Best Athletes to not run after high school?

Oh, on the sprint side, I would consider Robert Griffin to be a prime example of one of the best sprinters to not run after high school. If you count his one collegiate season (even though he graduated early from high school), he ran phenomenal times for such a young athlete in the 400m hurdles. I think Robert Griffin could have been an Olympian, that's how talented he truly was.

Mary Cain

What we see with swimmers that might be transferable is that swimmers starting at 7-8 years of age have less training hours when they are about 20 than those who start when they are 12.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for because this woman did run but not in a traditional sense. Ohio had a young woman finish in the top 5 at Footlocker, go to Stanford, and hang up the spikes without running a race. I think she joined the team as a senior and was good but not by her high school standards. Claire Durkin.

Stephanie Jenks. 4:40 1600, 9:24 3000, multiple time qualifier to NXN and Footlocker.

Maryjeanne Gilbert- runner up to Winni Kalati at footlocker. Almost got her, the disappeared in college.

Isak Bergman - Ellensburg, WA - not sure, but I think he may have gone sub 1:50 in HS...I think went into firefighting after highschool.

Some epic racing between him and Nectaly Barbosa from Prosser. Central Washington had a couple of 800 studs in the late aughts. I think Barbosa ended up at Arizona?

Later in life did they come back to the sport and qualify for Boston?

Former Iowa Great wrote:

Stephanie Jenks. 4:40 1600, 9:24 3000, multiple time qualifier to NXN and Footlocker.

It looks like she was a Triathlon competitor. Is that the reason why she stepped away from running, or perhaps, maybe it was injury related?

Her tris were in HS. She started to fill out her senior year and never turned back.

Lukas Verzbicas in recent memory. Triathlon doesn't count.

Lukas Verzbicas has to be the winner.

Sub 4 mile in high school and never ran a track race after high school, right?

I was always curious if there were any top athletes in the high school classes of 1942, 43 and 44 who saw their careers cut short by the draft.

Zamporini is close. His running was cut short by the war.

Probably that dynamic duo Amy Wiessenbach and Cami Chapus. Both quit mysteriously when they went off to Standford. Amy has the 800 state record and Cami won that dream mile. It was a pleasure watching them run

Amber Trotter technically ran after hs, but it was only for like one xc season or maybe xc and track one year.

Louis z wrote:

Zamporini is close. His running was cut short by the war.

No, not even close. Louis Zamperini (born Jan 1917) was a top collegiate runner at USC. In fact, he set a national collegiate record in the mile while at USC. Yes, his military service cut short his running career, but he ran well after high school and was already 24 when he joined the Army Air Force.

Amber Trotter.