All Time All IVY XC

Lananna was a 9.07 steepler. Great coach, not a great runner.

Lemay never even won Heps. Great runner, late bloomer.

Shorter never won Heps. Made up for it later I guess.

Pfitzinger never won Heps.

Here is the real deal:

ALL-Time First Team:

Jim Sapienza Dartmouth Three wins, 24:23 best time

Dave Merrick Penn Three wins , 24:15

Chris Schille Brown 2 wins, 3rd, 4th 24:08 Ivy League Record.

Tom McCardle Dart 2 wins and a second 24:30's (he let his teammate win this year)

Frank Powers Dart 1win, 2nd, 4th 24:22

Matt Farmer Princeton 1win, 3rd, 5th 24:15

Bob Kempainen 2nd, 3rd, 4th 24:14

ALL time 2nd Team

Brian Clas Cornell 1 win, 2nd

Jim Gibson Yale 1 win, 2nd

Sam Wilbur Dart 1 win, 2nd

Terry Stillman Dart 1 win, 3rd 24:24

Dean Stephens Dart 1 win, 2nd

Ted Fitzpatrick Dart 2nd, 4th, 4th

Greg Whitely Brown 1 win 24:41

Here is the all time list of top HEPS times:

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/sports/heps-recordbook.asp?intSID=1

Also, here are the top 10 HEPS times for each school:

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/sports/top-performers.asp?intSID=1

Notice that McArdle isn't even in the Dartmouth Top 10 HEPS times!

Also please keep in mind that around 1995 or 1996 there was major construction done to the Van Cortland Park course. The back hills were flattened a bit, all the rocks removed, the sandy areas were paved. The course is now 15-20 seconds faster than it used to be. Back then if you ran under 25:00 for the 5mile you were a stud, and certainly capable of qualifying for NCAA's in some track event. Now several guys break 25:00 every year, and they run nothing of consequence on the track.

That makes the times from the 80's even more impressive.

Your list is better....but....the legendary Paul Gompers is inexplicably absent from your list - Jon Anderson, as well.

clas won one year and was fourth the other year, not 2nd. in fact the year he was 4th, he wasnt even first man. check your stats.

For pete's sake: Lanana went to C.W. Post NOT Dartmouth.

Johnny,

Indeed you are correct. Clas was fourth, behind his teammate Rob "I wear a headband with an inhaler tucked in the side" Cunningham. I was going by the ALL-Ivy Team listings on the enclosed website. I forgot that he was beaten by two Navy fellows that year, who do not count towards All-Ivy status. However he was the second Ivy finisher, so his inclusion is fair on the ALL-TIME Ivy 2nd team.

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/sports/alltime.asp?intSID=1

Malmo,

Good picks. Jon Anderson had a stellar win in 1970 in 24:39, but he doesnt have other high finishes to back it up.

Gompers ran a blazing 24:19 for 3rd in 1986, but 3rd doesnt get you on the All-Time All-Ivy team. Much props to his 1988 Marathon Trials race though.

Damn, Dave Merrick was a stud in college in a addition to high school, one of the top two mile times all time in the state of Illinois, and I think one of the top indoor two mile times in the nation all-time, did he ever run pro? He should have, if not, why?

Gordo Dude, there was no such thing as "pro" when Merrick was running.

hell,

jon anderson, grant whitney and pfitzinger all ran faster than clas too. i find it hard to place him higher than those three greats. yeah you can say he won the race, but then why have all time top performance lists? yes he did beat a couple of dartmouth studs, but in my humble opinion, they weren't studs at that time.

as for Rob "I wear a headband with an inhaler tucked in the side" Cunningham, maybe clas beat him because he wore a headband that year. the year before he almost hawked down greg keller from navy at the finish. a buddy of mine said that half way up cemetary hill, his coached yelled that he was 20 seconds down. guess that headband really slowed him down.

what ever happened to him and keller anyway?

I'm with johnny utah, even under Schoplifter's own criteria, Anderson has it all over Fitzpatrick and Whitely.

I once asked Whitely about Ivan Fuqua, and his response was a deer-blinded-by-headlights-in-the-middle-of-the-road "huh?" Fuqua was the Brown equivalent to Jumbo Elliot. Anyone who doesn't know their schools history - especially an Ivy-Leaguer - should be disqualified when it comes to merits within a historical perspective. Whitley had a great Ivy League career, one of the best on the track, but not good enough for "all-time". There is no "I" in team. ("Hey, malmo, there is one in 'win' isn't there?")

Gompers, though, is a legend among the legends - both athletically and academically - and that's a tough thing to do at Harvard.

Penn Top 3 Van Cortlandt Times are

Dave Merrick, 23:51 (collegiate record)

Denis Fikes, 24:27

Rob Childs, 24:29

Merrick is already in there, leave Fikes for an all-time track team (3:55 mile, still the conference record), but Childs was a champion in 1972 and, this is a guess here, was probably Top 5 right behind Merrick in 1971 and 1973, considering at least in 1971 Penn was one of the top XC teams in the nation (3rd NCAA)

Im curious why is the meet called "Heps". I know it is short for heptagonal, but there are 8 schools in the Ivy League, right? Did the name get started when there were only 7 schools? If so, which school is the 8th? I guess they didn't want to change the name to "Octs".

A case can be made for Gompers, Anderson, and Pfitzinger to be on the second team. Fair enough. I made my picks, I can see these two replacing Fitzpatrick and Whitely. I am admittedly biased to the late 80's , 90's guys.

I imagine Rob Cunningham is in Canada somewhere. He didnt race much after college. Never again saw the heights of his 3:42 in the race with Kieth Yuen where they didnt start the clock until about 4 seconds into the race.

Keller won the Anchorman award at Navy (finishing dead last academically in your graduating class) He beat out a girl who miscalculated and flunked out. I heard he was on a submarine. His 5yrs service is been up for a while, I dont know if he is still in.

Cunningham is in Korea I believe.

The Heptagonal Games started in 1935, about 20 years before the official Ivy League was formed. There were 7 teams, the 8 Ivies minus Brown. Brown joined soon after, then the Army and Navy joined in the 1940's. There were 10 teams from then on, until the mid-1990's when Army slid over to the Patriot League so they could actually win a championship. There are still 9, Ivies + Navy. This is a hot topic and I believe Navy is always on the cutting board -- supposedly some schools don't like Navy there, others do.

Irregardless, they call it the Heptagonal Games for tradition, that's all. The "Nonagonal" Games ? (I probably got that one wrong, always get Latin and Greek mixed up)

Thanks for the info Bill!

I always considered Brown a quasi-Ivy, like Penn and the Cornell School of Hotel Management.

That should rile up the post-ers.

Actually when Army left it was before the 1993 fall cross season. They had an excellent team that season and would have won Heps for sure. They were led by 13:30 guy Jason Stewart, 13:42 guy Mike Bernstein, and their fifth man was a certain Dan Browne. All those guys were real bummed out to have to leave the tradition and competition of the Heps for the Pathetic Patriot League. The decision was forced upon them by the West Point Football and Basketball team's move to the Patriot League.

It will be a shame when Navy eventually gets kicked out. Army and Navy are both rigorous schools that have a similar view as he Ivies on Academics first, no athletic scholarships (granted everyone is on full scholarship at the service academies). The Heps was a better conference with Army in it.