The great state of Texas (64) has as many NCAA qualifiers as California (33) and Florida (31) combined

Pretty amazing for a state that has troubles keeping the lights on when the weather gets slightly wonky. Priorities, I suppose.

Are you talking about native Texans or people who go to college in Texas?

Stop, you're just confusing Rojo even more than he already is

The state of Texas has like 25 of the fastest 30 4 x 200 and 4 x 100 of all time.

it's a big state. that's how it works. not sure why Rojo thinks this is news

California and Alaska are big states as well.

Ummmm.... it got political before the first post.

yes, they are...riveting stuff

To be expected from a state that is almost as big as half the contiguous US, and embraces HS track and field, especially the sprints and relays which have more competitors. California, Oregon, and Florida have better distance runners. In other words, so what.

Texas has a sprint tradition second to none, high school and college combined. The uniformly warm weather provided by Southeast Conference schools has likely contributed (along with proud traditions and alot of stellar coaching by giants like John McDonnell at Arkansas and Pat Henry at LSU) to their overall track & field success over the last few decades.

The real news -and concern- is the demise of the once-mighty Pac-12 (and its many earlier iterations including the Pacific Coast Conference, Pac-8, and Pac-10). These conference schools (led especially by Southern Cal) dominated college men's track & field (alas, women didn't have college programs to compete in until the 1980s) for some 60 years (with Big-10 & other Midwest programs providing primary competition) up until the 1980s, when Arkansas emerged as a dominant force.

Where the Pac-12 schools really shined, however, were in Olympic sports in general. If you look at the cumulative all-time list of U.S. colleges & universities that have had the most Olympic medalists over time, the juggernaut Pac-12 schools (USC, Stanford, UCLA, and Cal-Berkeley) completely dominate; no other schools are close (UT Austin is a distant 5th; the only Texas university in the top 20: See-
List of American universities with Olympic medalist students and alumni - Wikipedia). Another three former Pac-12 schools (U. of Washington, Arizona, and Arizona State) also rank in the top-20. Will the former Pac-12 conference schools continue their stellar Olympic traditions amidst these rapidly changing times, where ridiculous conference re-alignments implemented in the chase for college football dollars may make the burden of travel not worth it for many West Coast athletes? Where evolving NIL and emerging pay-before-play arrangements alter what it means in terms of program commitments? We'll see.

I think Texas should Construct a border wall and never let anyone out!

I don't think anyone ever wants to leave Texas.

Now how many left handed and how many right handed?

Ted Cruz spent his holidays elsewhere.

By population no states can can match the number of qualifiers from Jamaica and Kenya.

I bet cali has more water polo and beach volleyball qualifuers. Cali cares a bit less abbout fb and track and is more spread out in its athletic pursuits. Texas is all fb and track since track helps fb guys get faster.

As TeXXAas is big state, as lots of people as football and track is big sport as many many fast kids running at school as big track meats