Tiger Tracks

There are Tigers everywhere.

There's been no zoo outbreak. Detroit's baseball team is not on a mid-season barnstorming tour of the East, and the most famous golfer on the planet hasn't been cloned and scattered around China. But still, I've seen my fair share of Tigers here in Beijing.

It turns out the representation of the University of Missouri extends much further than the 60 or so volunteers that arrived on July 2nd. I have stumbled across a number of people with connections to Mizzou, and I'm sure I haven't even scratched the surface.

Last week I was walking around the Olympic Green with some of my co-workers when we ran into a guy in a white floswimming.org shirt wielding a video camera. He asked us where we were from, we told him Mizzou, and he surprised us by telling us he was an '07 grad. It turns out it was Garrett McCaffrey, a former swimming teammate of two of our own volunteers, Allison Bennett and Kayla Bowcutt.

When me and some other students briefly met Cullen Jones (The Regroup, August 12) at NBC's Today Show, he asked us where we were from. After learning we were from Mizzou, he immediately asked if we knew Bennett Clark, another former Mizzou swimmer. It turns out Jones and Clark trained together over the past year.

There are several athletes competing this year that spent at least a couple years at Mizzou. Linas Kleiza hit a game-winning three in the waning moments of Lithuania's win over Argentina; Christian Cantwell won a silver medal in the shot put; Ben Askren will open up his Olympic campaign in the wrestling freestyle 74-kg qualifications on Wednesday.

But the connections reach out past the athletes themselves. I met Mizzou grad Dan Pierce, now a director of communications for Anheuser Busch, at a Club Bud opening ceremonies party last week. And let's not forget the no-doubt dozens of alumni journalists here covering the Games, including ESPN's Pat Forde, who is anchoring the Worldwide Leader's coverage of Michael Phelps. (Note to self: would tying an anchor, from a boat or the set of the Today Show, actually make a difference in any of Phelps' races?)

And let's not forget about the close-to 9,000 University of Missouri School of Journalism anniversary pins slowly permeating a venue, subway car or security line near you. I'm more surprised to find somebody without one of the pins than I am to see them hanging off ID lanyards. While Michael Phelps may break records and be known as the greatest Olympian ever, it's clear the University of Missouri is the most dominant force at the Olympics.