Newbury Park Racing Klecker-McDonald-Hoare-Beamish In 4xMile at Penn Relays

I respect the NP kids, but we've got to look at this realistically. This headline is not even close to accurate. Perhaps this is similar to the Kipchoge vs. Farah nonsense we saw awhile back.

NP goes 16:23, OAC goes 15:38. That's nearly a 300m difference. NP vs. OAC is just a publicity stunt to get high schoolers across the nation to show interest in the meet.

Within this thread the sub-discussions are hilarious. Hoping the Pros will put on a show. Hoping too that the high school kids will put on a show.
Regarding the somewhat tortured sub-discussion about NPHS, I will say this (as I live nearby and have followed the team). First off, when you have high school kids running about 4 minutes, it is not primarily because their training is better or different. It is because they have genetic gifts (along with a motivating, sustaining coach), in other words they are genetic outliers. (Initially I was going to use the expression genetic "freaks," but wanted to avoid even the hint of any negative connotation.) Occasionally you might get, at most, one such outlier on a high school team. Here, we have 2 sets of brothers who are genetic outliers (Sahlman brothers, junior & senior; Young identical twins, juniors). So you have 2 families with four genetic outliers. And that is to be distinguished from a coach recruiting 4 unrelated genetic outliers from a given region. Also, not to take anything away from their excellent coach, who has kept them grounded, motivated and healthy (and has produced excellent results with his other, less gifted runners). But given the raw material, plenty of coaches would have these four guys running similar times. Additionally with regards to the recruiting controversy, this is mostly much ado about nothing. Note this whole high school running dynasty started with juniors Lex's and Leo's older brother Nico. (Another genetic "outlier," now a sophmore college runner at NAU, who went sub-4 this year.) But still, just the same 2 families. Of course, naturally, any local, very talented, ambitious young runner (especially the twin younger brothers Leo and Lex, whose older brother had great success at NPHS) would then be drawn to this coach and this high school. And in fact the Sahlman and Young families live very, very close to this public high school, regardless of official school district lines (which are permitted to be crossed in this part of California).
Also, the coach has been criticized (initially by other teams, I think) for allegedly having prohibited Sunday workouts. I don't know all the details, but I can't imagine a more silly criticism. Any runner on this forum understands that a near 4 minute miler is going to do on Sunday whatever is thought optimal from a training perspective (whether that is an off day, a long slow distance run or whatever). And this is regardless of any silly high school or school district rules. And you wouldn't be able to stop him, even if you tried. And if optimal is a running day, you can call it a personal run or whatever. Primarily this would be coming from the runner himself, not from the coach. Almost everybody on this forum understands all this. If anything, the coach would want to make sure these very enthusiastic young thoroughbreds don't overdo it on Sundays ... (I get that parents and other noncompetitive athletes might not fully intuit all this.) And I get that competitors, humiliated on the track, might utilize whatever ammo is available. So you get this silly controversy...
Good luck to the Pros and to the high school kids on Friday.

Those kids will remember that Franklin Field "race" and especially the cheers from the very large supportive crowd, for the rest of their lives ...

That's quite a wall of text.

You claim to follow the Newbury Park team but you obviously don't follow them closely or you would know they pulled out of the Penn Relays 2 weeks ago.

So no show, no cheers, no supportive crowd, nothing to remember.

I TOLD YOU SO A MONTH AGO.

Ritz as a runner was always hurt. Ritz as a coach is the same thing.
Runners are either great or hurt.
Big risk=Big Reward or Big Injury

This happened in Wisconsin in the 70s and 80s with the Stintzi's and Hacker's.

When you look at the 1978 Braveland Conference results in the Journal scoreboard section, these are the cliff notes:

Mile: 4:13 Hacker

880: 1:54 Hacker

2-Mile: 9:17 Hacker

Then the 1980 Braveland Conference results:

1600: 4:14 Hacker

800: 1:54 Hacker

3200: 9:18 Hacker

4x4: (...Hacker, Hacker)

The former was older brother Jeff as a senior. The latter was a Dave (sr)/Tim (jr) combo. The other funny part about the latter is neither Dave nor Tim remembers who did what. Spectators may have thought it was just one guy named Hacker. But that's part of the Hacker legacy that lives on in Wisconsin.

I would bet that Olin Hacker (Tim's son) will have a son running about 4:11 as a sophomore or junior in 2048. When Olin Hacker won state xc as a junior, coming down the final stretch, springy hair flowing back in the wind, it was a split image of his father doing the same. His father's former coach also agreed. Deja vu.