Cal Poly distance star Davis Bove was named to the College Sports Communicators third team for his diligence in the classroom marking the third straight year a Cal Poly Track and Field athlete has earned CSC Academic All-America honors.
Bove was one of 46 Division I athletes to make the CSC Academic All-America men’s track and field/cross country team and was one of 14 to make the third team.
The Franklin, Tenn. native, who is pursuing his master’s in business analytics at Cal Poly, becomes the 14th athlete in Cal Poly history to earn CSC Academic All-America honors and the sixth track and field/cross country athlete to do so.
Bove recently wrapped up his first year at Cal Poly following his transfer from LSU last summer, coming just .01 seconds short of a bid to the semifinals of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in the men’s 1,500-meter on June 21.
The race marked the end of his collegiate track and field career. Although he failed to qualify for the second round of the Olympic Team Trials, his participation capped off a track and field season in which he etched his name into Cal Poly’s record books.
Cal Poly’s Male Athlete of the Year became the fifth Mustang to run a sub-four-minute indoor mile and formed a new program record in the men’s indoor 1,000 with a time of 2:20.97.
Outdoors, he won the Big West Conference title in the men’s 1,500 and earned second in the men’s 5000 at the Big West Championships, qualifying for the NCAA West Preliminaries in both.
He also ran a time of 13:48.0 in the 5,000, good for third all-time in Cal Poly history.
Bove would go on to the NCAA West Preliminaries on May 24 and come just .67 seconds away from advancing to the NCAA Finals based on time.
He would follow by breaking the school record in the men’s 1,500 with a time of 3:38.40 at the Music City Track Carnival on June 1.
The following week on June 9 at the 2024 Portland Track Festival, he would best that time, running a personal best of 3:37.13 to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Bove also racked up achievements in cross country, earning the individual title at the conference meet and becoming Big West Men’s Cross Country Athlete of the Year, helping lead the Mustangs to their second straight Big West Championship.
He would go on to place eighth at the NCAA West Regional, tied for the second-highest individual finish by a Mustang man in program history.
Though his race at the U.S. Olympic Trials was Bove’s final collegiate track and field race, the graduate student still holds one more season of cross-country eligibility.