We often see the top female talent go to Stanford or Washington only to get burnt out (due to injury or giving up the sport entirely)
Does anyone know which colleges have produced the most number of elites? I imagine Colorado would be one of them (they do a good job of fostering their athletes and not burning them out quickly.)
I’d agree that Colorado has been most successful lately with Goucher, Simpson, Coburn, and probably Jones To follows next.
Georgetown has also been pretty successful until very recently.
First you'd have to define what it means to be pro.
After that, even with a loose definition of "pro", I'm not sure there would be a large enough sample of women to really draw powerful conclusions.
I would agree, however, with the fact that Colorado has done it quite well.
Just looked through some of the top US women off the top of my head (most have made teams):
Alysia Montaño 800m - University of CA, Berkeley
Kerri Gallagher 1500m - Fordham
Abbey D'Agostino 5000m, 10000m - Dartmouth
Emily Infeld 5000m, 10000m - Georgetown
Karissa Schweizer 5000m, 10000m - Missouri
Raevyn Rogers 800m - University of Oregon
Emma Coburn 1500m, steeplechase - Colorado
Kara Goucher 5000m, 10000m, marathon - Colorado
Courtney Frerichs steeplechase - Missouri KC, New Mexico
Mel Lawrence steeplechase - University of Washington
Colleen Quigley 1500m, steeplechase - Florida State
Stephanie Garcia steeplechase - University of Virginia
Jenny Simpson 1500m - Colorado
Shannon Rowbury 1500m, 5000m - Duke
Brenda Martinez 800m, 1500m - University of CA, Riverside
Kim Conley 5000m - UC Davis
Shelby Houlihan 1500m, 5000m - Arizona
Molly Huddle 5000m, 10000m, marathon - Notre Dame
Marielle Hall 10000m, marathon - Texas
Kate Grace 800m, 1500m - Yale
Sara Vaughn - 1500m - Colorado
Emily Sisson 10000m - Providence
Jordan Hasay 10000m, marathon - University of Oregon
Desiree Linden marathon - Arizona State
Amy Cragg marathon - Arizona State
Shalane Flanagan marathon - North Carolina
At a glance, I only see Colorado and Arizona State multiple times, with Colorado at 4 (Sara Vaughn, Emma Coburn, Jenny Simpson, Kara Goucher.)
I am surprised they don't attract more of the top-end HS talent. Are they not a particularly good school, academically speaking?