Twenty-one-year-old Pitt junior Roger Kingdom waits at the starting line for the final 110-meter hurdle race at the 1984 Summer Olympics, gazing across the abyss of the red rubber track. On the night before one of the most important running races of his career, Kingdom felt intense pressure that brought him to tears. He called his biggest supporter and spiritual guide, his mother, who stayed on the phone with him for hours, listening to his anxieties and offering comforting words.   

By the time he kneels, waiting for the pop of the starter’s gun, all the stress, strain and burden of his Olympic journey to Los Angeles has vanished. Kingdom is bolting toward his wildest dream.   

Kingdom broke the 110-meter hurdle Olympic record with a time of 13.20 seconds that day, beating out American runner Greg Foster for the gold medal by a margin of 0.03 seconds.  

“All I wanted to do my whole life was prove to the world that I was somebody,” says Kingdom. “I wanted to show I wasn’t just a flash in the pan.”   

When the Games begin on July 26, Kingdom and his fellow former Pitt athletes who have competed in the Olympics will be tuning in, too, following along as other athletes dash toward their aspirations of being “somebody,” as well.   

Kingdom spent most of his childhood and teenage years in rural Georgia, working hard on his family’s farm to grow crops and tend to livestock. He recalls daily episodes of racial segregation and oppression made dreaming big difficult.   

With dedicated support from his parents, Kingdom became a two-sport star athlete at Vienna High School, excelling in both football and track and field. He began to gain attention from large universities with top-ranked athletic programs across the East Coast and chose to attend the University of Pittsburgh, becoming the first student from his high school to receive a full athletic scholarship to a major college or university.   

He arrived in Pittsburgh in 1981 to play football but quickly moved to track and field — a pivot that he says made all his Olympic dreams possible.  

“Competing for Pitt in the 1983 NCAA indoor and outdoor national championships served as a major steppingstone to the Olympic Games,” says Kingdom (CGS ’02).  

The 1984 Olympics were just the beginning of a historic career for Kingdom. He triumphed again at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, becoming one of only two men ever to win consecutive Olympic titles in the 110-meter hurdles. In 1989, he broke the world record for the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 12.92. The record only lasted four years, but it cemented Kingdom as one of the greatest hurdlers of all time.   

After retiring from competitive running in 1999, Kingdom held track and field coaching positions at the California University of Pennsylvania (now called PennWest) and the University of Central Florida. He also held speed and conditioning coaching roles with the Arizona Cardinals and the 2021 Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, becoming just the second person ever to have won two Olympic gold medals and a Super Bowl ring.   

As the Olympic Games in Paris get underway, he’ll be watching.  

“I’ve had opportunities to share thoughts with American hurdler Grant Holloway,” Kingdom says of the 26-year-old who won silver in the men’s 110-meter hurdles at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. “I’m excited to watch him, as he has a chance to win a medal for hurdling in back-to-back Olympic Games.”  

Looking back and forward  

The 2024 Games are giving other former Pitt Olympic participants a chance to reminisce about their competitions and to share what they’re interested in catching up on at the summer games, too.   

Susan Heon-Preston (A&S ’86), a native of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, was a USA teammate with Roger Kingdom at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.   

Having a familiar face to cheer each other on in Los Angeles provided “much-needed reassurance” for the two Pitt athletes, she says.   

Heon-Preston, a champion swimmer at Pitt, placed fourth in the women’s 400-meter individual medley (IM) race, missing bronze by less than 10 meters. Competing in the 400 IM meant facing the world’s strongest swimmers in a physically demanding and strategic race that combines four major swim strokes — a challenge that Heon-Preston worked tirelessly toward in the years prior.   

“The magnitude of being an Olympian didn’t hit me until they called my name,” she says. “I was crying during the first 100 meters of the race.”   

Currently, Heon-Preston lives in California and has been an elementary school teacher for more than 20 years. While her competitive swimming days have ended, she still participates in open water swimming, even going the length between the Hawaiian Islands and the diameter of Lake Tahoe.   

“I’m always excited about the opening ceremony,” says Heon-Preston. “In swimming, I am really looking forward to the women’s 400-meter freestyle. It will be a true pool duel between Ariarne Titmus, Summer McIntosh and Katie Ledecky.”   

(Australia’s Titmus took the gold, Canada’s McIntosh the silver and American phenom Ledecky the bronze on July 27.)

Marisa Pedulla also proudly represented the United States as a member of the Judo team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, placing seventh in the half-lightweight category.   

Pedulla, a native of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, comes from a deep-rooted Pitt family, and quickly found a second home at the South Hills Judo Academy in Pittsburgh when she arrived in 1986. When qualifying for the Olympics came into reach, she traveled from country to country in Europe for five-week training camps in preparation for the 1996 games.   

Following the Atlanta games, Pedulla (A&S ’90, A&S ’98G) was named to the coaching staff of the U.S. Olympic Judo team for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Under her wing was then-17-year-old famed mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey, who would eventually become the first American woman to win a medal in Judo by winning bronze at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.   

When she wasn't throwing opponents on the Judo mat, Pedulla was earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry and then a doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Pittsburgh. Currently, Pedulla is a professor of biology at Montana Technological University and has received wide acclaim for co-spearheading a phage discovery program that has introduced thousands of high school students to the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  

Pedulla sees many parallels between academic and athletic attainment — a combination of disciplinary experiences that she says prepared her for the pressure of solo Olympic competitions.  

“In Judo, it’s just you and your opponent,” says Pedulla. “The individual performances in the Olympics are always very inspiring.”