Penn State XC

1500

3:38.99 Steve Balkey 87

3:39.25 Larry Mangan 80

3:42.08 Doug Walter 90

3:42.12 David McMillen 88

3:42.2 George Malley 77

3:42.2 Michael Wyatt 77

3:42.69 Aidan O’Reilly 92

3:42.93 Robert Snyder 78

3:42.93 Bob Hamer 84

3:43.58 Matthew Lincoln 06

Mile

3:58.4 Larry Mangan 80

4:00.4 Greg Fredericks 72

4:00.5 George Malley 77

4:01.2 Robert Snyder 78

4:01.7 Ed Moran 58

4:01.98 Samuel Borchers 08

4:02.8 Dan Supulski 72

4:03.3 Alan Scharsu 80

4:03.72 Matthew Lincoln 06

4:04.7 Michael Wyatt 77

Sam has the record wrote:

For the idiots not paying attention (everyone), Borchers broke the indoor PSU record in the mile, previously held by none other than Greg Fredericks.

Was it really that hard for you kids to figure that out?

Hey idiot, is it that difficult for you to figure out that the indoor record means nada?

It was that hard, outdoors is where it counts and you have to admit that Fredricks, Malley, Wyatt, Snyder probably ran theirs on a 11 lap wood indoor track, not the state of the art indoor facilities they run on today.

Anyway, that is off the point. I have a question in that why didn't PSU run everyone? It a home meet. Have runnes gotten so wussified that they can't run more meets than they do.

We used to race almost every weekend with a lot of 10ks in there.

Heck, PSU runners used to race a 2-mile time trial in August, the Greenwood Furnace on Labor Day (an uphill 6-mile race from 1200 feet elevation to 2300 feet), AND Spiked Shoe, all before October. I don't know if that was smart, but we sure weren't wusses, I know that. (Just ask James Carney)

Wow three races, sooooo impressive.

trialswatcher wrote:

They also have McNally 4:08 mile in HS, Lionel Williams 1:50.x low as a frosh.

Borchers 4:02 and 1;49 as a frosh.But none are great XC runners that is true, but they have some high end possibilities.

This is painful to watch, but the athletic department is getting exactly what they asked for.

They shouldn't be recruiting 4:08 and 4:03 HS milers. If you recruit kids who need hand-holding then you're going to have hold some hands. Tell me, what coach has more than two hands?

I graduated from Penn State 31 years ago, and during those 4 years the fastest recruit we ever had was a 4:13 HS miler. He never did much either. Our XC teams finished 10th, 10th, 4th and 13th at Nationals. 31 years later, of PSU's all-time top ten marks in track and field (1500-10,000), 39% of them were teammates of mine. That excludes the marathon, where 9 out of the top ten were teammates.

We took lower-level talent (at a time when HS running was at its peak) ran a lot of miles, trained on a crappy track and a crappy indoor facility, and kicked ass - just as it should be.

Back to the basics is in order here. Focus on recruiting hungry kids. Create an environment where success is the minimum level of expectation, and the athletes will bond for a common cause, and by the shear force of will, exploit their talents to the max.

Malmö makes many good points about Beth Alford's addiction with recruiting outstanding HS runners just kinda hoping for a great cohesive team to magically appear. It's a lot harder to coach hungry mid-level distance runners than to just throw out scholarships to runners that need babying. Cross Country at PSU needs tough runners not babied high school phenoms.

Big ten 1500 meter champ and 27th at East regionals, I don't think big ten mile/1500 races mean that much.

So is the culture such that even a kid that looks or really thinks about committing to Penn State, a flawed kid? Are people saying that a kid who really wants to be great wouldn't really look at Penn State in the first place?

This mile list is mostly outdoor times with Borchers' time spliced in between. Regardless of whether the new PSU track is faster than anything they ran on in the 70s, his is still the indoor mile record. It is, however, slightly inferior to the PSU indoor 1500 record which converts to a 4:01.90.

Malmo is right about the influx of new talent...other than the Coatesville guys who have balls (coached by an old school runner named Dave Lapp a 4:00 miler and Tennessee alum), the new recruits are a little soft.

Rumor has it that Sammy boy likes the weed quite a bit and actually showed up for practice wearing a Speedo????? What the hell is up with that?

List Mixer wrote:

Rumor has it that Sammy boy likes the weed quite a bit and actually showed up for practice wearing a Speedo????? What the hell is up with that?

Considering that the rest of the team seems to be into the spandex with nothing over it look, a speedo isn't that bad comparatively.

Harry recruited Scharsu (8:44 2mile) and Zishka (4:03 mile and 13:55 5K), both of whom were the #1 HS distance runners in 1979 and 1980 and both of whom contributed significantly to PSU's success in the fall of 1980. He also got Tom Rapp (4:09, 9:02) in 77, Dwight Stephens (8:55) and Jeff Adkins in 79 (8:52) who were top rated preps from out of state. Add to that the PA state mile champions - Felice in 76 with a 4:13, Mangan in 77 with a 4:12 and Black in 78 with another 4:13 - and Harry had quite the stable of runners on which to build his program.

Sadly, once the 800 guys disappeared in the mid 80s, the program was on a long decline that hasn't turned around.

okh wrote:

So is the culture such that even a kid that looks or really thinks about committing to Penn State, a flawed kid? Are people saying that a kid who really wants to be great wouldn't really look at Penn State in the first place?

Yes that is exactly what people are saying, and that is exactly what is happening. If these kids are making their decision to go to penn state primarily on academics, then I give them credit. Most of them must have received similar if not better offers to better schools. It will be interesting to see if any of their big name recruits do anything special in the next couple of years. My guess is that they will continue to be at the bottom of the big 10.

What's there to "hold on" about?

The fastest runner during the 4 years I was there was Jim Morrison, who actually ran 4:12.4. The fact that we built a reputation that was followed by a wave of studs is known. However, the productivity quotient from that group of studs you've cited was low, with only Scharsu and Mangan doing anything at all. The productivity quotient was high for the non-blue-chippers like Snyder, Baden and Ziggy, who were teammates of mine and carried over into the Mangan years.

Once the recruiting came back to the non-blue-chippers the productivity quotient again went threw the roof. Out of all of those 800m runners that dominated the Penn Relays in the early to mid 80s, only one of them, Vance Watson, could be called a high school blue-chipper.

"went through the roof"

Borchers defends that school like no other. but he is up and down there with little consistency . i know he has to think he could be amazing if he was somewhere with a real training group.

For the kind of funding that athletic department have it's crazy they can't actually do something up there.

I really don't know what to make of the recent "down" phase of PSU XC, but I doubt that they are as bad as the first meet indicates. Malmo is correct about the old-school philosophy being absent. But then again, it is absent in all aspects of our society now. When recruits spend more time on their cell phones than running, times have changed.

I just missed Malmo at PSU but ran with him some and everyone on his list. Almost all of them were walk-ons, many of them became All-American. The thing is, just behind each of them was another one who would have taken their place if they had fallen. Coach Groves deserves the highest praise for putting up with and coaching more walk-ons than any other Div. I coach. He spent as much time with us as he did with the top recruits, and still recognizes and praises runners he had for only 1 year, 30 years ago, (seen him do it!). We still get together every year for a golf outing to honor him.

http://psutafalumnigolf.blogspot.com

3:42.08 Doug Walter 90

Who is this? Never heard of him before. Was he a PA guy?

This is off-topic, but spandex with shorts over them? Half-tights UNDER shorts is undoubtedly the most amateurish look out there. You can pull that off until about age 16 and then you just look like an idiot.