Best Native American Runners

I'll Start it off with Billy Mills, but i'm having trouble thinking of any more...

Jim Thorpe (Greatest All Time)

I'll add a few Maurice Smith 1500, Brandon Leslie 10k, Ed Mendoza 10k,. I was decent at 1500 to 5k (3:41, 13:46) Clint Wells 5k and 10k....I got more but gotta get back to work....

Shannon Butler 27:59 10000.

Milfred Tewiwina (NAU runner).

Deerfoot

Gotta go with Barrett Dahl. He can spit out 430 miles on any day of the week and was competitive at the World Junior Championship in Addis Ababa.

Becki Wells won some NCAA 1500/mile titles for Florida

Andrew Sockalexis was one of the early great marathoners. His cousin Louis played for the Cleveland Spiders baseball team and legend has it was the inspiration for the change to Indians.

Rolonda Jumbo - Navajo - Chinle High School - sophomore

Ryan Yazzie - Navajo -Tuba City High School - senior

Both are multi state title holders and among the best current high school Native runners. Arizona state meet is today. Look for both these runners in 3A.

Dahl is pretty good, possibly one of the best to ever come out of Oklahoma. In addition to Thorpe and Lamont Frazier (sr).

Id say when it comes to sprints, Thorpe is the greatest.

but when it comes to distance, id say Dahl is ahead of the others, and id also give Dahl the nod when it comes to range, having posted 50.x 400, 159 800, and 118 half marathon.

Lazker Nez from Kansas is another Native that improving and could eventually be in the same class with Thorpe, Dahl, Mills, Yazzie, etc..

Jacoby Ellsbury. Runs 90 ft like no other native ever.

Do Mexicans count? if so, then the current crop of Mexican runners should be noted.

I think one is named Solares. He's a 27:xx 10k guy. Then there are some 13:xx guys also.

Do Mexicans count? If they are Indian they do, and really mean Indian not my grandmother was a Cherokee, I mean Aztec, princess. I don't know anything about Solares, what tribe(s) is he?

Tarzan Brown, Boston Marathon Champ - 1936 and 1939

my question is aren't most of the people from Mexico and Central & South America native Americans?

hi how are ya wrote:

my question is aren't most of the people from Mexico and Central & South America native Americans?

The countries in Latin American are extremely varied in the number of indigenous peoples present. The common bond that all Latin American countries have is the influx of Western European immigrants, namely from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Therefore in Latin American you have people that are pure white, people that are mixed, and people that are pure Indian, and in some countries people who are black or mixed black-indian, black-white, black-white-indian.

In latin america, the only people that are considered "Indian" are those that are full blooded. They account for some 10% of the population of Mexico, but only around 2% or so of most other "Central American" countries. In South America, Indians make up the majority (more than 50%) of the populations of Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and near majorities in Paraguay and Uruguay, whereas in Chile and Argentina they make up around only 1% of the population.

In summary, while many "Latinos" may have some indigenous ancestery, only some are Indians. We cannot have a blanket statement that all Latinos are Indian, just like we could not say all Kenyans are Kalenjin or all American distance runners are of German descent.

Don't know if Sam Montoya was native, but that dude could run like the wind. I'm only guessing about his ancestry because of the way he ran. The man ran with complete abandon.

Native prep phenoms are a dime a dozen. I can't even remember all the greats that came up through schools in the southwest only to fade away near or after graduation. In my opinion WINGS could use some serious improvement in organizing and motivating some of these kids.

excellent post.

there is a STRONG different between a standard mexican person, and someone of Mayan or Inca decent.

the43Omiler wrote:

excellent post.

there is a STRONG different between a standard mexican person, and someone of Mayan or Inca decent.

There is a much bigger difference between the "430miler" and the "43Omiler."