Why did they ever move Foot Locker Nationals to Florida?

They moved it back because Ritz ran so fast you fools on letsrun thought it was impossible. Ritz went on to be the AR holder over 5000m, so guess it wasn't impossible. Ritz would have the CR at Balboa Park, hands-down.

Why was it mooved in the first place? Does Foot Locker have corporate tied to Orlando? I am gonna look this stuff up on Wiki Pedia before Ibecome too intox icated to continue

It was two years before Ritz won his title. Abdirizak Mohamud won the first year, then Torres finally won his title (after being there for 4 years). Ritz was a sophomore the year Torres won, where his teammate Jason Hartmann was like 5th and he was 9th or something. Then Ritz won twice, and another MI runner, Tim Moore won the last year in Orlando.

It's a shame because I think we really had a chance for the Balboa record to go down with Ritz. His senior year he was coming off his 14:10 5K at the MI state meet (where went 4:24-4:34-4:40, beating Moore by :55), a 14:35 on the challenging Kenosha FL Midwest course (where he broke his own 14:55 record from the year before).

For comparison's sake, we can use Solinsky's senior season (which was much like the senior season Ritz had). He went 14:47 at Kenosha and 14:41 at Balboa. In fact, most previous FL champions from the Midwest region run faster at Balboa: Scott Fry, Bob Kennedy, Brian Grosso, Adam Goucher, Abdul Alzindani, Chris Solinsky, Michael Fout. Ritz would have put the record right around 14:30 I tell ya.

Thanks! I can't argue with ANY of this...and that is rare indeed.

Christ how drunk can one get at 10 in the morning. I think the live stream of FL is presently grabage but it might jsut be my failing vison.

The 1982 Kinney Championships were in Orlando and Eric Reynolds ran 14:35 on that fast course.

Angry, Off-Topic and Plastered wrote:

What when Fry was like 9 yares old, LOL.

No, when Fry false started and was DQed.

Footlocker moved to Orlando because Disney put up enough money for them to move. That was the time period that Disney was paying to move any youth or high school event there, hoping that families and friends would come in and spend enough money for them to make a profit.

I'm guessing other events were more lucrative, so Disney gave up on Footlocker after a few years. Probably more money in getting a few hundred cheerleaders, than in 64 XC runners.

mcgato wrote:

Footlocker moved to Orlando because Disney put up enough money for them to move. That was the time period that Disney was paying to move any youth or high school event there, hoping that families and friends would come in and spend enough money for them to make a profit.

I'm guessing other events were more lucrative, so Disney gave up on Footlocker after a few years. Probably more money in getting a few hundred cheerleaders, than in 64 XC runners.

I think I remember that Brooks Johnson was behind the move as well.