Ranking the Records Countdown - #4

Boys #4

JIM RYUN, Wichita East, Mile 3:55.3 (1965)

IAAF Score: 1,133 points

Jim Ryun running the first sub-4:00 mile in high school-only competition at the Kansas state meet in 1965. It's a feat that has only been duplicated once, and then not until 2011. He did it on a cinder track.

You read that right. I triple-checked it to be sure.

One of the most legendary performances in U.S. high school track and field history ranks #4 among all Kansas state records.  When the #4 high school state record is a 3:55.3 mile, well, like I said in the opening, you're someplace pretty special.

It's hard, if not impossible, to overstate the impact that Ryun had on the sport, not just in Kansas, not just in the U.S., but world-wide.  He was a once-in-a-century athlete, so far ahead of his time that he would very likely not only still be on the starting line of an Olympic or World Championship 1500 final today, he would be a medal threat.

Don't believe me?  Try these stats on for size:

●    In 2003, ESPN voted Ryun the greatest high school athlete of the 20th Century.  The next three on the list were Tiger Woods, Lebron James, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor). Yup - Ryun was better than Tiger Woods or Lebron James.

●    In a 1500m race in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1967, Ryun ran the last 300m in 36.4 (48.5 400 pace), winning in 3:38 (=3:55 mile).  The average final 300m by winners in the Olympics and World Championships over the last two decades or so is 39 seconds with comparable winning times to Ryun's 3:38. And Ryun's race was, again, on cinder.

●    In the process of running 3:55.3, Ryun beat the reigning Olympic champion and world record holder, Peter Snell of New Zealand. Snell makes virtually every list of the greatest middle-distance runners in history.  Ryun beat him as a high school senior.

●    Ryun's 3:55.3 was also the American Record at the time - not just the high school American Record, but the actual American Record.  For comparison, the current American Record is Alan Webb's 3:46.91. To accomplish the same thing today, an athlete would have to run 3:46.90 or faster and in the process beat both Matthew Centrowitz (2016 Olympic 1500m gold medalist) and Hicham El Guerrouj, the current world record holder.

Yes, Jim Ryun really was that great.

Here's the video from the TV coverage of Ryun's legendary 3:55.3 race against a world-class field:

Here is the video, converted from 8mm home movie footage without sound, of Ryun running 3:58.3 all alone, on a cinder track, at the Kansas state meet just weeks before his 3:55.3 defeat of Snell. Ryun provides the commentary on the video, done shortly after the race.  Ryun discusses his training, his diet, his upcoming race against Peter Snell (the race in the video above) and other things: 

Ryun went on to run at the University of Kansas. He made three Olympic teams, in 1964 (between his junior and senior years of high school), 1968, and 1972. He won the Olympic silver medal at 1500m in the thin air at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, held at an altitude of over 7,300 feet. The gold medalist was the altitude-born and raised Kenyan, Kip Keino. A fall in his heat would prevent him from advancing to the 1500m final in Munich in 1972. We can only wonder what might have been in Munich had Ryun not fallen, because he'd already come within an eyelash of his own mile world record that summer prior to the Olympics.

Ryun would twice break the world record for the mile, and break the 1500m and 880 yard world records once each. 

Ryun would eventually run for and be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the district that included Lawrence, where he attended college at KU.  Today he runs a hugely popular series of running camps and remains in great demand as public speaker.