Top Ten Greatest High School Runners (Girls)

The thread apparently needs to be called best American High School Distance Runners, from 800m to 5k, of the last 40 years. It's ok to call it what it is. No foreigners, no sprinters?

Again, Betty Robinson won Olympic Gold at 100m in high school, and the 100 is running to the best of my knowledge.

Paula Radcliffe was world JR cross country champ in high school.

Dibaba and Defar have been great since about age 15 at least.

trackcoach wrote:

For some perspective, just looking at Cain, Gallagher and Decker ‘s 800m time alone, the the H.S. 2-mile, 5K, 10K and marathon records don’t compare.

That 10000 was the fastest 10000 in the world that year.

Badgergirl wrote:

Suzy Favor

Debbie Heald

Suzy probably just misses this list. She did run 4:18 as a junior and 4:16 as a senior but Hasay went 4:14. However she never competed against senior runners at the Olympic Trials like Hasay.

Also Suzy was beaten by Erin Keogh at Kinney Nationals. And I don't think she ran much faster than 2:05 for 800 but I may be wrong.

I don't know what the conversion for high school girls is from 1500 to mile but if you go by 20 seconds Suzy was right at the National Record at the time for the mile as well. I think Polly Plumer had it at 4:36 back then.

Melody dominated all HS competition on a national level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKVNIvWiuGc

1. Cain

2. Decker

3. Fairchild

The rest are just "the field" on a horse track.

My favorite Melody Fairchild video is the 1989 Footlocker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cizRPSCOYbA

Her 1990 course record still hasn't been touched, although Julia Stamps was the last person to come close.

Debbie Heald:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrvJ2bsFduY&t=5m00s

Your list lost all credibility when you listed Hasay 2nd. What a joke.

> Your list lost all credibility when you listed Hasay 2nd. What a joke

Well, my revised list has Hasay tied for third with Fairchild, not much different from watchout's list.

Hasay has those excellent 1500 and 3200 times.

That's how she got 15 points on my list.

I remember at the time people were surprised at how well she did in the 1500; they had her pegged as just a 3200 and XC runner.

Let's see your list and how you constructed it.

Sartor Resartus wrote:

CoachB wrote:

I'd say Mortensen is a bit sketchy there for the same reasons that Chock is sketchy.

Mortensen sketchy? HSR in the deuce and won Footlocker.

After hearing everyone's reasoning, I'm revising my list to:

1) Mary Cain

2) Kim Gallagher

3) Melody Fairchild

4) Mary Shea

5) Mary Decker

6) Lynn Bjorklund

7) Kim Mortensen

8) Julie Shea

9) Polly Plumer

10) Cathy Schiro

I think also its important to note that Kim Gallagher is the only one on this list (so far at least) that won two Olympic medals later on their career.

I'm on that go Cain wrote:

I think also its important to note that Kim Gallagher is the only one on this list (so far at least) that won two Olympic medals later on their career.

Not really, no. We are focusing our attention on their high school careers, not their fulfilled potential.

greater debater wrote:

Your list lost all credibility when you listed Hasay 2nd. What a joke.

She ran faster than anyone not named Mary Cain in the 1500m, and is the only athlete not named Mary Cain to still be in the top-5 all time in multiple events (800m-5k, lumping variants of the same distance together - Cayla Hatton would also hold that distinction if you include the 10k).

Oh, and she was a national champion in XC twice, and third in another year, and never finished outside the top ten. But those were just bonus points.

watchout wrote:

(Hasay) is the only athlete not named Mary Cain to still be in the top-5 all time in multiple events...

While that's true, it really shouldn't carry too much weight.

That is more of a reflection of the passage of time than it is of the individual athlete's greatness. It comes back to what we have said before: Wejo himself has a faster marathon PR than both Zatopek and Nurmi. Does that mean he is/was a better marathon runner than them, simply because he is now higher on the all-time list? Of course not. The runner should be measured by what they won, they records that they broke, and who they defeated.

[ranking in top times]

> That is more of a reflection of the passage of time

There are several possible factors which might help yield lower times in more recent years:

1. Better technology (shoes, track surface)

2. Better training methods

3. Improved race competition, due to larger pool of athletes

4. Better athletes emerge, due to larger pool of athletes

But in spite of these potential factors, we see several athletes from the 70s and 80s in the top 10 high school girls lists.

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php/tafn-lists?list_id=34&sex_id=W&yyear=2008

To me, this suggests these factors are not important, so we can simply compare the times directly.

In the marathon, these factors (and race course / conditions differences) might affect historic vs. modern results significantly, so that analogy may not be accurate.

For example, should we really subtract some time from Kim Gallagher's 2:00.87 800m in 1982 to make it comparable with "modern" results?

It seems to have held up very well after all these years.

I admire your passion for track & field statistics, but it really seems like you went to a great deal of effort to dismiss what most experts find rather obvious. When the previous post said that "(Hasay) is the only athlete not named Mary Cain to still be in the top-5 all time in multiple events," do you honestly feel that it's just one big coincidence that they are two of the most recent high school competitors that people have mentioned?

Amusing. I have been using that analogy for many years and everyone else seems to see the logic behind it. That being said, let's change it up just a bit: Andrew Bumbalough has run the 5,000m quite a bit faster than both Zatopek and Nurmi. Does that mean he is/was a better distance runner than them, simply because he is now higher on the all-time list? Of course not.

The runner should be measured by what they won, the records that they broke, and who they defeated.

>>"(Hasay) is the only athlete not named Mary Cain to still be in the top-5 all time in multiple events,"

> do you honestly feel that it's just one big coincidence that they are two of the most recent high school competitors that people have mentioned?

It's not a coincidence, but this "top 5" observation is a selected result designed to show how good Hasay was.

To compare multiple athletes, use the top 10+ instead.

Then you see Kim Gallagher is #2 in 800m and #7 in 1500m.

If modern years somehow have a huge effect, Gallagher's results should have been gone from the top 10 sometime ago?

What I really see is that there are more good runners in recent years, probably due to factor #4 - larger pool of high school girls running.

But there were also good runners in past years.

I don't think those past runners were at a disadvantage for running good 800 and 1500 times.

In some states in the past they might not have run the 3000/3200/3219, though.

However, if in Hasay's era, we still didn't run the 3200,

she might have run the 800 instead.

So the event selection can go both ways.

* make that Kim Gallagher #6 in the 1500m

statfool wrote:

* make that Kim Gallagher #6 in the 1500m

Also, I think Kim's 1500 and/or mile perfroamcne was part of a triple. Kim's 800 was her only all out effort with competition and even that performance had rounds.

my3cents wrote:

Melody dominated all HS competition on a national level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKVNIvWiuGc

1. Cain

2. Decker

3. Fairchild

The rest are just "the field" on a horse track.

Fairchild was a great runner, but she is probably somewhere just inside the top-10. Placing her ahead of Gallagher is crazy; you need to understand how a 9:55 2-mile compares to a 2 flat 800m. Also, Fairchild got beat by Plumber in the mile and Plumber's time was slower than Gallagher's who held the mile record at that time, which she set as part of a triple. Plumber's eventually broke Gallagher's mile record and Gallagher never attempted to reset the record.

If you knew your history, you'd know that most state associations did not allow track athletes to run on the road until very recently