Ex-NBA'er Brian Scalabrine claims he ran a 4:45 mile as a Soph in College

It's not surprising at all.

I ran faster in my early 40s, training less than 30 miles per week, with no other sports or exercise.

You think a young pro basketball player can't?

People on letsrun like to think they have some sort of talent that others dont have. A 4:45 mile pretty much requires no talent.I played soccer and quit to do cross country and track my senior of high school. I ended up setting my school record in the mile (and i think i still have it 8 years later). I absolutely guarantee most of the kids i played soccer with at my school could have run faster than me had they done xc and track. There were probably 20 dudes in my graduating class (of 170 students) that could have been the schools best runner they just weren't running.With basketball players some will be limited by how huge they are though.

that's not fast wrote:

It's not surprising at all.

I ran faster in my early 40s, training less than 30 miles per week, with no other sports or exercise.

You think a young pro basketball player can't?

Fair enough, I get that a 4:45 mile isn't blazing for college athletes but in what world does it require NO talent at all to run one? 90% of the population couldn't do it of trained from birth.

Runners are not the only people who can run. Often, runners believe it takes: summer high mileage, fall XC, indoor winter track and spring track to run well. The basketball team at my college/university had a mandatory standard for first day of practice or suffer remedial training: all guards, sub-4:45 one mile and all big (forwards/centers) men, sub-5:15 one mile.

that's not fast wrote:

It's not surprising at all.

I ran faster in my early 40s, training less than 30 miles per week, with no other sports or exercise.

You think a young pro basketball player can't?

6'9" 230 is a lot to carry around

Nonsense unless this record you set was 5++ minutes.

I used to run faster wrote:

Runners are not the only people who can run. Often, runners believe it takes: summer high mileage, fall XC, indoor winter track and spring track to run well. The basketball team at my college/university had a mandatory standard for first day of practice or suffer remedial training: all guards, sub-4:45 one mile and all big (forwards/centers) men, sub-5:15 one mile.

That college being.....

Have any of you actually seen this guy play in the NBA? I remember watching him. He's the least athletic person I can think of. He's big, awkward and slow. There's no way in hell he ran a 4:45 mile. I'm sure LeBron could but not this guy.

Who cares where I went to college. Do you doubt a college coach would have standard I stated?

Not Fast but Furious wrote:

Have any of you actually seen this guy play in the NBA? I remember watching him. He's the least athletic person I can think of. He's big, awkward and slow. There's no way in hell he ran a 4:45 mile. I'm sure LeBron could but not this guy.

zero chance

This is very plausible. My power 5 college had a similar mile time trial event for basketball players. Usually one or two guys would break 5, and at least one had broken 4:45 in the past. That guy also went to the NBA.

I used to run faster wrote:

Runners are not the only people who can run. Often, runners believe it takes: summer high mileage, fall XC, indoor winter track and spring track to run well. The basketball team at my college/university had a mandatory standard for first day of practice or suffer remedial training: all guards, sub-4:45 one mile and all big (forwards/centers) men, sub-5:15 one mile.

This definitely never happened.

What never happened? Are you stating a college coach never set a standard of 4:45/5:15 one mile? Are you stating college guards never ran sub-4:45 one mile? Are you stating college forwards/centers never ran sub-5:15 one mile?

Under 4:20 and definitely not nonsense. I ranked towards the back of the soccer team in terms of speed/athleticism. People don't realize that most good athletes don't run track/distance. The most 'talented' runners at any given high school are not on the track team.

9sdfsda wrote:

...Nonsense unless this record you set was 5++ minutes.

And then there's Larry Bird...

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6374383

4:45 ain't that fast normally, but at 6'9" 230, it is pretty god damn fast.

I don't buy it for the same reason I don't buy most unverifiable claims from non-running, most of then lie.

Eldo wrote:

This is very plausible. My power 5 college had a similar mile time trial event for basketball players. Usually one or two guys would break 5, and at least one had broken 4:45 in the past. That guy also went to the NBA.

I can believe this. However, my assumption is that these were smaller guards with the better times. Going from - at least once a college basketball broke 4:45 - to - a 6'9" 230 player broke 4:45 is a jump.

He likely just mis-remembers and ran 5:45 or something. To someone who times don't really have context (like a basketball player who doesn't run) that would be an easy thing to mix up. I have no context on jumping events and don't know what a good or bad distance is. If I did a long jump or two for fun 10 years ago I could see accidentally mixing up my distance (I jumped 6.7 meters, but now remember 7.6 - I had to look up a reasonable mistake...).

For what its worth, I've witnessed a lot of mile time trials performed by non-track/XC athletes, and while many simply use a track, a lot times this mile course ends up being 4 traffic cones in a large parking lot that can vary in distance. During these instances athletes are told they ran X:XX for the mile by their coaches, therefore they go on claiming that as their mile PR because that's what they were told, and its not like these athletes really do more than maybe a few mile time trials post high school in their entire lives ya know? Now to say all that, he is a professional athlete, so he very well could have done so. But, i just wanted to point out that he could also be claiming a false PR without intentionally lying.

I would gladly bet it was 5:45 (or slower). I wouldn't be surprised if he meant 6:45. He's big, and he was NOT athletic even in comparison to most big guys in the NBA.