'Webb-mania' still all the rage

By Dave Devine and Steve Underwood
ESPN RISE

It took 3 minutes and 53.43 seconds in late May of 2001 for Alan Webb to ignite the heaviest track and running message board assault in history and establish himself in prep track immortality -- and as the DyeStat/ESPN RISE Track and Field Boys Athlete of the Decade. But Webb-mania actually began two years earlier.

In the Foot Locker Outdoor Championships, Brendan Mahoney won the mile in 4:04.78. But in second place, wowing track fans everywhere, was a sophomore from South Lakes High School of Reston, Va. Webb's 4:06.94 that day smashed a 36-year-old 10th-grade record by none other than Jim Ryun. Young phenoms don't always pan out, so no one knew that a much bigger Ryun record would be under siege a few years later.

Webb's stature grew the next fall when he won the first Great American Cross Country Festival in 15:03 in Charlotte, N.C. He returned there for a course-record victory at Foot Locker South, then was a mildly disappointing eighth in the super 1999 Foot Locker Finals in Orlando, Fla. Indoors, he won the Nike mile in 4:07.87.