Top 5 all time waste of talents in T&F?

To the people saying Magness:

You are being completely unfair. He is doing his 100% best to get everything he can out of his talents, unlike many in this thread. The problem with Magness is that in reality he was never that talented. He had an amazing work ethic and very well trained at a very young age. Steve is a great guy, but his top end speed is miserable for a miler. His performances created expectations (his and others) that could not be met. No fault of his, and surely not a waste of talent.

Real wastes of talent:

Obea Moore

Michael Granville

Paul Cross(1:46 freshman, dissapeared from Earth)

Gabe Jennings(4 year hiatus during prime)

Adam Steele (NCAA 400m Champ, 44.6~)

fall down drunk wrote:

The question was not which great athletes could have been better. The question was which great talents wasted their talents. Jim Ryun did NOT waste his talent. End of discussion.

Michael Stember, Gabe Jennings, Obea Moore and Michael Granville have to be the among the biggest wastes of talent in American track over the last 10-15 years.

Great list. Stember, and Obea are at the top of my list. But the #1 spot has to be Julia Stamps.

Add in A. Muhommad, and Franklin Sanchez and thats my 5.

I think you are overestimating how much talent Ryun had if you think he could solo a 3:45 on a cinder track given that I don't think anyone ever could solo a 3:45 on a cinder track. I doubt Ryun had that much more talent than El G, Morceli, Coe,...

Ryun training was state of the art for the 60s. I don't think you are going to find any coach which had a much better program for producing milers.

There are probably a couple categories of all time wastes

1) Those that make it to the top of the world scene but never seem to do as well as you think they should. Webb, Joe Falcon, Holman,...

2) Those that look like they are going to make to the top but come up short: Gabe Jennings, Stember ,... . Some of that is us over estimating their potential after they run the race of their lives.

3) Crazy high schoolers that look like they have unlimited potential and then do nothing: Obea Moore, Michael Granville

4) Crazy high schoolers that look like they have unlimited potential and then do moderate amounts: Someone like Melody Fairchild who did ok but never lived up to her high school results.

Again I say, "Tim Danielson".....

You guys don't know who he is do you.....??????

Cory Schubert

Erin Keogh

Suzie Tuffy

The logic is just baffling...

You would consider Ryun a top 5 all time waste of talent because he might have ran faster if he trained different, after setting world record that stood for 9 years and the american for 14? Over training and injuries are all part of pushing the envelope (Liquori knows this well in '72). What if's 35 yrs later are just hypothetical.

He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated 7 times and yeah it got to him, so he retired. Liquori also said it got to him (see this article from SI in '71:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944433,00.html

)

And how you can say his return after retirement was spotty when it seems like a very impressive rtn, setting a world indoor mile record 2 mths after coming back and then the fastses mile in 3 yrs by anyone.

He's clearly on the Top 5 list, but its a different one than this...

Webb 2.0 wrote:

DANIEL KOMEN.

Seriously.

He was incredible, obviously, but we never saw the best he could have done.

Perhaps you didn't understand...he said "waste of talent." I don't think multi world record holders qualify.

david mack did NOT waste his talent he is still the 3rd fastest american 800 meter runner in history. when he made that stupid decision to rob a bank and whatever else he did his track career was over and he had a job as a policeman.

Titan wrote:

William Reed

Earl Jones

both these guys were in career-ending car accidents, ending with a broken leg. They had potential cut short, but certainly did not waste their talent.

I don't think the original poster was suggesting that these individuals wasted or squandered their talent, it reads "biggest waste of talent". I take that to mean talent or full potential was either cut short through injuries or possible poor choices, or even just decided to move on. Talent cut short.

April 4, 2008

WR Justin Gatlin (5-11 7/8, 195): Ran a 4.45 and a 4.42 in the 40. Had a 40 ½-inch vertical jump, 11-foot long jump, 4.4 short shuttle and 7.36 cone drill and 12 reps in the bench press. The former Olympic sprinter faces long odds of getting signed.

runhrd wrote:

Again I say, "Tim Danielson".....

You guys don't know who he is do you.....??????

Of course, the guy ran 3:59.4 as a high school senior and never ran that fast in college. He attended BYU.

Blah wrote:

Ryun training was state of the art for the 60s. I don't think you are going to find any coach which had a much better program for producing milers.

Definitely not state of the art, even for the 1960s. Neither Bowerman nor Lydiard would have overworked Ryun as much as Timmons did with anaerobic training.

As for Ryun's talent, how many of those other guys that you mention, like Cram, could run 3:59 for the mile at the age of 17 years and one month, and do it on a cinder track?

I do'nt know about wastes, but I always felt that Matt Guisto, Charles Marsala, Ray Brown, Ruben Reina, Joe Falcon all could have reached an even higher level...but it's difficult to say..It's always easier to be the fan watching than the runner training and competing..

Reina won a whole lot of national titles...I wouldn't say he fell that sort of his potential.

What about Abdirizak Mohamud and Erin Sullivan, both two-time Foot Locker Cross country champs in the late '90s, didn't do much after that?

Magness should not be on this list for the simple fact he did not even make it into the big time. He was not even a factor in the NCAA, and never qualified for the US trials.

He is stuck in 3:42+ mode. Actually, for his shake I hope he at least breaks 4 for the mile. His malaise is very strange since he is one of the fastest high school milers ever.

At least Stember and Jennings made the Olympic team and ran 3:35 for the 1500.

Anybody else remember Houston McTear? A sprinter who could have had it all........

sanfrany wrote:

And how you can say his return after retirement was spotty when it seems like a very impressive rtn, setting a world indoor mile record 2 mths after coming back and then the fastses mile in 3 yrs by anyone.

Can you please identify the race where Ryun set a world indoor mile record?

As for his "spotty" performances, you obviously weren't following his career in 1971 and 1972, otherwise you'd know what I mean. The same year he dueled Liquori in Philadelphia, he finished last in a mile at London's Crystal Palace, running something like 4:10 or 4:11 to finish behind Dave Bedford of all people. Throughout '71-72, Ryun would run a mile in 4:10 or even 4:14 one week to finish dead last and then run 3:57 the following week to win handily. I'm not joking. The fact that he ran 3:52.8 is a part of that pattern.

Now, back to this "world indoor mile record" that you claim he set. Tell me about this (I don't think you can).