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

Here's a look at the High School Class of 2008 (easily one of the best in recent years) when they were sophomores (young enough to be mainly talent).

The top 5 sophomores in that class for the 3200 were Joey Bywater 9:03, Diego Estrada 9:19, Jon Lafler 9:19, and Ryan Prentice 9:22.

Based off of that Estrada and Prentice are the only one's to have developed their talent, ergo only 40% of young high school phenoms will make it in the big leagues.

There.

Somehow forgot to type out Michael Fouts name, no idea how that happened. Inexcusable.

The top 5 sophomores out of the class of 2008 were Bywater, Estrada, Lafler, Fout, and Prentice.

As seniors this shifted (cross country in addition to track) to Fernandez, Derrick, Puskedra, Lowe, and Fout.

A better point I guess would be that senior year of high school is an arbitrary point in time for deciding who is most talented, as in two years it could be a different lineup.

The question should not be who, but why.....

Mike Starr

buurrrnnnn! wrote:

Mike Starr

No. Mike Starr had some great moments as a collegiate runner. His freshman year he anchored the American Record 4 by 800 Arizona State relay. I seem to remember his split at 1:44.

At Georgetown he was the star of one of the greatest and exciting distance races I ever watched when his team broke the World record in the DMR. His 1600 split was 3:54.

That is not "neer doing a thing".

Brian Grosso won the 1600/3200 double two years in a row at the MI HS state champs, setting the 3200 record (8:56) by running 8 consecutive 67-second laps. He was a machine! We won the Kinney champs in his senior year in an upset by beating many other highly-favored runners. He only ran 2 years at Arizona, but was 26th place at NCAA's (high 29's?) his sophomore year after placing 3rd (?) behind Marc Davis as PAC-10's. I ran with the guy for two years in high school and only ever saw him lose one race at 800m in 1:57. He just couldn't stand his coach at Arizona and didn't like being treated like property, so he quit. Too bad - I always wanted to say that I knew somebody from the Olympics.

free beer wrote:

His freshman year he anchored the American Record 4 by 800 Arizona State relay. I seem to remember his split at 1:44.

It was a 1:45 split, and his teammates were juiced.

German Fernandez, Luke Puskedra, Colby Lowe and Chris Derrick. Where are these guys now? Havn't heard a thing from them!

Timmy Jenkins wrote:

of Californians from the past decade:

Amber Trotter

Yong Sung Leal

Exactly what I was going to respond with!

Abdirizak Mohamud was already mentioned, but does anyone know what happened to him? I had heard that he never went to college because he needed to get a job to support his family, but I have no idea if it's actually true. Sucks that the first 2x footlocker winner never got to really give it a shot.

I went to HS with William Reed (hence the User Name Central High 1988).

I can tell you the reason he never lived up to his potential was because too many people were trying to coach him. The various factions were always fighting as to what workouts and meets he should run and as a result, injuries and lost confidence. As a result, the one race he ran his senior year of HS, he stepped off the track at Lehigh while comfortably leading (it was a 600m race).

Perhaps I am being biased because I am a friend of his to this day. I think the reason he faded into obscurity was because too many people wanted a hand in his success and ran him into the ground.

Almost anyone who went to CAL.

Smoked weed, got caught, got kicked off the team...common knowledge in running mecca in NY that is Section II

What about.... wrote:

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

Hudson Andrews

also as mentioned earlier Kim Mortensen

Mortensen continued to UCLA but her athletic career was cut short by a battle with anorexia nervosa and its related side-effects.

not the biggest bust ryan craven 3rd at nat xc's in hs, built for long distances, i ran in the same conference as him, i thought he'd be a god i really did...think hes trying to coach now so sounds like a steve magness situation

Surprised nobody has mentioned Chris Schwartz. The guy was oozing of talent in high school. Ran a 8:51 in his senior year, off of EXTREMELY low mileage (I recall in one of his interviews he thought averaging 5 miles a day was "a lot", he didn't know who any of the competitors were, etc.) He signed with Cal Poly SLO, although I don't know how much he ever raced for them, and he is no longer on the roster. I haven't heard anything about him, and it seems he has disappeared into obscurity.

Anyone know what happened to him?

What ever happened to Charles White?

Everyone running this post is looking for a reason to feel good about themselves by looking down at other runners. Grow up.

Everyone running this post is looking for a reason to feel good about themselves by looking down at other runners. Grow up.

Everyone running this post is looking for a reason to feel good about themselves by looking down at other runners. Grow up.

Everyone running this post is looking for a reason to feel good about themselves by looking down at other runners. Grow up.

Everyone running this post is looking for a reason to feel good about themselves by looking down at other runners. Grow up.

Well now, aren't you looking down at us? We are other runners. We all may need to grow up, be we need to less growing up that you.