Borah grad rallies for second national title. ‘Nobody wants it more than I do’
Former Borah High standout Nathan Green rallied for his second NCAA outdoor national track and field championship Friday, lunging across the finish line and tumbling to the track to win the men’s 1,500 meters at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
Green crossed the finish line at 3 minutes, 47.26 seconds in a photo finish. He held off a late charge from North Carolina’s Ethan Strand by .07 seconds to finish atop the podium, and all of the top eight competitors finished within a second of the 2021 Borah High grad.
“Three-hundred (meters) to go, I kind of got pushed up to the front, and I thought this is it,” Green told ESPN in a postrace interview. “I was coming around the bend as calm as I could. I just thought, I’m going to have to dive ‘cause they’re coming, and nobody wants it more than I do.”
The Washington senior made a late charge of his own in Friday’s championship race. He began the event as the second-to-last qualifier, starting out wide. He sprinted into fourth place at the first turn, then dropped back to as far as seventh after two laps.
But the nine-time Idaho state champ bullied his way back into the top three to start the third lap, took the lead in the final 50 meters and refused to let anyone catch him.
He finished the final 200 meters in 25.5 seconds and the final 400 meters in 51.5 seconds.
“It was a little bit slower. It was a little bit messy,” Green told reporters after the race. “It was a little bit this, it was a little bit that.
“But it all just came down to that final 80 meters, and it was just a battle of wills.”
Friday’s victory provided a bit of redemption for Green, who won the national title in the 1,500 in 2023 before finishing 10th last season.
“When you’re 20 years old and you win a title, it’s really hard to follow that up,” Green told ESPN. “... So to do it again here, it just shows the growth. It just shows everything that’s happened, it was for a reason.
“I trusted my coaches, and I trusted my people in my corner, and I came out on top. It means everything.”
Green’s title continues a banner week for Idaho athletes at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships. Kimberly High grad Peyton Bair won the men’s decathlon national title Thursday, scoring the 14th most points in the event’s history and becoming the first American-born decathlon champ in 14 years.
Green’s championship also continues a stellar run for Washington, home to the last four national champions in the men’s 1,500.
MORE IDAHO ALL-AMERICANS
- Mountain View grad Lexy Halladay-Lowry ran the second-fastest women’s steeplechase time in NCAA history at 9:08.68, but finished second to Alabama’s Doris Lemngole, who set the new record at 8:58.15. The performance marked the BYU senior’s sixth appearance on an All-American first team.
- Riverstone grad Maggie Liebich finished 10th in the same race at 9:50.77, placing the Washington senior on the All-American second team.
- Rocky Mountain grad Kade Thompson led Utah Valley to a 10th-place finish in the men’s 4x100 relay. He helped the Wolverines’ first NCAA relay qualifier finish in a school-record 38.90 seconds for second-team All-American honors.
This story was originally published June 13, 2025 at 9:57 PM.
