Men’s Track and Field Announces 2005 Recruit Class – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/28/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track & Field
Sept. 28, 2005
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Russ Rogers, Ohio State men’s and women’s track and field head coach, announced the addition of seven recruits for the men’s team Wednesday. The class of 2009 boasts three scholastic national champions and nearly 20 individual titles at the state level.
A pair of 2005 high school national champions heads the list in middle-distance specialist Jeff See, who comes to Ohio State from Middletown High School in Middletown, Ohio and Brandon Cathcart, a jumper from Salisbury, N.C. In June, See claimed the national championship in the boy’s mile run in a career-best 4:03.53. See also was a four-time Ohio High School Athletics Association state champion, winning three consecutive 1,600-meter titles and one 800-meter run crown in 1:51.18. He also was a regional and state cross country champion.
Cathcart will join the Buckeye jumps team after claiming the 2005 National High School Championship in triple jump. He owns a career-best leap of 50 feet, 5 1/4 inches and won back-to-back North Carolina state championships in the triple. He also added a long jump state title and owns a career long jump mark of 24-2 1/2.
Two more runners are among the group of recruits. Levi Fox and Elon Simms come to Columbus after top showings at the 2005 Ohio State Championships. Fox claimed the state title in the 3,200 meters in 9:05 while competing for Troy High School. Fox also had a career-best 4:15 in the 1,600m. Simms was the runner-up at the Ohio state championships in 800m last season with Fremont Ross and owns a top time of 1:52.51.
Also on the track, Mathew Comer won the Michigan state championship in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and was runner-up in the 100-meter high hurdles. Adam Wilhelm, another Fremont Ross product, was the 2005 Ohio State Championships runner-up in the 400-meter dash and will supply instant support in the long sprints.
In the field, the Buckeyes will welcome pole vaulter Brian Chard from Caledonia River Valley High School. He won the Ohio state championship in 2005, clearing the bar at 15-3.
“I am excited about this recruiting class,” Russ Rogers, who will enter his 19th season as Ohio State men’s and women’s track and field head coach, said. “It is talented and deep on the track and in the field. I expect each of the recruits to make an immediate impact on our team and help us finish near the top of the Big Ten this year. We have a young team, but we are talented and that is what excites me the most.”
The Buckeyes also anticipate a boost from Ted Ginn Jr., who is expected trade the football cleats for track spikes after completing his track and field redshirt year in 2005. At Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ginn was a national champion in 110-meter high hurdles his junior year and held the top time in the country his senior season at 13.23. He was a two-time state champ in the 110m event and earned another state title in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles his senior season of 2004, winning in 36.73. He added the Ohio title in the 200 meters in 2004 as well. Ginn also has been timed at 10.5 in the 100m and was runner up at the state level in the 200m in 2002, timing 21.16, and second in the 400m in 2003 and `04, clocking a 46.57.
In addition to Ginn, Rogers also foresees several more possible contributions from student-athletes currently with the Ohio State football team.
“I’m looking forward to three other football Buckeyes coming out in the spring,” Rogers said. “Malcolm Jenkins has run a 47.8 in the 400 meters, Jamario O’Neal was second in the state (Ohio) last year in the 100 meters and Brian Hartline was the state champion in both the 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles.”
Ohio State also will welcome a pair of transfer student-athletes in 2006. John Dunham comes to Columbus from the University of Tennessee as a specialist in the 400 meters. At the high school level, Dunham was a two-time 400m Ohio state champion for Wheelersburg High School. Chris Watkins, who transferred from Toledo, will add to the Buckeyes sprint squad as well, mainly in the 200 meters. He placed third in the Ohio state meet in 2003 at Toledo Whitmer High School.
The Buckeyes also will welcome back the return of a veteran in the spring in Brian Olinger, who redshirted the outdoor schedule last year. Although he sat out collegiate competition, Olinger ran at the 2005 United States Track and Field Championships and placed fourth in the 3, 000-meter steeplechase. A month later, he clocked the second-fastest time by an American collegiate athlete in the steeple at a meet in Europe, finishing in 8:19.56.
