Any minorities on college teams?

Ummm....ever heard of German Fernandez?

Ummm....ever heard of Mohammed Ahmed?

Ummm...ever heard of Lawi Lalang?

0/10.

Little known fact. XC teams have the best grades. They keep them white or asian to keep the GPA up for all sports teams.

The fact that you can find examples of minority runners does not disprove his point.

Smismard wrote:

Ummm....ever heard of Mohammed Ahmed?

I went to the BIG 10 Champs yesterday and I was a little surprised at how few non-whites there were. The Men's race had two black guys and I think everyone else would have been just considered white. I think that every school fields a team except Northwestern for Men. Ahmed was third and the other black guy got last in about 27:25.

In the Women's race it was worse and there was just one black gal in the race. There may have been some Asian girls, I was not paying attention to that. I was just struck (after being used to running against many non-white kids my whole life) by how the race was more homogenous than my Conference Meets used to be.

I guess you don't see that many black American kids in the Steeple, 5k and 10k. You see some in the 1500, but they must get displaced by better distance runners at the relatively high level of the BIG 10.

Yes I realize there are national caliber runners of other ethnicities, but they are usually the only ones on their team.

Also, I didn't necessarily mean guys who came over to the US from Africa or the UK. I guess I was referring to more American high schoolers that may be black/hispanic/asian.

I realize not too many black runners specialize in distance, but hispanic and asians I just find it fascinating. I guess I'm biased due to the heavy asian running population in my community and conference.

So any collegiate teams with several minorities on them or with American high school minorities?

You need to look at it from a cultural standpoint as well as socioeconomic status. It will make more sense if you do.

Readroom wrote:

The fact that you can find examples of minority runners does not disprove his point.

He didn't have a point. He had a question. The fact that posters can find examples of minority runners does answer his question.

I was one of the few non-white dudes on my team in college (~three out of many). I had great teammates and can't complain about my experiences. I'm still friends with a lot of the guys. Anyhow, I still run at the park where the team often runs, and saw them the other day. I was amazed that the *whole* team was all white dudes. This is even more surprising/saddening considering the head coach (then and now) is a man of color (same background as me). I would hope that he give an extra effort to recruit kids of color, but I'm not sure that's the case. Not judging, as I don't know all the numbers or factors, but that's my observation.

Obviously, part of it is socioeconomic. In California, there are a lot of Mexican kids on high school teams, many of them good. It's understandable that the number of those kids to run in college decreases dramatically given that the number of Mexican kids that go to college is much less than that of whites. I ran at a community college, and while there are a huge number of Mexican kids running there, not enough make it past. Again, various factors cause this. The sad truth.

Running in the United States is a middle/upper-class sport. It lacks the prestige and potential fortune that can attract prodigies in other sports. It can also be fairly expensive--shoes ain't cheap. Some kids might have to work instead of continuing their running/education. I was lucky enough to have parents that could support my efforts financially and emotionally. My dad would go in early, work late, or take a late lunch in order to see my weekday meets, and would also drive to weekend meets. But I had plenty of teammates in high school who quit because they had to work. I had others whose parents never came to a meet (for whatever reasons).

The lack of kids of color is very personal to me, and has always been a concern of mine, as is the lack of kids of color going on to college. I guess the solution to the latter would address much of the former. What do others think? Serious responses, please.

5/25 on the OK State mens roster are African American. Some of the others may be of native American or hispanic descent (one photo is unavailable).

http://www.okstate.com/sports/m-xc/mtt/okst-m-xc-mtt.html

Considering 12.6% of the US population is of African descent, 20% seems pretty normal to me. I will post a few more teams as I look through their rosters. Not as well that only 4.8% of the US pop. is Asian in descent and 16.4% are Latino. 72.4% white/european. According to wikipedia. So I would expect to see mainly white/european athletes.

1/24 on Oregon roster is AA, the rest are white (possible mixed descent)

http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=238&SPSID=4335

1/16 on U of Miami roster is AA, rest white

http://www.muredhawks.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_LANG=C&&DB_OEM_ID=26100&SPID=107497&SPSID=668627

3/29 look to be latino on Portland's roster, others white. Also note Chris Solinsky as an assistant coach.

http://portlandpilots.com/roster.aspx?path=mcross

10/94 minorities to white = 10.6% minorities between those four rosters

I knew a kid from a small hick town who was half Keynan, half Finnish (talk about winning the distance running gene pool lottery!), and may have had the most under-developed talent I've ever seen (he won a couple of state small-school 1600/800 titles as it is).

When he got to college, it seems the peer pressure from non-white minorities (both students and professors) convinced him that cross country was a "white elitist" sport, and he quit the XC/track team .... ended up a wannabe gansta loser.

The real question is why so few white males make our 1500 meter Olympic and world teams. I mean, aren't like 99% of high schoolers who focus on the 1600 white?

Flash Results, Inc. - Contractor License

Big West Cross Country Championships - 10/27/2012

Host UC Riverside

UC Riverside Agriculture Course

Event 2 Men 8k Run CC

=======================================================================

Name Year School Finals Points

=======================================================================

Results - Men

1 Chris Frias JR Cal Poly 24:10.0 1

2 Blake Ahrold JR Cal Poly 24:13.9 2

3 Mitchell Moriarty SO Cal Poly 24:14.6 3

4 Steven Melena JR UC Irvine 24:16.8 4

5 Bryan Guijarro FR UC Santa Barbara 24:22.5 5

6 Trevor Halsted SO UC Davis 24:23.3 6

7 Jeremy Acosta SR UC Santa Barbara 24:23.8 7

8 Juan Paredes SR UC Santa Barbara 24:29.3 8

9 Sean Davidson JR Cal Poly 24:31.3 9

10 David Cardona SR Cal Poly 24:35.3 10

11 Alex Tebbe SO UC Irvine 24:36.7 11

12 Anthony Ortolan FR UC Santa Barbara 24:38.5 12

13 Brandon Pugh FR UC Davis 24:39.8 13

14 Seth Totten JR UC Riverside 24:48.4 14

15 Sam Hyams SR UC Irvine 24:52.2 15

16 Baxter Frick SR UC Santa Barbara 24:54.5 16

17 Derek Thomas SR Cal Poly 25:00.7 17

18 Chris Enriquez SO Long Beach St. 25:05.7 18

19 Bhavik Kanzaria SR UC Santa Barbara 25:14.9 19

20 Jared Long SR Long Beach St. 25:16.0 20

21 Tyler Huntley FR Cal Poly 25:18.5 21

22 Cody Nguyen FR UC Davis 25:21.4 22

23 Rex Nelson SR UC Irvine 25:22.6 23

24 Abel Mogesse FR UC Santa Barbara 25:23.4 24

25 Cesar Solis FR UC Riverside 25:33.5 25

26 Michael Johnson SR Cal Poly 25:35.9

27 Nathan Strum JR UC Davis 25:37.0 26

28 Jordon Rushing FR UC Davis 25:40.0 27

29 Shyan Vaziri FR UC Santa Barbara 25:42.2

30 Michael Gauger SO UC Riverside 25:45.3 28

31 Bryce Rausa SO UC Santa Barbara 25:47.9

32 Anthony Castellon JR Cal St. Fullerton 25:48.9 29

33 Andrew Snyder JR UC Irvine 25:50.4 30

34 Brett Hasvold SR Long Beach St. 25:52.6 31

35 Kyle Lynch FR Cal Poly 25:54.8

36 Hunter Hays SR Cal St. Northridge 25:58.2 32

37 Donald Bernard FR Cal St. Fullerton 26:00.3 33

38 Gabe Hilbert SR Long Beach St. 26:05.3 34

39 Amar Dholakia FR UC Davis 26:07.4 35

40 Grayson Hough JR UC Davis 26:10.1 36

41 Nick Osborne SR UC Irvine 26:12.8 37

42 Amir Shirif SO UC Irvine 26:15.7 38

43 Jayson Perez SO Cal St. Fullerton 26:21.0 39

44 Nicholas Ratto FR UC Davis 26:28.3

45 Jeff Little FR Cal St. Fullerton 26:30.8 40

46 Eric Neill FR UC Davis 26:39.5

47 Tim Reed FR Cal St. Fullerton 26:51.9 41

48 Nicholas Beechan SO UC Riverside 26:52.6 42

49 Brandon Cook JR Cal St. Fullerton 27:11.7 43

50 Arturo Trejo SO Long Beach St. 27:13.5 44

51 Brandon Perry SO Cal St. Fullerton 27:17.5 45

52 Sebastian Puraci SO UC Riverside 27:24.1 46

53 Daniel Ramos SO Cal St. Fullerton 27:30.6

54 Martin Santillan SO Cal St. Northridge 27:38.3 47

55 Cristian Aviles FR Cal St. Fullerton 27:59.2

56 Riley Martin FR UC Irvine 28:00.7

57 Steven Gonzales SR Cal St. Northridge 28:01.7 48

58 Julio Mora JR Cal St. Northridge 28:24.6 49

59 Benjamin Heck SO UC Riverside 28:39.0 50

60 Marcelo Rosales FR Cal St. Northridge 28:45.6 51

61 Ezekiel Glass SO Cal St. Northridge 30:37.2 52

62 Eddie Garcia JR Cal St. Northridge 31:00.2 53

Big west is a joke. Dont ever bring them up again.

At CU the Medina brothers are both of Mexican descent, Dillon Shije is Native American and Ammar Moussa is Muslim. That was 4 of their top 10 last cross season and they all have track eligibility.

Big West has to one of the more diverse conferences. It's got a lot better since Crum left too.

Los buffs wrote:

At CU the Medina brothers are both of Mexican descent, Dillon Shije is Native American and Ammar Moussa is Muslim. That was 4 of their top 10 last cross season and they all have track eligibility.

Haha,"Ammar Moussa is Mulsim." That cracked me up.