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 over the previous decade.

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 soon after the qualifying events President Jimmy Carter announced an American boycott of those games, due to ongoing tensions of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and United States – and Wilson found out just weeks before the races that he would no longer have the chance to compete for Olympic glory.

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. 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 Saturday’s Coaches Corner, beginning at 9 a.m. on 92.1 KRLS.