KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The black-and-white videotape shows a lanky teen-ager, head rolling from side to side with every stride, taking the lead with 300 yards to go.
The American mile record holder tries to pass with 200 yards left, but the youngster picks up the pace and holds him off. Coming down the final stretch, a three-time Olympic champion makes an all-out sprint but falls short at the tape.
Jim Ryun, an 18-year-old who had graduated from Wichita East High School just a month before, broke the U.S. mile record that night in San Diego.
It was one of the races that eventually inspired John Rinkenbaugh, a news producer at WDAF-TV in Kansas City, to make an hour-long video, "Jim Ryun: America's Greatest Miler."
"This is my salute to Jim Ryun because of his influence on me and probably hundreds, if not thousands, of other boys who got into running because of him," said Rinkenbaugh, whose video began as a graduate project at the University of Kansas.
And in spite of Ryun's remarkable career, this is the first such program that has been made about him, Ryun said.
Ryun went from his high school cross-country "B" team to Olympian in two years and to world mile record holder in two more years. Along the way, he was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, won the Sullivan Award as Amateur Athlete of the Year and was named Athlete of the Year by Track and Field News.
Today, Ryun may be better known as a congressman and committed Christian. But for track fans and many Kansans, his name will always be linked to his place in running history -- the last in a series of Kansas mile greats.
From Glenn Cunningham to Wes Santee to Ryun, all born and bred in Kansas, the state produced a series of mile runners unmatched elsewhere.
Rinkenbaugh's video, which uses clips from film archives dating back to the 1930s, captures the peaks and depths of Ryun's running career, from setting the still-standing high school record in the mile to his fall in the 1972 Olympic Games that caused him to turn away from the sport.
The program also explores Ryun's relationship with the man who coached him for most of his career, Bob Timmons, whom Ryun credits with much of his success.
"I consider him a gift from God," Ryun said.
Timmons watched as a gangly teen-ager ran 4:25 to finish second in a high school race and saw in him the first high school runner to break 4 minutes in the mile.
"In my mind, I just felt he could be first," Timmons said. "He was great to work with. I don't think he ever doubted me."
One film clip in the video shows Ryun finishing second in that race, a narrow loss, but the only loss of his high school track career.
By late spring, Ryun had run 4:07 and finished sixth in the U.S. Track and Field Federation meet to qualify for the national championships, Timmons recalled.
But Ryun then cut his foot on broken glass and had to miss the national meet. He apologetically told Timmons that he wasn't sure he could have beaten Jim Beatty anyway.
"Here he is, a (high school) sophomore with no experience, and doesn't know how well he would have competed against the No. 1 miler in the world," Timmons recalled.
The following year, by then a junior and the two-time Kansas high school mile champion, Ryun was invited to compete in the most important meets, against the world's best, before thousands of people.
He didn't disappoint.
A grainy old film clip shows Ryun running against a pack of veteran milers at Compton, Calif. -- finishing last, in 3:59.0, but the first high schooler ever to break 4 minutes.
Rinkenbaugh documents Ryun's other achievements -- overtaking Jim Grelle later that year to win the third and final spot on the U.S. Olympic team; running 3:58.3 in the 1965 Kansas State Meet, the only sub-4 minute mile in a high school race; twice breaking the world record in the mile; beating Kip Keino of Kenya in the 2-mile and 1,500 meters, and setting U.S. and world records.
And Rinkenbaugh documents the disappointments -- Ryun's loss to Keino at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where Ryun won "only" a silver medal; his 1971 comeback loss to Marty Liquori in the "dream mile"; and his fall in a 1,500-meter heat in the 1972 Olympics, which he entered as the gold medal favorite.
His fall, which for many track fans is an ironic, enduring memory, Ryun now calls a "blessing in disguise."
"I would prefer to have my amateur career end another way, but as a Christian I know there are always disappointments in life," he said. "Those are real character builders."
"Jim Ryun: America's Greatest Miler," is scheduled for broadcast on KTWU, Topeka public television, on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m.
Copyright 1997 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.