Thompson’s boys sports named top-10 program in country

Published 7:09 pm Thursday, May 7, 2020

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Managing Editor

There is no hiding the success that Thompson High School athletics had during the 2019-20 sports season winning five team state championships.

That success was recently honored by MaxPreps, which named its top sports programs from the 2019-20 athletic year on Thursday, May 7, including the Thompson boys’ programs.

Known as the MaxPreps Cup, the formula was developed to identify the top high school athletic programs in the nation using state championships and runner-up finishes to award points.

Other factors affecting the point totals include popularity of sport, size of state, state enrollment divisions and the number of schools in each state enrollment division. Points are also awarded for national rankings where available.

For the Thompson Warriors boys, they accumulated 749 points after winning the state football championship, the wrestling duals state championship, the wrestling overall state championship, the bowling state championship and an eSports state championship. That was more than enough to make Thompson the sixth best boys athletic program in the country.

Bozeman (Mont.) High School finished 30 points ahead of Thompson to close out the top five, while Carmel (Ind.) High School took home the cup with 854 points.

With the impressive season, Thompson also claimed the No. 1 overall program in Alabama and No. 8 overall program in the country regardless of sex.

A big reason for that was the success of the indoor track team and girls bowling team, both of which finished as state runner-ups during the winter portion of the season.

The football team also gained points in addition to winning the state championship thanks to finishing the season ranked 24th in the country.

Thompson’s total in the state competition beat out Homewood by close to 200 points.

In addition to those team sports gaining points for the competition, the Warriors also had several state champions in individual competitions including cross country, track and field and wrestling.