ANDREW GARDER 9:01.40 Two mile as freshman, 4th FL as a sophmore

He may have been born in Ethiopia but he has been in the over 70% of his young life. The kid is as American as they come just listen to him as he has no accent except maybe like a surfer from the West Coast.

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/236113-2010-washington-outdoor-track-and-field-state-championships/337097-andrew-gardner-2nd-3200-4a

Laef should have ran much faster than he did at UCLA. That kid had all world potential. Glad that he broke four, but to be honest, that kid would have probably ran 4:03-4:04 if he was healthy his senior year in high school. I'm sure he got a great education at UCLA, but I can't help but think they ruined him as a runner.

All of the Ferris kids have done somewhat poorly in college too, majority of them all at Portland, eventually you would think they would stop going there. What ever happened to Ben Poffenroth, heard something about him being a professional snowboarder??? If that is true, what a talented kid.

Anyways, there is no stronger conference in the nation than the GSPL (sp?). Wish Pat Tyson was still around in the high school ranks.

tell me his progress as he matures. no shortage of boys have the best relative performances of their career occur in their teens (see: alan webb). his performances are certainly inspiring, but lets withhold judgement for a decade or so

I'm surprised you didn't mention Jeff Howard of North Central... I'm not sure you can say that Kimpel has been running well at WSU. Outside of making the World XC Junior team, what has he done? Absolutely nothing. Someone making that team should not only finish 32nd at PAC 10s, and 64th at West Regionals. Jeff Howard got 16th at regionals this year as a sophomore, now there is a kid that is actually running well at the college level.

Excellent analysis from you guys. Rojo's interview with FM's Coach Bill Aris goes into depth about the challenges facing kids in transitioning from top prep programs to college. The current top WA-origin collegiates (Riley, Prentice, Moskowitz) are all West-siders who likely weren't pushed that hard in HS.

Barnes going just under 4:00 for UCLA is like running 3:55 under Vin or Vig.

strapiton wrote:

Excellent analysis from you guys. Rojo's interview with FM's Coach Bill Aris goes into depth about the challenges facing kids in transitioning from top prep programs to college. The current top WA-origin collegiates (Riley, Prentice, Moskowitz) are all West-siders who likely weren't pushed that hard in HS.

Barnes going just under 4:00 for UCLA is like running 3:55 under Vin or Vig.

Not sure you can put Moskowitz on that level yet. Especially ahead of Unterreiner, Kyle King, Howard, and Englund who were all top 25 at the West region, and Lafler who was 20th at Pac 10s. I think Moskowitz will definitely be there in the next couple years though. And Outside of Jeff Howard, all these guys are westsiders, too.

i forgot about howard. sorry. it will be interesting to see how he turns out. boise state did very well in developing forrest braden, not from spokane, but from close to it. world xc was a good result for kimpel. i thought i saw a race for him in the low 24s this year. but the 60s isnt great at regionals. i havent seen much from dean at texas.

i don't know about barnes. if you look at the race at which he ran sub 4, he did it all by himself, like doing it at a league meet. i always wondered about that choice. seems like he could have gone to stanford if he wanted an education. the other mead guys didnt have much success at iona, though it would be hard to think that they would, given iona's track record with foreigners.

and the ferris guys didnt do well at portland, though cam quackenbush i think ran varsity for uw this year. cosby might have had the most success after he transferred from iona, interestingly. portland always seemed like the place where west-side 9:30-9:40 runners went and developed into low 25:00 guys, but maybe not the best place for guys already running high-mileage and sub 9:15. poffenroth definitely had the most talent, and was in eugene (maybe at lane) for awhile. he is also a very sick snowboarder but i dont know if he is professional or not.

one example of all of this is jesse fayant outkicking chris lukezic in cross country and the 3200, willing himself to run down someone he had no business running down in terms of speed. 3 years later lukezic was going pro and fayant wasnt running anymore. lukezic had to get years of college under his belt to really hit his stride, but fayant had been going all out since he got to mead.

[quote]iknowspokane wrote:

I'm surprised you didn't mention Jeff Howard of North Central... I'm not sure you can say that Kimpel has been running well at WSU. Outside of making the World XC Junior team, what has he done? Absolutely nothing. Someone making that team should not only finish 32nd at PAC 10s, and 64th at West Regionals. Jeff Howard got 16th at regionals this year as a sophomore, now there is a kid that is actually running well at the college level.[quote]spokane xc wrote:

Run to the light wrote:

Nope - Smoragiewicz is from South Dakota. That's not one of the original 13 colonies. He's not American.

I have to agree...it's a lot more like Socialist Canada than the good ol' US of A!

It's the next Gerry Lindgren!

Perhaps he will break the unbreakable record of 8:40....

Records are meant to be broken!

What happened to Lafler by the way? 3rd fastest in his grade as a sophomore (better than Fernandez, Derrick, Lowe, Puskedra), and yet never broke 9, and kind of fizzled out.

Or Bywater who ran 9:03 that same year (1st in grade nationally, but never really improved. HUGE potential, but never panned out.

Yeah I know Ben was at Lane, it was him, Churchill and a few others... Jmac maybe during that time period? Last I had heard about Poff, was from an old Eisenhower guy, told me he heard Poff was gettin' paid to shred all over.

I just had high expectation for Laef, I mean, even if he ran his sub 4 in a low key race, he was a kid that should have been able to run sub 4 backwards imo. Not blaming him or Tyson at all, just an observation. If anyone is too blame it's UCLA.

I'm too old to know the north central guys. I remember hearing about Kimpel but I wasn't following WAtfxc during that period.

Thinking back, did Riley ever win a title at Sehome? Didn't Chris lean him at everything? Memory is foggy.

Lafler at least made footlocker, how about that auburn riverside kid everyone thought was going to be God, he didn't even measure up against the best WA had when he was a senior.

Forgive the grammatical errors, I am quite drunk.

Jordan McNamara turned out ok (the previously mentioned Auburn Riverside runner). He went pro this summer.

Lafler is one of the most talented runners I've ever seen in the state (4:21 as a freshman), it's a shame he chose WSU. On dyestat back in the day he was deciding between WSU, Iona, Portland, and Wisconsin. Bad choice.

Anyways, Gardner will be scary good.

YouHeardItHereFirst wrote:

It's the next Gerry Lindgren!

Perhaps he will break the unbreakable record of 8:40....

Records are meant to be broken!

It's unlikely Gardner will ever run an indoor 2 mile.

Nah, not Jmac, they had some kid who was like a frosh when he was there. Maybe I'm confused, he could have gone to a different school.

Jordan had a damn fine college career, probably the best that I can think of actually. When comparing to the spokanes, and Helmer, Baranyi.

[quote]spokenyan wrote:

His name is super American sounding "Andrew Gardner" but he is strait off the boat from Ethiopia. He is probably a great kid, works hard and is humble, but not "American" like a Solinsky/Rupp/Ritz.

He has live here since he was ten years old. how is he not an American? Oh. I know. He is not white so cannot be an "American" like a Solinsky/Rupp/Ritz.

And certain it won't be on a 150y track!

indoor track wrote:

YouHeardItHereFirst wrote:

It's the next Gerry Lindgren!

Perhaps he will break the unbreakable record of 8:40....

Records are meant to be broken!

It's unlikely Gardner will ever run an indoor 2 mile.

The wooden track at the Cow Palace was 160 yards. That 8:40 was the second greatest high school long distance run ever. The greatest was when Lindgren ran 13:44.0, breaking the American 5,000 record . . . but, alas, Bob Schul was in the race and he broke it even more, running 13:38.0.

strapiton wrote:

And certain it won't be on a 150y track!

indoor track wrote:

It's unlikely Gardner will ever run an indoor 2 mile.

Ryun.

There was a period of time 04-07 when Spokane was absolutely ridiculous. Mead and Ferris were #1 and #2, NC and CV were in the 20's. A lot of good guys like Robert Cosby, Taylor Nepon, Sean Coyle, Dylan Hatcher, Cam Quackenbush. I believe Hatcher(ASU) ran 3:46 and was in the final at Pac-10's last year, Quackenbush was one of UW's Top guys. But other than those two, that class really never did much. Good to see Gardner and Weitz doing well individually, but Spokane needs to get back to having good teams as well.