have a different take on "blue blood". I consider a blue blood to be a team with a rich, and extended history of fielding competitive teams and being a factor in the sport. This will upset many on the board...because the power teams now weren't necessarily power teams in the early days of modern WCBB. So...for me, blue blood teams would include Georgia, Tennessee, Stanford, Maryland, Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion as what I would call a "first tier" of blue blood. These teams each dominated the sport in stretches during the early founding years of WCBB and for the most part, are still a factor. LaTech and ODU have seen their fortunes fade in recent years but they each dominated the sport for a few years in the 1970s and 1980s. LaTech was a top team into the early 2000s. The next tier would include teams like UCONN, NC State, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, Ohio State, LSU, South Carolina. I'm sure if I had the time, I could expand on this but these are teams I remember being very, very good during my early days of following WCBB and for the most part, they're still mostly decent (Rutgers notwithstanding). These teams have each experienced long stretches of success and also some periods of mediocrity. I don't put UCONN in the first tier because it took a while for the UCONN machine to get going. But once it did...oh boy! Speaking for NC State, the Wolfpack Women were one of the early powers in modern WCBB, then other programs started putting more emphasis on the sport and State lost its advantage. Now, the team is in the midst of a revival...experiencing even greater success than we had in what were our dominant days. So...that's my take on what it means to be a blue blood. Did not mean to offend anyone by keeping their team off my list. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach