Liquori vs. Ryun in Cross Country?

[Bruce Kritzler]

Friar, 800 men who have placed well in ncaa xc?

Paul McMullen, Steve Scott, Morgan Groth, plus couple of Arkansas Imports

[KevinM]

Has any 800m major conference winner, ever won his Con. CC title?

Did Kevin Sullivan ever win a Big 10 800m title?

[ed gee]

Lomong placed 5th in the 800 at USATF the June following a fourth at NCAA XC.

Webb was 11th in '01 NCAA XC and has run 1:43 for 800.

[tandfman]

Did Kevin Sullivan ever win a Big 10 800m title?

Yes, in 1995.

[gh]

Friar, 800 men who have placed well in ncaa xc?

Paul McMullen, Steve Scott, Morgan Groth, plus couple of Arkansas Imports

It should be noted that in Groth's era there were "lots" of 800 guys who appeared in the results, for two reasons:

1. The race was only 5 miles, and that extra mile made a lot of difference for some of the 880 types.

2. In the days before track became three sports (for satisfying NCAA sports-carried needs, which means you load up on distance runners who can score in all three sports) and scholarship/Title IX considerations took hold, very few schools had "real" cross country teams. (And as an aside, nor did many have "real" relay teams.)

In those days, it was mark of honor as a coach to have a well-rounded team with people in all events. So XC teams were loaded with guys who never ran XC-like distances on the track. (and relay teams were loaded with jumpers and hurdlers)

All to the detriment of the collegiate sport, IMHO.

[lovetorun]

Lomong placed 5th in the 800 at USATF the June following a fourth at NCAA XC.

Webb was 11th in '01 NCAA XC and has run 1:43 for 800.

It would be more accurate to say Webb ran a 1:44 800m than to say 1:43 since 1:43.84 is closer to 1:44. I know...picky, picky, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

[tandfman]

Lomong placed 5th in the 800 at USATF the June following a fourth at NCAA XC.

Webb was 11th in '01 NCAA XC and has run 1:43 for 800.

It would be more accurate to say Webb ran a 1:44 800m than to say 1:43 since 1:43.84 is closer to 1:44. I know...picky, picky, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

And it's a good one.

[gh]

Lomong placed 5th in the 800 at USATF the June following a fourth at NCAA XC.

Webb was 11th in '01 NCAA XC and has run 1:43 for 800.

It would be more accurate to say Webb ran a 1:44 800m than to say 1:43 since 1:43.84 is closer to 1:44. I know...picky, picky, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

As a statistician I agree, but I know of no athlete or coach on the planet who ever does any kind of rounding. The easiest (and for the average human bean most logical) course of action is a simple truncation.

The insistence on so many decimal places is one thing that kills our sport.

(note also that when a field eventer says it--and they do the same thing--they're actually making their performance less, not more)

[bad hammy]

The insistence on so many decimal places is one thing that kills our sport.

I have a lot of opinions about what has helped kill our sport, but this is not one of them. The most stat-conscious popular sport I am aware of (baseball) delves into numeric corners that make T&F look like they are still using abacuses. Folks understand hundredths of a second in the context of athletic measurements.

Now if we are talking killing the sport in the US and metric distance measurements in field events, I am with you all the way.

[gh]

Re baseball: only the geekiest of geeks know batting average to 1000ths (the equivalent of our decimals). Maybe even 100ths are obscure.

Saying "300 hitter" suffices for the average fan for everything from 300 through what, 330?

And pitchers, methinks, are 20-game winners for a long time, then they become 25-game winners.

That's the lingua franca.

[bad hammy]

All baseball fans understand batting averages, which are normally discussed to the thousandth. Also ERA, which is in the hundredth. More stat-conscious fans have a plethora of more obscure and detailed stats to work with. The point is that even general US sports fans are able to do math to the hundredth or thousandth.

[gh]

you're talking FANS, I'm talking fans. I stand by my stance that the "normal" baseball fan does not talk in decimals as a normal matter of course.

[tandfman]

If normal baseball fans don't talk in decimals, how do they express ERA's (or don't they)?

[Daisy]

If normal baseball fans don't talk in decimals, how do they express ERA's (or don't they)?

Baseball fans, as opposed to FANS, that I have met seem to be fine with the numbers.

[eldrick]

Lomong placed 5th in the 800 at USATF the June following a fourth at NCAA XC.

Webb was 11th in '01 NCAA XC and has run 1:43 for 800.

It would be more accurate to say Webb ran a 1:44 800m than to say 1:43 since 1:43.84 is closer to 1:44. I know...picky, picky, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

& 9.69 is closer to 10 than 9, so that makes bolt a 10sec guy ?!

webb's run is 1'43, as the sec digits showed 1'43 & not 1'44

besides, it's academic, as that was far from an ideal 800 for him, something like 50/53.8, which was way too fast an opening lap for him considering his basic 400 speed ( i'd imagine he was about mid-47 at the time )

if he'd been dragged out in a more sensible 51s, he wouda almost certainly come back much quicker & my gut tells me ~ 1'43.25 - 1'43.5

webb most certainly was a 1'43 guy & low end of that morally