GHT wrote:
As a side note are you all aware that Mary Cain is not the only high schooler to beat an NCAA champ. Alan Webb beat the current NCAA 1500M champ , Bryan Berryhill when he set the national high school record at the Prefontaine classic. I wonder if other guys like Jim Ryun, Marty Liquori, Pre & Gerry Lindgren or any other high schoolers in any event ever beat NCAA champs? I'm too lazy to look it up.
Gerry Lindgren was on another level. He challenged Ron Clarke indoors when he ran his 49 year old HS record of 8:40.0 on an 11 lap to the mile board track leading nearly the entire race. Way better than Cheserek's recent performance that broke it by less than one second. He also beat the russians over 10,000m and beat billy mills to make the olympic team. Likely would have won gold had he not twisted his ankle several days before the 10k final in tokyo.
Jim Ryun broke the american record for the mile his senior year of high school and beat the reigning olympic gold & silver medalists over 1500m (Peter Snell & Josef Odlozil) simultaneously. That tops beating any NCAA champ, although he may have done that too, I'd have to look it up.
Ryun was also the NCAA champ when Liquori was a senior in '67 so obviously he never beat him, but he did go sub 4 in the same race Ryun ran his solo 3:51.1 in bakersfield.
Pre ran something like 13:51 his senior year so not quite as good as the other three in terms of international competitiveness but obviously still quite good. His 8:41.5 outdoor 2 mile HS record was faster than Frank Shorter had run for 2 miles at the time.