l wrote:
Dude, you're talking about an old program and a different coach. All those on the early eighties teams were transfers from UCI when Len Miller left to go to Arizona State and a pretty good freshman named Jon Butler(8:46 3200 '81). What happened to Eric Reynold's, ONLY to namee ONE?
Dude, you think I don't understand that this was a long time ago. My point was just that there is nothing about being at UCLA (too much pavement, whatever) that would prevent them from having a good distance program. I would never confuse Peterson for Larsen. Yes, Reynold's had injury problems, but using him as an example is no different than saying that Meb is typical for a UCLA runner. The overall collegiate success of many of those distance Gods that came out of California in the 70s and 80s was very mixed, regardless of where they went to school. UCLA got a great career out of Butler, not from Reynolds.
I don't think that UCLA has a great distance program now, but if I was going to go to school in So Cal, wanted a good academic program and the CHANCE to compete at a high level, I'd be a Bruin.
And you are so wrong about SLO being the top public university that it is laughable. The current US News Rankings:
1 University of California–Berkeley
2 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor / University of Virginia
4 Univ. of California–Los Angeles
5 U. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
6 College of William and Mary (VA)
7 Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison
8 Georgia Institute of Technology/Univ. of California–San Diego
10 U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
11 University of Washington
12 University of California–Irvine
13 Pennsylvania State U.–University Park /University of California–Davis /Univ. of California–Santa Barbara/University of Florida/University of Texas–Austin
18 Univ. of Maryland–College Park
19 Ohio State University–Columbus /University of Pittsburgh
21 Miami University–Oxford (OH)/Rutgers–New Brunswick (NJ)/Texas A&M Univ.–College Station /University of Georgia
25 Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)/University of Iowa
27 University of Connecticut /University of Delaware/Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities
30 Clemson University (SC)/Indiana University–Bloomington /Michigan State University
33 Univ. of California–Santa Cruz
34 University of Colorado–Boulder /Virginia Tech
36 Iowa State University /North Carolina State U.–Raleigh
38 SUNY–Binghamton
39 Auburn University (AL)/University of Alabama /Univ. of California–Riverside/University of Kansas/Univ. of Missouri–Columbia /University of Tennessee/University of Vermont
46 SUNY College Environmental Science and Forestry
SUNY–Stony Brook/University of Arizona/Univ. of Massachusetts–Amherst /Univ. of Nebraska–Lincoln
I could see quibbling about UCLA vs say, UNC, but you'd think SLO appear somewhere on this list if it was in contention.