Heartbreak has been felt and shared among the dozens of local high school athletes and students that lost their spring sports and activities. That pain was felt four decades ago at the highest level for one local longtime coach, teacher, and administrator.

Randy Wilson — currently a track and field coach and elementary P.E. teacher in Pella, returned to a running career in 1979 already filled with state championships at Knoxville High School, a Drake Relays record, and All-American honors at the University of Oklahoma from the decade prior.

In 1980, Wilson qualified to run for the U.S. Olympic Team, entering the Moscow races as the No. 9 ranked runner in the world in the 800 meter race. But President Jimmy Carter soon after the qualifying events announced an American boycott of those games, due to ongoing tensions of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and United States invasion of Afghanistan– and Wilson found out just weeks before the races that he would no longer have the chance to compete.

Wilson says he’s now sharing that story again–as he has several times, with the current athletes at Pella High School who have lost out on their own special moments and potential state championship experiences.

“The window of opportunity for our kids in high school sports is a blink of an eye and it’s over anyway, and to have one of those seasons taken away is very disappointing, heartbreaking,” Wilson says. “If I was in high school and this happened to me, or in college, I would have felt exactly the same way when my Olympic opportunity got taken away–heartbroken, disappointed, and even mad. This was of no fault of our kids or our coaches, or really anyone for that matter. This is just something that unfortunately happened to us here and across the globe, and hopefully we can get some of our scientists and doctors working and they can come up with a vaccine and we can move on.”

Hear more from Wilson about the loss of Olympic glory forty years ago, and how he’s helping today’s students cope with missing spring activities, on today’s Let’s Talk Pella.