Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Sam Bair Jr., a volunteer track assistant at Pitt, first ran a four-minute mile in June 1967. His son, Sam Bair III, is training for the Kip Keino Mile, which will be run Sunday in Ithaca, N.Y.

The men's elite field at the inaugural Kip Keino Mile in Ithaca, N.Y., Sunday will include two Olympians, three NCAA champions, a Commonwealth Games gold medalist and nine runners who have been clocked under 4 minutes. They are mostly pros and represent five countries.

Then there is Sam Bair III, a 22-year-old Pitt junior.

Bair won't be out of place, though.

While his Panthers track and field teammates head for Princeton and the IC4A meet this weekend, Bair and his father will be driving to Ithaca for perhaps a place in history.

Bair will try to become part of the first American father-son duo to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

"There are a number of sons of sub-4-minute milers that are out there right now, and a few of those guys have run pretty fast, so it would be nice to be the first, because there are going to be more," said the father half of the duo, Sam Bair Jr., who first clipped 4 minutes in 1967 and whose personal best is 3 minutes, 56.7 seconds.

The elder Bair is a volunteer assistant at Pitt who works with the middle-distance and distance runners.

Kip Keino, the legendary Kenyan runner who has two Olympic gold and two Olympic silver medals, and his son, Martin, are the only father-son duo that has broken 4 minutes.

"I think it would be great because to be on the sub-4-minute miler list is a very historic thing, to be on that list with the guys I've been watching videos of," said the younger Bair, who has the Pitt record of 4:00.14 in the indoor mile.

At Shaler High School, he was a two-time PIAA mile champion, but the outdoor mile is hard to find at higher levels in these days of metric races. This will be his first since high school.

The elder Bair learned of the Kip Keino Mile while surfing www.LetsRun.com, and Panthers assistant James Trautmann made the arrangements.

"Sam got in the field because he is one of the top collegiate milers, and we'd love to have him join his father in the sub-4 club at the Kip Keino Mile in Ithaca," elite race coordinator Weldon Johnson said in an e-mail interview. "We're glad to let a young American miler compete against some stellar international competition.

"Plus, Kip and his son Martin will be on hand on Sunday. Hopefully, they'll see the Bairs join them in the exclusive sub-4 father/son club."

The men's elite field features United States Olympian Anthony Famiglietti, New Zealand Olympian Nick Willis and Ireland's Mark Carroll, who has run a 3:50.62 mile.

The elder Bair -- who is from Scottdale and previously coached at Shaler and CCAC-Allegheny -- knows something about taking advantage of a fast field. When he first broke 4 minutes, it was in a race in which Jim Ryun set a world record of 3:51.1.

The younger Bair hopes he can feed off the fast field Sunday without jeopardizing his technique.

"I think it's a perfect situation to run fast," he said. "The only thing I'm worried about is the field is so good I might go out too fast. I just have to pay attention to my splits and my own race and let these guys do their own thing. A lot of these guys are trying to run fast, so they'll probably have a rabbit [Cornell graduate Sam Mackenzie] take them out, and it will probably be a string of guys in a line."

The younger Bair first went to Kent State, following in his father's footsteps, but redshirted his freshman year after lingering injuries related to a stress fracture that wiped out his senior season at Shaler.

He found himself coming home often to be treated by local doctors, so he transferred to Pitt. He has been healthy since.

Although he trains a little differently than his father did, he figures his strength in running the mile is based partly on genetics and partly on things he has learned from his father.

Because of strength training the Pitt staff requires through the two seasons, he usually is stronger for the outdoor portion.

Earlier this outdoor season, the younger Bair ran a 3:42.36 in the 1,500 meters at a meet at IUP after a teammate served as a rabbit the first 1,000 meters. He's sure he could have run another 100 meters fast enough to give him a sub-4-minute mile.

"I think I'm ready to do it," Bair said. "I'm fit enough to do it. I just need to go and do the same exact thing I did [at IUP], the same mentality -- show up, listen to my splits and relax and not make it anything more than that. Watch what [the top runners are] doing, but let them drag me to a fast time."