Yes Rocket Ismail still holds the school 55 meter outdoor record.
His roommate Jeff Van Wie was also part of the medley team in 1985.
I believe it was done at the Drake Relays in 1985. I thought the program listed other names but I need to make sure. Perhaps the program itself was wrong with the names but it has the right time for ND.
Q&A With Sparks
You have a track record that still stands. What is the record?
I ran a lot of different things, but my record that still stands is in the 4 x 800 outdoor, which I set in 1985 at the Drake Relays. They’ve been trying to break it, but they can’t.
1985 Drake Relay Results 4th 7:20.11 (Robinson, Buchanan, Graham, Horton)
1986 Drake Relay Results 1st 7:20.14 (McNelis, Nobles, Vanwie, Tyler)
1987 Drake Relay Results 7th 7:32.34 (Warth, Nobles, Rogan, Sparks)
Is it possible there was more than just the final run listed in the results for 1985?
Edit:
Looking in the media guide supplement, page 8 lists the 4x800 record as:
1985 7:20.11 (McNelis, Sparks, Nobles, Van Wie)
The time matches the Drake Relays result. Taking another look at the 1985 results, the participants for ND are duplicated for Baylor. None of the four for ND are listed in the splits. That's unfortunate.
I'd be interested to hear what else you find.
the 1985 race @ Drake was a barnburner. First place broke the relay record that was set in 1970.
First, what got me onto this was http://www.todayinndhistory.com/pages/about/dateless.php, where they had this question about events without dates:
??? ??, 1985 - Nicholas Sparks helps set the 4x800 record
This record was set in Sparks' freshman year, 1985. We assume the record was set during the spring semester during the Track & Field season. Also on the 4x800 medley team was Nicholas Sparks' roommate Jeff Van Wie. The record still stands today. The 2011 Media Guide only lists the 4x400 record (which was also set in 1985).
You found the same PDF file I did and yes, I saw that the names next to the time aren't a match (you caught the fact that the Baylor names were listed for ND). Given that the event was run on a Friday, I have little doubt that the record was set on Friday, April 26, 1985. I have submitted this thread for documentation to the ND history site, but I guess you're ahead of me there. 8^) Thanks for pursuing this all the way through!
I'm never sure of how many other people actually look at it. Or if it's just me generating 1,000 hits a month. Glad to see it generating interest.
I'll go ahead and move this from the unknown date to a known date. Thanks for the tip regarding the Drake Relays. That was the missing piece I needed.
your NDNation profile to copy the tag name.
It was wonderful of that person to scan in the old results.