Randy Matson
American athletics competitor
James Randel "Randy" Matson (born March 5, 1945) is an American track and field athlete who mostly competed in the shot put. Matson won a silver medal at the 1964 and a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics.
Early years
The son of Charles and Ellen Matson, Randy Matson was reared in Pampa, the seat of Gray County in the Texas Panhandle. At the age of twelve, he participated in his first track meet. He won the 50-yard dash, the 100-yard dash, the long jump and the high jump and finished sixth in the shot put. He attended Pampa High School, where he was a three-sport standout in American football, basketball, and track and field. He won All-District football honors, and was a two-time All-District and one-time All-State basketball player, averaging 15 points per game. In track and field, he was a two-time State Champion in both the shot put and the discus and could run the 100 yard dash in 10.2 seconds. This led him to be named an All-State and All-American in track and field. He was Track and Field News "High School Athlete of the Year" in 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “Randy Matson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.