JOHN POWELL

Age: 61

Resides: Las Vegas

Family: Wife: Wally. Children: Tammy, Julie.

Then: A four-time Olympian, the Mira Loma High School graduate and San Jose State star won bronze medals in the discus at Montreal in 1976 and Los Angeles in 1984. The outspoken maverick, smallish by world-class discus standards at 6-foot-2, 232 pounds, set the then world record of 226 feet, 8 inches in 1975; was a seven-time national champion; and won the World Championship silver medal at age 40 in 1987.

Now: A former San Jose policeman, Powell produces and markets training video for discus throwers, holds several throwing camps and works with some of the nation's top high school discus athletes.

If you had to select a handful of highlights from your long and distinguished career, what would they be?

Being part of Bud Winter's San Jose State track team that won the NCAA Championship in 1969; making my first Olympic Team in Eugene in 1972; my South African competitions in 1988 and '89; and winning the national championship in 1984 in San Jose in which Mac Wilkins went 231 feet on his first throw. Nobody in the history of the event had thrown for more than 230 feet and ever lost. On my last throw, I go 233-9.

You were part of what some might call the golden age of the discus in the United States, competing against the likes of Mac Wilkins, Al Oerter, Art Burns, Jay Silvester and Ben Plucknett. But you and Wilkins are the last Americans to medal at the Olympics in 1984. Why is America struggling so much in the event?

Because they don't have us. We had an intense rivalry and everyone sort of gravitated to San Jose, which was a little "throws" mecca. If you could win in San Jose, you knew you'd do pretty well against anyone in the world. That kind of competitive environment just doesn't exist today.

You and Wilkins had some classic battles in the ring. Some even went so far as to call it a feud because of your contrasting personalties. What's your relationship with Wilkins today?

I went back to Columbus (Ohio) recently for a hall of fame induction. I show him a video in which one of my students says, "John Powell is the best coach ever." So I look over at Mac and say, 'So, tell me do you think I'm the best coach ever?' He looks at me and responds: "John, sitting next you is all the stimulation I need to stay awake for one minute." Here it's been 20 years since we were together and we're starting to go at each other all over again. We have a karmic relationship, kinda like Romulus and Remus. Recall that Romulus slew Remus.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in track was an issue even in your competitive days. Do you think the sport can ever be drug-free?

I doubt if many of your readers could pass an Olympic random drug test. For example, the IOC puts Visine and Alka Seltzer-plus on their banned drug list. Drug testing is never going to be fair for the simple reason that it's done inconsistently. In 1985, I went to Monte Carlo for a meet and when I get there I tell one of the Italian throwers that it's supposed to be a drug-tested meet. He says to me, "No, no John. You Americans ask for drug testing, but there will be no drug testing for us." If you want fairness then have two stadiums. In one, every time you go to a training session, you take a pee and it gets checked. At the other, they say we don't care. As a spectator you have a choice of watching Stadium A or Stadium B.

How much did the United States' boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games impact you?

I would have won gold. At a pre-Olympic meet at Lenin Stadium (where the Olympics were held) in Moscow, I won the meet and set a new stadium record. Because of the familiarity with the stadium, I believe I would have won.

In 1989, The Athletics Congress suspended you for six years for participating in a track and field tour of South Africa, which at the time was banned from international competition because of its policy of apartheid. Why did you defy the TAC?