USATF Olympic Trials and NCAA Conference Affiliation

The US Olympic Track and Field team will be officially set tomorrow evening, and with the vast majority of teams set, I thought I would take a look at schools and conferences about to be represented in London. My initial hypothesis was that the Pac 12 would run away (lol) with the race for top conference, and this was definitely the case. With the teams set as of this morning, 25/84 athletes competed at Pac schools, for a 29.76% share. The specific schools within the Pac were surprising, with Oregon putting the most men (4) and most overall (5), and Stanford only sending one woman, I went into this believing UCLA and Stanford would be the best represented schools.

In on-topic, MGoBlog news, Michigan has sent two athletes, Jeff Porter qualified for the 110m Hurdles, and Geena Gall made the women's 800m Run team. The Big Ten sent three men (T4) and four women (T2).

Now a diary isn't a diary without Chart? Charts, and I need to explain what you're looking at. I broke down the trials by event, with a separate chart for men and women. The schools of athletes are posted in order of finish, with names posted for schools in the Pac 12, Big Ten, SEC, BXII, Ivy League (men only), ACC and Big East (both women only). Everyone else is represented with an "EE" designation. For further information, I will post the schools and events qualified on the other side of the charts.

Women's data:

Men's data:

WIsconsin, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Arizona State sent two male athletes. No school sent more than two women, with Tennessee, Texas, USC, Colorado, UCLA, UNC, Cal-State Dominguez and Hampton University each getting two.

The women's everyone else category included athletes from: Cal-State Dominguez, Hampton University, UC Davis, Roberts Wesleyan College, NDSU, Cal-Poly SLO, UNLV, Coastal Carolina.

The men's everyone else category included athletes who competed for: Community College Only, Clemson, Eastern Carolina, Willamette, Cal-State Los Angeles, Northern Arizona, Colorado College, South Dakota, Milliken University, Boise State, Ashland University, Morningside College.

For some closing notes...

• There were a ton of men who transferred from community colleges, although only one did not enroll at a four year institution. There were a couple transfers out of BCS conference schools (mostly out of Tennessee, oddly).
• Marquise Goodwin, the Texas WR, took the top long jump spot.
• Schools were counted by their conference affiliation for 2011-2012, i.e. Missouri is BXII, Nebraska is Big Ten.

Hope this is at least mildly amusing/informative for Sunday morning reading. I plan to update when the entire field is set, but the numbers shouldn't change significantly, as the majority of finalists in remaining events hail from Pac schools (and few events remain).