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| From NDSU's website |
Randy Lussenden competed for Bismarck High School in the late 60s. In 1966, his second place finish at the state cross country meet in Valley City helped BHS win the state championship, dethroning Fort Yates (a Native school located in the far south-central part of the state on the west side of the Missouri). The next year in 1967, he won the individual title at the state cross country meet in Minot, not only breaking the course record held by Casey Ryan of Grand Forks, but also helping his team to a championship with a stunning 17 points scored, breaking the state record for lowest point-total at the men's state meet.* Then in the spring of 1968, he won the 1600m at the state track meet, running a new state-record time 4:20.4, while also placing 5th in the 800 with a time of 2:02.
After high school, he continued on to NDSU and put together a successful career there as well. He was inducted into the NDSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992 after securing All-American status twice. He is currently ranked in the NDSU top-ten list: 9th in the indoor mile with a time of 4:10.40, which actually won him the 1972 NCC Indoor Conference Championship title. Adding onto that, in 1971 he won two events at the NCC Outdoor Conference Championship: the two-mile and three-mile. In the NDSU track media guide both times are listed as 14:17.6, so I assume that time to be the three-mile time and the two-mile to be incorrect. He also, according to NDSU's Hall of Fame page, holds some retired records for track program, but I can't find those on their website. While at NDSU he was also two-time All-American in cross country, his best finish being in 1971 when he placed 7th at the National University meet (teammate Mike Slack, who ran the only sub-4 mile ever in ND, actually won that race and went on to take third at the national meet behind legends Pre and Garry Bjorklund).** It is indeed interesting that an incredible steeplechaser did not actually win anything or run anything fast relative to the steeple while in college. That came later.
After college he eventually ran with the Chicago Track Club and started competing in the steeplechase on the national scene. In 1974 he won the US Track and Field Federation 3k steeple with a then-record time of 8:38. Not to be outdone, at the Pan-American Games US Trials in 1975, he finished second to Olympian Mike Manley of the Oregon Track Club with a time of 8:27:85. Lussenden was actually in third coming into the last lap, but he passed one runner and almost passed Manley, who was only 1/10 of a second ahead in a winning time of 8:27.75. This secured for Lussenden a spot on the team to the Pan-American Games. The Pan American Games that year were in Mexico City (which is brutal because the city sits at more than 7000 ft altitude and racing any long-distance event that high is awful), and he went on to take fifth (competitor Manley actually won the race in 9:04, there's the altitude for ya).
In conclusion, we have a North Dakota high school state champion, All-American at NDSU, and representative of the United States on the national and international stage who ran what seems to be, if not the fastest, one of the fastest steeple times of any North Dakotan so far. Pretty nifty, eh?
*For those unfamiliar with how cross country is scored, it goes a little like this. Each finisher is assigned a place with a corresponding number, with the winner getting 1, second place getting 2, and so on. For scoring, a team's top five finishers all have their scores added up for total. Thus, the lowest possible score a team can get is 15 (1+2+3+4+5), and so to score 17 points at the state meet is pretty crazy. Bismarck did it again actually, at the 2011 state xc meet.
**Currently (since 1973) the system for cross country nationals is divided: if you are D1, you race at the D1 meet, and if you are D2 you race at the D2 meet. Before 1958 there was only one race, but that year what we now know as D2 broke off and split it into NCAA University (D1 now) and NCAA college (D2 now). Furthermore, in 1973, D3 broke off and created the system we still see today. Before D3, the best in the University division at their national meet could run in the D1 race (something like two days later I believe). I need to do more research to learn how this all worked.
Links I used for research:
1968 State Track Meet Results
2013 NDSU Track and Field Media Guide
NCAA Archive
NDSU Hall of Fame Page
Chicago Tribune Article
BHS 1966 State XC Champs
BHS 1967 State XC Champs
Eugene Register-Guard Article
Pan American Games Results
Spokesman Review Article
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