Ex-NBA'er Brian Scalabrine claims he ran a 4:45 mile as a Soph in College

10/10

Thanks, gotta get back to my U-8 AAU coaching duties now.

I never trust USC guys. I know one that claimed a 9:00 steeple. When I pressed him he said oh yeah, I ran a 9:00 3,000. When I asked well , was it a steeple or a flat 3,000? Err, uh, gotta get another beer, I'll be right back. Same clown claimed to have run a 10.71 100 meters in the frat Olympics at USC. He ran 4 years of high school track as a distance runner with no decent times and then just pops a 10.71. I asked him a bunch of questions about it like was it yards or meters? Who timed it, one of your drunk frat brothers? One watch only? Etc, he gets all butt hurt when I question him. SC guys, the worst!

bigtool05 wrote:

I used to run faster wrote:

Runners are not the only people who can run. Often, runners believe it takes: summer high mileage, fall XC, indoor winter track and spring track to run well. The basketball team at my college/university had a mandatory standard for first day of practice or suffer remedial training: all guards, sub-4:45 one mile and all big (forwards/centers) men, sub-5:15 one mile.

This definitely never happened.

Agreed. I've seen college basketball players run. They're slow and their form is extremely awkward.

In baggy shorts wrote:

UNC BBall mile time record 4:36

http://www.goheels.com/news/2014/9/26/209678990.aspx

Yes this is perfect. Carolina is a team that preaches conditioning and specifically readies and motivates these guys for this mile run. Most are in the low 5s-low 6s range from what i read here and remember having read of it. A physical specimen/guard with the right body type can go 4:30s-4:40s. Don't think Scalabrine qualifies as a guy who probably just did regular conditioning and was not in a runner's body.

Can't stand SC guys, one of them murdered my sister and her waiter.

JimmyMcJimson wrote:

In baggy shorts wrote:

UNC BBall mile time record 4:36

http://www.goheels.com/news/2014/9/26/209678990.aspx

Yes this is perfect. Carolina is a team that preaches conditioning and specifically readies and motivates these guys for this mile run. Most are in the low 5s-low 6s range from what i read here and remember having read of it. A physical specimen/guard with the right body type can go 4:30s-4:40s. Don't think Scalabrine qualifies as a guy who probably just did regular conditioning and was not in a runner's body.

Well, they aren't going to classes, might as well run a few miles.

I used to run faster wrote:

Who cares where I went to college. Do you doubt a college coach would have standard I stated?

Yes I do doubt it. Especially for a first workout. Say your college, not likely you're the only one from there on these boards. You wouldn't be outing yourself.

In baggy shorts wrote:

UNC BBall mile time record 4:36

http://www.goheels.com/news/2014/9/26/209678990.aspx

Given that school's reputation for cheating, I'd say all of them Rossi'd the course.

Dan Kane wrote:

In baggy shorts wrote:

UNC BBall mile time record 4:36

http://www.goheels.com/news/2014/9/26/209678990.aspx

Given that school's reputation for cheating, I'd say all of them Rossi'd the course.

They probably got 3 credits for running that 'course.'

Some more data regarding the UNC miles

Since 1965 UNC basketball has done a pre season mile test.

Below is a list of all players who have broken 5 minutes between 1965 and 1990;

John O'Donnell 4:59 1971

John O'Donnell 4:59 1973

Mickey Bell 4:58.7 1974

Walter Davis 4:52.5 1974

Phil Ford 4:59.4 1974

Dave Hanners 4:59,5 1974

Tom Zaiiagiris 4:59,7 1974

Woody Coley 4:49 1975

Phil Ford 4:58 1975

Ged Doughton 4:59 1975

Dave Hanners 4:59 1975

Dudley Bradley 4:59.7 1975

Walter Davis 4:57 1975

Dave Colescott 4:58 1976

Walter Davis 4:56 1976

Woody Coley 4:47 1976

Ged Doughton 4:51 1976

Tom Zaiiagiris 4:58 1977

Ged Doughton 4:53 1977

Dudley Bradley 4:59 1977

Dave Colescott 4:55 1977

Mike Pepper 4:56 1977

Ged Doughton 4:53 1978

Dave Colescott 4:57.3 1978

Dudley Bradley 4:47.5 1978

Mike Pepper 4:55.5 1978

Mike Pepper 4:47.5 1979

Jeb Barlow 4:57.5 1980

Matt Doherty 4:59.8 1980

Matt Doherty 4:57 1981

Steve Hale 4:45 1982

Steve Hale 4:41.1 1983

Steve Hale 4:39.9 1984

James Daye 4:48 1984

Matt Brust 4:58,9 1984

Ranzino Smith 4:55 1984

James Daye 4:40 1985

Steve Hale 4:41 1985

Jeff Lebo 4:52 1985

Ranzino Smith 4:52 1985

Steve, Bucknall 4:59.9 1985

Joe Wolf 4:59 1985

Kenny Smith 4:55 1985

Ranzino Smith 4:48 1986

Joe Wolf 4:58 1986

Kenny Smith 4:59.9 1986

Jeff Lebo 4:55 1986

Ranzino Smith 4:59.9 1987

David May 4:53 1987

David May 4:43 1988

Kenny Harris 4:58 1989

Hubert Davis 4:53 1989

Kenny Harris 4:57 1990

Hubert Davis 4:58 1990

Derrick Phelps 4:59 1990

That's 26 players in 26 years, maybe around 15% of players over the time frame.

Notable NBA players on the list are Walter Davis, Phil Ford, Dudley Bradley, Kenny Smith and Hubert Davis

The one glaring exception is of course Michael Jordan. Being great at basketball does not necessarily make one a great miler.

I'd like to see some data on mile times for baseball players ; recall seeing some of data on beep test scores across a lot of athletic disciplines; it turns out the baseball player scored the highest on a consistent basis over any other athlete category

I wonder if this would carry for longer distances like the mile?

I've read about NBA teams time-trialing their players, & never read any breaking 5:00. Jrue Holiday ran 5:02. The only sub-5 I've ever read, was Dan Marjle (sp?) saying he ran 4:36 in college. So no, Scalabrine didn't run 4:45.

sheltered wrote:

Spencer Hawes, a 7 footer I believe broke 5:20 in a conditioning test while a freshman at University of Washington. It caught my attention when it was reported. I thought that was pretty good for a big guy.

I'm actually serious with this question. I'm 6'3, was a pretty good college runner, and people (usually girls) say "you're fast because you have long legs." I feel that's kind of ridiculous, but if you took a one-foot human vs ten-foot human, the ten-footer could certainly move faster. So why should it be impressive when a 7-footer runs 5:20 when I could break 4:20, yet no one finds me running 4:20 as impressive as someone 9 inches shorter (5'6) running 3:20? Is it because someone 7 feet tall is just gangly AF and we're not used to seeing someone like that run? What is the "height handicap" for someone 7 feet, or my height?

Where did you get the numbers? This is very interesting stuff, speaks a lot to what ability of non-runners to run the mile should be.

Joe wolf from that list is sub 5 at 6'11'

Maybe Scal did run it, maybe he is the outlier, says he trained for it.

Tallish runner wrote: if you took a one-foot human vs ten-foot human, the ten-footer could certainly move faster....

What is the "height handicap" for someone 7 feet, or my height?

Maybe. If you all dimensions of an object up, its weight goes up by height^3. So a 10 ft human of the same relative dimensions would weigh 1000 times as much as the 1 ft human. But the bone cross-sectional area goes up by height^2, so the shear stress would increase. So the 10 footer needs thicker bones to handle the weight. Likewise, a 5 foot human who weighs 120 lbs would weigh 330 if scaled up to 7 ft.

For real humans, 7 footers tend to be more slender than 5 footers, so their weight tends not to be 2.7 times as much.

It's not so much that it's a handicap as there are so few 7 footers that the odds of them also being great runners are small. But there are some. Supposedly Kevin Willis ran a 4:32 mile in high school. Wilt Chamberlain ran 49 sec and 1:58 for 440 and 880 yd.

Thats the key point. Whether (and how hard) they trained specifically for it. Idk about Scal particularly but many pro basketball players could be good runners if they tried.The UNC thing just shows that. All those guys breaking 5, and im sure they weren't doing very optimal mile training. I would be pretty confident in saying that almost any gaurd in the nba under the age 35 could run 4:45 with a few months of specific training.

In baggy shorts wrote:

Joe wolf from that list is sub 5 at 6'11'

Maybe Scal did run it, maybe he is the outlier, says he trained for it.

Probably meant 5:45. I also call shenanigans