Best High School Runners Who Never Did a Thing in College or After

"Interesting definition of "never did a thing.""

-you're right. i stand corrected. perhaps more specifically, i was referring to people who didn't really live up to the projected potential as shown by their success in hs.

"Grosso ran in the 13s for 5k"- i'd like to see that result if you had it. 13.59? regardless, far below what one might expect from a kinney champ. last i heard, he was looking at a transfer to fayetteville, and then disappeared.

"Dameworth competed in a couple national meets and ws runner up aa Big 10 champs."

-again, a dominant force a s a man among boys in hs. he CRUSHED me at kinney. i would have expected far more than just being a runner up at big 10 champs.

"Granville 1:47 800"

-SLOWER than his hs time.

"Alsen won a District Championship in xc"

-relatively weak region when he was there. probably was in a pack of 6 other hogs. for a 4.0x guy in hs, again, i think he far underperformed

"DiJoseph ran low 4s"

-a great xc runner in hs with a solid mile time (4.10?) should have more than just "ran low 4's" next to his name at the end of the day

"Vandergrift had a great career albeit short. Several sub 3:40s"

-you got me on this one. i had no idea that he had run 3.37. i stand corrected.

"The vast majority of us would love to have had any of the careers of these guys. While not knowing anything about Smith, every other guy mentioned ran better in college than in high school"

-regardless of what your own personal career elcitied, this has nothing to do with the thread premise (or my self admitted deviation from it). as previosly stated, granville did not run better. in addition, in my opinion, each of those athletes (excluding vandegrift) underperfomed for whatever reason. as a side note, chip came to fayetteville, was injured all the time, then returned home to new mexico to train under his father again. i don't think he ever did anything of note. however, given my vandegrift mistake, perhaps that's not the case. i will tell you that he was a heck of a nice guy though.

mellow juan wrote:

"Interesting definition of "never did a thing.""

-you're right. i stand corrected. perhaps more specifically, i was referring to people who didn't really live up to the projected potential as shown by their success in hs.

"The vast majority of us would love to have had any of the careers of these guys. While not knowing anything about Smith, every other guy mentioned ran better in college than in high school"

-regardless of what your own personal career elcitied, this has nothing to do with the thread premise

It has everything to do with the thread premise. The thread premise was "never did a thing." Once you completely change the topic to "lived up to your own personal expectations," then yeah, you're right about whatever you want to be right about. For instance my new interpretation of the thread is those who never mastered reading comprehension. I nominate you.

Grotche wrote:

Bryshon Nellum.

he got shot in the leg and missed 2 years, but ran 45>94 last year, at 21 years old it is too soon to say he wont do a thing.

ian alsen married beth mcgrann who is the school record holder (33:07) for a track 10k at UCI.

Rodney Giles

Maybe top 5 male high school runners EVER.

end of discussion.

Jim Arriola and Obea Moore will be tough to beat.

Jim's mile time of 4:08.8 was set in 1974. It is STILL the age 15 mile record, a record that has lasted more than 36 years. Setting your PR at age 15 and having the PR be the an age record for nearly 40 years is amazing.

upstate..... wrote:

sexycani wrote:

Hannah Davidson, Caitlin Lane, Nicole Blood, Lindsay Ferguson from Saratoga

Laurel Burdick from FM

I think that the Toga kids go on to better things than the FM kids.

What happened to the three FM kids from last years HS national champs, they were all frosh this yr in college, do any still run?

looks like

Mackenzie Carter (Washington) - 47th @ PAC10

Hannah Luber (Iowa) - not top 7, ran ND Invite 177th

Kathryn Fanning (Albany) - 16th at American East

Molly Malone (Syracuse) - injured or redshirt?

Brian Rhodes Devey - was going to mention him but then read about his accomplishments in this thread. Direct athletics seems incomplete but comfirms the fast times he ran:

http://www.directathletics.com/athletes/track/1756336.html

Was also going to say Murdock and Brian Rhodes Devey but they actually did really well - thank you for posting their results.

Tom Gruenwald (Fayetteville-Manlius, NY '05) is doing well but not super super well at BYU(http://www.byucougars.com/media_guides/cross_country_m/2009/info/gruenewald-thomas.html)

Craig Forys is doing pretty well for himself (http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-track/mtt/forys_craig00.html)

The last two I have to add are:

Justin Craddock (Kenmore West, NY '05) won a national title and set a state record, and was a 600/800 stud then never did anthing

Peter Miendl (Orchard Park, NY 02) won footlocker NE and the state mile his senior year. His frosh year at Stanford he was on their national champ xc team - I think that was the year they scored a ridiculously low team score as well. he ran 13:59 indoors as a true frosh and then vanished.

Hey Nigel- you'll notice that I higlighted this very caveat in my response. Maybe you should take a deep breath and calm down...or nominate yourself for your comprehension club? It's unfortunate that you couldn't continue to reply in argument without being a dick. The ironic thing is, you apparently didn't even read the portion where I called myself out. Unbelievable.

mellow juan wrote:

"...as a side note, Chip came to Fayetteville, was injured all the time, then returned home to New Mexico to train under his father again. I don't think he ever did anything of note. However, given my Vandegrift mistake, perhaps that's not the case. I will tell you that he was a heck of a nice guy though.

Just to clarify, Chip(Harrison) was not injured "all the time," but was injured a high percentage of the time due to his very unique form, which could not handle the mileage or intensity of the McDonnell program of that era. He was healthy enough of the time at Arkansas to qualify for the 5000m and earn an All-American cert. as well as score for the HOGS at numerous conference championships, a feat in itself given his teammates. When he returned home to run for New Mexico for his fifth year, he was able to run 8:00 for 3000m and qualify for the indoor national championships. I do not believe he was able to earn an All-American cert on that trip. I whole heartedly agree about the nice guy thing, he is still one to this very day, and seems very content with his career.

Off the top of my head -

Christy Adamyck

Katie Dunn

Lauren Saylor

Lauren Chetelat

Annie St. Geme

Kauren Tarver

Hudson Andrews

Shannon Murakami

Elizabeth Coe

Chris Schwartz

Alma Escobar

Shelby Buckley

Sarah Sumpter

Justine Fedronic

Emmanuel Ngula

Nicole Hood

Seriously? Did I miss it? Did nobody mention the once dominant high school runner then only slightly better than average Penn State runner?

Erin Davis (Saratoga Springs)

Murad went to Southern Idaho CC, then transferred to Barton CC then ran at Essex CC here in NJ. I know he ran a 4:11( I think) mile indoors and moved to texas. Is happily married and I think was planning to run a marathon if he hasn't done so already. Guy definately had talent. I also rememer Brendan Heffernan hasn't heard much from him after college except He was participating in an IT conference a while back.

Kevin Byrne from Paramus Catholic HS in NJ (graduated in 1977) RIPped a 4:08.0 mile at Madison Square Garden in the 1977 Milrose Games, crushing John Tuttle and Rojer Jones. He still has the All-Time HS Record on that track and was on the front cover of the 1978 Milrose Games Program. He never ran even close to 4:00 at Georgetown and I beat him regularly in X-C in college--He killed me and everyone else in HS, including X-C.

Erika Odlaug

matt withrow, failed out of school

Any news on what happened to Dan McManamon? He was one hell of a talent coming out of NY.

The story is not over for Chad Hall, according the UC Riverside site. In 2010 he earned All-Region honors after finishing 10th at the NCAA West Regionals to advance to Nationals ... Established his career-best 10k time running the NCAA West Regional on November 13 in 30:16.40 ... Earned All-Conference for the second straight year after finishing second at the Big West Championships on Oct. 30 ... Named Big West Conference Athlete of the Week on Sept. 8, Sept. 22 and Oct. 20 Won his fourth-career meet, set the course record, and posted a personal-best 8k time of 23:24.2 at the Northridge Invitational on Oct. 16.

I know for a fact that Justin Craddock went on to Eastern Michigan University to run for John Goodridge, that should explain his demise. Goodridge has his hand in a lot of HS runners who go on to do nothing in college or after.