When a group of Soviet athletes arrived in Lawrence 20 years ago today — during the height of the Cold War — even then-Mayor David Longhurst was a bit apprehensive.

During a reception for the delegation, Longhurst said the room was filled with uneasy tension as interpreters scrambled to translate polite, formal comments between Americans and Soviets in Lawrence for the Kansas Relays.

Longhurst remembers trying to talk with a massive Soviet shot-put competitor, but the language barrier stood between them.

Then, Longhurst showed the Russian a photo of his 13-year-old son. The athlete immediately reached for a wallet photo of his own family.

“His expression changed completely,” Longhurst recalls. “It was like the curtains parted and the sun shone through. He and I felt the same way about our families. I was a father. He was a father. We had a common bond.”

In many ways, Longhurst’s experience was the goal for what a Russian physician later called a “fairy-tale week” in Lawrence. As their leaders competed to build missiles, athletes from the rival countries settled their differences on the track at Memorial Stadium.

They found they had more in common than they thought.

‘Crazy idea’

Mark Scott calls it a crazy idea. He should know — it was his idea.

In 1982, Scott had recently completed a doctorate at Kansas University when he co-founded Athletes United for Peace. He and co-founder Bob Swan, an insurance executive, wanted to use the organization to invite a delegation of Soviet athletes to the Kansas Relays.

“A lot of people thought it was a crazy idea,” Scott said. “I think at first we were the only ones who thought they’d come.”

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Tensions had been mounting between the two superpowers. In 1980, the United States boycotted the summer Olympics in Moscow because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In Lawrence that fall, hundreds of residents played as extras in the movie “The Day After,” which dealt with the aftermath of nuclear war. And in November, Lawrence voters approved a measure protesting the nuclear arms race.

“It was just a barren wasteland as far as relations go in the early 1980s,” Swan recalled. “Relations were just as bad as they could be. That’s when the impossible happened — the Russians came.”

The first invitation went out in January 1983. That one — like a subsequent invitation sent in March — was met with a “no thanks” from the Russians. They cited their strict training schedule and other competitions in declining the invitations.

That’s when Swan and Scott got more than 1,000 Lawrence schoolchildren to write letters to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, urging the athletes to come to Lawrence.

Swan said he thought the letters were a tipping point for the effort. On March 22, 1983, the Soviet Embassy accepted the offer.

‘Ordinary people’

The Soviet athletes, coaches and delegation leader — 18 in all — arrived April 19, 1983, to a crowd of cheering Lawrence residents at Kansas City International Airport.

The athletes spent the next six days in Lawrence. By all accounts, their involvement in the Kansas Relays was a success. They won every event they entered and set six records — including three that stand today, in men’s hammer throw, women’s 1,500 meters and women’s 3,000 meters.

But it was the success of the noncompetitive events that had organizers most excited. The Soviets participated in a country barn dance and tribal dances at Haskell Indian Junior College, now Haskell Indian Nations University. They also conducted a panel discussion on the nuclear arms race and prospects for peace.

Children swarmed them for autographs during every public appearance.

“For most children, they have never seen Russians,” Soviet coach Igor Ter-Ovanesyan said at the time. “They come and touch us, look into our eyes. When they see we’re ordinary people, I think it’s good.”

The event received nationwide media attention when ABC and CBS ran segments on the visit, and a story appeared in The New York Times. A Soviet news reporter transmitted images back to an estimated 250 million people watching television there.

Future events

Norman Saul, a KU professor who studies U.S.-Soviet relations during the 20th century, called the trip remarkable.

“There had been a period of very tense relations between the U.S.S.R. and the United States before and after that event,” Saul said, noting the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner with 61 Americans onboard later in 1983. “This may have been one of the first independent athletic involvements between the two nations.”

Scott, now a Pepperdine University professor and author, said the relays laid the groundwork for later events in Lawrence. In 1990, Swan spearheaded the Meeting for Peace, when 250 Russians came to Lawrence to discuss relations between the two countries and forge new friendships.

It also paved the way for a 1991 visit by the Soviet national basketball team to play an All-Star team of former KU basketball players.

For Swan, who still lives in Lawrence, the visit led to the founding of the Corporation for Russian-American Enterprise, a venture capital firm that focused on medical products. He also founded the U.S.-Russia Foundation, which organizes exchange visits between the nations.

He said the basic message of the event held true today.

“It’s better to compete peacefully than compete with death and destruction,” Swan said. “We wanted to glorify nonviolent competition.”