That 19 of 32 ran track at some point makes sense.
Although, I would bet that number would be higher in the past.
Years ago, the best athletes would all play 3 or 4 sports, and excel at all of them.
Now, when an athlete is good in any sport, they get channeled into specialized training.
Here's a former wikipedia page I created a few years ago with top 100m times for NFL players. One take on how speed matters.
It seems pretty clear that Soloman Thomas's athletic.net 1600 and 3200 were the product of a different athlete accidentally running under his name/athlete ID number. Both times are from the same meet and he has no other distance results to speak of, but he has marks in a half-dozen other meets as a thrower.
Otherwise, great piece.
Jon Allen (17th) threw for his high school, he held our school record for the discus at 143-8 until this year and threw 47-8 for shot although his mark is 45-8 in milesplit so that could be right
Great question.
In reality the best athletes on earth are football players.
Speed strength endurance attitude.
Hard to believe that they couldn't dominate everything track and field up to the 400m.
Above that, the thoroughbreds rule...
David Njoku (TE pick 29) also hugh jumped 7' in high school. He competed at Miami but I think as he got bulkier, he wasn't able to lower his PR
Hey I ran against your daughter in high school!
I often wonder how good NCAA track and field would be if the football coaches let their players do track. Imagine the field events( ex:Carter shot put, Bradshaw javelin) . The sprints, hurdles, 200 and 400 would all be guys on the football team.
By far the most interesting to me is that Soloman Thomas the DE the niners selected with the 3rd pick ran a 2 mile in 10:0and change. This is unbelievable to me that someone that big A) did distance, and B) was capable of that time for 2 miles. Can someone confirm the race. I'm sure he was much smaller in high school but the dude is 6-8 290. I had a high school teammate who was 6'6" and went on to run 3:47 in college. But he was skinnty and would look like a shrimp next to this guy.
I disagree. I think basketball players are. Football players are so specialized while basketball players all have to possess similar equal feats of skill ability. Also, no pads + the court is smaller meaning you're working harder during possessions.
Thaddeus Young of the Pacers (6'9 Small Forward) ran cross country @ Mitchell HS in Memphis.
His Georgia Tech bio states "... Also ran cross country through his junior year and finished in the top 10 of every race in which he competed ..."
Not sure if his times match up with the above mentioned fellow but still. Something to consider.