Kessler Runs Olympic Standard And Runs Down Webb's 20-Year-Old HS Record

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

The athletic marvel that is high school senior Hobbs Kessler reached a new height Saturday at the Portland Track Festival when he covered 1,500 meters nearly four seconds faster than anyone in prep history, qualified for the Olympic Trials and also hit the Olympic Games standard. 

Kessler, of Skyline High in Ann Arbor, Mich., will compete in his final Michigan state meet next weekend. 

But what he did Saturday at Griswold Stadium on the campus of Lewis & Clark was the latest in a stunning string of achievements for the distance runner who is being groomed and mentored by former Michigan coaching legend Ron Warhurst and New Zealand's durable Nick Willis, who was selected to his fifth Olympic team. 

"I really wanted to make the Trials," Kessler said after running 3:34.36 and finishing fifth behind Craig Engels (3:33.64), Charlie Grice (3:33.81), Jake Heyward (3:33.99) and Henry Wynne (3:34.08). "I was thinking 3:36 at best. Ron said 3:36.8, so that was in my brain that I could run. 

"It seems cartoonish, I don't know. It doesn't seem real."

Kessler's time is superior to the NCAA record of 3:34.68 that was run earlier this month by Notre Dame's Yared Nuguse. And it's better than Jim Ryun's American U-20 record of 3:36.1. 

Kessler burst onto the scene with an out-of-the-blue 3:57.66 indoor mile on Feb. 7 that broke Drew Hunter's national high school record. 

That performance planted the idea of trying to run the audacious Trials qualifying standard of 3:37.50 -- faster than Alan Webb's en route time in 2001 when he ran 3:53.43 and broke Jim Ryun's legendary high school mile record. 

Kessler traveled to Texas and fell during his first attempt at the 1,500, but got up and finished in 3:52.80. 

Two months later, he competed against pros again at the USATF Grand Prix at Hayward Field in Eugene and ran 3:40.46 in a sixth-place finish that put him two seconds away from the national high school record. 

On Saturday, he obliterated it -- and upstaged a host of professional athletes fine-tuning their racing skills as they prepare for the pressure-packed Trials in one month. 

Kessler, who turned 18 in March, said he wants to compete at the Trials for the experience and to continue hanging out with training partners such as steeplechaser Mason Ferlic. 

It was Ferlic that Kessler keyed on late in the race, before flying by him. 

"I saw Mason ahead of me and thought 'I can't let him get me,'" Kessler said. 

Ferlic, who ran a world-class time of 8:18.79 to win the steeplechase on Friday, finished ninth in 3:35.45 -- a lifetime best. 

Willis ran 3:40.14 and was 13th. 

Already, Kessler has improved to the point where he isn't content to hang onto the back of a pack and pick his way through the stragglers in the last lap. 

"I wanted to be a factor in the race," Kessler said. "It kind of got out and I got spit to the back, but I worked my way up to a good spot. I kept getting spit back, spit back, with people passing. It was really kinetic, with lots of motion."

Grant Fisher, a fellow Michigander who ran the fastest 5,000 meters of the night, said he hadn't yet met Kessler but was well aware of his achievements. 

"Hobbs is re-writing the book and representing Michigan well," said Fisher, a former two-time Foot Locker champion from Grand Blanc. "He's got the standard now, so he's in the conversation for making the team. That's pretty cool."