With the Olympics officially starting today and with the vast majority of UNC’s participants being female, it’s an appropriate time for Her Campus, an online community for college women, to put out its rankings for the biggest Olympic schools in the country. A team of more than 3,000 students at more than 200 colleges and universities determined that UNC-Chapel Hill is the No. 4 “Olympic U” in the nation.

Here is the complete list: 1) The University of Southern California, 2) The University of California Los Angeles, 3) Stanford University, 4) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 5) The University of California Berkeley 6) Harvard University, 7) The University of Texas 8) The University of Florida 9) The University of Michigan, 10) Indiana University.

It’s a big weekend for women’s team sports with the U.S. soccer team taking on Colombia at noon Eastern time Saturday and with the U.S. field hockey team taking on Germany at 4:15 p.m. Sunday. Both games can be seen on the NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus). As a reminder, UNC’s Tobin Heath and Heather O’Reilly play for the U.S. soccer team (with UNC’s Meghan Klingenberg as an alternate in case of injury) while Tar Heels Rachel Dawson, Katelyn Falgowski and Amy Tran Swensen play on the U.S. field hockey team (with Carolina’s Jackie Kintzer as an alternate).

There is a new article about Falgowski titled “Falgowski recovers from knee injury to repeat as Olympian” – http://www.dailylocal.com/article/20120724/SPORTS03/120729825/falgowski-recovers-from-knee-injury-to-repeat-as-olympian-.

Similarly, a New Jersey paper published this article earlier in the week about Rachel Dawson titled “For South Jersey field hockey duo, the goal is gold” – http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012307230020.

An article featuring Heather O’Reilly, released today but based on an interview last week, can be found here – http://www.app.com/article/20120726/NJSPORTS08/307260085/East-Brunswick-special-to-O-Reilly.

There is still no word on why O’Reilly, normally a starter, did not play in the first game – a 4-2 victory over France – but speculation is that, in addition to fellow Tar Heel midfielder Tobin Heath playing well right now, the coach wants the team to remain fresher during a grueling Olympic tournament.

An article on Heath appeared today on the Baptist Press website titled “Tobin Heath’s passions are Christ & soccer” – http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38347.