A record eight Olympic athletes with Mississippi State ties will compete in Paris later this summer, and that’s not even counting head track and field coach Chris Woods, who will be an assistant coach with Team Canada.
But the Bulldogs’ Olympic history stretches back more than a century, with 26 athletes and three coaches representing 10 different countries. MSU is looking to bring home its first medal since Jude Monye won gold in track and field as part of Nigeria’s 4×400 meter relay team at the 2000 Games in Sydney.
Don Scott was MSU’s first Olympian, competing for Team USA in the 800 meters at the 1920 games in Antwerp, Belgium. He just missed out on the podium, finishing in fourth place with a time of 1:56.9. Scott returned to the Olympic stage in Paris four years later, finishing 16th in the modern pentathlon — which combines a 4,000-meter run and a 300-meter freestyle swim with shooting, fencing and equestrian.
Also a football and basketball player at MSU, the student body named the school’s football field in his honor in 1920, and Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field still bears his name to this day.
Team USA won gold in the 4×400 relay in 1924 and set a world record in the process, with MSU’s Commodore Scott Cochran running the first leg. Cochran was a two-time NCAA champion in the 440-yard dash, and his younger brother Roy won gold in both the 4×400 relay and the 400-meter hurdles at the 1948 Olympics in London.
Lee Preister, the American record holder at the time, competed in the javelin at the 1924 Games a year after finishing second at the NCAA Championships in the event for MSU. William Spencer also made his Olympic debut in 1924, reaching the semifinals in the 1,500 meters.
Spencer, later MSU’s head track and field coach, returned to the Olympic stage in 1928 in Amsterdam, advancing to the semifinals in the 1,500 and finals in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. He and Sid Robinson, who was also in the 1,500 in 1928, were the last MSU athletes to compete at the Olympics until 1984.
Thunder and lightning
Baseball made its return to the Olympics for the first time in 20 years at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, with MSU star Will Clark playing for Team USA and winning a silver medal. Four years later in Seoul, MSU head coach Ron Polk was a coach on the gold medal-winning American squad that defeated Japan in the final, four years after losing to the Japanese on home soil in the gold medal game.
Also in 1988, Faliat Ogunkoya of Nigeria became both the first woman and first non-American to represent the Bulldogs at the Olympics, finishing 12th in the 200 meters. Ogunkoya was the Southeastern Conference individual champion in the 400 in 1989 and 1990.
Team USA baseball finished fourth at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, but former MSU pitcher B.J. Wallace set an Olympic record with 14 strikeouts in eight shutout innings in a win over Italy. Polk was back on the coaching staff for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, when the U.S. claimed the bronze medal.
The Bulldogs also had four track and field athletes competing in Atlanta, with Ogunkoya winning bronze in the 400 meters and silver as part of the Nigerian 4×400 relay team. Festus Igbinoghene of Nigeria — a seven-time SEC champion between the indoor and outdoor long jump and triple jump — competed in the triple jump in Atlanta. Julius Sedame ran the third leg of Ghana’s 4×400-meter relay.
Jude Monye of Nigeria, the 1995 men’s SEC champion in the 400, competed in that event at the 1996 Games, then won gold as part of Nigeria’s 4×400 relay team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Ogunkoya made her third Olympic appearance in 2000, finishing fourth in the 4×100 relay and seventh in the 200-meter dash. Pierre Browne of Canada also competed in Sydney, qualifying in the 200 and the 4×100 relay.
Canadian connection
Browne, an NCAA indoor champion in 2003, improved upon his Sydney performances at the 2004 Games in Athens, anchoring the Canadian 4×400 relay team that finished eighth. Dion Crabbe, representing the British Virgin Islands, is still that nation’s record holder in the 100 and 200 and competed in the latter event in Athens.
Browne was MSU’s lone Olympian for the 2008 Games in Beijing, reaching the quarterfinals in the 100 and helping Canada’s 4×400 relay team finish sixth. He and Ogunkoya are the only Bulldogs to appear in three different Olympic Games. Another Canadian, Daundre Barnaby, competed in the men’s 400 at the 2012 Olympics in London.
Canada’s Brandon McBride, who won NCAA indoor and outdoor championships in 2014, reached the semifinals in the men’s 800 at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. MSU’s only other Olympian in 2016 was Portuguese runner Marta Pen Freitas — a 2015 NCAA champion in the 1,500 meters — who competed in the event at both Rio and the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.
The Bulldogs had six total Olympians in 2021, all in track and field. McBride and fellow Canadian Marco Arop competed in the 800, with Arop reaching the semifinals. Anderson Peters of Grenada and Curtis Thompson of the U.S. both qualified in the men’s javelin, and American Erica Brougard finished ninth in the women’s heptathlon. Brougard was the 2013 NCAA pentathlon champion and set five school records during her time at MSU.
Arop, Thompson and Peters will be back on the Olympic stage this year, joined by Navasky Anderson of Jamaica and Lee Eppie of Botswana in track and field events. Nuno Borges will represent Portugal on the tennis court, and Ilana Izquierdo and Catalina Perez are set to compete for Colombia in women’s soccer.
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