November 24, 2023
Amazing truckloads of information that is available on the NCAA website concerning the recent national championship men's and women's meets in Virginia last week. Also some good analyses by LetsRun.com.
With a huge amount of controversy in our country and around the world on immigration and foreigners (witness the riot in Ireland yesterday, the recent election of a right wing anti-immigrant government in the Netherlands of all places, the return of hostages from Gaza, many of whom were from Thailand, and England's efforts to ship immigrants to Rwanda), we also see in the US the machinations of politicians trying to line up votes for next year with some of them using immigrants as scapegoats as the reason for all our ills. Those politicians might want to ask themselves who is going to wipe their butts and feed them in their final days in a nursing home not to mention all the folks who will put food from the fields onto our tables and all the immigrants who have filled many high powered jobs in our country. We would be nowhere without them. Of course First Nation brothers may have a very different opinion of these ramblings. One might also note that the violent event in Ireland yesterday that sparked that riot was actually quelled by an immigrant from Brazil. Sport however seems to be a more open ground of acceptance not withstanding our long history of racism and denial of entry into sport. Today what percentage of Major League baseball players are from Latino countries, some even from Australia? In the NBA 'international' is a synonym for some great players including last year's MVP. In soccer there seems to be no international border except when a World Cup is being played although racism does rear its ugly head in the grandstands.
Anyway back to Cross Country and the recent NCAA meet. I looked at composition of teams on the NCAA site and found that in the women's race in the TOP 20 teams consisting of 140 runners, there were 35 Foreign athletes (25%), only 29 In State athletes (20.7%) and 76 athletes recruited from Out of State (54.3%)
Of the Top 20 teams on the men's side, 139 athletes, 40 were Foreign (28.8%) 33 athletes were from In State (23.7%) and 66 athletes were Out of State or (47.5%).
On the Women's side the top runner on 8 teams was Foreign, Top runner on 3 teams was from In State. And the top runner on 9 teams was Out of State.
On the Men's side the top runner on 7 teams was Foreign. Top runner on 13 teams was Out of State. And there were no top runners on any men's team from In State.
Admittedly in the East where population is more concentrated, the recruiting radius might also be something to analyse.
Of course kids like cross country runners are above the average in intelligence and they may like to get away from home and travel and that draws them out of their balliwiks, but the coaches have to find out who wants to get out of Dodge and come run in a strange place with new challenges.
Especially of note would be California Baptist University which had 100% teams of all foreigners from the Baltics Spain and North Africa and Latin America on their men's and women's teams. U. of New Mexico had an all Foreign women's team as well. Checking on the make up of these team rosters there were a few Americans but they were not able to crack the top seven to go to nationals. On the men's side BYU, Texas, and Michigan had majority of In State athletes.
There's lots more in these numbers to look at, but I don't have the time or inclination. It would be interesting to follow the coaches as they move from job to job to see if they have a consistent make up of their teams in different job sites.
Below is the data on which I based this post. George
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