Shot putter Sammy Walker had been training with Michael Carter for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games when Walker got word that the United States would be staying home.

"When I heard Carter was leading the boycott, I thought they meant Michael Carter," Walker said Monday. "I thought, 'What? Michael boycotting?' When they said President Carter, it blew my mind."

Tuesday marked 25 years since the Moscow Games opening ceremony. Walker, a former Southern Methodist University MU football player and shot putter who finished ninth in weightlifting at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, is not alone in voicing his regrets for what might have been in 1980.

"My whole life, I had trained for this meet," said Kurt Thomas, who was coming off a six-medal performance at the 1979 World Gymnastics Championships in Fort Worth, Texas. "I was very disappointed. A lot of us were very bitter."

Anita DeFrantz continued to train for a rowing berth while receiving hate mail for stepping forward to serve as the named plaintiff in a class-action suit contending that U.S. athletes had the right to compete in the Games.

"It was a horrible time," said DeFrantz, a 1976 Olympic rowing bronze medalist and veteran International Olympic Committee member. "I was determined to take every opportunity I could to make it the athletes' decision."

Athletes received no federal training funds, DeFrantz said.

In January of 1980, President Carter announced that the U.S. would not attend the Moscow Games unless the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan by Feb. 20. That deadline cast a pall over the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games. Soviet forces remained in Afghanistan. On April 22, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted 1,604-797 to support President Carter and the boycott that eventually included 44 other countries.

Thomas, a three-time world champion and 1976 Olympian who trains athletes at his Frisco, Texas, gym, did not compete in the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials because he wanted to recover completely from a back injury. He said he initially did not believe the U.S. would follow through with the boycott.

U.S. Gymnastics officials allowed Thomas to petition his way onto the Olympic team, considering his status as the nation's top male gymnast. He did commentary for NBC's Olympic Trials telecast.

"I could have gone over there and won a lot of gold medals and done great," he said Monday. "Or I could have gone over there and placed 30th."

He retired without an Olympic medal but not without some satisfaction.

"I had a bunch of Russian coaches tell me that the Russian athletes feared me," Thomas said.

DeFrantz, a lawyer, rose to become an IOC vice president with a reputation for putting the athletes first. Her stand in 1980 wasn't about her, but about Team USA.

"I was no one in particular," she said. "But I understood what our rights were."

Walker never got to put the shot in the Games. Now, what he puts in the sauce at his three North Texas barbecue restaurants is his business.

He said he's glad he made it to the Games once.

"The wonderful thing is that you don't have to win a medal," he said. "I saw the queen of England. For people who lost that window, it was really, really terrible."

A more rewarding 25-year anniversary approaches for Walker. He and his wife, Lisa, are going to Hawaii to celebrate a quarter-century of marriage.

Time has softened the edges of his bitterness about the boycott.

"President Carter did what he thought was right," Walker said. "I don't hold any grudge. But it took the wind out of everyone's sails."