This year was not the first year that high school aged athletes competed at the Prefontaine Classic. Last year, as our case in point, Mary Cain competed in the Diamond League event, running a 1:59.51 800 and placing in the middle of her field in an international event.
This year, in addition to Cain, we saw two high school aged athletes competing at slightly longer distances, Blake Haney of California and Elise Cranny of Colorado. Unlike Cain, neither Haney nor Cranny have turned pro, and both have competed in their respective state-sanctioned seasons this spring.
As high school athletes go, it would be extremely difficult to find current high schoolers with better credentials to compete in an international track meet against full-blown professional athletes. Haney came in with 4:06.91 1600 credentials from last year's California state meet and 8:46.80 3200 credentials from this year's Arcadia Invitational. Cranny came in with 4:10.95 1500 credentials from the Payton Jordan Invitational in early May and a time of 2:04.81 in the 800 from this year's Mt. SAC Relays.
The results for Haney and Cranny, while outstanding by any reasonable standard for high school athletes, suggested that both have some more of the same kind of work ahead of them before either is fully ready to mix it up with the fields in which they were entered. Haney finished 13th in the men's international mile at 4:10.41. Cranny finished 13th in the women's 1500 at 4:13.38. Both suffered a little from the withering pace of the elite fields in which they were entered. To be transparent, like most of the rest of the nation, I was rooting for better outcomes for both, but what actually happened was a very real possibility from the beginning.
Such is the nature of risk and reward.
And, no fault lies at the feet of the individuals in question. Given the kind of opportunity laid before Haney and Cranny, it would be difficult for any elite high school athlete to walk away from that kind of enticement. When you're at the kind of level where Haney and Cranny are, it would be only natural to wonder how you measure up against the next couple of levels.
The more interesting question here isn't what Haney and Cranny were doing--that question answers itself with relative ease--but what the meet directors were up to.
50 years ago, Jim Ryun, a high schooler at the time, competed successfully on an international stage against the best milers of his day. He would compete as an Olympian in 1964 and then run 3:55.3 as a high school senior in 1965. Alan Webb would experience similar success as a high school miler 36 years later, ultimately breaking Ryun's high school mile record at 3:53.43.
It would appear that the meet directors at the Prefontaine Classic were hoping to capture a little more such lightning in a bottle. Clearly, both Haney and Cranny were placed in fields where theirs were not the best available credentials. There is a near endless list of professional 1500 types who were not invited to the fields, but who have better current 1500/mile times on their resumes than either Haney or Cranny.
And, how did Haney and Cranny slip in ahead of those types? From a marketing perspective, the Prefontaine Classic stands to gain a lot more from rolling the dice with a couple of high schoolers with a lot of name recognition and the best wishes of a hopeful nation behind them than from inviting one or two more professionals who might, with a great race, figure into the middle of the fields. What better way is there to instantly expand the circle of interested viewers than to invite in athletes with Haney's and Cranny's kind of name recognition?
But, this marketing sword has another edge to it. Yes, every once in a while you will get a Jim Ryun running a 3:55 or an Alan Webb running a 3:53. A lot more frequently, though, you'll get exactly what we got this last weekend--you'll get a couple of high school athletes finishing off the back end of a field that's a bit over their heads at this stage in their careers.
Whether, in the long term, that's good or bad for track and field, or good or bad for the Prefontaine Classic, remains to be seen. How often do you have to strike paydirt for this kind of gambit to pay off? It paid off last year with Cain's 1:59.51, an all-time high school mark and an internationally competitive 800 time. It didn't pay off this year, at least not from a short-term competitive standpoint.
We could make a very good case that Cain's 2013 Prefontaine Classic 800 paved the way for Haney's and Cranny's opportunity this year. But, it will be a little more interesting to see what happens next year. Does the neatly-rolled asphalt of the Cain Highway extend into 2015? Will the Prefontaine Classic keep going to this well? Will elite high school athletes continue to bite on the opportunity if offered? These will be among the more intriguing questions for next year to answer.
With respect to what-should-be-happening, that question likely has as many answers as there are people who care about high school track and field. I don't propose to be able to resolve that one. For now, though, Haney has his state meet ahead of him, and Cranny travels across the continent to compete in the Dream Mile in New York on June 14. We wish both all the success that their efforts have earned.
The Prefontaine Classic doesn't get to write the final chapter for either Haney's season or Cranny's season.