Lincoln East High School has built a reputation for its successful and diverse sports and clubs. That success is recognized through the Nebraska School Activities Association Cup (NSAA Cup), and East is now closer than ever to its fourth championship.
The NSAA Cup, created in 2006, celebrates the achievements of nearly every high school activity and program in the state. Schools gain points through participation and high rankings in NSAA-sanctioned activities. The divisions are divided by class and category – all-school, girls, and boys. The cup is seen as the overall measure of a school’s performance. The point system is that in a state competition, if a school team gets first place, that’s 50 points. Second would be 45 points, third place is 40 points, and for each lower place, you decrease the points gained by 5 until 8th place, which is 15 points. Using this point system, you can see just how much East has been able to accomplish. Winning 2021-2022 with 782.5 points, and finishing with 850 points winning in 2023. Currently, Lincoln East stands at 417.5 points at the half way point, and shows no sign of stopping.
Consistently ranking high in the NSAA Cup reflects the school’s ability to have success over a broad number of programs. Schools that focus solely on one or two sports can struggle to keep up and gain points during the Cup. In that way, the NSAA Cup encourages schools to develop into and invest in many different kinds of extracurricular activities.
Schools gain points from several different activities. Team sports such as football, basketball, volleyball, and tennis contribute points based on how they place in state tournaments, in most cases from the top eight finishers. But individual sports such as track, cross-country, swimming, and wrestling add points as well, yet for top individual finishes.
What’s great about the Cup is that there are all sorts of programs and activities, meaning that it’s not just sports like basketball, football, tennis, but speech, theater, and bowling. Which means that almost all of student’s interests are recognized, and add to a bigger goal of winning the NSAA Cup.
“It shows that there is something for everyone at LPS to be involved in, both in athletics and activities,” Lincoln Public Schools Director of Athletics and Activities J.J. Toczek said in the LPS article “East captures NSAA Cup championship”. “We encourage all students to get involved, because we know that students who participate in athletics and activities enjoy greater success academically and have a lot of health benefits, both physically and mentally. It’s better for the entire community when students are participating in things at school.”
Sadly, not every single club or activity can be sanctioned by the NSAA. Meaning that there’s definitely more programs that they can add. For example, speech is considered a sanctioned sport, and according to Lincoln East’s Athletic and Activities Director Zach Limbach, one of the biggest point generators out of all of the activities that happen at East. But debate, while still being a sanctioned activity, doesn’t attribute points to the NSAA Cup. Meaning they don’t get the same push and encouragement that speech does, despite how similar they are. There’s also Esports, which regularly participates in State Championships and competitions. Just last year, Esports got 2nd place in State chess, 1st in state SSBU(Super Smash Bros Ultimate), and so much more. There’s so many more activities and programs where students put so much effort into, but don’t get the same gratitude and achievements that sanctioned sports do.
While Lincoln East has dominated in recent years, other schools such as Lincoln Southwest and Omaha Westside have been close competitors. Westside has been consistently neck and neck with East for the past 4 years. Last year, Westside won with 642.5 points, winning the All-School Division, and getting 375 points, just barely behind East in the Boys Division, and got fourth in the Girls Division with 287.5 points.
“I would say lately, we’ve really rivaled Westside for the NSAA Cup,” Limbach said. “They’ve had tremendous success in a variety of programs. So for the last three to four years, it’s really been us and them.”
The NSAA Cup has helped East in so many ways, and the tradition of winning the Cup continues to pass on generation to generation, pushing East students to new heights.
“It cultivated success,” Limbach said. “Coaches started to ask other coaches what they were doing to be so successful, and that alone built a stronger community and more trust in our coaches. Now all of a sudden you have programs supporting other programs which is exactly what you want.”
The NSAA Cup is meant to reward schools that succeed across a large variety of programs, not only to show how well the schools are doing, but also to encourage a more connected and supported culture, unified under the same goal. Winning is truly special, because every student is able to show their dedication and effort.
“This is a huge honor for both Lincoln East and Lincoln Public Schools,” Toczek said. “It shows the time, dedication and effort that both our athletics and activities student participants and our coaches put in to make the programs successful at Lincoln East. This is an award that encompasses both sports and fine arts, so it really is a great honor.”
Year after year, Lincoln East students raise the bar, from the 560 points in the beginning, all the way to 850 in 2022-2023. The NSAA Cup is a competition that pushes us to improve and move forward, bringing those around us up with us, creating the community we treasure so much today.
