For off and on over 18 months, when ever we bumped into each other, the Netherlands national team representatives tried to convince me to run for them. The advantages to doing so would have been huge, my extended family is there, better weather, great schools, great facilities and coaches and I would have been on top of the pile there as soon as I landed. But I didn’t go. My loyalty was to the folks who helped me here, the coaches I had, my friends and the tax payers who were paying for my stipend of $800 every three months to go towards food and rent. Not much, but I came from lower middle so it was something for me to be a carded national team athlete in Canada as I was for 5 years. But in the end with the 1980 Olympics in Moscow which I qualified for in the 200m and 4x400m, Canada followed the Americans and boycotted, and the Dutch team went. I often wonder if I had been a smidge more selfish, I would have gone to the ‘80 games and probably had a better, longer athletic career and more notoriety in my birthplace than I ever did here.