How common is it for the fastest runner at a school to not be on the track or XC team?

There was a kid at my high school who was about 5'8" 120 pounds and refused to run anything over 200 meters.

He ran 10.9 and 22. And he would destroy everyone in the longer sprint workouts

Coaches desperately wanted him to be an 400/800 guy but he wouldn't do it.

I'd bet he easily had sub 1:50 potential. I've never seen such a skinny dude with that much 100 meter speed.

So many guys in the soccer team would probably be the top XC runner. Probably lots of football players could be the fastest sprinter. When I was in 8th grade I could run 58 in the 400 and there was a kid named Dominique who DESTROYED me when we ran the 400 in gym. I can’t imagine what his time was. I tried recruiting him but he absolutely refused.

I would imagine common. Other sports draw talent. I ran at Bend HS in Oregon when they were winning tons of state titles on the girls side back in the 90s. They won year after year, really good teams. One year, one of the players for the soccer team came out and ran like three races for them and was their number one on a state championship team. She went on to run at Nebraska, I think, then transferred to Oregon and was a multiple time conference scorer.

the other sports have tons of talent. I think it more likely than not that the best runner in the school does not run xx or t&f.

Eh, this is likely much more true re: potential than actual ability. I think there’s a stereotype that super athletes that would dominate track are walking around the halls of every school. If you’ve got a boy running sub 16 in your school or equivalent track times, it’s not THAT likely that there’s a better runner on the soccer team right this second. Possibly one you could train to be better, maybe, but this thread is underestimating how hard it is to be good at track.

That guy from Liberty was home schooled and not on the high school track team. He won the NCAA cross country meet, beating Galen Rupp, and then disappearing.

The OP asked about the fastest, not the most talented.

If we were only talking about talent, I would agree. But I would also extend it to other sports. For example, the majority of kids haven't even tried tennis. So it is logical that the potentially most talented tennis player at the school is either doing another sport or no sport at all.

But if we are talking about the "fastest," I think its actually moderately rare. When it happens, it seems to usually be elite high school kids who maybe outgrew the coaching at a high school without a serious program. Otherwise, most kids just stick with the school team. And even with elite high school kids, more than ever stick with their high school team, since a lot more schools now have good coaching than in years past (training/coaching info is easier to find than ever, plus the sport actually has grown in popularity, despite our complaining about the sport being an afterthought).

HS coaches know that there are always potential runners just walking around the halls that do not know they have the talent and will to be champions.

Most of those potential champions will never go out for xc or track. Some choose to pursue other sports, some do not do any sports.

This is especially true with distance runners. Normally people discover that they have a natural ability to sprint fast at younger ages and continue to try to use and pursue that ability later. Normally there are few or no opportunities for youth to discover their ability over longer distances.

Great topic! Very interesting...

I figured I'd post to put a spin on this that has barely been touched on. I was actually the best distance runner at my high school (however little that may be saying!) and never signed up for track. But let me explain how things were 40+ years ago.

I ran 2 seasons of XC - sophmore and junior years - so it may seem like I was somewhat school-team-oriented, but the whole season was less than 2 months long. Early September to late October. Probably 7 weeks. I got talked into it by a guy in German class. He ended up my best training partner until graduation.

It is important to point out that school teams and coaches weren't necessarily the introduction to the sport for kids back then. Shorter and Pre were still in people's memories; Boston and NY were on TV. Guys like us already ran. We weren't struggling to get in shape week 1 of the XC season: we had done 60 miles the previous week. This was one of several factors that made school teams less important to us than to some. They weren't the reason we ran in the first place and it was very easy to picture running without them: every 10k I'd done before that 1st day of XC was done without school involvement.

Another factor that lessened the school's importance was that you were on your own for 10 months a year even if you did XC every year (which I didn't). When the season ended, the coach wasn't seen until next year. No track coach surfaced and said 'You're with me now.' No team, coach,or practice existed at all.

The very first response to the OP mentions resources, gear, and $. I will not argue since I assume they refer to heavily-funded D1 teams with shoe sponsors. At my high school, there were exactly 0 free pairs of shoes. There was literally no financial benefit for participating in the school's programs. For many of you reading this, it seemed (seemS if you're under 24) that the school provides an opportunity to pursue the sport. For me, the sport already existed and opportunity was plentiful, so the school simply didn't bring anything to the negotiation table. All they did was interrupt your training for a month and a half.

Now, about track: None of my training group participated as far as I knew. I believe the coach was a football coach who needed a Spring semester gig and hoped to keep his team in shape for the Fall season. We never met. At any rate, they didn't offer distance events. If you were effective at sprints or mid-D, it may have been worthwhile, as competitive opportunities below 10k then or 5k now are hard to find. But for those most competitive at long distances, the road scene was great - and even better now.

Let me point out that road races were loaded with teenage talent in the '70s and '80s. There were dozens of entrants in my age group that I didn't know. Presumably, most of them went to some school or other. I'd guess most weren't on their school track - a safe assumption with at least some of them given I knew where they were on a Saturday morning. A 34 minute 10k would win my division in a small or newer race. 33 didn't get you into the top 3 in a popular, well-established event. Neither did a 2:50 marathon. It probably took 2:40 to win the regionally significant ones. I don't mean overall: I refer to the 17-and-under age group.

I thought it was worth telling this since it's so different from other stories - didn't have the grades to get on the team; disagreement with the coach; some snafu shuts the program down; didn't like the guys on the team; ran out of elegibity, and so forth. It is simply a true tale of unnatached running - common and socially accepted at one time. Those were the days.....

I grew up in Palos Verdes, CA, which had and still has a big surf community. A few of the surfers were great athletes and could have excelled in track, x-country, soccer, baseball, you name it. But when you become a "surfer" it is an identity and you surf to the exclusion of all else. They were largely Jeff Spicoli types, and there was no way they were going to go to practice and have some coach yelling at them.

Happened at my school where I coached. I coached a kid all through MS as a homeschool athlete. Then the school officially hired me and I talked his parents into joining public schools. I coached him for a year of cross and he showed quite a lot of potential for a freshman. I got fired a short while after the season over stupid petty stuff. After that he lost motivation and stopped training much, ran another year with very mediocre times, then he stopped running, especially since I had a serious injury and could not run with him. But the coaching talent dropped way off (they were literally pulling middle school coaches who did not know the sport), and almost no one was joining the team after.

Very common in HS, especially at schools with poor coaching and low participation.

It's common for a top team in an area to have 5+ of the top 10 in a championship race for a region/district with 8 to 12 schools My HS team had 5 of the top 8 in a region with 8 schools. There's no way we were capturing all the talent at our school, let alone the other 7 schools. A guy at my HS that played tennis, never ran until late 30s just ran a 1:15 half marathon on low mileage at age 40. So much untapped talent out there.

I got out of hs a couple years back and I was pretty good. I was a pretty standard top end kid, Footlocker, couple state titles, went out of state on a scholarship to a competive school.

But in the back of my head I always knew that if these two dudes on our soccer team came out, they'd kick my ass. Both of them used to cream me in the mile during gym in 9th grade ( I was a 4:10 guy my senior year). It always kept me humble knowing that I was only sucessful because a couple hundred thousand dudes with more aerobic talent than I have in my pinky play soccer instead of run.

If soccer didnt exist, we'd be able to compete with the East Africans. I fully believe that. If every american kid ran like they do in Iten, Grant Fisher wouldnt be close to the best guy we have. Theres totally some 17 year old kid on a travel soccer team rn who could kill the NBP guys if he every put on some dragonflys

shoulda woulda coulda

the degree to which people don't understand this infuriates me

to answer the question -

ALMOST 100% OF THE TIME

distance runners really don't understand just how athletically gifted people can be. They think because they were pretty good compared to their track teamates that they are athletically gifted as a runner. No, because if you were athletically gifted as a runner, you would almost certainly be playing a sport like football or basketball or soccer.

Let me say this loudly for the people in the back - TALENTED ATHLETES DON'T RUN TRACK, THEY PLAY SPORTS

and for that matter, they definitely definitely don't run distance.

Everybody is shocked that newbury park is as talented as they are, I'm shocked that Brosnan got them to run track but I'm not shocked that the talent is there. I guarantee there is at least one 4:10 or equivalent miler in every graduating class of any high school with at least a thousand kids.

Nobody likes hearing this, but track talent is very very low tier athletic talent.

The only reason anybody ever runs is because they had a parent who used to run.

"Let me point out that road races were loaded with teenage talent in the '70s and '80s. There were dozens of entrants in my age group that I didn't know. Presumably, most of them went to some school or other. I'd guess most weren't on their school track - a safe assumption with at least some of them given I knew where they were on a Saturday morning. A 34 minute 10k would win my division in a small or newer race. 33 didn't get you into the top 3 in a popular, well-established event. Neither did a 2:50 marathon. It probably took 2:40 to win the regionally significant ones. I don't mean overall: I refer to the 17-and-under age group."

Truth!

But I also think that the kids who take running seriously these days are more structured in their training paying more attention to peaking and not over racing. I see few of the HS runners competing in the local 5 and 10ks, except for perhaps a few select races.

Super common unless the football coach is also the track coach. The football coach will make the kids who aren’t playing baseball run track. if not then most of the time the fastest kid isn’t running track.

So if you want the fastest kids out then get the football coach to at least help you.

You think people don't play soccer in the Rift Valley?

Yes, I have seen this a number of times in college

1. First kid was a 10.5 100m guy who ran junior olympics in high school but was arrested and ran into trouble with the cops. He ended up playing football instead but got then got stabbed or something and never made it to the NFL.

2. Second kid was an all state hurdler who transfered from Georgia Tech because it was too academically intense, he ended up with too low of a gpa his first fall semester after transferring in and then by spring semester he was only taking 9 credits to try and boost his gpa, again he was ineligible. He picked up ballroom dancing and joined the club team and never showed up to practice the following fall

3. Third kid had actually qualified to run the 400mh at the NCAA regional meet but then joined a frat his sophomore year which began to occupy a lot of his time and energy. By his junior year Coach asked him to pick track or frat and he chose frat

I have seen lots of kids flunk academically but they are usually back before the semester is over

Lots of kids only showed up and ran their freshman year and then give up when they ran slower than they did in high school

I tried to walk on at a major university program but was told I couldn't try out if I didn't train every day with the team, which I couldn't do because of a very full academic calendar. I never challenged their top runners but it was very satisfying to occasionally beat some of the top 5 traveling team during open meets.

This is partially true.

Your defeatist attitude that XC and track teams get stuck with the leftovers from other sports is sad. It's a coach's job to make the sport is legit in the culture of the school and the community. Once that's done, you'll get your athletes. This takes time. In the meantime don't worry about who isn't on your team and coach up the kids who are.

I agree that every school with 1000 boys has 2-3 4:15 milers, 2-3 50' shot putters, and a 3:18 4x4. It's just a matter of attracting the kids and their parents. It can be done and very good public school programs accomplish it regularly. It's amazing how two very similar towns can be right next to each other, and one can have an exceptional program and the other can be dreadful. Talent doesn't stop at town lines. But motivation, belief, work ethic - they do. It's all about the way the program is run.