Richard George

Richard George is an Olympic athlete, having represented the United States at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

George was born on May 22, 1953, in Fillmore, Utah. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

He pitched in his Little League baseball team, which won a Utah state championship. At Millard High School, he was All-State in basketball and football. He might have played baseball, but his high school didn’t have a baseball team. Instead, he joined the track team and threw javelin.

Richard’s sister JoAnn was engaged to marry Olympic javelin thrower Ed Red, who taught him how to throw properly. The following year, at age 15, George threw the javelin 224 feet to set an age-group record. “For three straight years in high school, he set and re-set the state javelin record. By the time he graduated, he was already close to the Olympic qualifying standard.”[1]

Although he was on the track team at BYU, he was also the quarterback on the football team, and the basketball team. After his freshman year, he decided to focus on track when he returned from his mission. “Ten months after returning from his mission, he was U.S. national champion at the AAU championships; a few months after that, he won a bronze medal at the World Games.”[2]

The next year, at the age of 23, he found himself at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, competing in the 1976 Olympic Games.

He was on the doorstep of stardom when one of Those Things that happen at the Olympics happened to him.

After warming up with a non-counting throw of 288 feet — just 12 feet off the existing world record — he was all set to begin the qualifying round when the thrower in front of him, a Russian, shattered his javelin on his first attempt.

Richard had never seen that happen before. Neither had the officials. They didn't know what to do. Should they allow the Russian another throw? Should it come now or later? Arguing commenced. There was a language problem. Someone went for an interpreter.

An hour later, they finally told Richard, without warning, to go ahead and throw. He wasn't warm anymore. He didn't come near 288 feet. He didn't qualify for the finals. He sat on the sidelines and watched Mikos Nemeth of Hungary, a month shy of turning 30, set a world record of 310 feet to claim the gold medal. Second place was 286 feet.[3]

George told Deseret News columnist Lee Benson, “There was a time when I was determined to set the world record in the javelin and I'm almost certain I could have done it. I quit probably eight years too soon," he says. "But there's no way I could have competed at such a high level and maintained all the other things I wanted and needed to do with my life. Life is full of decisions. I've been lucky; I've always had really great options to choose from.”[4] George was inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.

He and his first wife, Jennifer, were the parents of six children. She died from cancer in 2015. He married Ann Peterson Tempest in 2018.