Wilsons Continue Legacy of Giving with New Course Funding

Wilson retired in 2017 after close to 50 years with the School of Pharmacy. In that time, he educated thousands of pharmacy students, first as a pharmacology professor, then chair of pharmacology and finally as associate dean for academic and student affairs.

He was instrumental in developing the Pharm.D. program curriculum and was passionate about his research in drug dependence and social pharmacology.

He entered partial retirement in 2014, not quite ready to say goodbye.

“I didn’t want to go cold turkey retirement, and I really wanted to stay in contact with students,” Wilson said.

So, he sought to find a purpose to stay on for a few more years. Based on his personal interests and what he saw as a void, he decided to put together an elective course called Drugs in Human Performance.

An avid sports fan, he had long held an interest in the role performance enhancing and other drugs play in athletics. His new course was divided into thirds – drugs and physical performance, drugs and cognitive performance and drugs and sexual performance.

“Pharmacists a lot of times get these kinds of questions from young folks, parents or whoever it may be,” Wilson said.

The course was a hit with students. In 2017, he finally called it quits, but his interest in drugs and athletics did not wane.

“In those three years, I became really interested in it and I became very aware that this is not something routinely covered in pharmacy school and there was no book on the topic,” he said.

He reached out to a handful of individuals who had contributed knowledge to his elective course and together, they produced the textbook “Sports Pharmacy: Performance Enhancing Drugs and the Athlete.”

The American Pharmacists Association published the work in 2019. With national interest in sports pharmacy taking off in the last few years, a second edition is currently in the works and will debut in 2025.

To Wilson, the need for sports pharmacists is clear, especially at a time when cultural interest in dietary supplements and fitness is soaring.

“Owners and coaches of teams should highly value counseling of their players regarding informed options of therapeutic drugs that would be less likely to interfere with their sport performance, especially if they were being paid multi-million dollar annual contracts,” Wilson said.

“Sports pharmacy is more than participating in antidoping activities. It also includes counseling on the safe and effective use of supplements and medication by athletes and those striving for increased fitness.”

With the nation’s rapidly growing interest in the topic in mind and hoping to bolster recruitment efforts, Wilson approached School of Pharmacy leadership about the idea of making the school’s academic offerings more unique with sports pharmacy opportunities.

“Aside from one other university in California, no other pharmacy schools were taking advantage of the opportunity,” Wilson said. “Plus, this university is known for athletics. What better place to do this than a university in the SEC?”

Donna Strum, dean of the School of Pharmacy and a former student of Wilson’s, was interested, but the funding simply did not exist at the time to begin such an initiative. Later, when Wilson unexpectedly came into some money, he and his wife happily gifted seed funding to the school to make his idea a reality.

“Thanks to the Wilsons’ generosity and vision, we are poised to lead the field of sports pharmacy, equipping our students with specialized knowledge in medication management for athletes, performance-enhancing drugs and dietary supplements and regulatory and practice considerations in sports pharmacy,” Strum said.

“From partnering with Ole Miss Athletics to serve the student-athletes to developing courses related to sports pharmacy, this initiative will accelerate our ability to innovate in this critical space. We are deeply grateful for this commitment to the future of pharmacy and the role of pharmacists in sports medicine.”

Now having spent most of his life serving students at the School of Pharmacy in one capacity or another, Wilson said the reason behind his drive to see the school and its student pharmacists succeed is simple.

“Other than my family, this school was my life,” Wilson said.

In retirement, Wilson and his wife, a former nurse at the university’s student health center, enjoy giving back where they can and spending time with their family, including their two sons, Dennis and Michael, and four grandchildren, Luke, Wyatt, Bennett and Drew.

Wilson hopes that his former students and colleagues will consider joining him in funding the initiative. Those interested in giving to the Sports Pharmacy Fund at the School of Pharmacy should contact Laura Gullett, associate director of development, at laurahg@olemiss.edu or call (662) 322-0569.