Top states for high school runners

People always forget that Jon Riley was actually developed in NY and only moved to Mass. late in high school. He may have graduated from a Mass. school, but he was developed in and is from NY.

Here are a few UofU athletes, native to Utah.

Men

Jeff Simonich (4 time All-American)

Teren Jameson (2 time CC All-American)

Chris Merkley (13:52 5000m)

Scott Bringhurst (28:21 10,000m, 1971)

Blain Lindgren (Silver medelist 110h, 1964 Olympics)

Women

Jill Molen (6 time All-American, 1982 10,000m AIWA Champ)

Not a native of Utah, but ran at UofU

John Aalberg (CC and Skiing All-American, and Winter Olympian)

There are a few more that I've failed to mention, but you get the point.

Michigan is solid. The Foot Locker National champ has come from MI in 3 of the last 7 years. There have been multiple other top HS guys such as Steve Schell, Todd Snyder, Joe Leo, Jacob Flyn, Hartman, Shay etc.

also National champ Brian Grosso, as well as 2nd placer Todd Williams

How about PA (specifically Southeast PA)

Leroy Burrell

Jon Drummond

Trinity Gray

The american college record holder in the 10,000 and in the Steeple are both from Utah. Ed Eyestone and Farley Gerber respectively.

Lately Utah seems to have at least one sometimes 2 male athletes as footlocker finalists. Not that impressive until you realize our small population.

I know Texas always gets mentioned, but they have had some great ones.

Olympians:

Hauser

Culpepper

Reina

Also:

Eric Henry

Gilbert Contreras

Adam Daily

Tim Gargiulio

Todd Harbour

Jason Lunn

Brian Klein

Jeremy Stallings

Eric Polonski

I know I am forgetting a lot of guys.

New breed:

Randy Arrias (XC All American)

Jeff Wood (3:43)

Tommy Bon (3:43, Big 12 1000 Champ)

These are just distance guys. When you consider sprints, it puts Texas over the top (Carl Lewis, Floyd Heard, Leroy Burrell, Michael Johnson, Andre Cason, Joe DeLoach...the list goes on and on).

Justin Simpson from WV. He'll be at footlocker this year. Look for him. Just as long as he doesn't get hurt untill then. He also has a twin Josh. I don't know how well he's doing this year. But if he's lucky he might also get to go to footlocker this year.

trackgeek, weren't Cummings and Padilla from California High Schools?

If you want to try to brin the whole population argument into it, don't. It really has nothing to do with population, but participation numbers.

Texas is pretty salty especially in the sprints. Check out this website to see just how tough they are:

http://www.texastrack.com/boys_hs_top_10.htm

and when you consider that Michael Johnson didn't even make the 400 list you can get amazed in a hurry.

BUT, to further back the Buckeye State I would add:

Jesse Owens (moved to Ohio just before hs)

Harrison Dillard

Edwin Moses

Bob Schul

Thomas Jefferson (my teammate at Kent, not the president)

Joe Dubina

George Nicholas

Ricky Pittman

Mike Hallabrin

Brian Carlton

Roosevelt Jackson

Darryl Sargent

Bob Henes

Mark Dailey

Ron Addison

Elmore Banton

Tom Byers

Sid Sink

John Glidewell

Texas is pretty salty especially in the sprints. Check out this website to see just how tough they are:

http://www.texastrack.com/boys_hs_top_10.htm

and when you consider that Michael Johnson didn't even make the 400 list you can get amazed in a hurry.

BUT, to further back the Buckeye State I would add:

Jesse Owens (moved to Ohio just before hs)

Harrison Dillard

Edwin Moses

Bob Schul

Thomas Jefferson (my teammate at Kent, not the president)

Joe Dubina

George Nicholas

Ricky Pittman

Mike Hallabrin

Brian Carlton

Roosevelt Jackson

Darryl Sargent

Bob Henes

Mark Dailey

Ron Addison

Elmore Banton

Tom Byers

Sid Sink

John Glidewell

malmo, you are probably right..

I thought that Padilla proabably wasn't, but Cummings seemed to be from there, at least he lived there for a long time and worked at Geneva Steel for a very long time too. But I guess that I get mixed up between utah natives (high school) and those that go to school there (mostly BYU), as they usually end up living there afterwards.

Besides, you, being more from that era of competition would know more about it, as I was barely born :)

But the quality in the high School ranks has been impressive over the last ten years.

I went through the dye stat rankings for the last 3 years, and counted the number of runners from each state who ran sub-9:10 in the 2-mile (8:32 3k), sub-4:14 in the mile (3:56.5 1500). Here's the top-10.

1. California (27)

2. Oregon (17)

3. Washington (15)

4. Florida (13)

5. Virginia (12)

6. New York (12)

7. Ohio (11)

8. Illinois (11)

9. Texas (10)

10. Michigan (8)

I would have to say that the best HS distance running state (per-capita) has to be Oregon.

Carl Lewis isn't from NJ?

Colorado:

Goucher

Clint Wells

Pat Porter

Eric Mack

Jon Sinclair

Jon Hume

Eric Morrison

Melody Fairchild

Megan Kaltenbach

Sarah Schwald

Terra Mendozza

The amazing thing is that every one of those sub 9:10 guys posts here on Letsrun.com.

Carl Lewis was born in Alabama but moved to Willingboro, New Jersey at a very young age (toddler) and went to school there.

Jon Riley moved from New York before his junior year at Brookline High in Mass. The Brookline coach is extremely good and was very instrumental in his success. Riley probably even comes to this website and could give the lowdown if he wanted to.