TOP AREA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES OF THE LAST 30 YEARS: HENRY WILLIAMS

By Mike Tupa

Sept. 3, 2025

BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT

During his nearly 30 years of covering area high school sports for either the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise or the Bartlesville Area Sports Report, Mike Tupa has enjoyed the opportunity to observe some incredible athletes.

This is an ongoing series highlighting each few days one of those athletes from the 1996-97 school year through the present. The list is not in chronological order. The athletes are presented in random sequence.

TODAY'S SPOTLIGHT

HENRY WILLIAMS (Bartlesville)

Cross county/track

Bartlesville’s High boasts a muster of elite distance runners throughout its history.

None might surpass — or even equal — Henry Williams, for both his high school competitive career and post-prep running endeavors.

Other than coming up just shy of winning a high school state cross country gold medal, Williams’ consistency of blazing excellence was amazing.

During his four seasons on the Bartlesville varsity cross country team Williams competed in 36 5K races.

He finished 35 of those races in less than 18 minutes, 21 in fewer than 17 minutes and six in less than 16 minutes.

Most cross country runners will complete a full career without clocking less than than 16 minutes and sub-17 times are a milestone accomplishment for others.

During his junior and senior seasons, Williams’ “slowest” three-mile time in high school competition was 16:55.7 (in the gigantic OSU Jamboree) and Williams dropped his time to as low as 15:06 in the 2016 Frontier Valley Conference meet.

In his junior and senior seasons combined, Williams won five tourney championships, finished runner-up seven other times and came in third twice. That adds up to 14 top-three finishes in 19 races.

He finished second in the state cross country meet his senior season (2016-17) — and then won both the Meet of Champions and the Arkansas-Oklahoma All-Star Meet in the postseason.

He also was a four-time gold medalist in regional competition, twice each in the 1600m and 3200m (2016, 2017).

During spring track competition, Williams also showed up among the state’s best. He surged to the silver medal in the boys 3200m in both 2016 and 2017. Williams also hustled to fourth place in the boys 1600m run in the 2017 state meet.

But his crowning achievement during those years took place at the Jesuit (Texas) Relays held in March 2017. Competing in the boys 3200m run, Williams blitzed to a time of 9:11 — just 12 seconds shy of breaking the Oklahoma state record. He also shattered the previous Bartlesville school record of 9:21, set — ironically — by Williams’ distance running coach Brett Turowski in 2003.

Following Williams' historic blaze in Texas, then-Bruin head coach Bon Bennett told the local newspaper Williams had to be considered among the elite prep 3200m runners in state history.

Following high school, Williams ran for the University of Tulsa.

For most runners, the end of their college careers would have meant the end to high-profile competition on a national or international level.

But Williams pulled a Lazarus in his running career.

After starting postgraduate studies at Cornell University (N.Y.), Williams switched to marathon running, due partly at least to the influence of a fellow student.

Williams quickly found a new running niche.

In just one year after starting marathon training, Williams advanced from being a newcomer to qualifying for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials!

In 2023, Williams romped to a time of 2:17.51 in the McKirdy (N.Y.) MicroMarathon for his Olympic Trials-qualifying time.

The trials took place in February 2024 in Orlando, Fla.  Williams was one of the 150 participants vying to represent the U.S. in the Olympics.

Williams trained assiduously for the event but was less than one hundred percent on the day of competition. He still ran and finished (21:31.37), averaging about 5:47 minutes per mile.

Perhaps Williams will take aim on the ’28 Olympic trials and put four more years of marathon preparation under his belt. Perhaps not. Either way, Williams will always remain one of the elite running talents to wear a Bruin uniform.

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This series has included the following athletes, who are listed in no particular order.

-Jena’ Williams, Bartlesville

-Eric Rolfs, Bartlesville

-Chris Smith, Caney Valley

-Jill Bryan, Copan

-Barron Tanner Jr, Bartlesville

-Hailey Tucker, Bartlesville

-Jeremy Dunkle, Dewey

-Whitney Metcalf, Bartlesville

-Tim Hamilton, Bartlesville

-Danielle Koster, Bartlesville

-Carson LaRue, Dewey

-John Hamman, Wesleyan Christian

-Jamie Elam, Caney Valley

-Sam Mitchell, Bartlesville

-Karissa Jones, Dewey

-Noah Hartsock, Bartlesville

-Tiffany Paper, Copan

-AJ Parker, Bartlesville

-Tiffany Eden

Henry Williams