High jump
Dick Fosbury: Employing the revolutionary style known as the “Fosbury Flop,” the American won the 1968 Olympic gold medal. Fosbury won two NCAA championships at Oregon State.
Today Fosbury is a civil engineer in Ketchum, Idaho. He’s also a spokesman for the French watch company Piaget and was recently elected president of the World Olympians Association, a worldwide organization of Olympians dedicated to “the promotion of the values and virtues that make the Olympic Movement.”
Louise Ritter: The 1988 Olympic high jump champion, Ritter also placed third at the 1983 World Outdoor Championships. Ritter was a three-time national collegiate champion at Texas Woman's University and went on to earn ten U.S. titles, both indoor and outdoor.
Ritter was an assistant track coach at Southern Methodist University and head track coach at Texas Tech. She formed a sports fitness business, The Sports Connection, in Texas and lives in the Dallas area.
Triple jump
Al Joyner: Best known for helping coach his wife, the late Florence Griffith-Joyner, to four Olympic medals – including gold medals in the 100 and 200 at the 1988 Olympics – Al Joyner won the Olympic triple jump gold medal in 1984. He also finished eighth in the initial IAAF World Championships in 1983 was an NCAA All-American six times, in outdoor and indoor competition.
Joyner joined the UCLA coaching staff in 2000 as the school’s women’s jumps coach. He also runs the Flo Jo Community Empowerment Foundation, a youth-oriented charity. He wrote “Running for Dummies,” with a portion of the proceeds benefitting the Foundation.
Viktor Saneyev: The Russian earned Olympic gold medals in 1968, ’72 and ’76 then settled for silver in 1980. He broke the world triple jump record three times between 1968-75.
Saneyev, who earned a masters degree in sports science, has coached in the former Soviet Union and then in Australia, most recently as jumps coach at the NSW Institute of Sport in Sydney and at St. Joseph’s College.
Shot put
Randy Matson: Matson won the 1968 Olympic gold medal after earning the silver in 1964. He won the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete in 1967. Matson won four NCAA championships, in both the shot and discus, at Texas A & M, plus six National AAU shot put titles. He was the first shot-putter to break the 70-feet barrier, in 1965.
The A & M graduate has served his alma mater in several areas, as a director and later executive director of the school’s Association of Former Students from 1972-99. He was Texas A & M’s Senior Philanthropic Officer through 2007. Matson lives with his family in College Station, Texas.
Discus
Mac Wilkins: Wilkins qualified for four Olympic Games and competed in 1976, 1984-88, missing the 1980 Games due to the U.S. boycott. He won the gold medal in 1976 and the silver in 1984. Wilkins, who owned the world discus record for more than two years, also won the 1979 Pan- American Games and placed second in the 1977 and 1979 World Cup events.
Wilkins was the first throws coach at Concordia University in Portland. He also founded the Oregon Throwers Academy to develop throwers from ages 10 through high school age in the Pacific Northwest. He also serves as the U.S.A. Track and Field’s technical adviser to elite male and female discus throwers and has been involved in technology sales, public speaking and fund-raising for the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Hammer
Lance Deal: The first U.S. Olympic hammer medalist since Harold Connolly won the gold in 1956, Deal earned the silver in 1996, one of four Olympic Games (1988-2000) in which he competed. He was the Pan-American Games champion twice, won the 1996 Mobil Grand Prix final and was fifth at the 1995 World Championships. Deal dominated U.S. hammer competition, winning nine U.S. outdoor championships and 12 indoor national titles.
Deal is the University of Oregon throws coach for the men’s and women’s track and field teams. He’s also designed athletic facilities, including Oregon’s hammer cage. He’s designed and marketed throwing cages and wires.
Javelin
Bill Schmidt: The most recent U.S. Olympic javelin medalist, Schmidt became the first American to win a javelin medal in 20 years when he earned the bronze in 1972. Schmidt won the U.S. championship in1978 and was an All-American and placed second at the NCAA Championships in 1970 for North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas).
Schmidt is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Exercise, Sport and Leisure Studies at the University of Tennessee. A highly successful business executive, Schmidt is president of Pegasus Sports Marketing in Knoxville, Tenn. His previous positions have included: CEO of Oakley, Inc.; Executive Vice President of Quaker Oats-Gatorade; and Vice President of Sports at the Los Angeles Olympics.
