Best High School Runners Who Never Did a Thing in College or After

Probably very few are familiar with this guy out of the state of CO, but Bradley Harkrader won the state cross championship, beating Adam Goucher's record, "stunned" Ryan Deak at the state 3200 championship, and most certainly was a sub-9 guy at sea level. He went to CU and didn't do much. I don't know if he had injury issues, but I think he was an engineering student, so perhaps he just had his priorities in the correct order. He was an amazing talent to watch senior year in high school.

dani started at wisconsin before he transferred to ucla. he was a beast in training--probably trained too hard. after not qualifying individually for ncaas in x-c fall '88 (he should have), he went to usatf xc nationals and placed top ten if i remember correctly.

unbelievably talented, and a great teammate. what most people on these boards don't realize is how many things have to go right for someone to reach their potential, such as family support, academic support, good coaching, good teammates/friends, health, diet, etc. take away just one piece of this puzzle and sometimes the whole house of cards can come tumbling down...

Brian Astell. Ran for Pinkerton HS in New Hampshire back in the late 90s. He finished 10th at the Northeast Footlocker race in 1998. He didn't run at all in college.

CU has definitely been a place for many HS studs to die as elite runners, those who've already run high mileage coming in. Wetmore much better at developing low mileage HS runners in his system. Aislin Ryan, Brad Harkrader for sure.

socalcush wrote:

unbelievably talented, and a great teammate. what most people on these boards don't realize is how many things have to go right for someone to reach their potential, such as family support, academic support, good coaching, good teammates/friends, health, diet, etc. take away just one piece of this puzzle and sometimes the whole house of cards can come tumbling down...

Those were the halcyon days at UCLA. Junkermann too. How right you are Cush about your last paragraph. It very much applies to life, not just running, and most people take it for granted until they lose it unfortunately.

gonchar wrote:

CU has definitely been a place for many HS studs to die as elite runners, those who've already run high mileage coming in. Wetmore much better at developing low mileage HS runners in his system. Aislin Ryan, Brad Harkrader for sure.

No doubt this is true, but not just at CU. However, there was this high-mileage kid from Michigan by the name of Ritzenhein who did great things at CU, including winning a national cross championship and setting the American Collegiate record for 10k, albeit temporarily. I didn't know if Harkrader was a high-mileage guy or not. Kevin Williams is another one down at OU now. Wonder if he'll amount to much?

pre-German wrote:

Jeff Nelson of Burbank, CA[/quote]

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

(runner)

YO MAMA

Sanchez ran an American JR 5K record (broke Pre's record) while a frosh at Georgetown

Lukas V

aloha warrior wrote:

Jim Hill finished third in the 1984 or 85 NCAA 5,000 behind two Washington State Kenyans. He also won a Pac-10 Cross Country Championship & I believe a top ten finish NCAA XC Meet. 13:18-13:19 5,000 PR.

Hill ran 8:47.7 two mile, Virginia 1979.

Right. That is what I said. You were missing my point. Hill ran 3:49.7/4:11y/8:47.8y in high school and had a storied career at Oregon. He ran in the Olympic Trials as a freshman and ran 13:48 that year. As a soph he ran 3:41.54/4:00.40y/13:53/29:22 placing second in the PAC-10 5k and 10k and 7th in the NCAA 5k (beating Rudy Chapa). He got even better from there running 3:56y/13:19/27:55 in college.

My point was that he never won an NCAA title, even though he was that good. The WSU guys were there. Julius Korir and Paul Koech went 1-2 and Korir won the Olympic Steeple that year and Koech had run 13:09 for 5k in 1982 (beating Alberto Salazar in his 13:11 AR). So that is the type of runners they were up against back then. I mentioned that in my post.

Pittman ran 4:10.7y/8:49.4y in high school which are almost exactly the same as Hill. Pittman ran 8:27st as a freshman and placed third in the NCAA. His freshman yr was the same as Hill's soph yr (1981), so they ran in the same era.

My point was that someone said that out of all the sub-8:50y runners from the 80's, nobody had done anything but Trautmann. My guess is that they had not heard of Pittman because he had not set an AR or won NCAA titles. My point was that there were several great runners from that era that excelled after great HS careers, but they did not necessarily win NCAAs or make Olympic Teams, because there is only one winner each year and three that make the team. You don't have to set WRs to be considered a success after an 8:49 2-mile.

Steven Hassen and Ashley Brasovan

ziegle twins

I feel like Withrow was the best and did the least in recent memory. I know he was hurt all through college but still. Also everyone who has ever run for York...

Laurel Burdick actually went to BC, ran fairly poorly for a while under the coach, got back in action near to the end (with probable guidance from Aris I'd assume?), and runs for the Arises now. She is currently pregnant, but qualified for the Olympic Trials in the marathon last year.

No major medals for Ritzenhein, Virgin, Rupp, Wheating, Symmonds, Solinski, add 1,000,000 more.

If this is Paul from Jesuit, what did u and the Mastalars do after high school. You guys had a great run for a few years. I heard that you all got into triathlon.

Is this a thread for "Best HS Runners who NEVER DID A THING in College or After"? Or "Best Runners who didn't live up to expectations"? Or "Best Runners who disappointed you"?

Seriously? Withrow? He ran 13:35? He ran on a National Championship team, did he not?

He was ninth, 24th and 17th in the NCAAs in XC. How much more do you need?

He had less then blue-chip track times in HS which is usually an indication of lower consistency than required to reach the absolute top. But he certainly did not "do nothing".

And York has put out dozens of sub-4:20/sub-9:20 runners, maybe they didn't all develop much after that, but to say that "everyone who has ever run for York"?

Learn something before you write that. I bet they have had 50 runners achieve more than you did in college.

I'm a fan of Withrow, but come on man. He was NATIONAL CHAMPION. He beat a guy who just ran a 26:48 for 10k and won multiple NCAA titles. 13:35 is seriously below what he should be able to run.