greatest hs xc runners -male

Oregon could be mentioned too. Pre and Rupp are definitely tops on many lists.

Michigan is a solid state as well. Don't forget Alan Webb was born in Michigan! haha I know that doesn't count.

well Jorge Torres made Footlocker 4 times and Withrow made it once. Maybe read up on him first. Sage probably would have beaten Withrow if they were both seniors at the same time. Sage was up against Ritzenhein, Teg, Dobson, Rohatsinsky, Webb and some other real horses. Withrow beat Rupp and McDougal but the overall field was not as strong.

bumblebee wrote:

for NC

Matt Debole, Sandy Roberts Bradsher Wilkins for XC

girls-Shea sisters

on a side note, as I was looking up results from NC, i noticed that Bobby Mack, (NC State) was incredibly unlucky

he got 11th at nationals his senior year, and I don't think he ever even won a county title in his career, as he was behind Matt Debole (#5 at nationals)

has that ever happened? two qualifiers from different teams in the same county?

Good list - Mary and Julie Shea head and shoulders above the rest, even though they ran when there was no girls XC. Mary ran 10:03 for 2 miles when I was a JR in High School.

On the boys side, if Roberts is on the list, then Jack Bolas should be - he beat Roberts for the state title when they were both seniors and went on to finish 2nd at NTN and 6th at Footlocker (Roberts was slowed by mono that year). I think Ryan Hill (fastest NC runner ever at McAlpine and 2X Footlocker finalist), and Watauga great, Ricky Brookshire also deserve consideration.

Current senior Taylor Gilland, after battling injuries last year, may be making a case for himself this year. He is the first ever 3 time 4A NC state XC champ, and regaining the conditioning he had as a sophomore. We'll see if he makes it to Footlocker and finishes well...

OR: Bill McChesney Jr, no contest.

Delaware: Brain Slodowski, Eric Eckstrand, Dominic Dellapelle and George Vernon

Girls: Juliet Bottorff, Vicky Huber

For Illinis -

The Chcicago Sun Times ran an article on the top 5 in Illinois State history, with Craig Virgin #1, and Tom Graves #2. Dave Merrick, Torres and Myself to follow if I remmember correctly.

I think you have to look at competitons in your State and post state races. Since 1978, the Footlocker and now NTN allows one to compare across states athletes performances.

For Tom, I have to agree with some of the previous posts - he ran 4:38 for the first mile as a senior, then 2:08 and 2:20 for his next 2 half mile splits (4:28 - 9:06). Compare to a week ago, when the lead pack went through at 9:38! in the Illnois State meet. He won 16 races as a junior, and 16 as a senior. Craig ran faster, and you have to give him the nod as #1 in Illinois.

For me, I won 15 of 16 races both as a junior and senior, placing 2nd to Tom in both state championships. However, as part of the Prarie State Striders cross-country club, I won the Junior Olympics regional; then the AAU Cross-country national championships 5k in 14:40 by 30 seconds on a hilly Bloomington, Indiana course; and the Junior Olympic National championships by 1 second in Longview, Washington. Kenny Clark from Florida won the pre-Footlocker championships in Oakbrook, Illinois the same year in 1977.

js

hairy hischool wrote:

VIRGINIA is Webb

wrong.

the entire history of highschoolers in the United States is webb.

since hs, he has become the greatest white runner of all time.

That's a good list. I thought we'ld only go high school runners who made it big on the national and international stage, but Harper, Hatley, Sanford and Perkins where top of the heap for sure. Somebody mentioned Borsa and Zinn. Wow! Haven't heard those names in forever, but they were the guys that got into running. Borsa had the record at 32 in 9 flat and Zinn was a XC beast. 3 of the 5 on your list along with Zinn were from the same program, West Plains High under Joe Dixon who knows how to churn them out.On Falcon I have to disagree with you. He won State at XC and held the course record on a very tough course of non-stop hills and slopes--don't remember there being a staight and flat section anywhere--he won it in high 15s which was an incredible time. He ran I think 4:05 that year.Anyway, good memories!

Midwest NAIA Fan wrote:

Falcon is virtually a no-name. Tegenkamp is hands down the winner in our home state of Missouri. Pyrah ran 4:03 in the mile, putting him on the map, but like you said, he wasn't much of a XC guy. But on the topic of XC (which is what this thread is about) Missouri goes as follows:

1. Matt Tegenkamp

2. Josh Harper

3. Jon Hatley

4. Jason Sanford

5. Adam Perkins

NJbest wrote:

For NJ it would have to be Marty Liquori and Craig Forys. Marty for the mile and Craig for XC/2 mile. Marty 3:59 in HS, Forys 8:44 in HS plus huge times at Van Cortland Park which both ran.

The subject line says xc so I'd expect any proof to be within a parameter of xc and not track times.

That said....Liquori and Forys are good choices as is Jason DiJoseph.

Thanks for weighing in Jim. While Illinois distance running has been on the upswing I still favor the older runners over the younger runners. After considering all the information I possibly could, coming up is my finalized top ten. I mentioned earlier that I am not really considering the Kinney/Footlocker meet. "Intergalactic", a poster, could not understand why I did this--the fact of the matter is--not everyone was competing in this race really until the early 90s. The Kinney meet began in 1979, but not everyone would enter in the meet. Now, everyone who is anyone seems to run the Footlocker race. As far as using it for a barometer of "who's best" it just doesn't work in some cases. For example, last year--Fout beats Derrick and Fernandez???? If they all raced 100 times, that result would come up ONCE out of 100--and it did last year.

Another poster mentioned that Withrow beat the greatest footlocker class of all time--I would have to argue with that, and I think the class of 1994, 1998, and 1999 would agree. In 1994, Tim Broe led the FLCC in Balboa, CA until 800 meters to ago. After going up a slight hill, three runners went by Broe, and he never recovered and finished 10th. Some of the runners in that race included: Matt Downin, John Mortimer, Brandon Lesile, Andrew Begley, Hauser twins, Tom Chorny, Abdul Alzindani, Sharif Karie (3X qualifier) . . . that class was impressive. In 1998, there was Torres, Louchini, Tenforde, Hartman, Rohatinsky, Ritz, Dobson, Powell Sanchez, Spiker . . . In 1999, there was ritz, sage, dobson, rohatinsky, teg, tim keller, webb . . . Withrow had a very competitive year ( rupp, kiptoo, mcdougal, true, deak, wanger, eagon, lopez lamong), but to say it was one of the greats is an injustice to the previous competitors. If you have followed running since the 80s and 90s, you would recognize that some of the earlier classes were far superior to Withrow's FL class. And Yes, he was "gutsy" by making a move at 1.5 miles, then fading, having the field catch him, and then kicking for the 2 second win--I would still have to put Ritz, Solinsky, Torres and several other FLCC way ahead of Matt Withrow.

Here is the top ten Illinois runners:

1)Virgin--no explanation needed; 30 sec vicotory sr year;2X IL champion

2)Torres--Only 3x IL champ in history; 2nd as frosh--dominated Sage twice

3)Graves--beat the best head-to head; 2x IL champ--Spivey 8 sec back jr year; 4 sec back sr year (although bother runners were over 25 seconds ahead of 3rd sr year)

4)Merrick--2X IL champ

5)Sage--2nd twice to Torres; IL champ sr year winning by 16 seconds

6) Tim Broe--2X IL champion; Easy victories in both; 10th at FLCC--led with 800m to go in FLCC over toughest field in FLCC history (IMHO)

7) Chris Derrick--3rd as JR, 20 second victory as SR in 13:52 on new (slightly longer) course

8) Troy Maddux--would be ahead of Derrick except for Derrick's state meet performance--22 second victory in small school championship as JR; 29 second victory senior year (would have defeated large school champion); 4th at Kinney meet as a JR; 6th at Kinney as a senior (running 14:53 and beating junior Marc Davis)

9) Jim Spivey--as you heard the man say earlier--only two losses came to #3 great Tom Graves--over 2 years!

10) Matt Withrow--runner up as junior; 13 second victory as senior; FLCC champ

I used mostly junior and senior year performances--thus bumping my original #10 Len Sitko (he was 21st as a junior, although he dominated as a senior). Stepher Pifer was considered as runner up as a junior and champ as a senior, but his win was only a 5 second win.

From Massachusetts need someone to help me out with this one:

Names I can think of Abizirak Muhammad(2xFLN winner in weak years), Andy Powell(4:02 mile/14:54 at Franklin Park-CR), Franklyn Sanchez(8:49 indoors 2 mile, 15:01 at Franklin Park), Chris Barnicle(6'th at FLN, won FLNE, 8:50y, 12:18 VCP), Victor Gras(5'th? at FLN, 12:17 VCP, 4:05y), Jonathan Riley (15:23 Franklin Park, 3:43 1500, unsure how he did at FLN). Salazar also with his fast 5K times, and some more old guys I don't know about I'm sure.

IN: Araia, Fisher, Stevenson, Wagner, Fout

troll alert wrote:

First of all, Spivey never even won a CC state title in HS, he lost to Tom Graves.

Also, Ed Torres is very good, but no way in hell should be top 5. Jager and Derrick should belong on that list, with my own opinion being Derrick is the best, with Virgin a close second.

Craig Virgin still holds the course record, so how can he be second. He is #1

#2 would be Chris Derrick

#3 Tom Graves 2 time state champ.

#4 Jim Spivey 2 time runner up to Graves. His best days were after H.S. But his times put him on the list.

#5 J. Torres

brian dameworth of agoura hs in cali won 3 state champs (didnt run a state meet his freshman year) and made kinney nats freshman soph and missed jr year becuase his shoe fell off in the regional and then won kinney nats his senior year

With McChesney I feel that these names have to be mentioned with.....

Rupp

Pre

Jeff Hess ( I know the course was short this year but still...he just plain dominated.

While I agree with the 1 out of 100 for Fout and Fernandez the Fout and Derrick 1 out of 100 doesn't work. Fout and Derrick raced a total of 5 times in their HS career and Fout beat him 4 out of the 5.

Culver Invite 2006 Fout won.

Culver Invite 2007 Derrick won.

FLMW 2007 Fout won.

FLN 2007 Fout won.

Boston Indoor 2007 Fout won.

Fernandez isn't of this earth. He's far and away the cream of the crop when it comes to HS seniors last year.

Thanks for point that out, but I was referring to Fout beating Fernandez and Derrick both on the same day. I think it happened that day (which is all that really matters anyway), but would most likely not happen again. Let's see if it happens in Terre Haute Monday.

The results you gave were a little skewed. No one would argue that 2006 Chris Derrick was a star--he did not even win his own state title. Fout beating him as a junior is somewhat irrelevant as neither of them even won the Culver Invite that year. They were hardly at their high school prime at that time.

However, 2007 Chris Derrick destroyed Fout at Culver (18 seconds) and obliterated the course record by 30 seconds--a course that Nef Araia, Christian Wagner, and some other strong runners had competed on over the years.

At the end of a very long season for Derrick, Fout easily beat Derrick at the FLMW and FLN, but Derrick was also busy running and winning NTN region and NTN Nationals. Those were not exactly "easy" races with guys like Colby Lowe and Kevin Havel in the mix. Derrick was racing every weekend in November!

Derrick probably cost himself FLN because he was racing for his team in the Nike meets--something Fout did not do nor Fernandez.

The Boston indoor games run is fairly irrelevant. Derrick is obviously not a miler (Fout's "victory" was .14 seconds over Derrick--in a race that neither of them was going to win--running 4:14 finishing 7th and 9th respectively). In the end, the discussion is about cross country anyway.

I'm not even positive that Derrick wouldn't have beaten Fout on another day, but was just pointing a few things out. Fernandez, no way. He's amazing.

I live in Valparaiso, IN which is really close to where Fout went to HS. True Derrick beat Fout at Culver, but the same excuses that have been hurled a thousand times about Fout beating Derrick due to his race schedule can be thrown back the same way.

I know the race schedule for his HS conference. When he lost to Derrick, he had run 4 races in 7 days. At the New Prairie Invite, broke course record by FLN 2nd place finisher Jason Casiano. That course is tough and has a long sand dune called "agony hill". He then ran 2 dual meets that week and then raced again that Saturday. Our HS conference counts regular season standings toward the conference championship so he had to run the dual meets for his team. I'm not positive about how many races his HS ran, but I'll bet they had somehwere around 16-18 races that year. Way too many for HS kids.

The week before FLMW, Derrick was idle and Fout broke Bob Kennedy's course record at the Mideast Meet of Champions...our guys just ran it last week. If anyone should have been tired from too many races it was Fout. You mention long seasons...his was crazy. In the end, Derrick only ran 1 more post season race than Fout, and I can almost guarantee Fout ran alot more races during the season.

It's a shame all of these post season meets are now conflicting with each other. I think in future years it will dilute the individual part of a national championship unless some of the post season races fold.