"Interesting definition of "never did a thing.""
-you're right. i stand corrected. perhaps more specifically, i was referring to people who didn't really live up to the projected potential as shown by their success in hs.
"Grosso ran in the 13s for 5k"- i'd like to see that result if you had it. 13.59? regardless, far below what one might expect from a kinney champ. last i heard, he was looking at a transfer to fayetteville, and then disappeared.
"Dameworth competed in a couple national meets and ws runner up aa Big 10 champs."
-again, a dominant force a s a man among boys in hs. he CRUSHED me at kinney. i would have expected far more than just being a runner up at big 10 champs.
"Granville 1:47 800"
-SLOWER than his hs time.
"Alsen won a District Championship in xc"
-relatively weak region when he was there. probably was in a pack of 6 other hogs. for a 4.0x guy in hs, again, i think he far underperformed
"DiJoseph ran low 4s"
-a great xc runner in hs with a solid mile time (4.10?) should have more than just "ran low 4's" next to his name at the end of the day
"Vandergrift had a great career albeit short. Several sub 3:40s"
-you got me on this one. i had no idea that he had run 3.37. i stand corrected.
"The vast majority of us would love to have had any of the careers of these guys. While not knowing anything about Smith, every other guy mentioned ran better in college than in high school"
-regardless of what your own personal career elcitied, this has nothing to do with the thread premise (or my self admitted deviation from it). as previosly stated, granville did not run better. in addition, in my opinion, each of those athletes (excluding vandegrift) underperfomed for whatever reason. as a side note, chip came to fayetteville, was injured all the time, then returned home to new mexico to train under his father again. i don't think he ever did anything of note. however, given my vandegrift mistake, perhaps that's not the case. i will tell you that he was a heck of a nice guy though.