BYU Athletics has a strong group of international athletes, with 31 of them competing for the Cougars from 20 different countries.
This article is all due to one tweet.
On Wednesday, the University of Portland sent out a tweet touting their international athletes.
They boast a pretty impressive list. Their athletic program has athletes from 25 different countries (26 if you include the United States), representing all six inhabited continents:
Which begs the question: What about BYU?
The Cougars have a natural advantage when it comes to international recruiting due to the reach of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
At the same time, BYU is also the school that gave you this video.
But the Cougars actually do have a strong number of international student athletes. Taking all current rosters on BYUCougars.com, the Cougars have 31 international athletes from 20 different countries besides the United States.
And just like Portland, those athletes span six continents.
Which teams have the most international athletes? BYU Women’s Basketball leads out with six international players. Men’s Swimming & Diving comes in a close second with five.
On the flip side, nine out of BYU’s nineteen sponsored sports don’t have a single international player: Baseball, Men’s Basketball, Men’s and Women’s Cross Country, Men’s and Women’s Golf, Women’s Soccer, Softball, Women’s Volleyball).
Without digging into the data to see how many international athletes compete at every other university there’s no way to know how BYU stacks up nationwide. And this author doesn’t have that much time.
BYU certainly has fewer than Portland.
But the Cougars do have good international representation, with the diversity of international athletes matching BYU’s international fanbase.
All BYU international athletes by country:
Australia
- Danny Jones (Football)
- Taylah Beckman (Women’s Tennis)
Barbados
- Ramarco Thompson (Men’s Track & Field)
Bermuda
- Keesha Miller (Women’s Track & Field)
Brazil
- Babalu Ugwu (Women’s Basketball)
- Felipe de Brito Ferreira (Men’s Volleyball)
- Maria Albiero (Women’s Basketball)
- Vinicius Feijao Nogueira (Men’s Tennis)
Canada
- Adia London (Women’s Swimming & Diving)
- Angel Zhong (Gymnastics)
- Helody Cyrenne (Gymnastics)
Dominican Republic
- Josue Dominguez (Men’s Swimming & Diving)
Egypt
- Sherif Aboumandour (Men’s Swimming & Diving)
Finland
- Miki Jauhiainen (Men’s Volleyball)
Grenada
- Michael Bruno (Football)
Italy
- Davide Gardini (Men’s Volleyball)
Japan
- Joshua Ries (Men’s Swimming & Diving)
Mexico
- Katia Quezada (Women’s Swimming & Diving)
- Paula Garcia (Women’s Swimming & Diving)
- Raul Rios (Men’s Track and Field)
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New Zealand
- Kaylee Smiler (Women’s Basketball)
- Khaedin Taito (Women’s Basketball)
- Shalae Salmon (Women’s Basketball)
Peru
- Mateo Vereau Melendez (Men’s Tennis)
Russia
- Anastasia Abramyan (Women’s Tennis)
- Polina Malykh (Women’s Tennis)
Spain
- Javier Nicolas Matta (Men’s Swimming & Diving)
Sweden
- Signe Glantz (Women’s Basketball)
Taiwan
- Jeffrey Hsu (Men’s Tennis)
Tonga
- Mo Langi (Football)
United Kingdom
- Kunmi Ogunfeibo (Men’s Swimming & Diving)