Track nerds: Was Michael Carter's 81'3.5" shot put in 1979 truly the "greatest high school performance ever?"

asu guy wrote:

For guys I would say Ryan and Carter's records are both supreme

Why only one person mentioned Chapa? His and Carter's records will NEVER be broken.

No one has even come close to Chapa. Do you realize that Chapa's time is faster than any college guy has EVER run in Ohio? His time was waaaay out there.

asu guy wrote:

Cain is better then Plummber's record no matter what it is.

Rupp only got one shot at Chapa's record and I talked to Alberto about it and he said he didn't really care it was too hard to set up those kind of 10k's.

Hess has said that if more kids went for the steeple time they could get it and I think he's right but the end of the year has turned into national invite's and relay mania which might cost South Eugene the 4xmile record in a year or two.

For guys I would say Ryan and Carter's records are both supreme but I think Martin and Robinson in the 200 and 400 will stand for a quite a while as well.

Interesting comments. I do think that it's a rarity to run the 10,000M in HS, but I also think that Chapa's record is pretty damn fast. I wonder what a comparable two mile would be. It would have to be somewhere in the area of 8:40, don't you think? Which is rarely run (I think Rupp ran the equivalent of an 8:42 two-mile with his 3,000M record in HS).

Good point that there is a lot more relay invitationals than there used to be, so I agree that that 4 x mile time will go down in the coming years.

I couldn't believe it when I looked up and the HS 100M record was 10.01. That's crazy it's so close to 9:9X territory! Didn't that used to be around 10.13 or so a few years back? What's the 10.01 guy doing now?

To make a long story short, a friend and myself created power rankings for our state. I started by comparing national record referencing common events with senior events using Purdy's training calculator, decathlon scoring tables and Hungarian tables. Then I compared our state all time records to get a percentage effort to the national records and went through several other formulas etc to bring in uncommon events and relays. Eventually we were able to take a historical sample of our state performance lists and arrive at pretty close comparisons across the board to be able to award points for performances of unlike events.

The fist thing I noticed was that Michael Carter's shot put record was superior to all other records including the mile/HH/400 records.

10.01 is Jeff Demps. He is an NFL football player with 14 total career yards.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/_/id/15749/jeff-demps

3:55.3 wrote:

Ryun's 3:55.3 is greater than Webb's HSR, because, well he won and beat the reigning Olympic champ Peter Snell.

And it was the American record. Not merely AJR -- AR!

Watch Ryun take it to the field with a lap to go.

Fut Bawl wrote:

10.01 is Jeff Demps. He is an NFL football player with 14 total career yards.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/_/id/15749/jeff-demps

Hmm...that's cool he went into the NFL. 14 career yards ain't much, but it looks like he has only had one season and obviously wasn't a starter.

Still, kinda sad to see he went into football and not track. I think 10.01 in HS could've meant he could be a 9.7X guy with the potential to win at the Olympic level, surely better than he could do in football.

Either way, that 10.01 is absolutely astonishing. Is that superior to 20.13?

Houston McTear - Florida State Championships

100YD - 9.0 AR, WR

Yes. By a little bit.

GoldenMiles wrote:

Either way, that 10.01 is absolutely astonishing. Is that superior to 20.13?

GoldenMiles wrote:

7) There's also Cathy Schiro's 2:34 marathon record, from 1984. No one runs marathons anymore at that age, although I do remember reading in a Runner's World article recently on the front page, about the top HS/junior female runners in the country (especially Mary Cain and Alexa Efraimson), about a high school girl who was running impressive marathon times. Anyone else remember this? Is she close to Schiro's times? Could she break them?

Alana Hadley is who you are thinking of. She has a 2:41:55 PR, which qualifies her for the Olympic Trials, which her website claims is the second youngest to have ever done so. She ran this Nov 2, 2013 as a HS Junior at the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. Most recently, she dropped out of Grandma's Marathon in Duluth.

Her 10k PR is 34:59, 5k is 16:51

The youngest is probably Carrie Garritson who, at age 11, ran 2:49.19 at the Los Angeles Marathon in 1988.

Carrie was not allowed to run in the 1988 marathon trials by powerfully decision makers who did not want an 11 year running in such a high profile event.

Manchester wrote:

Isn't it accepted that the top shot put marks from the late 70's / early 80's are all doped? So, if a high schooler threw longer than all the WRs of that era and some 10 feet longer than anybody today, surely we would have to assume it's doped?

It is common knowledge that high school kids are little angels who would never do drugs. Especially not in the 70's.

I'm only saying it because I was there to witness the event but Craig Virgin's 8:40.9 two mile at Prospect High School's International Prep meet in 1973 on a windy 90 degree day has to rate right up there. I don't know if it matches German Fernandez' 8:32/4:01 double but that was a day for sipping margaritas under some air-conditioning, not setting national distance records. Centrowitz Sr. was a 4:02 miler back then and he surrendered that race to Virgin as soon as the gun went off. Virgin was the only one in Mt. Prospect that day who thought he had a chance for the record.

Michael's series that day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMVgbAgDSzg

I wish it were possible to convey (to nonthrowers, or those who aren't throws fans) how many things Michael was doing right, especially on the last throw. His right leg was phenomenal.

In terms of absolute quality, I've got to go with Michael's performance with the 12# shot. In terms of competitive quality, I'd go with Mathias's OG decathlon win at age 17.

Technically Ted Meredith was a high school athlete in his Olympic/WR year, but he was 20 years old at the time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Meredith

Manchester wrote:

Isn't it accepted that the top shot put marks from the late 70's / early 80's are all doped? So, if a high schooler threw longer than all the WRs of that era and some 10 feet longer than anybody today, surely we would have to assume it's doped?

You do know the high school shot is a different weight, right?

Probably, Salazar wasn't too keen on Rupp, even his Rupp, breaking his best friend's high school record. But Rupp did run 28:15, I think, the next year to take the junior record.

It is said that at the time of Micheal Carter's 80 ft throw series, that at that time in his life he was not lifting more than 280 on the bench. If im in highschool in the 70's im not concerning myself with steroids, the fact that im lifting in HS is a huge enough difference on its own. So no, we dont assumed everybody was doped up in the 80's and 70's a great many of them were...but much like today, not everybody was.

stateroftheoblivious wrote:

Houston McTear - Florida State Championships

100YD - 9.0 AR, WR

Wow, isn't that still the WR? When was this, and what 100M time is that equivalent to?

runcogrun wrote:

GoldenMiles wrote:

7) There's also Cathy Schiro's 2:34 marathon record, from 1984. No one runs marathons anymore at that age, although I do remember reading in a Runner's World article recently on the front page, about the top HS/junior female runners in the country (especially Mary Cain and Alexa Efraimson), about a high school girl who was running impressive marathon times. Anyone else remember this? Is she close to Schiro's times? Could she break them?

Alana Hadley is who you are thinking of. She has a 2:41:55 PR, which qualifies her for the Olympic Trials, which her website claims is the second youngest to have ever done so. She ran this Nov 2, 2013 as a HS Junior at the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. Most recently, she dropped out of Grandma's Marathon in Duluth.

Her 10k PR is 34:59, 5k is 16:51

Those aren't awful track times (assuming those were track races and not road races). If those are road times, that's even better. I'd love to see her take a shot at the HS 10,000M and marathon records next year. She's not that far off, and how many before her or after have even gone after these records?

GoldenMiles wrote:

1) Roy Martin's insane 20.13 (both of them) and Darrell Robinson's almost more impressive 44.69 (only HSer EVER under 45 seconds, and he's WELL under) are both about 30 years old or so.

Tyreek Hill (currently running track & playing FB for Oklahoma State) ran wind-legal 20.14 in 2012

as for the other records...

while the steeple/10K/marathon records are old... if they were regularly contested (and trained for) by elite HSers those records would be no more with the possible exception of Chapas 28:32 10k. (brutal and ultra high-mileage training regimen that probably won't be replicated with success ever again)

boys 4x400 by Hawthorne is far and away the best relay record including Webbs DMR... 3:07.4 is an average of 46.85 per leg

imo, Carters 81-3 shot put record is the individual GOAT

for some perspective... according to milesplit the #1 boys shot put in the nation this season is 68-10.5