At 30, Jim Grelle was an outlier in a sport that did not foster longevity, still among the world’s best distance runners eight years after he captured the 1959 NCAA title as an Oregon senior.

That he had continued to thrive despite the sport’s draconian and antiquated rules regarding amateurism, that he had bounced back from missing the 1964 U.S. Olympic team by inches, breaking the American record in the mile a year later, elevated Grelle to elder statesman status and a unique perspective he shared with humor and candor.

So as the start of 1967 AAU National Championships mile in Bakersfield approached on a warm night on the southern edge of the San Joaquin Valley, Grelle turned to Dave Wilborn, the latest in a line of world class Oregon milers developed by Bill Bowerman, with a reality check.

“Jim Ryun’s in the race,” Grelle said Wilborn. “So there’s a race with Ryun and then there’s the rest of us mere mortals.”

The gap between Jim Ryun, the 20-year-old University of Kansas sophomore, and the rest of the human race was never as pronounced as it was on the evening of June 23, 1967.

Leading every step of the way, from the opening gun to his devastating finish on Memorial Stadium’s crushed red brick track said to be created from the remnants of Bakersfield’s 1952 earthquake, Ryun shook the planet, lowering his world record in the mile to 3 minutes, 51.1 seconds, with a performance that promised future tremors would be felt for decades.

At a time when there were only three television networks, much of the nation watched in grainy black and white as Ryun ran in and out of the shadows of the stadium’s lights, with each step leaving previously held beliefs about human performance, the limits of the imagination in the red brick dust like the rest of the field until the 11,500 spectators in the stadium, the audience from coast to coast questioning whether they were witnessing history being made or science fiction.

When the field stepped up to the starting line at 9:15 p.m. that night only 21 Americans had ever broken 4:00 for the mile. Seven runners broke 4:00 that night, five of the world’s six fastest miles in 1967 were in Bakersfield. Yet Grelle was right—Ryun was running a totally different race.

If Ryun wasn’t from another planet he certainly seemed to be from another century. The Bakersfield race would strengthen his grip on global track and field’s most storied and revered record, a hold that would last nearly a decade, an unprecedented reign in the 20th Century.

The questions about what Ryun would run on more modern tracks in lighter shoes continue to persist into the Millennium.

Sub 3:50?

3:47?

3:45?

3:43?

What is clear to those who chased him through the shadows, through history on a night undiminished by more than a half-century or fading memories is Ryun’s unmatched brilliance.

“That was the greatest mile ever run,” said Marty Liquori, later a three-time NCAA champion.

The distant echoes of the last outdoor mile world record set on American soil can be heard in the build-up to Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field and the promised assault on Hicham El Guerrouj’s world record of 3:43.13 by Olympic 1,500 champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, Josh Kerr, of Great Britain and Scotland, the World 1,500 champion, and Yared Nuguse of the United States, all of them chasing a time some of Ryun’s rivals believe he was capable of running nearly 60 years ago.

“You can’t set a figure,” Grelle, who died in 2020, said of Ryun’s potential after the Bakersfield race. “There is no limit.”

The Ingebrigtsen-Kerr showdown has also served as a reminder of an era when track and field was an American major sport, a constant on network TV Saturday afternoons and the cover of Sports Illustrated, Ryun making seven such appearances.

“In his era he was unbelievable,” Ron Warhurst, the longtime Michigan coach who now trains American rising star Hobbs Kessler, said of Ryun. “He was just unbelievable.”

Ryun was the most unlikely of sports heroes. Skinny, frail and awkward, he struggled in Little League growing up in Wichita. He found no more success in basketball or football.

“As a child I couldn’t make the junior high track and field team,” Ryun said. “In fact, I remember going to bed many times during the junior high days saying a prayer, ‘Dear God, my life isn’t much at this point in time but I would really like my life to amount to something and if it could show up in sports I would appreciate that.’”

As a sophomore, he turned out for cross country and was discovered and encouraged by East High coach Bob Timmons, who had served in the Marines in World War II and won seven state swimming titles before turning to track. He coached Archie San Romani, Jr. to the national high school mile record only a couple of years before Ryun caught his attention.

Because of his swimming background, Timmons believed teenage athletes could handle large training volumes and produce world class performances.

“Coach Timmons was a gift from God to me,” Ryun said. “I was one of those kids who couldn’t make a team and in two years I was under 4 minutes (in the mile).”

On June 4, 1964, Ryun, then a 17-year-old East High junior, became the first prep runner to break four minutes, running 3:59.0 to place eighth in a world-class field at the Compton Invitational. That summer, he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the first time and then made the U.S. Olympic team in the 1,500 meters. Ryun, slowed by illness, was eliminated in the semifinals at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

A year later Ryan beat New Zealand’s Peter Snell, the Olympic 1,500- and 800-meter champion, at the 1965 AAU Championships in San Diego in arguably the greatest single achievement ever by an American high school athlete, holding off Snell and Grelle in a dramatic homestretch at Balboa Stadium, finishing in 3:55.3 to set a new American record and a national high school mark that would stand for 36 years.

“That was when I knew for the first time I would someday have the world record,” he told reporters afterward.

He would get his chance 13 months later in Berkeley.

Ryun followed Timmons to Kansas but under NCAA rules at the time, freshmen were ineligible for varsity competition. The rule didn’t prevent Ryun from winning the 1966 AAU title to qualify to compete for the U.S. in a meet with the Soviet Union and Poland on July 17 at Edwards Stadium on the Cal campus. But when the Soviets pulled out citing the Vietnam War, the Poles following suit, Ryun asked Cal coach Sam Bell, the meet director to switch the 1,500 meter run to the mile. Bell laughed. He had already made the change anticipating a world record attempt.

“I can sell more tickets if I announce to the public that you’re going for the world record,” Bell told Ryun. But Ryun asked to keep his plans out of the newspapers. Bell reluctantly agreed.

Even so, 15,000 showed up on a 75 degree afternoon. While Ryun was hesitant to let the media in on his plans he still felt he needed help chasing the world record of 3:53.8 set by France’s Michel Jazy in June 1965.

He enlisted Oregon haf-miler Wade Bell, Oklahoma State’s Tom Von Ruden and Texas’ Richard Romo.

“Jim said, ‘I want to make an attempt on the world record tomorrow and I’d like to know if you guys would help set me up,‘” Bell recalled.

Ryun would finish in 3:51.3, knocking 2.5 seconds off Jazy’s global standard.

“I believe we all hit our marks perfectly,” Bell said.

“I would reflect on Berkeley, Rich Romo, Tom Von Ruden, and Wade Bell, I would have liked to see their name on the world record certificate because they all sacrificed their race to help achieve what happened,” Ryun said. “They all did a great job. To me that was a huge breakthrough.”

Just 19, still eight months away from his first outdoor varsity race at Kansas, Ryun was perhaps the most famous athlete in the world outside of Pele and Muhammad Ali. He received rock star like attention, mobbed by fans and the media everywhere he went.

“In those days everybody just wanted to talk to Jim Ryun,” Liquori said.

Including a coed named Anne from his home state who approached him with her siblings after the Berkeley race.

“This young attractive girl from Kansas State University came to ask for my autograph,” Ryn recalled chuckling. “I told her well catch me later.

“Well, later came on a blind date and we’ve been happily married for over 50 years. So to me, that was another highlight of that Berkeley race.”

Unlike Berkeley there would be no teamwork chasing the world record with spots on the line for a U.S. vs. British Commonwealth meet the next month in Los Angeles and a U.S. national team European tour later that summer.

Besides Ryun and Grelle, the 1967 AAU final field in Bakersfield included Tim Danielson, who as a Chula Vista High senior in 1966 became the second prep runner under 4:00, Liquori, a senior at Essex Catholic High in New Jersey and Bowerman’s latest two prodigies at Oregon — Wilborn, an exceptionally gifted if inconsistent runner who had a history of being too hard on himself, and Divine.

Even before his pre-race chat with Grelle, Wilborn had no illusions about beating Ryun.

“He was unbeatable at his peak,” Wilborn said. “I don’t care if all the best people were in the race. If it started out slow he would beat them. If it started out fast he would beat them. If they waited to the last 100 to kick he would beat them. If you took off with 300 to go he would beat them. He was literally unbeatable at this peak.”

While Ryun today said Bakersfield “wasn’t a planned world record race,” but that night he told reporters, “I realized that I wouldn’t set any records (running with the pack) because no one was going to knock himself setting a record pace. So I decided to push myself.”

He only told Grelle of his plan.

“Fine,” Grelle said with a laugh. “See you later. I sure won’t be trying to keep up with you.”

No one did as Ryun opened a gap on the field from the gun.

“We might be en route to what we expected all along that he can run under 3:50 for the mile,” Jim Beatty, the first man to break 4:00 indoors, announced on ABC’s Wide World of Sports broadcast of the race.

But by the time Ryun completed the first lap in 59.2 the pack was on his heels. They stayed there as Ryun led through the half-mile in 1:59.“I had no plan of leading the whole way,” Ryun said. “It was a shock to me, finally after the first half mile I realized no one was going to help with the race, so I relaxed a little bit and got even faster. So it was one of those moments in time where I look back and thank God for the fact that it went so well but it was a huge surprise to me.”

Ryun surged, opening a wide lead immediately.

“Jim just took off,” Divine said. “It was Jim Ryun and the rest of us.”

His third lap was 58.6.

“All by himself, runs against time,” ABC’s Jim McKay, sharing broadcast duties with Beatty, said as Ryun charged down the final backstretch.

“He’s got a shot at the 3:50 mile,” Beatty said.

At first, the TV screen flashed Ryun’s time at 3:50.9. The official time was actually 3:51.1. Ryun had covered the final quarter-mile in 53.5.

“I didn’t really feel anything until after the race,” Ryun said. “That’s why I was very surprised at the time. I went by the three-quarter mark in 2:58 which then was a good pace and then I relaxed a little more and ran even faster. I think it was 53 seconds on the last 440. If I had known I was that close to the world record I would have tried to accelerate a litte more. It was so unbelievably easy that night that when I finished I know I commented to other people I could have kept going at another lap or two at that pace. It just felt really comfortable and easy.”

Grelle held off Wilborn for second 3:56.1 to 3:56.2.

No high school runner broke 4:00 in the mile until Alan Webb of South Lakes High in Reston, Virginia ran 3:59.86 indoors in January 2001 in New York and then lowered Ryun’s national high school record with a 3:53.43 performance at the Prefontaine Classic.

Webb’s record sparked a debate on whether his performance was actually superior to Ryun’s prep time given the advances in track surfaces, shoes and training. It renewed a larger debate on what Ryun’s Bakersfield record and his other top performances would translate to in 21st century conditions.

Bell said Ryun would run between a second and a second and a half faster on today’s tracks.

“That was the greatest mile ever run,” Liquori said repeating himself. “And I’ll give you some reasons. A minor reason, he ran 4:07 the night before (in the heats).

“It was crushed brick track. Thirty years later in Gainesville (Florida)” Liquori’s home since the 1970s “I met a guy from Bakersfield. I mentioned the track. He said, ‘You know how we got the crushed brick? After the earthquake we didn’t know what to do with the bricks.

“It was a good dirt track, I can definitely say that that dirt track is a second a lap slower than the tracks today. And the reason I know that is that I ran a lot of laps around a dirt track on a Wednesday and on a synthetic track on a Saturday and I know how much difference it made.

“Give him four seconds faster because it’s a dirt track. Give him another second because the pace was erratic. He ran a (53) second last quarter. Even pace would have run at least a second faster. If he had a pace-setter he would have run at least a second faster. ... I think it was the greatest mile performance ever.”

The day after the Bakersfield race, Ryun did a V02 test with Daniels. His score was 82. To place the score in perspective consider that cyclist Lance Armstrong recorded an 84 score at his peak.

Ryun is hesitant to join the discussion about it how it compares to modern runners.

“That was an indication that there was still more to come,” Ryun said. “I don’t know. I’ve never done a really good job on speculating. Let me say this, and Marty would probably remember this, anybody running that race would remember this. The inside lane by the time we ran that mile it was really torn up and soft. The California tracks were usually really fast. But by the time we got to it, it was like sawdust. So the fact that it was that fast, in fact if you look at the film, you’ll see me wandering around on the inside lane trying to find good footing. And I would find it almost stepping on the curve. Of course that was a little dangerous for me because of a balance issue.

“Maybe a second a lap, I don’t know. That’s very difficult to address. It was one of those nights where you were on top of the world and you thank God for all the help you had. That is where I was.”

Two weeks later on July 8, on an 85 degree day at U.S. vs. British Commonwealth meet at the Coliseum, Ryun shattered the world record for 1,500 meters, running 3:33.1, knocking 2.5 seconds off the seven-year-old standard held by Australia’s Herb Elliott. It remains the largest reduction of the 1,500 world record in history. Kenya’s Kip Keino finished four seconds behind Ryun in the race.

“He beat Keino pretty easily,” Ryun said.

A month later Ryun would again beat Keino convincingly, this time in a mile in London, 3:56 to 3:57.4.

At the end of a year in which Frank Robinson led the American League in hitting, home runs and RBIs, the first player since 1956 to win the Triple Crown, Bobby Hull became the first NHL player to score more than 50 goals in a season, and Vince Lombardi led the Green Bay Packers back to the Super Bowl, Sports Illustrated chose Ryun as its Sportsman of the Year.

“You might say that was his last hurrah,” Beatty said. “In 1967, Jim was still the greatest mile runner that we ever knew of. Ever since he came on the scene in 1964 he was completely uninhibited. He ran like the wind. And that continued to do so.

“In 1968 he was still the Jim Ryun of old until Mexico City came along. It is my opinion that after 1968, Jim never again was the Jim Ryun that we knew that ran like the wind and was totally uninhibited about running. After that, it seemed like he became aware of what he was doing and once he became aware of what he was doing, he didn’t run the same way.”

Ryun came down with mononucleosis in the months leading up to the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. An asthma attack caused him to stop during the 800 meter final at Olympic trials held at Echo Summit’s high altitude.

Then in the Olympic Games final, Ben Jipcho, Keino’s Kenya teammate, set a suicidal pace in the 1,500 final that only Keino dared follow, opening up a large gap on the rest of the field. Ryun finished strong but could not catch Keino, who won in an Olympic record 3:34.9 with Ryun claiming the silver medal in 3:37.8.

“There’s just no way a sea level guy is going to beat people from high altitude and I think when he lost, the American people looked at him like he was a loser, the comment was you let America down,” Liquori said. “And that was very unfair and I’m sure hurt him a lot. He just lost some of his confidence.”

Looking back Ryun said he realized in 1967 that he would be at a disadvantage at the Olympic Games against athletes raised at altitude like Keino.

“I was trying to get ready for Mexico City,” Ryun said. “That meant altitude preparation. I had worked with Dr. Daniels and some of the other athletes, Conrad Nightengale, George Young, trying what we could for Mexico City. But we realized after the fact, after Mexico City, that really the guy that lived at altitude had such a huge advantage. No matter how hard we worked we would adjust some but we would never get to the point where it was equal footing. So quite frankly after 1967 it was trying to do the best we could to get ready for Mexico City and the very thin air we would be racing in.

“I have to say it was a disappointment in many respects but on the other hand not many people understood what altitude did to the sea level athlete. When I returned to my hometown paper, the Topeka paper, read ‘(Ryun) only wins the silver medal.’ It was really a reflection on the fact that media did not understand what altitude was. But you can’t live your life (upset). Anne and I chose to move on.”

He was upset by Liquori in the 1969 NCAA mile final and then retired. Ryun came out of retirement in 1971, breaking the world record in the indoor mile (3:56.4) in San Diego and relocating from Kansas to Eugene where he planned to train with his friend Steve Prefontaine, the Oregon 5,000-meter superstar and cult hero.

“I had a great relationship with Steve Prefontaine,” Ryun said. “Whenever I go to an Oregon meet, he’d come over and greet everybody and say hello to the children. And during the spring of that year Pre and I had worked out an agreement between the two of us. We thought we could help each other by training together and we wanted it to be more of a training effort than a racing effort and so we began training that way.

“Well Bowerman found out about it and brought an end to it. He said, ‘Steve you can’t do that anymore. You need to break off that training regimen.’”

More than 50 years later the regret can still be heard in Ryun’s voice.

“When you have the intention to help each other to a new height in training it’s the right attitude, it’s the right thing,” he said.

He would lose an epic race to Liquori later that spring that would land them once again on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Ryun won the 1972 Olympic trials 1,500 only to trip and fall in the Olympic Games heats. His bid for Olympic gold and a rematch with Keino were over.

Tanzania’s Filbert Bayi knocked a tenth off Ryun’s mile record in the spring of 1975. New Zealand’s John Walker took the world record below 3:50 later that summer.

In the ensuing decades Great Britain’s Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram, Alegia’s Noureddine Morceli and El Guerrouj lowered the mile world record bit by bit, second by second to a place where Ryun’s rivals that night in Bakersfield thought he would ultimately take it, each new record touching off another round of debate over Ryun’s place in history.

“All things being equal he’s one of the greatest of all-time,” Divine said. “Ryun, El Guerrouj, Elliott, I would say who’s better.”

No one, insisted his old rival Liquori.

“He’s the greatest miler ever,” Liquori said.

Beatty is 89 now and by his own admission the details of the race he called 57 years ago are no longer crisp. But in his mind the vision of Ryun, running boldly, free, his imagination unbound, in full stride in San Diego or Berkeley or Bakersfield is clear, unclouded by time.

“In that mid 1960s period,” Beatty said. “He could have done anything he wanted to do both in the half-mile or the mile. To this day, I don’t think I’ve seen a runner who had the 100 percent natural build he had for running the mile. He was perfectly proportioned, beautiful height, long stride, good kick, speed, stamina. He was just amazing.”

Beatty paused for a moment.

“He was a thing of beauty.”