I think people think of gritty guys like Sell, Kawauchi and others that had a lack of talent compared to their peers but overcame that with hard work as "blue collar" runners.
I know some had blue collar type jobs but Sell for example was part of the Home Depot Olympic development program, and Blankenship worked for an excavator coming off an injury but not necessarily while he was running at a competitive level.
Blue collar sprinters are in, we got the guy loading UPS trucks graveyard shift and the deli counter guy in Patterson and Beard, respectively.
Clayton Young?
old hed new thots wrote:
Brian Sell, Fernando Cabada, Steve Sherer...
These guys worked hard AND trained hard.
Only current runner who I'd say remotely fits this category these days is Dillon Maggard. True roughneck.
What ever happened to the real ones?! It's all rich kids these days, with parents building them tracks in the backyard and stuff.
Dillon Maggard grew up in a rich Washington suburb. Do you dorks know what blue collar means?
Jacory Patterson was loading US Mail trucks at 4am to pay for training- that is blue collar. Not whatever stock trading Maggard's parents did