Top 5 all time waste of talents in T&F?

I-Perfection Harris from Poly Prep in Brooklyn was a great long jumper in high school in the early 2000's, won the Penn Relays. Decided to play football at Georgia Tech and get absolutely no snaps.

Can someone post the stories of what happened to Obea Moore and Michael Granville?

I watched both of those guys run in high school and they were unbelievably talented.

Living in the Past wrote:

Tying a record is not the same as "setting" a record. Contrary to what you said, Ryun never set a world indoor mile record.

It still counts as a world record though. Both his name and the other person's name would have been on the books at the same time, and you could refer to him as an indoor world record holder.

I think you didn't realize he ever held an indoor WR and so now you're trying to wriggle your way out of it. It's OK to be mistaken.

CASEY COMBEST

His national record time would have won NCAA's that year.

he is serving 40 years w/o chance of parol until he is nearly 70. Sucks.

how about ontario (canada) Greg Anderson. Ontario highschool record of 8:00.3 for 3k (8:32ish 2mile). went to Dartmouth and dropped a keg on his foot or something like that.

polly plummer, vicky cook kim mortenson, larry greer.

8:00 is not an 8:32ish two mile. more like high 8:30's.

As for Ryun... we are in disagreement on two things: how much talent he had, and how much better he could have been. I personally think that Ryun had much more talent than the 3:51 mile and one solid Olympic attempt (he was clearly not the same runner in 1972). From what I understand, his career was cut dramatically short. That is why I refer to it as wasted talent. It's not that he didn't work hard - he did. It's not that he didn't achieve a lot - he did. It would be like if El G had been 21 in Sydney and had decided basically to hang it up afterwards. I think we would all be disappointed if that had been the case.

more ducks wrote:

Add John Zishka and Chris Hamilton to that list. Lotta talent burned out at Oregon in the 80s.

WTF? Chris Hamilton used every bit of talent he had.

You guys need to understand that no one is saying Jim Ryun wasn't incredible, just that all evidence points to the idea that he was nowhere near what he could have been.

Waste is probably a bad word to describe it, since it connotes neglect or ill intent, which I don't think anyone is accusing him of.

Thread should have been called "greatest unfufilled talents in T&F"

technicalities wrote:

It still counts as a world record though. Both his name and the other person's name would have been on the books at the same time, and you could refer to him as an indoor world record holder.

I think you didn't realize he ever held an indoor WR and so now you're trying to wriggle your way out of it. It's OK to be mistaken.

I knew that Ryun had tied Tom O'Hara's indoor mile record, which I think was set in 1964. I doubted whether Ryun had ever actually set a world indoor mile record himself. Obviously, you cannot set a record that already exists.

That's why you could refer to Ryun as "an" indoor world record holder but not "the" indoor world record holder, since he didn't set the world record.

Wejo

lease wrote:

Psychological issues:

Jim Ryun -

Oh for god's sake. The man sets world records at age 19, medals in the OG with what was maybe the third- or fourth-best run in the history of the 1500, comes back from injury and illness to be in great shape at the next OG, where he's tripped (no, he didn't trip himself a la Mary Decker)--and these are psychological issues? This is a guy who didn't "pan out"?

Boy, just once in my career I'd have liked to coach someone whose career was as big a "waste" as this guy's.

Sheesh.

People list Ryun because most feel he didn't reach his full potential despite all he accomplished.

I do believe Earl Jones was hurt in a car accident which is not so much a waste of talent but just really bad luck. Although his life after that is a piece.

Heard he even sold his medal.

Pre,

Famigletti

Tim Broe

Gabe jennings

and all the other dudes you guys worship for being rebels and saying shit like "I never really considered myself a runner" and only producing midiocre results.

Ok, Daniel Komen was the first and only man to ever run 2 miles under 8 minutes. Waste of talent? No. To say "he could've run faster" is absurd, becuase he was already so much better than everyone else. You can't say Cy Young should've won more games than he did. In other words, you can't say that anyone should be expected to do anything that no one else in history has ever done. Maybe Komen's career played out absolutely perfectly and that was what allowed him to run so unbelievably fast for acouple of years. He could've had a LONGER stay at the top, for sure, but that's the only knock possible.

Sigh,

I only wish that I would have been considered good enough to be considered a waste of talent by the know it alls on Letsrun. Most of the people being named here are people who made it to the top of the game and we only know of them because they were that good. As Brendan Behan once said, "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they are unable to do it themselves".

Just a question since the name came up in your post. What did happen to Jason Casiano anyway? He finished up at Wisco and was never heard from again that I recall. Just curious since I remember watching him run a few times in the mid-90s.

joedirt wrote:

Sigh,

I only wish that I would have been considered good enough to be considered a waste of talent by the know it alls on Letsrun.

But you weren't so "considered," so get over it.