It depends on what you call a phenom and what you call success at the pro level. Guys like Robby Andrews and Evan Jager were really good in high school. Both were Olympians, with Jager getting a medal.
At least 3 of these athletes had very short careers, though. Fairchild didn't exactly have a decent pro career. Ryun and Lindgren were really only good a few years beyond high school, but not really consistently, right?
Fairchild made a US World Championship team at 5000m after college, so I'd consider that to be pretty successful as a pro in general.
Ryun had a long career by the standards of the day, though it did start while in HS. In college he had several WRs and won an Olympic silver. Even after college he was ranked in the top 10 in the world for several years, set a WR in the indoor mile, and ran 3:52 outdoors. I'd consider that successful as a "pro" even if there were technically no professional runners in that day.
Lindgren was a super-stud in college, with arguably one of the best NCAA careers in history. Admittedly he didn't do much of anything after college.
The OP started with the premise that Nico Young was a HS distance phenom who has succeeded at the professional level though, so by the standard of what Nico has done so far, I'd say all 3 were distance phenoms and have succeeded at least to a similar level as Nico Young.
Do some reading, kid. If you love the sport, know the history.
The purpose of this thread is seemingly to learn the history. You're insisting that he "read" about it somewhere and that this isn't an appropriate forum?
At least 3 of these athletes had very short careers, though. Fairchild didn't exactly have a decent pro career. Ryun and Lindgren were really only good a few years beyond high school, but not really consistently, right?
Herb Elliot was done at like 23. Not many people back then made 3 Olympic teams like Ryun.
There are different levels of prodigies. There is a big difference between the 12 year setting age group records and the 18 year old senior being the best in the country. The first has a ton of kids who are just mature for their age and who train a lot. By the end of HS a lot of that has evened out. Of course the issue is that very few kids ran track seriously before HS.
Do some reading, kid. If you love the sport, know the history.
The purpose of this thread is seemingly to learn the history. You're insisting that he "read" about it somewhere and that this isn't an appropriate forum?
i would tend to agree with dickson. the skeezy forum on letsrun is most certainly not the place to learn unbiased facts about the history of athletics.
At least 3 of these athletes had very short careers, though. Fairchild didn't exactly have a decent pro career. Ryun and Lindgren were really only good a few years beyond high school, but not really consistently, right?
Calling Ryun's post high school career "good" is a massive undersell.
Ryun set 4 world records (800m/880y, 1500, Mile x 2) and ran a close 2nd to Kip Keino in the greatest 1500 ever run at that time in the 68 Olympics. Whatever Ryun "failed" to do post 1968 doesn't change the fact that he achieved 99 percent of what was possible for a runner between 1964-1968.
The purpose of this thread is seemingly to learn the history. You're insisting that he "read" about it somewhere and that this isn't an appropriate forum?
i would tend to agree with dickson. the skeezy forum on letsrun is most certainly not the place to learn unbiased facts about the history of athletics.
Nah, he was just being a weakbrain hardo who is demanding education and simultaneously inhibiting it. Anything that one "reads" on the topic is necessarily biased. Otherwise it's just a tedious matter of looking at all-time performances and results lists.
At least 3 of these athletes had very short careers, though. Fairchild didn't exactly have a decent pro career. Ryun and Lindgren were really only good a few years beyond high school, but not really consistently, right?
The mere implication that Lindgren and Ryun were not successful post high school would render any further opinion from you on this subject completely worthless.
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