Michael "Mike" Gonzales is a former United States decathlete.
Gonzales attended Bishop Montgomery High School in Redondo Beach, California, where he played both football and track and field. He was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013. [1]
Gonzales was offered multiple football scholarships to play at top universities. He accepted a full scholarship in Track and Field from University of Southern California with the intention of becoming an Olympic athlete. At USC Gonzales was a standout in decathlon, where he held the USC Decathlon School record from 1984-2019. [2] He competed and won the gold medal in decathlon at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indiana.
Gonzales tried four times to make the USA Olympic Team in Decathlon (1984 1988, 1992,1996) but was plagued by injury in each attempt. Gonzales was recruited by Olympian Liston Bochette to participate in the 1998 Winter Olympics representing Puerto Rico in the four-man bobsled team. At 2002 Winter Olympics Michael Gonzales did not meet Puerto Rico Olympic Committee rules about eligibility; after this, the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee withdrew the recognition of the Winter Sports Federation for the island, effectively ending any hopes for athletes competing at the Winter Olympics until 2018.
Gonzales later became a competitive amateur golfer, competing in over 400 tournaments. [3] In 2016 Mike Gonzales began to complete as a professional golfer, completing in Champion Tour Event qualifiers and 3 of the Champion Tour Qualifying School Tournaments. Today he is the CEO for TOPIMR, a web-based Internet Marketing Company.
Gonzales resides in Southern California with his wife, Debra and his son Tanner.
An athlete is most commonly a person who competes in one or more sports involving physical strength, speed, power, or endurance. Sometimes, the word "athlete" is used to refer specifically to sport of athletics competitors, i.e. including track and field and marathon runners but excluding e.g. swimmers, footballers or basketball players. However, in other contexts it is used to refer to all athletics participants of any sport. For the latter definition, the word sportsperson or the gendered sportsman or sportswoman are also used. A third definition is also sometimes used, meaning anyone who is physically fit regardless of whether or not they compete in a sport.
Sports in Puerto Rico can be traced from the ceremonial competitions amongst the pre-Columbian Native Americans of the Arawak (Taíno) tribes who inhabited the island to the modern era in which sports activities consist of an organized physical activity or skill carried out with a recreational purpose for competition. One of the sports which the Taíno's played was a ball game called "Batey". The "Batey" was played in U-shaped fields two teams; however, unlike the ball games of the modern era, the winners were treated like heroes and the losers were sacrificed.
Steve Scott is an American former track athlete and one of the greatest mile runners in American history. The silver medalist in the 1500 meters at the inaugural IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki in 1983, Scott owns the U.S. indoor record in the 2000 meters (4:58.6-1981). He held the American outdoor mile record for more than 26 years and also is the former American indoor record holder in the same event. Track & Field News ranked Scott #1 in the U.S. on 10 occasions, and 11 times during his career he was ranked in the top ten in the world by T&FN. Additionally, he participated for the US team at the 1984 Olympics. He finished 5th in the 1500 meter run at the 1988 Olympics held in Korea. Scott was also an Olympian on the 1980 Olympics team which was not allowed to go to Moscow. He ran the sub four-minute mile on 136 occasions in his career, more than any other runner in history.
Rafer Lewis Johnson was an American decathlete and film actor. He was the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, having won silver in 1956. He had previously won a gold at the 1955 Pan American Games. Johnson was the U.S. team's flag bearer at the 1960 Olympics and lit the Olympic cauldron at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.
Robert Bruce Mathias was an American decathlete, politician, and actor. Representing the United States, he won two Olympic gold medals in the Decathlon, at the 1948 and the 1952 Summer Games. As a Republican, he served in the US House of Representatives for California's 18th congressional district, for four terms from 1967 to 1975.
Glenn Edgar Morris was a U.S. track and field athlete. He won a gold medal in the Olympic decathlon in 1936, setting new world and Olympic records. He attended Colorado A&M — now known as Colorado State University — and played football as well as track and field. He was also an occasional actor, he portrayed Tarzan in Tarzan's Revenge.
Jesús David "Jesse" Vassallo Anadón is a former competition swimmer and world record-holder in the 200 and 400 individual medley, who participated in the 1984 Summer Olympics for the United States. In 1997, he became the first Puerto Rican to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He was somewhat unique in the scale of his achievements as a swimmer, and in a tribute to his World Records in 1978 was voted Swimming World Magazine's "Male Swimmer of the Year". From 2004 to 2009, he served as the president of the Puerto Rican National Swimming Federation.
Bryan Ezra Tsumoru Clay is an American decathlete who was the 2008 Summer Olympic champion for the decathlon and was also World champion in 2005.
William Patrick "Parry" O'Brien was an American shot put champion. He competed in four consecutive Summer Olympics where he won two gold medals and one silver medal (1960). In his last Olympic competition (1964) he placed fourth. For all of these accomplishments, O'Brien was inducted into the IAAF and U.S. Olympic halls of fame.
Alfrederick Joyner is an American track and field coach and former athlete. He was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. He is the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump. He was also the coach and husband of the late four-time Olympic medalist Florence Griffith Joyner and is the brother of six-time Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
The USC Trojans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. While the men's teams are nicknamed the Trojans, the women's athletic teams are referred to as either the Trojans or Women of Troy. The program participates in the Big Ten Conference and has won 136 team national championships, 112 of which are National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships. USC's official colors are cardinal and gold. The Trojans have a cross-town rivalry in several sports with UCLA. However, USC's football rivalry with Notre Dame predates the UCLA rivalry by three years. The Notre Dame rivalry stems mainly from the annual football game played between these two universities and is considered the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. The Trojans also enjoy a rivalry with the Stanford Cardinal. The USC Trojans are considered one of the most successful college athletic programs of all time.
Dean Bartlett Cromwell, nicknamed "Maker of Champions", was an American athletic coach in multiple sports, principally at the University of Southern California (USC). He was the head coach of the USC track team from 1909 to 1948, excepting 1914 and 1915, and guided the team to 12 NCAA team national championships and 34 individual NCAA titles. He was the head coach for the U.S. track team at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, and assistant head coach for the U.S. track team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Bruce MacFarlane Furniss is a former American amateur competition swimmer, Olympic double gold medalist, and ten-time world record-holder in four events. At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, he won the Men's 200-meter Freestyle and was a member of the winning U.S. team in the Men's 4×200-meter Freestyle Relay, both in world record time. Furniss broke ten world and nineteen American records, and won eleven Amateur Athletic Union and six NCAA titles.
Steven Charles Furniss is an American former swimmer, business owner, Olympic bronze medalist and world record-holder.
The San Jose State Spartans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent San José State University. SJSU sports teams compete in the Mountain West Conference at the NCAA Division I level, with football competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Michael Jon O'Brien is an American former competition swimmer who won the gold medal in the men's 1,500-meter freestyle event at the 1984 Summer Olympics and a bronze and two golds in the Pan Am Games.
Rodney Strachan is an American former high school and college competition swimmer, 1976 Olympic gold medalist, and physician with a specialization in internal medicine.
Liston (Lin) D. Bochette III, born June 16, 1957, is an athlete, artist and civic leader. He participated in several Olympic Games as an athlete and administrator.
Douglas Rosado, in New York, NY was a Track and Field athlete, twice Bobsleigh Olympic athlete ; He competed at the 1992 Winter Olympics and the 1994 Winter Olympics. He was also a U.S. Navy carrier jet Aviator and attorney.
Ayden Owens-Delerme is a Puerto Rican decathlete. He finished fourth at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.