After wasting a couple of hours gathering and crunching numbers:
For strength of male high school distance runners by state measured by the number of footlocker finalists over the past 5 years Utah wins for number of finalists per capita and California wins for total numbers. This is ultimateley a better measure then track times because of altitude and other factors.
The number of male footlocker finalists by state per capitata per year for the years 1997-2001 multiplied by 10,000,000.
UT 7.05
MT 6.63
VT 6.52
NH 6.35
NE 3.5
OR 2.88
MI 2.8
SD 2.64
MA 2.51
VA 2.23
NC 2.2
ME 1.55
ID 1.51
KY 1.48
IL 1.44
NJ 1.41
IN 1.31
CT 1.17
NY 1.16
CA 1.04
WA 1
AL 0.9
OH 0.88
MN 0.8
AZ 0.75
WI 0.74
MO 0.71
TX 0.66
PA 0.65
FL 0.61
SC 0.49
GA 0.48
CO 0.45
MD 0.37
TN 0.35
AK 0
AR 0
DE 0
HI 0
IA 0
KA 0
LA 0
MS 0
ND 0
NM 0
NV 0
OK 0
RI 0
WV 0
WY 0
Total number of male footlocker finalists by state for the years 1997-2001
CA 18
MI 14
NY 11
IL 9
NC 9
MA 8
UT 8
VA 8
TX 7
NJ 6
FL 5
OH 5
OR 5
IN 4
NH 4
PA 4
KY 3
MT 3
NE 3
WA 3
AL 2
AZ 2
CT 2
GA 2
MN 2
MO 2
VT 2
WI 2
CO 1
ID 1
ME 1
MD 1
SC 1
SD 1
TN 1
AK 0
AR 0
DE 0
HI 0
IA 0
KA 0
LA 0
MS 0
NV 0
NM 0
ND 0
OK 0
RI 0
WV 0
WY 0
Population statistics were gather from the July 2001 estimates from the US census bureau. Footocker information was gathered from
. Click on history to view by year national results for boys or girls.
Thus per capita Utah is the best state in the nation. California is the deepest state in the nation. If someone wants to figure it out for girls go ahead. I'll wait on that one until I have daughters.