November 2004 Issue

2004 High School All-America Team

The most objective, most thorough, most comprehensive assessment of the high school season going. Now in its 31st year.

This year’s AA teams are the 31st we have chosen on the men’s side and the 24th for the women (see p. 16). Most events are rated 5-deep, but those contested less frequently may have fewer entries. # = repeater from the ’03 team.

As always, our high school editors placed prime emphasis on invitational meets which occur after the close of the regular prep season: invitationals such as the adidas Outdoor Classic (AOC), Golden West (GWI), Golden South (GS), Great Southwest (GSW) and the Midwest Meet of Champions (MMOC), plus the Junior Olympics (JO) staged by the USATF and AAU, and the USATF Juniors (AJ). At the peak of the international scene was the World Junior Championships (WJ).

As with our World and U.S. Rankings, winning major meets and beating prime opponents is far more important than simply placing high on the yearly list. The ’04 seasonal lists begin on p. 22.
Want to know who should be hot in ’05? Just look for asterisks before the names: *=junior; **=soph; ***=frosh; ****=8th-grade.

100 METERS
1. IVORY WILLIAMS (Central, Beaumont, Tx)
1)State, 1)AOC, 2)AJ, 1)WJ; 10.29/10.25w

2. TRELL KIMMONS (Coldwater, Ms)
1)State, 2)GWI, 2)AOC, 3)AJ; 10.39/10.34w

3. *J-MEE SAMUELS (Mt Tabor, W-Salem, NC)
4)AOC, 1)AAU JO; 10.25/10.07w

4. WALTER DIX (Coral Springs, Fl)
1)State, dnc)AOC final; 10.28

5. IMANI BUTLER (Parkway N, St Louis, Mo)
1)State, 1)GWI, 4h)AOC; 10.55

No. 4 as a soph, Williams rebounded from an injury-marred junior season to win the top honor, the WJ title… Kimmons was 2nd prep at AJ… List leader Samuels, ineligible for his team, became an instantaneous force in the post-season.
…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

High School Athlete Of The Year Winners

Boys AOY – Galen Rupp

by Sieg Lindstrom

Although he ran a 4:01.8 mile and set a High School Record for 3000m this year, for the past three seasons Galen Rupp had had his eye on the 5000 in particular. In late July in Belgium the senior from Central Catholic High in Portland, Oregon, improved Gerry Lindgren’s 40-year-old mark by more than 6 seconds to 13:37.91, the crowning achievement in what would be judged an Athlete Of The Year season.

Rupp reached the crest of a wave of preps putting renewed emphasis on races longer than 2M—not just a coincidence given the history of coach Alberto Salazar as a high school star back in those high-mileage ’70s.

Salazar was first tipped off to Rupp’s potential by Cen-tral’s soccer coach four years ago and by the end of that first track season Rupp had run 9:02 for 3K.

“I realized this kid is just as good as I was as a freshman in high school,” Salazar says. “I started thinking the kid is that good and now you train him right, do everything right —and I had good coaches who did a lot of stuff right with me, but if you do everything right —there’s no reason that he shouldn’t be at least as good as I was in high school. I thought he could be a national level runner, one of the best guys in the country, by his senior year just by working hard, working smart, having the talent that I could see right there.”…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Girls AOY – Ashley Owens

by Jon Hendershott

Ashley Owens says “cool” a lot, fitting in today’s vernacular but not so applicable to the season of ’04’s top prep woman—a year that can rightly be described as “red hot.”

The 18-year-old Owens was undefeated indoors over 60m and sped a High School Record of 7.19. Then outdoors, Owens just got better, going unbeaten in the 100 and claiming the World Junior title in 11.13, just 0.02 off the High School Record.

But while she says, “For me it isn’t about winning races, but about running times,” Owens admits her most satisfying effort in ’04 was her U.S. Junior victory in a windy 11.12.

“Allyson Felix and I are friends,” explains the 5-2/117 speedster. “I knew she was using the Juniors as a tune-up for the Olympic Trials and I thought it would be cool to beat a pro.…

(for more, including the T&FN 2004 High School lists, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Long Olympic Season Winds Up at the Grand Prix Final

by Dave Johnson

Men: AR In Jav For Greer

Asafa Powell was the big winner with a pair of dash triumphs, but for Americans the biggest news of the weekend came from Breaux Greer’s American Record toss in the javelin (see sidebar)…

Women: Campbell Wins 2 Right Off The Plane

Jamaica’s dominance of the season-wrapping sprints found Veronica Campbell joining teammate Asafa Powell as a 100/200 double winner.

If Campbell was jet-lagged after a long flight from Little Rock, she hid it well. After first shaking out the cobwebs with a narrow 200 win—her 22.64 just 0.2 ahead of Debbie Ferguson—the triple Olympic medalist returned on the meet’s second day to obliterate the short dash field with a scorching 10.91 season-capping PR…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Breaux’s Big Arm Strikes

by Toby Cook

Many who know the javelin have said for years, “It’s only a matter of time.” Or, as a noted coach was heard to say as a 19-year-old Breaux Greer came within the tip of a javelin of throwing 80m (262-5) at the ’96 Trials: “Um, boys, that there is a live arm.”

With a mixed-bag of fortune, and a smidgen of irony, both quotes pay tribute to the Greer year of ’04, sandwiching the European season with American Records, the latter with a significant GP Final win.

Following the notorious mishap of his ACL being torn on that maiden AR throw in June, Greer experienced the manic ups of wins in Sacramento and Zürich, but also the melancholic nadir of an Olympic final gone to hell…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Joanna Hayes Hurdling Full Circle

by Sieg Lindstrom

Joanna Hayes finished her season at the GP Final just the way she her high school career 9 years ago: winning the 100H.

Earlier, of course, Hayes had become one of the least expected—and most impressive—Olympic Record setters in Athens, when she won the big one in 12.37, an 0.01 improvement on the Games standard set by Bulgaria’s Yordanka Donkova in ’88.

“Some people forget that I ran 100H before,” says the 27-year-old Hayes, whose greatest collegiate success at UCLA came in winning the ’99 NCAA 400 barrier race. “I was [’95 T&FN High School] Athlete Of The Year because of the 100H.”

As the first of a now long string of top hurdlers developed at J.W. North High in Riverside, California, Hayes raced 13.38/13.06w in the short race and won the USATF and Pan-Am Junior titles in her senior season.

Then for several years injuries limited her big-meet success…

Unnoticed by many was the fact that Bob Kersee, Hayes’s coach ever since she arrived at UCLA, had never given up on her.…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Kenyan Men on a Roll on the Road

Kenyan officials weren’t all that thrilled with their nation’s performance in Athens, but men from the East African powerhouse have dominated the major post-Olympic road races, winning the big Berlin and Chicago Marathons as well as the IAAF Half-Marathon Championships. Detailed coverage of those three races follows.

A Kenyan man also won at Twin Cities and in Baltimore, then on October 17 won no fewer than 5 (!) in one day: Columbus, Carpi, Reims, Beijing and Amsterdam. The last went to Boston runner-up Robert Cheboror in a course-record 2:06:23.…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Rutto Starts At World Record Pace

by Sean Hartnett

… The 26-year-old Rutto’s move to marathoning has been nurtured by manager Tom Ratcliffe and coach Dieter Hogen. Says Ratcliffe, “In May of 2003 I asked Dieter to coach some guys, and we thought if we could bring our top guys to the marathon it would have good potential.”

Hogen sees enormous potential in his pupil, saying, “Evans has run very fast times for 5K and 10K which is necessary for the marathon generation of the future, and he has a very efficient, stable running technique that doesn’t break down when it gets hard.”

This summer Ratcliffe expanded the Boulder group to 11, with Rutto, Paul Koech, James Koskei and Stephen Kiogora headed for Chicago. Timothy Cherigat, John Yuda and Bob Kennedy prepped for New York, and Laban Kipkemboi, Ben Maiyo, Sammy Kipketer and Daniel Komen were slated for pacing duties in both races.

Ripe with mountain-grown fitness, the Chicago group came to The Windy City intent on putting Rutto in position to attack the WR…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

One For Bragging Rights

Nike’s new prep cross country meet just might settle a lot of nationwide arguments

by Rich Gonzalez

The traditional squabble is once again playing out on the prep cross country landscape: top squads throw down what seem to be eye-popping performances from thousands of miles apart, then debate via Internet message boards and through the media as to the identity of the premier hill-and-dale team in the land.

Given the impossibility of comparing disparate courses, any such speculation has always remained just that, speculation.

But ’04 should actually provide a definitive answer, with the inaugural Nike Team Nationals.…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

Ritz Switches Coaches

by Steve Bailey

Brad Hudson talks at ease about type-2 fibers, glycolytic work and sea-level modulation at a pace that makes you wish you relied upon a tape recorder rather than shorthand.

Now coaching national-class runners in Boulder, Colorado, Hudson has a vast pool of running experience that saw him earn High School All-America honors in the 5000 and 10,000 as both a New Jersey and Oregon prep, win the Pac-10’s 10K for the University of Oregon and make the World Championships team twice in the marathon.

He has such a command of distance training theory that he has begun to attract serious attention in the U.S. distance community. The latest to join forces with Hudson is talented Colorado alum Dathan Ritzenhein.

After making the Olympic 10K squad Ritz elected to give up his two remaining years of collegiate eligibility, leaving coach Mark Wetmore and his Buffs to pursue a second national cross country title without their defending individual champion.

“It was not a rash decision,” Ritzenhein says. “The thought came to mind when Alan [Webb] went pro because…

(for more, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)

National Junior Distance Team?

by Sieg Lindstrom

High School AOY Galen Rupp is following a similar path to that taken by sprint star Allyson Felix last year, foregoing collegiate competition.

Similar in some respects, that is. Different in that Rupp has not signed a sponsorship contract and so retains collegiate eligibility, but the Nike Oregon Project training group—with which Rupp is associated—may soon chart a new direction if coach Alberto Salazar fulfills his dream.

“What we would like to do,” says Salazar, himself a former prodigy who went on to become an Olympic marathoner, “is set up a national Junior middle distance and distance team. Other sports have them. Like in soccer they’ve got a U-17 team.…

(for, read the November Issue of Track & Field News)