I live in Minnesota, where the news media are obsessed with weather. You hear things like "We have had more rain during the last 9 days than any 9-day period since 1972" or "The high temperature of the day has been lower for 3 days in a row than any 3-day period in August since 1948."

It goes to show that, if you define your categories narrowly enough, practically every event breaks a record of some kind.

The university I used to work for brags on its web site—and in lots of its recruitment materials—that it is "the top-ranked Minnesota university in its class in the 2011 rankings of 'America's Best Colleges' by U. S. News & World Report magazine." To know what this means, you have to know what "in its class" means. Its "class" is officially "Regional Universities (Midwest)." That means it doesn't get compared to Carleton, Gustavus Adolphus, Macalester, St. John's, or St. Olaf because those are liberal arts colleges, not universities. It doesn't get compared to the University of Minnesota, St. Mary's, or St. Thomas, because those are classified as national universities, not regional ones. (I'm not sure how USN&WR decides to classify an institution as regional or national; I suppose it has to do with where their students come from). And of course it's not comparing itself to any institution outside of Minnesota, although Wisconsin is only 25 miles away.

If you define your class of competitors narrowly enough, you can excel at anything.