In the late 1970s early 80s there was a distance runner at Texas Tech that had a native American last name. Don't recall the fellas name. A rumor was out that he ran under another name at Colorado College years earlier. He was a solid 5k/10k athlete. Shortly after the rumor floated the athlete disappeared. Perhaps someone out there remembers this story in more detail.
I remember some 'boy' winning the 800m under 13 English schools championship - trouble is he had a beard and no birth certificate. As he got older he suddenly disappeared from the rankings list.
Ghost of Igloi wrote:
In the late 1970s early 80s there was a distance runner at Texas Tech that had a native American last name. Don't recall the fellas name. A rumor was out that he ran under another name at Colorado College years earlier. He was a solid 5k/10k athlete. Shortly after the rumor floated the athlete disappeared. Perhaps someone out there remembers this story in more detail.
Could his name have been Red Cloud? I think he used to do some road races.
NOT an All-American wrote:
I used to win a lot of local South Florida road races (turkey trots and whatnot) after college. A major newspaper reporter used to write that I was an All-American, despite never having asked me if I was. Even after I told her I wasn't, she continued to write it. One day I confronted her about it and he she replied "you're an All-American to me." People knowledgeable about running who read those articles could have easily thought I was the con artist. Ah the media.
Would she have been Sharon Robb?
You got it. I recall now, it was Pat Porter that told me Red Cloud ran under another name at Colorado College years earlier. Did you hear that story too?
jois
there used to be a guy at work who told us that he ran 10 miles in the soft sand on the beach in 60 minutes every day. This was back when I was running 100mpw and running 10ks under 31 minutes so I knew that he was flat out lying, as no one could do that day after day. I said that I wanted to meet him for this workout. He kept making excuses and putting me off and finally said that he did his workout at 1am. I told him 'fine', where should I meet you? He then 'got injured' and cancelled out.
There isn't an under 13 English Schools. Do you mean under 15 boys?
Also do you mean Ahmed Ali (people used to joke about him bringing his wife and kids to races)? He definitely went backwards as he got older! This hasn't happened to some other runners who did well at that age though: Richard Dowse, Ketan Desai, Lee Bowron, Andrew Murdoch for example, but I don't think any of them lied about their age.
Ghost of Igloi wrote:
You got it. I recall now, it was Pat Porter that told me Red Cloud ran under another name at Colorado College years earlier. Did you hear that story too?
No. This thread was the first I'd heard of it. I'll ask a guy I know.
Most fraudulent--(money involved)--a guy jumped out of a cornfield in the later stages of the Rawhide Marathon in Colorado to snatch first place, and $3000, in a pretty fast 2:20 (give or take). He was outed by the lead runners, but also claimed to be the 4th place finisher from the 1980 (or 76) OT marathon, but that claim was quickly discredited. Actually a pretty good runner to maintain a 5:20 - 5:30 pace for several miles at atltitude, but ultimately he was a con man and compulsive liar. That event led to no more prize money for Rawhide and may have contributed to the race's eventual downfall a few years later.
I knew a guy in college, a young republican by the name of molho, who claimed to have run a 4:08-09 mile in high school. He had all these girls going gaga over him for months, but he got pretty shifty when I asked him why he no longer pursued the sport and why he wasn't listed in T&F News.
Does anyone remember online persona Lyndon Herzog? He claimed to have run a blistering masters time of 14:40 for 5000 m on the track, oh about a decade ago, but he too was outed within a few weeks of his purported time. His existence may or may not have been a joke (i.e., was he trying to fool people for real or was it someone just trying to be tongue-in-cheek).
Eddy Hellybuck
Ted Poulos.
Most road race wins ever, if you could winning a 3k where the fastest competition is slow high schoolers.
you're right under 15 - it was back in the early 80's
or the 1500m in 2000, even. think he was found to be overage, as was Courage Edo who competed as an U15 at 100m in 1992 (won the English Schools but then found to be overage) - think in some cases it may occur where the kid is in year 9 at school or whatever, but no one notices they're older when putting them in the local champs.
seems to be an interesting character................
NoReallyIm16 wrote:
Never got a chance to meet him, but he went to my high school:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_HogueOur coach has some good stories about him.
You went to Washington High? I went to SM North and had a good, friendly rivalry with Hank Brame from Washington. A nice guy. We continued our rivalry in college when he went to John Brown U and I went to Pittsburg State; although he mostly gravitated to the longer distances in college. A great guy. Jim Hogue was better than both of us in high school. A top talent who came along a few years after me.
My 1st semester, freshman year in college one of my freshman X-C teammates who lived in another dorm asked me if I knew this guy in his dorm, cause he had the same high school letterman's jacket that I did so we must have been teammates in high school. When he told me the guys name, I said, "Oh, yeah, I know him, he was our student-team manager in track and X-C my senior year". My friend started laughing as I guess the guy had been telling everyone in the dorm that he "dipped just under 2 minutes in the 1/2 mile his senior year, to earn his letter".
A guy who worked out at the same gym as me had everyone convinced he was a shoe-in to make the Olympic team in the 400mH. It was all he talked about but he was a small, skinny, dorky white kid.
My wife and I used to double date with her best friend. The husband of the other couple invited his work friend over because he thought we’d get along because we both ran. Supposedly he ran multiple day ultras on the side, had tons of sponsors and made close to six figures in his races. Yet, he kept his job that made him about $30,000 a year.
I was really looking forward to slowly cracking him. I was going to ask newbie questions, let him dig a hole and then slowly tear apart his story. On the day we were supposed to meet, I came down with the flu and I never got another chance to meet him. I’m still mad about that one.
I coach and the parent of one of my athletes was a 4:30ish miler in HS. He told his son and my entire team he was a 4:02 guy in HS and ran in the 14s for 5k. I didn’t say anything until one day he told me his dad said he ran a lot faster than me in HS. I was decent and ran under 4:20 and 15:13 and found some of his dad’s results.
He son wouldn’t let it go, so I showed him the website of his dad’s HS track team. It had top 10 lists, cut-off at 4:26 in the 1600m and his dad’s name was nowhere to be seen... He was speechless and I felt bad about doing that one.
The cross coach at Newbury Park high school has been called out a few times on Letsrun for being a fraud, claiming he was a 9x All-American at Adams St. I tried to search for some of the threads I remember seeing, but can’t find them anymore. It’s probably a case of someone who badly wanted to be in the spot light and exaggerated stories for credibility. Once he actually got the attention, realized people are curious and want to know more about him. A little fact checking and he looks like a fraud, which is too bad because his team is incredible and I’m sure he’s a big reason why. It has to be somewhat embarrassing to have to answer questions about some exaggerated accomplishments.
Here’s an article claiming he’s a 9x all-American in college, but I was only able to find where he was an All-American at San Marcos (NAIA) in 2012 with a 25th place in cross, and an All-American at Concordia (NAIA) in the indoor 800 (5th place) in 2007. So, that’s 2x All-American and NAIA, which is barely college.
https://hawaiiathletics.com/news/2010/2/3/WOUTDOOR_0203101412
His Sir Walter Miler bio says he was an All-American at Adam’s St, but couldn’t find any evidence of that. I only saw one result for him at Adams St where he took 63rd at the NCAA D2 cross championship in 1997.
https://sirwaltermiler.com/sean-brosnan/
He may have gone a bit over the top with the 9x All-American claim. There aren’t many at any level of NCAA that can claim that.
Had a teacher/assist coach in HS whose times he said he ran seemed to get faster and faster each year. He eventually told everyone how he just missed making the Olympic team in the 400IH. Another teacher in the school showed us that they guy was not even listed among the top 50 in the USA. The teacher/assist coach stopped talking about his times after that.