The opprobrium is often manifest. From directors of studies, from tutors, from lecturers and supervisors, even from the most part of the Varsity team, the incredulity is deafening: ‘You’re a sportsman? How could you know anything? You must be scraping that 2.ii…’

That is, of course, a crass generalization, but the point remains salient: even in Cambridge, excellence in sport and excellence in academia are often assumed to be mutually-exclusive phenomena. Pointing to the post-grads who railroad through admissions to Varsity glory and to the historical tradition of a pretty cover-drive being sufficient qualification, the perception endures. Exceptions seem only to prove the rule.

But is this fair? In the second of three special features this term, Varsity Sport investigates by asking the question, ‘If Blues sportsmen formed a college, where would it place in the Tompkins table?’ To wit, are sportsmen possessed of the smarts?

To answer, Varsity Sport has consulted online and published repositories of academic results, and so has assessed the 2011 Tripos performance of eight of the university’s leading and larger sports squads. (A minimum of 15 accessible results were required for a sport to be included)

Throughout, the same method has been applied as used for the calculation of the Tompkins Table proper – five points are awarded for a First, three for a 2.i, two for a 2.ii, and only one for a Third. The total number of points is then converted into a percentage of the maximum possible points.

With respect to post-graduate students, we have used their last Tripos result, or the grade for their M.Phil dissertation, or their undergraduate grade from their first university. Where none of these statistics was accessible, the sportsman in question has been discounted from the calculations.

Admittedly, the comparison of a sporting squad of, say, twenty individuals to a college of more than a hundred people may not be empirically ideal. In any college, after all, the range of abilities is likely to be much greater. Nevertheless, the question being asked deserves an answer: how do communities of sportsmen compare academically to the community at large?

The findings are remarkable. If entered into the Tompkins Table, the 178 sportsmen forming our ‘College of Blues’ would be placed in third, behind only Trinity and Emmanuel.

The performance of individual sports is even more impressive. If placed into the Tompkins Table, the hypothetical colleges of hockey players, athletes, and cricketers would each be placed in first. Footballers and tennis players would come in third, while golfers would find themselves in fourth. Indeed, only last year’s rugby players (14th) and rowers (22nd) would be placed outside the top five colleges.

This much, then, is clear: far from a footnote to the academic life of the University, Cambridge’s sportsmen are in fact among its leading lights.

Why so? Could we trumpet that adage of Juvenal? Is an alpha-male predilection to dominate carried off the pitch and into the library? Is it just coincidence?

Of the further conclusions one might draw, Varsity Sport is less sure. Perhaps the stereotype of the stash-clad and Cindies-bothering roid-head belies impressive management of time and natural intelligence. Perhaps directors of studies and supervisors should be more tolerant of the late-coming, shaker-wielding sportsman.

The University might even consider that the sports centre proposed for construction on Wilberforce Road is not only necessary to the sporting health of the student body, but would be an effective aid to academic achievement as well.

Let us know what you think at: sport@varsity.co.uk