are these guys better than german fernandez was? I consider him the high school GOAT
Man...I'm taking German over anyone I've seen run in high school. He did everything on his own. The Newbury Park guys have each other. But that's a tough question for sure.
They had 6 guys on their team 9:10 or faster in this one race.
Dev Doshi, on their team, ran 9:09 and he's only a sophomore. They could potentially have 5 guys go sub 9 next year (Young brothers, Doshi, Hector Martinez, and Little Sahlman).
Jury's still out on Cantu who returns next year. His performances have been great by any normal kid's standards but has been underperforming by NP's standards (injuries?). If he can get his act together for next year they'll have 6 studs ready to rip it.
I do think next year is their last great year though and NP should return to earth after that.
The could potentially have 5 guys sub 8:45 with Appleford being the 5th. I'm not ready to sleep on that one yet. And if he doesn't....he will be under 9. Why can't Doshi and Martinez do it this year at Arcadia? That would be 7 under 9:00 this year. Why not? It's still February. And beyond this year and if had a half way decent kid....I'm transferring them to Newbury Park. Brosnan is making other high school coaches look inferior. No way I'm putting other coaches down here...but Brosnan is putting time in where other coaches can't or won't. The extra time he is putting in with extended training camps in Big Bear, racing all over the place from Coast to Coast, the mental preparation he is doing with these kids, etc. Watch for more transfers...that's all I'm saying. These kids are getting elite coaching that many college athletes do not get.
In one interview I remember him talking about how there are potential 9-9:20 kids in every school. Problem is the vast majority never come out for track. Some of them could be found on the soccer team. I had a friend in high school who just messed around with different sports, but had no interest in being on a team or training. He had good natural speed but never seem to tire and had beautiful running form. The track coach pleaded with him to come out for the team, but to no avail. I can't guarantee that he would have been a 9:00 3200 runner, but there's no question that he had talent that was laying dormant. I mentioned elsewhere that there are several established running clubs in the NP area. Some of them feed other local high schools, like Camarillo h.s. But why go there when you can run at NPHS. IIRC, both the Sahlman and Young families live in Camarillo.
This. I was the fastest miler at my high school but didn’t run my Junior and Senior year because I played on the golf team. I was a 5:05 as a sophomore having improved from 5:26 as a freshman and I’m confident I would have easily broken 5 in competition my junior year but I was also a 9 handicap and several or my friends were on the golf team and I liked the coach. I know its not a super fast time but I think many potentially strong runners pursue other sports.
Baseball, lacrosse, football, tend to be more popular sports than track and xc.
Ironically golf switched from a spring to fall sport in Massachusetts after I graduated so i could have done both had they made the change earlier.
FWIW, other than winning the league championship on a fluke shot my junior year I didn’t have that much success in HS golf but did finish 7th at the State Skiing Championships and raced in college and our team qualified for the nationals 3 out of my 4 years.
German Fernandez was better at 3200 and up as he ran 14:24 at woodward park by himself. If he would have run in college races or have been pushed in highschool track races he could have run faster. A lot of his best track races were doubles. Dude was very talented but injury prone. He ran 8:34 after running 4:00 for 1600 no pacers. He got injured right before Foot locker Nationals.
German Fernandez was better at 3200 and up as he ran 14:24 at woodward park by himself. If he would have run in college races or have been pushed in highschool track races he could have run faster. A lot of his best track races were doubles. Dude was very talented but injury prone. He ran 8:34 after running 4:00 for 1600 no pacers. He got injured right before Foot locker Nationals.
Everyone was robbed when German did not run the mile or 2 mile at the Pre Invite that year.
5:05 Sophomore year is not a time to brag about unless you are a girl. A freshman girl just ran 4:38 yesterday.
I know it isn't as I stated in my post. The point I was making is that track isn't the most popular sport in the US. Way more kids play soccer, football, baseball, and other sports over running. I was likely never going to be a great runner in high school but I would have been better had I stuck with track instead of pursuing other athletic interests.
One of the thing that Newbury Park has going for it is that Track is cool and a big deal it makes it much easier for the team to recruit new talent. At my high school Lacrosse was king, we won several state championships and had more people playing Lacrosse than we did football or any other sport for that matter. Some schools are football powerhouses, others basketball. B/c track is popular NP is going to have more top athletes trying out than schools where track isn't as big of a deal. They may have a slight dip when the current crop of stars graduate but all the kids who were in middle school who heard about the team's success are going to be excited about running and that helps create a recruiting flywheel.
A lot of potentially talented runners don't even try track as they are already fully committed to other sports before they even reach high school.
Are you at NP? I’m at a school where the cross country team is the best team at the school. It’s still doesn’t get the attention that football and basketball do.
5:05 Sophomore year is not a time to brag about unless you are a girl. A freshman girl just ran 4:38 yesterday.
I know it isn't as I stated in my post. The point I was making is that track isn't the most popular sport in the US. Way more kids play soccer, football, baseball, and other sports over running. I was likely never going to be a great runner in high school but I would have been better had I stuck with track instead of pursuing other athletic interests.
One of the thing that Newbury Park has going for it is that Track is cool and a big deal it makes it much easier for the team to recruit new talent. At my high school Lacrosse was king, we won several state championships and had more people playing Lacrosse than we did football or any other sport for that matter. Some schools are football powerhouses, others basketball. B/c track is popular NP is going to have more top athletes trying out than schools where track isn't as big of a deal. They may have a slight dip when the current crop of stars graduate but all the kids who were in middle school who heard about the team's success are going to be excited about running and that helps create a recruiting flywheel.
A lot of potentially talented runners don't even try track as they are already fully committed to other sports before they even reach high school.
What other sport would be a good fit for Nico Young? Certainly not baseball or football and one good collision in basketball would tamper his interest and that’s assuming he could have made the team.
Many posters claim potentially great runners play soccer instead, but if that sport is so popular, why does the U.S. suck at it?
Actually, track is the most popular for girls and 2nd most for boys. You should check stats before providing opinions.
You are confusing absolute participation with actual popularity. Basketball is played with 5 players on the court and most varsity teams have 12-15 players suited for a game and are limited to 15 players on their roster. Track and Field teams are far larger and with a few notable exceptions there are no cuts in T&F, anyone who wants to join the team can and people aren't getting cut from the team like with basketball, football, and other some other sports. At most schools more people try out for basketball and baseball than spots on the team, this doesn't normally happen in T&F.
If you look at 13-17 year old sports participation not just who is on a varsity HS team like you referenced you get a much different picture of popularity. As I stated before these days kids pick their sport well before they get to HS. T&F is 8th, right below volleyball. https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/state-of-play-2020/ages-13-17
I was listening to a biologist's lectures and it became clear the phenomenon that allowed Brosnan to really get the ears of his athletes, and it has something to do with the brothers he's had on the team, but not necessarily with their being spectacularly, unusually talented, but with having a bunch of brothers on a team. Basically, kin selection in animals is one of the few ways you jump start cooperation in a group (geographic isolation and then re-integration can do it too). He got one kid, Nico Young, admired by others on the team, to really buy into the program. That kid sold his program to the others, as Brosnan frequently says. But he was so effective in doing that in part because he had two other younger brothers who joined the team and were probably already following his program on a slower basis. So, you had three brothers on one page on the same team, all setting or following the same program/example. In addition, you had two other brothers, Colin and Aaron Sahlman, following suit. There was a total of five brothers then all on one page setting the paradigm for the team and all of them came to be at or near the top of the program. 7:56.97/7:57/8:39 for the Youngs, 3:58/8:33 and 4:05/8:01 for the Sahlmans. That is how group cooperation--everyone following the same highly successful program, making it highly successful--came to be at Newbury Park, a program with little recent success before Brosnan.
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