Lopez Lomong for me. He was good for a long time, but no global medals and I think the explosion of the new generation of American distance runners has kind of overshadowed the fact that he kept us relevant at a range of distances for a long time.
DJ Principe and Brodey Hasty in HS - both very close to being sub 4 milers. DJ didn't get under til grad school. Not sure Hasty ever did, but he was clutch as hell at every NCAA XC champs he ever raced.
Great pulls. The streets (and roads and grass) will never forget heartland boys Seth Hirsch and Finn Gessner. Also, Phillip Rocha is the most vindicated person ever re: Mt SAC course record (SOFT)
DJ Principe and Brodey Hasty in HS - both very close to being sub 4 milers. DJ didn't get under til grad school. Not sure Hasty ever did, but he was clutch as hell at every NCAA XC champs he ever raced.
Great pulls. The streets (and roads and grass) will never forget heartland boys Seth Hirsch and Finn Gessner. Also, Phillip Rocha is the most vindicated person ever re: Mt SAC course record (SOFT)
Finn Gessner, that's a deep cut. I always thought it was sad he didn't pan out at Wisconsin.
Matt Elliot - 4th at USAs in the 1500m as a full time teacher in 2014.
Note: he did have some allegations come out in 2024 unfortunately.
Wow, totally forgot about him. I was in high school at the time of his 2014 season and was so inspired by him. I reached out to him and talked back and forth a bit, and he seemed like a great guy. I was super disappointed to hear about the allegations against him.
Matt Elliot - 4th at USAs in the 1500m as a full time teacher in 2014.
Note: he did have some allegations come out in 2024 unfortunately.
Oh man this one made my stomach turn when those allegations came out. What a fall from grace. It was 2013 actually and I had just graduated high school. You're right that Matt was 4th and he beat Will Leer, who was having a career year in 2013 after moving back to LA. Matt gave one of the most inspirational post-race interviews where he said how he was a 4:42 high school miler that just kept working at it. Listening to that someone who had just graduated with a 4:53 high school PR, was about the biggest inspiration I could get at the time. All that pretty much gets thrown in the dumpster now.
There were also a lot of guys hanging around that national level at the time, sort of like Eric Holt is now where they could qualify for nationals and if they got lucky maybe sneak on a team. I remember Tommy Schmitz was a guy like that. Ran for Marquette and was a sub 4 training on his own in Santa Barbara. Coached remotely by Steve Magness and I remember his Instagram was cool because it seemed like he was just living the life in Santa Barbara, running and hanging out at the beach. He's my palette cleanser pick after the Matt Elliott.
This actually just inspired me to do a quick search through the results of 2013 USAs and it's a "streets won't forget" gold mine! I could probably post the entire results page and plenty have been mentioned already but dudes like Russell Brown, Aric Van Halen, Tyler Mulder, Elijah Greer, De'Sean Turner, Ben Bruce, Corey Leslie, Elliott Heath! I know the US wasn't nearly as competitive internationally back then but, man, seeing these names takes me back and I thought it was a legit golden age of distance runners. You had guys (and gals) like Galen, Centro, Leo, Jager, and Jenny Simpson getting medals but those just behind them were pushing the US forward too!