In my two years at Illinois, the Illini have won one national championship and five Big Ten Championships. There have been five individual Illini crowned national champions. But none of this success has been in football or men’s basketball.

Instead, in both football and men’s basketball, we’ve seen top-25 teams come crashing down, resulting in coaching changes. We’ve endured two years with just two total Big Ten football wins, and a men’s basketball team without any postseason in 2012.

The Daily Illini covers every varsity sport and the club hockey team, but we devote thousands of words more to the 2-10 football team than we do to the four-time defending Big Ten Champion men’s golf team or one of the fastest women in the world, Ashley Spencer.

I understand why we do this. Readers, myself included, want to know what’s going on with the football and men’s basketball teams. People pick up the paper when they see football on the front page. But there are hundreds of other student athletes who devote their lives to the sport they love without getting the publicity, and, at Illinois, they often have more success.

In my new position of Illini columnist, it will be my goal to highlight the sports that get less attention. I will highlight the success of defending NCAA Champion golfer Thomas Pieters. I will make sure that readers know how awesome the men’s gymnastics team really is.

For my first column, since many Illini fans have not followed the smaller sports, I have decided to rank them by the success they’ve had since I’ve been on campus. If you don’t agree with my rankings, let me know.

Johnathan is a sophomore in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @IlliniColumnist.