Cooper's fastest time last year when he started the academic year as a age 15 yr old freshman was 47.97 INDOORS. It was the indoor
"freshman" national record and was set at the University of Arkansas. He never rash faster than this on an indoor track when he started the academic year at age 15 in January of 2016. He was 15 years, 10 months the day he broke the record.
He was in fact older as a freshman than William Reed was as a sophomore when William Reed ran 46.84 at the age of 15 years 10 months old.
Remember, there is a huge diffence is times between indoor times in the 400 meter dash with 4 tight curves, and the outdoor 400 meter dash with only 2 wide cuvres. When Tyrese Cooper was the age of a high school freshman (in the 8th grade) he ran the outdoor 400 meter dash in 46.44 seconds at New Balance Outdoor Nationals taking 4th place. The young man is great. He does not need a 1 year handicap to break national class records. In fact he couldn't possibly care less about high school national class records because he is going for World Records!! Tyrese Cooper is not the problem. The record keepers are the problem because they don't recognize the age advantage that Cooper has over all past 400 meter dash national class record holders because we are comparing one athlete who started the academic freshman year at age 15, when all previous national class record holders in the 400 meter dash started the academic freshman year at age14.