Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

[5k Guy]

OK this board is rather slow today. Let me pose two opinion questions.

1)In your humble opinion who is the greatest high school cross country runner of all times? (male/female)


2) In your humble opinion who is the greatest collegiate cross country runner of all times? (male/female)

As always please support your answer with reasons.

[Conor Dary]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

'humble opinion'

Who is humble in this group? Not I.

[5k Guy]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

Just trying to get people comfortable with giving their opinion. Granted, not like that is hard with this group.

So could a high school Chapa beaten a high school Lindgren over 5k cross country????

[kuha]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

A somewhat facetious answer to the first question: K. Bekele in his first double World x-c win.

[highjumpsteve]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

5k, too hard of a question to answer on the HS level, as outside of FootLocker, no way to make comparisons. W/O even thinking , with the older guys, the name Pat Porter jumps right up.

[jhc68]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

Best male high school cross-country runner? Jeff Nelson, period, peerless. After that, Pre and Eric Hulst.

[gh]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

There's only one answer to both questions and it holds true when you ask about track runners as well, and that's Lindgren (filtering out overage foreigners).

Nobody ever even thinks about him as a miler, but there's still only 6 guys who have run faster than his 4:01.5 (set on dirt). If not for some junior named Ryun, when Lindgren graduated he would have held the HSRs in the 1500, Mile, 3000, 2M, 3M, 5K, 6M and 10K (all on dirt, in fact). The 5K mark still stands. He would have eaten the lunch of any other high schooler who ever toed the line.

[5k Guy]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

<<<<He would have eaten the lunch of any other high schooler who ever toed the line.>>>>

Strong words Garry! But I think Lindgren would have gotten my vote as well. Given the technology changes (shoes and surfaces) I think Lindgren would have stood toe-to-toe against any high schooler over any distance above the mile and probably only Ryan and Webb could have taken him at the mile. The deciding factor is if you would classify some of the African 18 yr old wonder kids as high school or not.

[dupontred]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

not sure about high school runners...there's so little head to head competition...

but for me, college cross goes to UTEP's Nyambui...

[Conor Dary]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

Even though GH is a Cougar alumni and highly prejudiced is right about Lindgren.

However, 'but for me, college cross goes to UTEP's Nyambui...' is pretty dumb considering SN never won the NCAA meet, unlike Pre, Lindgren, or Rono who each won it 3 times.

[5k Guy]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

<<<<is pretty dumb>>>>

Ouch. No need to call someone's opinion dumb, lets try ill-advised, or maybe "factually challenged", or maybe "out on a limb", or even "sure to be disputed".

[highjumpsteve]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

name calling aside, let's all remember that 5k's question was about Cross Country, not Track.

[tandfman]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

>SN never won the NCAA meet, unlike Pre, Lindgren, or Rono who each won it 3 times.<

SN won it in 1980.

[Conor Dary]

Re: Greatest Prep/College XC Runners

'SN won it in 1980.'

Did he now? That was about the time I was in the Peace Corps in Nepal. Well I guess I am 'pretty dumb' also, but I will stand by my original comment.