What an athletic year the Aggies are having, and it's not over.

A&M has retained the Lone Star Showdown trophy -- a piece of hardware some said they'd never win once, let alone keep it for a second year. The men's golf team won the national championship, the school's first NCAA-sanctioned team title in 22 years. And the men's and women's track team could be hoisting national championship hardware late Saturday night in Arkansas.

Remember, A&M has never won more than one national championship in a school year.

So, this the best year in school history. Right? Maybe, depending on how you define best.

They didn't have the Sears Cup or the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Directors' Cup two decades ago, but you didn't need them to know 1986-87 was a pretty good year in Aggieland.

That campaign was capped by A&M's national championship in softball. That, though, wasn't what had things buzzing around here.

The football team went 9-3, including a 7-1 record in the Southwest Conference. A&M had turned the corner in a big way under Jackie Sherrill, winning the second of three straight SWC titles. The Aggies suffered a 28-12 Cotton Bowl loss to Ohio State, which ending up costing A&M three straight Top 10 finishes. Still, the Aggies were 12th in the country.

Baseball also was booming back then. The Aggies were 44-22-1 under third-year coach Mark Johnson. A&M was 14-7 in the SWC, good for third place. The Aggies had been co-champs the previous year and just ahead was a 110-22 record for two seasons, including back-to-back 17-4 SWC championship teams.

The men's basketball team finished eighth in the SWC, but veteran head coach Shelby Metcalf pulled off a miracle by winning the SWC tournament and earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament. In men's track, Floyd Heard won the NCAA 200-meter dash. Stanley Kerr, Lawrence Felton and Greg Lewis also were All-Americans, while weightman Randy Barnes and hurdler Craig Calk were making national headlines.

The men's golf team won the SWC and finished 19th at nationals, its 11th straight Top 25 appearance.

Other than softball, women's sports -- many of them in their relative infancy -- were having a tough time gaining the spotlight from their male counterparts, but the volleyball team under Al Givens was second in the league and 17th in the country. The women's tennis team, under young head coach Bobby Kleinecke, was the SWC champ in 1986.

Sherrill, who was the school's AD from 1982-88, thought A&M should be competing for national championships in all sports. He thought Aggieland was a sleeping giant with its traditions and loyal alums, which is why he referred to it as the Mecca.

He thought the success in the late 1980s would be the start of something special around here. It wasn't though, at least not from a standpoint of national championships.

The football team kept winning after Sherrill left, going 94-28-2 in the 1990s, including three straight Top 10 finishes (1992-94). A 2-6 bowl record in that time, though, kept the Aggies from being considered an elite program and was a prelude to the struggles of the next decade, which the program is still trying to escape.

The rest of the sports have had mixed results since the dawn of the 1990s.

The baseball program made two trips to the College World Series, but the Aggies have fallen short of returning to Omaha for 10 straight years. The men's basketball program nose-dived after winning its last SWC tournament, not returning to the NCAA Tournament until its current run of four straight appearances. The women's basketball program reached the Sweet 16 in 1994, but that was the highlight until the arrival of Gary Blair and this current string of four straight NCAA Tournaments.

Even softball, the athletic department's most successful program in the 1980s, struggled in the 1990s. A&M missed the NCAA Tournament five of the 10 seasons, never making it back to the Women's College World Series until 2007.

Softball last year almost beat the men's golf team to ending A&M's national championship drought -- in NCAA-team sanctioned events -- with its national runner-up finish.

You knew it was only a matter of time before an Aggie team won a national championship, as the athletic program gradually climbed to a program-best 12th last year in the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Directors' Cup.

Former athletics director Wally Groff made some outstanding hires, including men's golf coach J.T. Higgins, and he started building several of A&M's world-class facilities. Current AD Bill Byrne has continued improving facilities and he made several shrewd hires, especially in both basketball programs.

There's no doubt A&M is in position to have unparalleled success, but for that to happen the football program has to become a Top 20 program.

Most will argue that seasons like 1986-87 were more successful than this one, even if A&M ends up with three national championships. A 4-8 football season just doesn't look good on the national ledger of success.

It always gets back to football, whether you live in College Station or Columbus, Ohio. I've been asked several times this week what the prospects for the A&M football team are this fall. Not once has anyone asked me what I thought A&M's chances were for winning a national championship in track.

It's not that Aggies don't care. They do. It's just that they care a whole lot more about football, which is why the 1990s -- even with bad basketball -- was a pretty good decade for many.

BIG 12'S NATIONAL TITLES

The men's golf championship by Texas A&M was the Big 12's 32nd since the league's inception. Here are the others:

Baylor: women's basketball (2005); men's tennis (2004).

Colorado: men's cross country (2001, '04, '08); women's cross country (2000, '04).

Kansas: men's basketball (2008).

Nebraska: football (1997); women's volleyball (2000, '06).

Oklahoma: football (2000); softball (2000).

Oklahoma State: men's golf (2000, '06); wrestling (2003, '04, '05, '06).

Texas: baseball (2002, '05); football (2005); women's indoor track (1998, '99, 2006); women's outdor track (1998, '99, 2005); men's swimming (2000, '01, '02).

Source: Big 12 Conference

NCAA TITLES

Here are the overall team NCAA championships by Big 12 institutions:

Oklahoma State48

Texas45

Oklahoma24

Colorado23

Nebraska20

Iowa State13

Kansas10

Texas A&M5

Baylor2

Missouri2

Texas Tech1

Source: Big 12 Conference