1500 trivia

shane stroup

correct, Florida GATORS, River Hill hs.

brotha satch wrote:

what is my name and college? MD. hs record holder in 1600, set my college school record and made ALL-American in outdoor ncaa this year. first and last initials the same.

Bob Wheeler's initials are "BW" Are you using the cyrillic alphabet Satch?

without checking believe WHEELER holds mile record, not 1600m.

Without checking a mile is longer than 1600.

I was a Duke teammate of Bob Wheeler's and hosted him on his Duke recruiting trip. Most runners don't know how good he was and his range (400-XC)

HS Senior (1970)4.06 in mile, 1.50 in 880 as well as Nat'l HS Indoor 600 Yd Record-holder (1.10)

Duke Frosh - ACC & IC4A XC Champ, NCAA Indoor 1,000 Yd. Champ in Record 2.07 and NCAA Indoor 1000 Meter Record (2.21), fastest NCAA 880/Mile double @ ACC Outdoor(1.48/4.03) in pouring rain, then ran high .46 leg on Mile Relay, NCAA Outdoor Mile Runner-up to Liquori (3.59) + won his two races in Europe

Duke Soph - ACC & IC4A ACC XC Champ (would have given Pre a run for NCAA crown, but stepped in gopher hole night before race), injured indoor, US Olympian 1500 Semi-finalist

One of America's best young milers ever - felled by plantar f. (4 surgeries?) or would have had a shot at first sub-3.50 Fiercest competitor I've ever seen, hated to lose and rarely did. Received Duke's first distance scholarship & led program from mediocre at best to one of top collegiate distance programs in the 70's

Huge Duke supporter - repaid his Duke scholarship many times over - endowed track scholarship in name of Coach Buehler, not himself

Great teammate and super guy

I applied to DUKE and they liked my speed. WHEN I sent DOC Chambers my picture I was RE- JECTED.

Duke in those days surely had the first pair of American sub-4:00 milers who were roommates and had the same last name but were not brothers, although some thought they were because they were both tall skinny guys. Steve Wheeler ran a 3:59 miles and was the ACC three-mile champion.

FYI, you wouldn't by chance be John Krasney, would you?

Any idea where Steve Wheeler went to high school (Connecticut?, but what HS) and what year he graduated?

3:59.4 Steve Wheeler, US#226, Duke #4

Wheeler was also a great coach and motivator. He moved to San Diego after Duke to train for 1976 Olympics, but had numerous foot problems (I know of 2 surgeries in SD).

San Diego State distance coach left in late '75 and Wheeler took over. He recruited 3 Calif. HS and 2 JC, all good, but none with super times. During the '76 XC season, Aztecs won the conference meet at Stanford, qualifying for the NCAA for the first time in school history.

At North Texas State all five ran personal bests with one All-American (George Pullen -JC-29th., I think) and three freshman all in the 70's. He allowed George to go on his own, but made the rest of us run together near the back of the 250 runner field for the first mile and a half. He told us if we followed his instructions and stayed patient we would see nothing but " s in reverse" for the final 3+ miles. He was right. Team finished 8th. out of 35? and Coach Wheeler received NCAA Coach-of-the-Year. I think he is still the youngest NCAA Div. I coach (age 24) in any sport to receive the award.

He only coached at SDSU through '77 outdoor. he and another guy opened an athletic shoe store in 1976 that took off and he couldn't do both. Second Sole chain grew to 70? stores nationwide. I echo the great guy sentiment - he was fair but made us work and then would hang out and have a beer or two with us on the weekends.

Motivation Story #1: When we signed for classes that fall, we were told to schedule them in the afternoons, if at all possible. All of our XC training was done in the mornings, the same time as our races.

Motivation Story #2: At the start of the XC season, he somehow got pictures of the courses at Stanford and N.Texas sent to him, constantly showed them to us and then structured our hard days on terrain in Balboa Park and Mission Bay that was similar to those two courses. He made us believe that these were OUR "home courses".

Final story: First day of XC practice we only did a light run and then he talked to us for close to an hour about the mental preparation necessary to succeed in our sport. I still remember him showing us the cover of the Sports Illustrated from the 1972 Trials where he and Ryun were pictured. Bob asked us what we saw different between he and Ryun and after someone noticed that his bib number was different from Ryun's, Coach told us that he had cut off all of the excess material from around his number to give him a weight and psychological advantage over his opponents.

It was stuff like this that made us believe and achieve.

No malmo, not Krassny (he was in Wheeler's class), but he was a frat brother, along with Steve Wheeler. Kraz was from New Orleans, so I doubt that he is on this website right now.

Funny Krassny story. 1973 ACC Outdoor meet was at NC State in the evening. Kraz was the final heat qualifier in the 220. The day of the meet one of our brothers asked Kraz what he would do if he won the 220. Kraz, being white and jewish, knew he had no chance for victory so offered to "moon" the crowd if he won.

Kraz drew lane 8. The lights at NC State did not extend all the way around the turns. Krassney gets a 3-step flying false start in the dark that isn't noticed and then barely holds on for the win. We had 50+ frat brothers in the stands with a keg and they immediately stood and began chanting Moon, Moon, Moon... Krassny obliged, making Coach Buehler non too happy. Could be one of the funniest events in track history.

One last item about Bob Wheeler. It seems that Jumbo Elliott was so pissed when Bob passed on Villanova for Duke that he spouted off to a Philly reporter that "Wheeler wouldn't amount to anything at a Southern school." Someone sent Bob the article, he had it framed in his dorm room and there was noone that he wanted to beat more than whoever was wearing a Villanova singlet.

He outkicked Villanova guys to win each of his two IC4A XC crowns, but the best was the 1972 Penn Relays. Before we drove up to Philly, Bob got our relay teams together and stated that we were bringing two "wagon wheels" (the winning trophy looked like a solid wagon wheel) back home. This was after being sidelined with achilles tendonitis for 3-months during the winter and with all of the other relay members being non-scholarship walk-ons.

In Friday's distance medley our 48 440 leg lost big yardage and Wheeler took the baton in 8th. or 9th. place and 60-70 yards back. He ran one of the first sub-4 legs in Penn history and barely missed catching Villanova's John Hartnett at the tape. The next day in the 4-mile relay, we got him the baton in better shape and he unleashed at .53 last 440 that blew away the field and ended Villanova's long string of victories in that event. He just had a way of willing the best performance out of his teammates.

Best part - before heading back to Duke, Wheeler attaches the "wagon wheel" to the grill of his car and drives through the Villanova campus, honking his horn as guys were screaming out the windows. Amazing.

Ran against Steve Wheeler in HS. He went to

Staples HS in Westport, CT. A short time later, a kid named Pfitzinger left town and went on to fame in upstate NY.

fyi is rich block, 800 guy- satch knows all

Most famous graduate of Staples High was " porn star" Marilyn Chambers (Behind the Green Door) who was a classmate of Steve's.

Smiley often lamented over not experiencing Marilyn's talents.

FYI. wrote:

No malmo, not Krassny (he was in Wheeler's class), but he was a frat brother, along with Steve Wheeler. Kraz was from New Orleans, so I doubt that he is on this website right now.

FYI. I met 'Kraz' in San Diego decades ago. A 400m man, as I recall, he was Wheeler's partner in the shoe stores. A very hospitable gentleman. From the stories you tell, very fun as well.

As a junior high school kid, in 1970, I went to the Maryland high school champs to watch. Wheeler won the mile and the 880 on a very hot day. Afterwards, Wheeler roamed the infield barefoot and I noticed he had taped the balls of his feet. The next year, before my first race, I mimicked him and put tape on the feet too! Bought the same red Puma spikes. Kids do the darndest things! Wheeler's example certainly showed the way for local kids in my generation. You can pass the story on if you wish.

I eventually scored his autograph, which I somehow lost along the way. My Jesse Owens autograph "My best wishes to a very fine athlete," one of my prized possessions, remains on the wall, as it has for 30 years.

hey malmo Ill give u an autograph

Krassny is still a resident of San Diego. Both he and Steve Wheeler followed Bob 6 months after he moved there and they all roomed together for several years. Kraz got his MBA and Steve some sort of graduate degree, both at San Diego State. Krassny went to work for Bob for 5-6 years and then became an Adidas sales rep. Steve worked in city management (that's probably what he got his degree in), but is now a city manager somewhere in the Northwest.

Malmo, you must know of Bob's HS coach, Bob Dean. The way Wheeler tells it, Dean (who grew up in Durham and trained with Duke runners under Buehler while in HS) recruited Bob out of his gym class. He was also offered the Maryland distance/XC position after Bob's junior year, but told Md. that he wasn't accepting until Bob had graduated. His first season at Maryland was the same as Bob's at Duke, but Wheeler showed no mercy on the Terps.

In addition to naming the track scholarship at Duke in Buehler's name, Bob Dean is wearing Wheeler's Olympic ring.

Sorry satch, not Rich Block. He was several years after the Wheelers and I. I was much more obscure than Block, who broke Bob's 800 school record.

I live in North Carolina and see Bob each winter when he comes back to use his basketball season tickets. His oldest daughter just started her sophomore year as a Blue Devil.

We had a track reunion in conjunction with the 2000 NCAA's Everyone came back and I met Block for the first time - great time and lots of stories.