Lukas Verzbicas in Historical Context

Great point! Also you forgot to include Lukas V. in the 3200 list, I think he ran around 858 in the NXN meet, finished 3rd to the Rosas ( he ran the first mile in 417 then faded)

2011>2001>2008>2003

How can you call someone the best cross country athlete ever when they have only the third fastest time on their state's course? Your username of trackcoach implies that you are older than 15, but from your post I doubt it. A dominant record against the current competition does not make someone the best of all time.

alyosha wrote:

northeast insider wrote:

but 00,01,03 were the best hs years ever,

ritz, Webb, Solinsky, Rupp, Lukas is NOT on their level

Yeah, Webb might be a better track runner, but the truth is Webb, Solinsky, and Rupp are nowhere near as dominant XC runners as Lukas.

You're shortchanging Solinsky, he is certainly in LV's class.

cZXCzxcxc wrote:

Ritz was 8th I believe. His high school teammate, Jason Hartman, was 4th. Imagine if they had a team championship then.

They would have likely lost to Wheeling, IL, who had a pair of Torres brothers in 1st and 6th, and a team backing them up that was strong enough to beat York for the state title that year.

Of course, York in 1999 would have absolutely cleaned up any team race, about the way FM girls did this year. Don Sage was the second fastest person ever on that Florida FL course, and he had 4 teammates within 43 seconds of him.

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You're an idiot, he did compete for Team USA in the Junior Triathlon competitions.

Lindgren/Ritz/Hulst. Lindgren ran 8:40 for two miles indoors that year. I can only imagine what an indoor track in the early 1960's was like. Probably worth 8:30 at the Armory. Ritz ran a time in the MI state meet that Todd Williams could barely fathom. Webb and Hall were destroyed by Ritz. Hulst - well whoever laid those stats out, thank you.

Glory Days.... wrote: You can actually compare 2001's senior year times to 2011's junior year times. If you take out Webb and the two classes are very close, but 2011's junior year is better then 2001 senior year times. That being said after this 2011's senior year it won't even be close.

You obviously weren't following track in 2001 because you're forgetting two things from their sr years.

1) Ritz 13:44-5k

2) Hall 342.7-1500

Add that together with Webb's records, try to find 3 guys who match up to that. You can't just look at the mile and 2 mile times.

Mallory's Ghost wrote:

Yeah, Webb might be a better track runner, but the truth is Webb, Solinsky, and Rupp are nowhere near as dominant XC runners as Lukas.

You're shortchanging Solinsky, he is certainly in LV's class.[/quote]

No he isn't, he wasn't a record breaker in highschool, although he did win Footlocker, his field was an rare down year. He was mediocre to poor in college XC. He hasn't done any pro XC. It is absurd to say he's is or ever was an XC legend.

I'm happy to see a fellow Mongoloid-American do so well is the distances.

Glory Days.... wrote:

I hate to break it to you guys, but you are wrong.

This is the greatest HS SR class ever. There is no Webb in it (he was a once in a life time runner), but there is a Ritz, and there are plenty of Hall types.

[...]

Please tell me how 2001 was a better class. You can actually compare 2001's senior year times to 2011's junior year times. If you take out Webb and the two classes are very close, but 2011's junior year is better then 2001 senior year times. That being said after this 2011's senior year it won't even be close.

Please don't let the facts get in the way of your opinions though

Junior times don't mean jack, a lot of these kids had great freshman times that haven't moved much since. Something is being done wrong with their development that hurries them along to compete at NXN or something. Now they're injured, choking, or treading water for the most part.

2001 - was a much better class, as the Withrow/Rupp/McDougal class with two future American NCAA XC champions and Withrow who did better than Ritz at World XC the next year.

Billy Pilgrim wrote:

How can you call someone the best cross country athlete ever when they have only the third fastest time on their state's course? Your username of trackcoach implies that you are older than 15, but from your post I doubt it. A dominant record against the current competition does not make someone the best of all time.

Becasue of your unnecessary insult, I will not respond directly to your question, but I will say that I've expressed an opinion in starting this thread, which something we are all entitled to.

Ritz beat two future olympians, one of whom would go on to run 1:47.7, 2:23, 3:53, by 20 and 23 seconds and would go on to set the US high-school 5K record on the track.

Lukas beat some kid named Craig Lutz by 5 seconds. Yawn.

Obviously you are entitled to express an opinion, just as we can all criticize your opinion. If you are going to start a post stating someone is the best of all time, you should be prepared to respond to a few challenges to such a statement. By the way, I am a fan of Verzbicas, I just think you are going a little overboard.

has he become a USA citizen?

i will say he is the greatest lithuanian runner in footlocker history.

WELL SAID!

If he wins, regardless of how much he wins by, I think it is safe to argue that it is between Lukas and Ritz as to who is the greatest of all-time on XC. Compare their Regional performances at Parkside. Lukas probably could have run faster, but he still ran 14:44 while Ritz's course record is 14:35. Of course the field Lukas beat was much better than the one Ritz put down. This was the first time two runners had broken 15 at Parkside in the same race and third place was 15:00. Qualifying was 15:12. I remember when Jorge Torres broke the course record when he ran 15:10! This class is ridiculously deep and don't underestimate how good Futsum is right now. You could also argue that Lukas is just becoming race sharp since he didn't race most of the Illinois season. Hopefully Lukas runs Worlds, but either way, he is one of the all-time greats.

LVfan wrote:

Of course the field Lukas beat was much better than the one Ritz put down. This was the first time two runners had broken 15 at Parkside in the same race and third place was 15:00. Qualifying was 15:12. I remember when Jorge Torres broke the course record when he ran 15:10! This class is ridiculously deep and don't underestimate how good Futsum is right now. You could also argue that Lukas is just becoming race sharp since he didn't race most of the Illinois season. Hopefully Lukas runs Worlds, but either way, he is one of the all-time greats.

When Ritz won at Parkside FL his junior year, he beat Tegenkamp and Sage. Hard to imagine deeper high school competition than that.

They had cross country before 1999. Sometimes they ran different distances like 2 miles and 2.5 miles.

Lindgren, Hulst, Virgin and I'll include Ritzenhein the ones to argue about greatest all-time.

Solinsky not a HS Legend wrote:

No he isn't, he wasn't a record breaker in highschool, although he did win Footlocker, his field was an rare down year. He was mediocre to poor in college XC. He hasn't done any pro XC. It is absurd to say he's is or ever was an XC legend.

Chris Solinsky may not have broken any national records in HS, but he does have the 3rd fastest time ever on the SD FL course, and had track times that are as good as or better than LV has run so far (though LV certainly has a good chance to surpass those this spring).

To say that he won in a rare down year is kind of a deceptive claim, as he won by over 20 seconds in the 3rd fastest time ever on that course. He likely would have won had it been an 'up year'. And it's debatable if that was a down year. There was no Webb, Ritz, Rupp, Derrick, Fernandez, etc., but he did beat guys like Araia, Heath, Trafeh convincingly. Those are solid guys and a pretty average year, IMO.

He was also a close 3rd the year before in what was arguably a down year. The only thing not quite as good as winning it as a junior, is losing it in the finishing straight as a junior. I'm not not trying to minimize that LV won it as a junior, but we should remember that Solinsky was close to winning it twice as well.

Mediocre to poor in college XC? He placed 3rd as a junior, and bombed as a senior, 16th as soph, and 15th as a frosh. That's a three time All-American. I can think of lots of good NCAA runners who would kill to perform that well just once at that meet. Did he win a title? No. But to say he was mediocre to poor is pretty ridiculous.

Overall, LV's current accomplishments stack up pretty well with someone like Solinsky in HS. If he wins next week, that'd put him ahead in my book, and only a fast 5k away from Ritz-like status. A good track season will put him among the best ever, and a fantastic track season (any outdoor national record, or sub4:00, sub8:40, sub 13:44; or something like doubling at NON and winning) could give him legitimate claim to best ever.