Sports Gene: Indiana HSer Daniel Kuhn runs 1:50 and wins state on absolutely ZERO training

It's a nice story, but "no training" is a little bit misleading since the kid ran cross in the fall + clearly has good sprint speed. Will be fun to see what he can do at IU.

Great story and clearly a great talent. But still the story is oversold. He ran cross country the last couple years and he had raced several times this season before. He ran zero intervals all season? In any case, you have to like the potential of someone who dominates in many different events in high school, like Laura Roesler, and obviously in this case without that much training.

If he was playing baseball, then he didn't have absolutely no training. Baseball players run, sprint, and lift plenty enough. If he also has been running cross country then this story is just flat out dishonest.

ZERO training. How do you define that? How do Ivy League grads not know what zero means?

I liked Epstein's book.

Zero training? First of all, he obviously is dishonest, and second of all, it has worked to hoodwink the morons. Nonetheless, although he trained, he obviously has talent.

"Kuhn wants to study engineering — which IU doesn't offer — so he plans to double-major in math and physics and spend a year at IUPUI in mechanical engineering."

WTH kind of major university has no engineering? Is this a joke?

Straight answers. wrote:

"Kuhn wants to study engineering — which IU doesn't offer — so he plans to double-major in math and physics and spend a year at IUPUI in mechanical engineering."

WTH kind of major university has no engineering? Is this a joke?

Why would that be a joke? What does being a major university have to do with having an engineering program? Plenty of schools don't have every program.

Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, and Rutgers (all other big 10 schools) have engineering departments. Hell, even Johns Hopkins does. I think that's ridiculous. He should have enough scholarship to study engineering elsewhere though. Why must he choose IU? He can't be so dumb that he can't even get into any of those other schools.

I went to school in Indiana at Purdue University. They way it was explained to me was that when the state setup the Purdue and Indiana, they didn't want to replicate the major departments to save money and to create specialization at the respective school. That setup still generally persists today. IU has the medical school, Purdue does not. Purdue has the Veternany school, IU does not. Purdue has Engineering, IU does not. You could go on and on. There are also several joint schools like IUPUI (Indiana university Purdue University at Indianapolis) and IUPUFW (in Fort Wayne) those schools offer a mixture, but if you get an Enginerring degree, you get a Purdue degree and if you get a Medical Degree, you get an Indiana University. As much as I am not a IU Hoosier fan, I thought I should defend the plan that the state setup in the 1800s that has worked pretty well.

So it's a lie...

Obviously he is a ridiculous talent, but to say he had no training is a flat out lie. He's run a couple cross country seasons, played baseball during the spring, and ran a few 800s in the spring as well. Still, should springboard into the 1:40s next year with full time training in college.

whyis wrote:

Straight answers. wrote:

"Kuhn wants to study engineering — which IU doesn't offer — so he plans to double-major in math and physics and spend a year at IUPUI in mechanical engineering."

WTH kind of major university has no engineering? Is this a joke?

Why would that be a joke? What does being a major university have to do with having an engineering program? Plenty of schools don't have every program.

It's called Purdue University, up the road about 100 miles. Probably very similar to same deal in stated like Alabama ( Alabama, Auburn) and NC ( UNC, NC State) etc etc

Why are all you weens nitpicking the shit out of this article. He's an athlete with zero specific 800 training, but maybe a few sprints between bases. Whatever. The point is this dude is clearly a pretty incredible athlete. It'll be really interesting to see how he responds to actual training.

Did anyone else notice the body position of the runner in the upper left of that photo of Kuhn finishing? Either rigor mortis was setting in or he must have a very funky stride. Was doing well at that point in time.

Idiotic article and click-bait thread title. Apparently "zero training" now = "a good amount of training".

Thanks for clarifying. Still doesn't explain his decision to go to IU.

I agree with the rest of you that "zero training" is misleading. But c'mon, 1:50 with no specific training since the fall? Pretty damn good.

trailrunner71 wrote:

whyis wrote:

Why would that be a joke? What does being a major university have to do with having an engineering program? Plenty of schools don't have every program.

It's called Purdue University, up the road about 100 miles. Probably very similar to same deal in stated like Alabama ( Alabama, Auburn) and NC ( UNC, NC State) etc etc

UNC has engineering.

Zero training is definitely misleading after reading the story. Part time training for running would be more accurate. The baseball players at the school I taught and coached for did 8x400 on the track on a regular basis. They also did shorter sprints on the track and turf. Most good baseball coaches run the snot out of their players, so no surprise that the kid ran so fast when you consider the base he had from XC.

Jefe in the CO wrote:

Did anyone else notice the body position of the runner in the upper left of that photo of Kuhn finishing? Either rigor mortis was setting in or he must have a very funky stride. Was doing well at that point in time.

hahaha yes i saw that and i was like what the HELL is that kid doing?! I assumed he was just hardcore dying and doing the old skeleton dance.

LetsRun.com wrote:

http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2014/07/01/daniel-kuhn-went-trine-baseball-player-iu-track-star/11921749/

This is a great story that our friend David Woods of the Indianapolis Star has out on Daniel Kuhn. He was all set to play college baseball at Trine but Indiana has apparently talked him into running track after he ran 1:50 and won states on ZERO training.

David Woods wrote:

He hadn't run track since eighth grade. He played baseball all spring — and led the Hoosier Heritage Conference with a .408 batting average — so his training was limited. Or, rather, non-existent.

"Absolutely none," Kuhn said.

Must read here:

http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2014/07/01/daniel-kuhn-went-trine-baseball-player-iu-track-star/11921749/

He's a big time athlete as he ran a 47 400 and long jumped 21 feet as well.

How do you know he did no training. In fact we are certain he did do training and furthermore there is a big gap between what someone says and does

That sports gene book is a real revelation in stating the obvious though