Brains and Brawn – Ivy Olympians

In the spirit of the Olympic Games, I though it might be fitting to look into a personal subject area for me, collegiate athletics. The idea of athletic recruitment, especially at top schools such as the Ivy League and other private institutions can be extremely complex and confusing at first. I am here to answer any questions you might have! Personally, the experience of competing for my collegiate team has not only ignited passion in athletics, but also opened doors in the professional world.

The first thing any interested student-athlete should know, is that you can reach both your athletic and academic goals at a top tier school, with help and support. Just look at these statistics below:

Forty-eight current or former Ivy League athletes have punched their tickets to London for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The athletes hail from all eight Ivy League schools and will represent 11 countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Croatia, Dominica, Egypt, Great Britain, Haiti, Nigeria, Serbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Princeton leads the way with 15 participants, followed by Harvard (nine), Columbia (seven), Yale (six), Dartmouth (four), Cornell (three), Brown (two) and Penn (two). The League also boasts four alternates from Columbia, Princeton and Yale who may be pressed into competition should the situation arises.

Moreover, four Ivy League coaches will be performing the same duty in London, including Columbia fencing head coach Michael Aufrichtig, Cornell men’s track and field head coach Nathan Taylor, Harvard men’s swimming and diving head coach Tim Murphy and Princeton assistant field hockey coach Nate Franks . On top of that, Columbia field hockey assistant coach Caroline Nichols is a member of the US field hockey team, former Penn wrestler Brandon Slay is an assistant with the US wrestling squad, former Cornell rower Dan Fonhofer is a member of the US men’s rowing coaching staff and the U.S. Judo squad will be coached by Jimmy Pedro (Brown ’94). Former Columbia wrestler David Barry is the Team Leader for the US greco-roman wrestling squad.

Ivy athletes have enjoyed great success in the most recent Games with 42 athletes bringing home 14 medals (five gold, seven silver and two bronze) from the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing and 19 athletes securing 10 medals (six gold, three silver and one bronze) from the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada.

Since the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, Ivy League student-athletes and alums have combined to win 356 medals at the Summer Games, including 147 gold, 116 silver and 93 bronze. This count of 356 medals earned at the Summer Games would rank 13th in the all-time standings for individual countries!

Now that is inspiring!

Thank you to Ivy League Sports for this content