Louie did work for Insport, NCAA make a big deal out of nothing. He tried many times to get back in shape, but had a ton of shin problems. You might ask why did he have shin problems, he ran 4 straight years of xc, indoor, and outdoor. Now coaching a Arizona state.
be easy on Dameworth, he showed up freshman year and slipped on some ice on one of his first runs up there. broke some bones and was out for a long time. hes married now and working as a cop, he does still at least show up to road races and doesnt get last. but damn i saw a video of his footlocker race , wow, when i was as young as i was seeing him run like 4:45 mile split for cross and look like he was cruizing i was amazed.
at college after his injury he tried to do the steeple.
Just curious if any of you actually know Bryan - because i have seen some uneducated guesses about what he did in college, but had you seen what the kid endured, you would be pretty impressed with how cool it is that he still runs competively. if you look back at all the national cross country meets the past 7 years, he has run in a lot of them. i saw him at greensboro a few years ago. anyways, he did more than get hurt. he had a great deal of his guts taken out one year and was quite sick. amongst other things, but the guy always kept at it. i respected the guy back in the day. and still do when i read that article about him. and, he was NOT a miler, how many milers came out of wisconsin during that time (other than the great JERRY SCHUMACHER!) - he was a 5km runner, he messed with the steeple like one season but he was a 5 km runner mainly.
I ran with Coogan at UM. He was very good at the time but running around 3rd man on the team (XC) for some time. The team was obviously good. While Mark made great improvements during his career (do I hear a "duh") I would dare say that anyone who actually makes it to the national meet has potential to excel. No one at that level is a slouch. Those 32 runners have enough of something to make more of it...in general. There was another guy who was a freshment at UM when Coogan was a senior. He was dead last at the national meet in HS. He had pounds of talent but probably never ran more than 45 miles in college. With very little work I watched this guy step on the track at Penn Relays and run (his only) 10k in 29:27. Unfortunately this guy did not finish running in college but he has more given talent than I have ever seen.
Personally, I would love to look at the next 8 (second team?) for each region and see what they did :)
South Region 1986
1986
1. Erin Keough (VA) 16:45
2. Wendy Neely (VA) 17:42
South history
I raced Dameworth a lot in college, and he was a mainstay in the Wisconsin XC top 5 on teams that included many All-Americans (Casiano, Schumacher, Bergstrom, Menon, etc.). I believe he scored for the team that finished 2nd at NCAA's in 1992.
I also heard from teammates who were running with him at conference and national meets that he took some serious verbal abuse from then-coach Martin Smith during races. He was well respected in the Big Ten, but never really translated it to the NCAA level.
Glad to hear he is OK after what must have been a very scary and difficult moment as a police officer.
Its funny have the term "verbal abuse" is used in our sport and is commonplace in others. I would define "verbal abuse" as demeaning someone constantly over and over with the intent of tearing them down and humiliating them. Now I don't know of any coach in their right mind who would do this intentionally. After all they want the same thing as their athletes: competitive success.
I recently sat behind the bench at a high school basketball game where a team was getting blown out and the coach nearly burst a blood vessel screaming at his team. Yanked one guy out of the game and when the kid started to say something he yelled"Shut up!" and tore into him for about a minute. I'm not saying that's right but no one in the stands seem to see anything wrong with it.
As far as running goes, I see no useful point in a coach yelling at a kid in a negative manner during a race to fire him up. If it worked I'd do it myself but I think the added stress reaction to someone already having a bad race is detrimental.
But going as far as accusing someone of verbal abuse, what does that mean? Yelling "Get your head out of your ass!" or "Quit feeling sorry for yourself!" Those may be accurate repsonses by the coach and while I think its pointless to harp on someone in a race, I wouldn't say that that was verbal abuse. Now if you yelled. "You piece-of-shit pussy, You suck, I hate you!" that would be verbal abuse.
Let me put it this way. I was running with James Menon. He was a redshirt freshman at the time, and I was a true freshman. I ran with him the entire race and heard nothing from Smith but comments like- "what the hell are you training for? Get the hell up there. Jason [Casiano]is kicking your ass!" (Casiano finished a solid 2nd to Bob Kennedy).
Menon ended up being the second freshman in the race and Dameworth was behind him as a junior? so I imagine he heard much worse (which was confirmed by a teammate). There was never any doubt that the comments were abusive. But at the same time, their team was awesome, and kicked our ass all but one time, so I am hardly one to criticize.
I just thought that if I were Menon, I would be pissed (it pissed me off enough to kick him down). And I am sure Dameworth heard much worse. I would not be surprised if he came out and said, while he respected Smith as a coach, he would have preferred if he were a little more supportive.
Or I might be full of sh**
bridge 13, Thanks for the link to the South regionals results. Very interesting. As someone posted earlier, it is quite revealing looking at the whole field rather than the just the winners. I am amazed (have looked at South only)at how few runners, especially girls, were never heard from again at an elite level. Obviously, the talent was there at one time and many things factor into the equation, but I would've thought a higher percentage would go on to college and possibly beyond with the same level of success. I have heard nothing concerning Erin Keough beyond what others have posted. I wish her well also.
All that shows is that there is no correllation between top high school distance running and future success among women. The men's side is more predictble. Nearly every men's winner was a D1 All-American at least once. Among men's winners you also have Olympians in Guisto, Davis, Reina, Kennedy, Goucher. Torres and Ritz are top national class right now. Steiner, Marden, Fry and Downin had very solid college careers.
With the women you have Schiro at the top and Ceci Hopp was national class. Fairchild, Stamps, Robinson, Smith, Sullivan had inconsistent college careers but still won some all-american awards. As for the others I don't know much from.
Its obviously to soon to tell but I don't think anyones going to find it surprising that one of the greatest performers ever from last year doesn't go on to match that performance, either by choice or not.
does anyone know where nick larosa footlocker 1993 and many time new york state champ is running these days?
I heard that Chas Alexander had perfect scores on his SATs the same year he won Footlocker. Now thats a helluva double.
erin keough supposedly went on to receive a PhD in psychology(?).
apparently, suzy tuffey, ncaa xc champion as a freshman, also has a PhD in psych.
interestingly, tuffey never ran xc in hs.
re the soph 3200m record, it should be held by eric hulst since he ran 8:50 for 2 miles...which is 18+ meters longer than 3200m and obviously faster than the previously mentioned 8:55.
ed gee, I believe Alan Sharsu, Youngstown, Ohio ran sub 8:50 for two miles as a soph. I know he held the soph and 16 year old 2 mile record at one time. Can anyone confirm Alan's progression? Wasn't it something like 9:03/8:50/8:44/8:42 all for 2 miles, not 3200?
Willy, The question is: How fast did Sharsu run as a soph.? Is the 8:44.03 his soph time? I ask this as they listed Zishka's junior best, an 8:49 3200 converted to an 8:52 two-mile. Maybe they did the same for Sharsu?
Ohioan, I believe you've got your 70s dudes mixed up. Scharsu ran 8:44 his senior year, and of course, it was two miles. 3200 means jack!
It was Eric Hulst who ran 9:04.4 as a freshman, 8:50.6 as a
sophomore and 8:44.9 as a junior and 8:44.6 as a senior.
Yep malmo.
Hulst has 3 of the class records while Sharsu has two of the age records - guess he was born a bit later in the school year than Hulst.
The following times and records are for a full 2 miles according to High School Track annual by Jack Shepard:
Sharsu
FR - 9:15.6 age 14 record
SO - 9:05.0
JR - 8:45.8 age 16 record
SR - 8:44.0
Hulst
FR - 9:04.4 freshman record in 1976
SO - 8:50.6 soph record
JR - 8:44.9 junior record
SR - 8:44.6
I am with George on this one.
To my knowledge, Scharsu never held the HS soph record.
Virgin was the first soph to run sub-9. Others in the '70s followed...Hulst, Chapa, McChesney...with Hulst remaining the fastest.
Hulst was a senior in 1976, not a freshman.