2024’s top sports story in Butler County: Drew Griffith runs away with golds, records
Two races that were six days and four states apart.
Drew Griffith's talent and determination combined to bring truly monumental efforts to both of them.
At the Hoka Festival of Miles event May 30 in St. Louis, Butler's senior won the 1-mile race by turning in an incredibly rare sub-4 minute time of 3 minutes, 57.72 seconds.
The previous week at the PIAA Championships at Shippensburg University, he broke the national high school record in the 1,600-meter run with a winning time of 3:57.08.
"Winning a state title in the time I ran, it definitely gave me a lot of momentum going to St. Louis," said Griffith, now a freshman at Notre Dame. "I knew that as long as I was feeling well that day, I'd go under four in the mile."
The pair of exceptional feats in less than a week were only part of Griffith’s effort. He won WPIAL Class 3A titles in the 1,600 and 3,200 runs in May before winning both races in Shippensburg, including a PIAA meet-record time of 8:43.72 in the 3,200.
After St. Louis, he traveled to Seattle, where he ran the second-fastest two-mile time in U.S. history, 8:31.47 to win the Brooks Invitational.
His bountiful spring has been chosen as the Butler Eagle’s Sports Story of 2024.
Griffith trailed Clay Shively of Kansas late in the mile run in St. Louis, but hit another gear with less than a lap to go. Shively finished second by three full seconds.
Star distance runners all seem to have something left in the tank for the final push, but Griffith's finishing kick was strong enough to set him apart from other elite high school runners all over the country. The race in St. Louis was just the latest example.
At the spring WPIAL championship meet, he ran a negative split in the 3,200 run — his time over the final four laps was 20 seconds faster than that of his first four laps.
"A lot of it comes down to training, but it's also a mental thing," Griffith said of his ability to finish strong. "You have to be able to dig deep and use that other gear even if you don't think it's in you."
Griffith said the high level of self motivation he now possesses was instilled in him during his freshman year.
"It was over that winter (2020-21) during swimming season," he said. "Our coach was Dave Bocci. I was swimming the 200 and 500 freestyles, and he saw something in me and that just made me want to work harder."
But he soon showed vast improvement on the track, and it was there where his focus settled.
When CJ Singleton graduated from Butler in 2022, Griffith became the leader of Butler's distance runners, but he sought more than local and district accolades.
His sub-4-minute mile was over a year in the making.
"I ran a 4:07 in the mile during the indoor season my junior year and was hoping to go under four that spring," he said. "Then I went 4:02 last winter."
At the Butler Invitational in April, Griffith just missed the feat, finishing in 4:00.77. He was getting closer and closer, and the venue in Missouri provided a fitting scene for such a lofty accomplishment.
"The (mile) race was held at a high school stadium, and the place was packed, tons of fans were there," Griffith said. "To be able to compete in that atmosphere and execute the way I needed to, it was an unbelievable experience."
Griffith recently capped his first collegiate cross country season at Notre Dame. He and Singleton, a junior, helped the Fighting Irish place 10th in the country as a team.
He plans to compete in the 3,000-meter run and the mile this winter during the indoor track season and outdoor in the spring.
"Men's cross country is 10K, and that's a big jump from high school (5K)," Griffith said. "Having CJ there helped a lot. He's like an older brother to me and showed me the ropes."
