Sports are in the midst of a catastrophic moment. The NBA became the first sports league to suspend operations two weeks ago in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. 

Since then, March Madness was cancelled, the MLB was pushed back and all spring collegiate sports were shelved. Spring college football practices are all but lost. 

The 2020 Olympics have been postponed to 2021. For the athletes, that year can make all the difference. 

While the COVID-19 virus is having an unprecedented impact on sports, these moments are not unprecedented. Forty years ago, a class of athletes that spent decades of their lives training for the Olympics lost their shot at immortality. 

It was completely out of their control. 

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American decathlete Bob Coffman’s immense athletic gifts were churning on all cylinders as the calendar flipped to 1980. 

After picking up the event almost by accident seven years earlier, Coffman was the No. 1 decathlete in the nation. He won 10  straight decathlons, including a gold medal and event record at the Pan-American Games in 1979. 

Coffman, a Houston native, was training for nearly six hours a day, six days a week, under legendary University of Houston track coach Tom Tellez. The grueling event includes sprinting the 100-meter and 400-meter and 110-meter hurdles. The field events include the long jump, shot put, high jump, discus, pole vault and javelin, and finishes off with a brutal 1,500-meter run. 

Four years earlier, Caitlyn Jenner – then competing as Bruce Jenner – ran across the finish line to break the world record and win gold in the decathlon. The win launched Jenner to international fame and fortune. With any luck, Coffman could have been next. 

“I was getting to the peak,” Coffman said. “I could have broken my leg a week before, who knows, but everything was set up for me to do real well.”