Put the amazing talented, dedicated and hard-working Jim Ryun in Newbury Park High School today and he would not be noticed on their team, he would not be making any team trips and he would not even be on any high school team because he would have signed a huge mega contract to be a professional runner.
Many things have changed in running since the 60s including super shoes, tuned fast tracks etc. But the biggest change is the ability for runners to openly accept payments as pro athletes.
Ryun surely must have received some under the table money, and did run as a pro on the International Track Association circuit at the end of his career, but never had the opportunity that exists now to run as a pro. His times and placings as a high school runner would have attracted way more attention than D Hunter and H Kessler.
That is a very aggressive conversion you just did. I don't think so. It took until 1975 for an All Timer of all timers to break 3:50 on the fastest of track types to date. And the shoe advantage people are using for the mile, is way over the top.
Ryun ran on some great cinder tracks, while not nearly the mondo evolution of today? Those tracks were fast. The first evolution of "artificial tracks" If you ever ran on ones in early 70's in HS, were actually quite hard, and in cold spring meets, were very hard..lol.
What many people on this thread are neglecting to see is that today's tracks (beginning with Mondo in 80's) give a "bounce back" and or "return". Dirt, cinder, etc..... don't offer any bounce back and are "dead" surfaces. Combine a firm-hard engineered track today with advanced shoe technology and very fast times will happen. To say that Jim Ryun was at a disadvantage is an understatement. No rocket science needed here kids, Mr. Ryun would've run substantially faster at all the events he competed in. How fast? Who knows, ya'll can chew on that as much as you want.
Jim Ryun is the absolute best HS ever and it will be unchanged forever. I mean the guy ran 3:55 as a HS on crappy tracks and shoes back in the 60’s. Beat the Olympic champion Snell too, won Silver in Mex city, set WR in the 1500 and Mile. It is offensive trying to compare to any other stud teen, not even Webb as a teen was that good.
Ryun in 3:55 shape would run 3:51 on a modern track with regular 1990s spikes and pacers to 1320y. He didn't run times at 2M in high school that would stand up, but he didn't need to. At 19 in 1966, he ran 3:51.3/8:25.
Time machine the sub-4 HS Ryun to California today, and line him up at Woodbridge in super shoes.
Say Nico time machines back to now, too, and the NP team is just nuts. Does Jim even make the trip?
On April 16 1965 at the Kansas Relays Ryun ran 4:04.8 mile, the next day he anchored the 2mile relay and ran 1:47.7 for 880 yards, page 105 Jim Ryun story.
You youngsters should read this book, then maybe you’ll get an idea how good Ryun was.
I’m a big time Newbury Park fan, but until a high schooler does what Ryun did in his junior and senior year, taking in the worlds best and beating them, everyone else is number two.
It’s not always just about time, but the competition.
There isn’t an American high school miler that can beat the Olympic gold medalistl, Olympic silver medalist and last years best American, Hocker, in mile this year in the same race.
That is what Jim Ryun did his senior year of high school.
Ryun would be will smith and np would be chris rock. However, ryun's slap wouldn't just knock back the np boys, it would completely vaporize them off the face of the earth.
Modern tracks and equipment put ryun at 350 in hs.
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