Forty-Two Years Ago Tuesday: Pac-8 Cross-Ctry Championship: Pre & Lindgren: A MEMOIR

Boasting was so out of character with Greg; I can't remember him doing it before. And actually it didn't feel like boasting... It felt more like just saying the truth. He was an extremely savvy trainer of himself, and he's a great Coach today... He ran even better at the NCAA meet, finishing ninth, avenging himself on Steve Savage and Rick Riley who beat him at Conference...

I never had any sense of how you qualified, back in those days before the internet! It was always a question of whether or not the Stanford Athletic Department would send us. We had a great team: Kardong (future 4th place in the Montreal Marathon, should have medaled except for a drug cheat who won Gold), Macdonald (who didn't run that day, but who later broke Pre's record over 5K), Kretz (who ran a 13:31 three mile, serious businessin those days), myself and Underwood. Certainly a top five team. But the Stanford Athletic Department wouldn't send us, based on a third in conference. Go figure.

Five foreign runners from the University of Texas at El Paso (four of them freshmen) took the national title that year; Oregon, hard-hit by a nasty flu, finished second, led by Pre in third, beaten by Lindgren and Mike Ryan from the Air Force Academy, the second Ameican high schooler under nine minutes for two miles, who had transferred out of Stanford as a freshman! Again, go figure.

Did Mike Ryan really break nine for 2-miles in high school?

My recollection is he ran ~9:08.

He ran a 9:08 as a junior, which was the national record at the time. Then Lindgren came along and blew the whole thing wide open. Ryan was the second under 9 -- well under at 8:53.6.

Fortunately, in those days, no one referred to the 5000 or the 10000 meter events as a '5k' or '10k'.

starmiler wrote:

Ferris was a massive talent. He set his first WR at age eight, and he's still setting them in workouts at age 61. He set his most recent one in a workout in Moscow, Russia, where he was living.

First, point of order, as we say. You don't set world records in workouts. Ferris hasn't swum a Masters #1 US time, let alone world record since 1982. As for your perspective, Ferris certainly was a talent, but not at Spitz's level other than maybe when Ferris was 19 and Spitz was 18. Although what you characterize as Spitz sitting on Ferris in some meets may have reflected the fact that spitz usaully was swimming several more events than Ferris and pacing himself through them. You can as Gary Hall, Ross Wales, Paul Katz, or about half a dozen other flyers of that era who were in races with both Ferris and Spitz if they agree with your characterization or not. I don't think you will get a lot of support for your analysis.

In my crowd, no one referred to the 5,000 or 10,000 meters at all, unless it was an Olympic year! I didn't run my first "meter" race (not counting some races I ran in Europe) until after I graduated!

Now you're getting all legal on me. Of course I know that you don't get an official WR unless you swim it in a sanctioned meet, everyone knows that. John recently bested the 200 IM record for his age in a pool in Moscow; nobody there but a local Coach and John, and I'm sure John has told almost nobody about it but me and his family. About ten years ago he was training with a masters group in Paris and breaking world records in their intramural competitions, but refused to compete in sanctioned events, which really pissed off some of the people he swam with. It was like he didn't care, or didn't "honor the gift," as Prefontaine would have said. But that was just the way John felt. He's always moved to a different drummer.

I will grant you that Spitz was a better freestyler. Ferris's breaststroke wasn't great, but he was a better IM'er than Spitz. And Spitz was a superior 100-meter butterflier. But in the 200 -- I don't know if John could have stopped Spitz in Munich. In any case it's all woulda coulda shouda at this point...

Interesting. I remember that Lindgren was credited with a HS outdoor 2-mile record of 8:53 (actually an enroute time), but I do not recall anyone close to that performance.

starmiler wrote:

He ran a 9:08 as a junior, which was the national record at the time. Then Lindgren came along and blew the whole thing wide open. Ryan was the second under 9 -- well under at 8:53.6.

8:57.8 Mike Ryan Wilcox High Santa Clara, Calif. CA '65

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/gods.htm

[quote]Richard Largo wrote:

All this swimming callback is mesmerizing, but about the race...

Thanks for the imagery of the start of that race with these two going at it like wolves from the gun. Like many I had seen the photo of the finish and always wondered how the whole thing went down. One of the best races to never be documented on (movie) film?

http://www2.localaccess.com/rlalonde/Pre/pre&lin2.jpg

[/quote

That is an awesome picture, I wish I could find a poster of it....

You are correct, sir. My mistake; I've fixed it.

Nice bit. I Look forward to reading the memoir.

Meh.

Booooring.

I h8 Baseball wrote:

That is an awesome picture, I wish I could find a poster of it....

Nike made a poster out of this image for one of their early Borderclash (#1 or #2) meets. I have it in my office at work.

In reference to Pre..."I heard he was into pot anyways"...haha

Did you ever publish the whole book?

I still have a MS Word copy.

Good read.

You have a MS Word/Manuscript copy? Who are you, friend? :) I've been working on this damn thing for ten years now, and it's changed tremendously over time; you have an old draft for sure. Cliff West is halfway through the current draft right now! :)

I love reading when these old guys start exchanging stories on the message board. Great perspective.