RYAN HALL TRANSFERING....

He decided to start smoking some fat ones and looking for visions and trying to feel the spirit flowing through him. Actually, he would never do that. And I heard he is "temporarily" MIA... not transferring.

As much as it gets preached about on here that high schoolers should be training much harder and that teenagers in Kenya are running world class times so our guys should be too there is problems with this.

There is no question that Hall is a phenomenal talent and has the ability to run at the top. I believe that for many of these high schoolers big time early success can be a psychological burden. Anytime from here on out that these guys don't run stellar races there is the chance that comparisons to what they think they "should" be doing weighs down on them and a negative mindset sets in. Then they start pressing too hard and stress levels rise making performances more difficult to attain.

Anytime you change coaches and systems there will be an adjustment period. And at a place like Stanford you have an off day and you're getting beat by 10 other guys.

Hall needs to forget about the glory days of high school and the pictures of himself plastered on the pages of track and field news and the interviews and all that meaningless crap. He's proven that he's a good runner but its a long road to the top and he's going to have to quit feeling sorry for himself, get to work, and the results will come to him eventually.

There is no magic training system or coach. He has to believe in himself and his training and things will come around. I've watched guys like Torres, Reina, Davis, Guisto, and even Falcon struggle early on but they stuck it out and got back on track quickly.

Now, after saying all that I don't really know the situation but and maybe this applies to him but running at the college level and even more so post-collegiately is tons more tough than at high school where you can be on an adrenaline high constantly for being a superstar and killing everybody you face. He needs to quit judging himself as supposed to being better than every one else and realize that he's really just another name among dozens of talented collegiates.

Are you THAT Jeff Nelson?

Don Sage said that the main difference for him from high school to college was that in college every race had the very best runners in it and he could not rest on his laurels- he had to go out and do the job each and every time. For Hall, at Stanford, I am sure that in part it has been frustrating not being the top dog, as he was all through high school, but I think he was doing rather well. If he is leaving I can only assume that he wishes to make a larger contribution somewhere else and feels that at Stanford he may not be able to do so given the talent level.