Nolan Ryan various positions besides pitcher. Ryan played baseball for Coach Jim Watson at Alvin High School for all of his high school career. Ryan held the school's single game strikeout record for 44 years, striking out 21 hitters in a 7-inning game. The record was eventually tied by Alvin High School pitchers Aaron Stewart and Josh Land in the same week in 2009. In 1963, at an Alvin High School game at Clear Creek High School in League City, Texas, Red Murff, a scout for the New York Mets, first noticed sophomore pitcher Ryan. Coach Watson recounted to Murff that some
Holloman High Speed Test Track third rail, approximately 15,000 ft (4,572 m), was added for high-speed, narrow-gauge sleds. In 2000, pulldown extensions of 149 ft (46.4 m) were added to the north end of each rail, bringing the two primary rails to 50,917 feet (15,536 m). The last major upgrade to the primary rail system occurred in 2002, when the narrow-gauge track was lengthened to 20,379 ft (6,212 m). The HHSTT currently holds the world land speed record for rocket sleds set in April 2003, at Mach 8.6, or 9,465 feet per second (2,885 meters per second), or 6,453.409 miles per hour (10,385.755 kilometres per