Randy Matson

James Randel "Randy" Matson (born March 5, 1945 in Kilgore , Texas ) is a retired American athlete . He won two Olympic medals in the shot put .

Career

Matson had his first success as a 17-year-old at the State Meet in Austin , where he won both the shot put and the discus throw as a representative of Pampa High School. He later started for Mt. San Antonio College . He is 2.03 m tall and weighed 117 kg at the beginning of his sporting career, but gained 30 kg over the years.

He was the first person on earth to exceed three dream limits:

• over 21 m: 21.05 m, achieved on April 30, 1965 in Austin
• over 70 feet, scored on May 8, 1965 at College Station
• over 71 feet (= 21.64 m), achieved on April 22, 1967 in College Station as part of the following series: 21.78 - 21.02 - 21.22 - 20.77 - 20.31 - 20.55

Matson hit a total of 12 times over 21 meters and 25 times over 20 meters in the course of his career. He had his best run in 1970 in Berkeley : 21.18-20.75-21.25-21.75-20.94-20.97. After two successful participations in the Olympic Games in 1964 and 1968, he could no longer qualify for the Games in Munich in 1972 as fourth in the US Olympic qualification. Randy Matson has five brothers who are all over six feet tall. His father was in the oil business. He is married to Margaret Burns and has three children.

successes

• Olympic games

  1964 Tokyo : Silver with 20.20 m behind Dallas Long (USA) with 20.33 m and in front of Vilmos Varjú ( Hungary ) with 19.39 m

  1968 Mexico City : Gold with 20.54 m ahead of George Woods (USA) with 20.12 m and Eduard Guschtschin ( Soviet Union ) with 20.09 m

• title

  US champions

  1964: 19.78 m; 64-11

  1966: 19.56 m; 64-2 ¼

  1967: 20.39 m; 66-11

  1968: 20.55 m; 67-5

  1970: 20.68 m; 67-10 ¼

  1972: 21.19 m; 69-6 ½

  NCAA Champion Shot Put

  1966: 67-1½

  1967: 67-9 ¼

  NCAA Champion Discus Throw

  1966: 197-0

  1967: 190-0

• World records

  1965: 21.52 m; 70-7 ¼

  1967: 21.78 m; 71-5 ½

Awards

• Sulivan Award 1967
• Track & Field News' 1970 Athlete of the Year
• Inclusion in Halls of Fame: Helms Hall of Fame Athlete of the Continent, Texas A & M Hall of Fame 1972, Texas Sports Hall of Fame 1974, Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame 1979, National Sports hall of Fame 1981, National Track and Field Hall of Fame 1984, National High School Sports Hall of Fame 1988, Pampa High School Hall of Fame 1999

education and profession

• 1967 Acquisition of the BBA degree in marketing from Texas A&M University
• 1972 worked for the Association of Former Students of Texas A&M, from 1980 as Executive Director

Individual evidence

1. ↑ MT. SAN ANTONIO COLLEGE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on July 24, 2012 

Web links

• Randy Matson in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Biography - Randy Matson ( Memento from September 28, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
• Interview (English)
• Pampa High School Class of 1963