Decathlon legend Mathias passes away
Posted Sunday, 3 September, 2006
Contact:
Tom Surber
Media Information Manager
USA Track & Field
317-713-4690
One of the greatest all-around athletes in track and field history, two-time Olympic gold medalist Robert "Bob" Mathias died Saturday in Fresno, California. He was 75.
Born on November 17, 1930 in Tulare, Calif., Mathias arrived on the world track and field scene in spectacular fashion, winning the decathlon gold medal at the 1948 Olympic Games (7,139 points) while still only 17 years old. That made him the youngest ever winner of an Olympic track and field event and also earned him the 1948 A.A.U. Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.
Exhausted after finishing the final event (1,500 meters), Mathias was asked about his experience in the decathlon. "Never again," he said. When asked how he would celebrate his victory he replied: "I'll start shaving, I guess."
Already a member of the football, basketball and track teams at Tulare High School, Mathias took up the decathlon following the urging of his prep track coach Virgil Jackson, though he had never even seen a javelin. According to The History of Track & Field Athletics by Mel Watman, Jackson convinced him to give the decathlon a try by saying to his protégée: "I've just heard about some event called the decathlon that will be included in a meet in Los Angeles in about a week after you graduate," he said. "It'll give you something to do after you get out of school."
Mathias learned quickly. Despite his inexperience, he qualified for the 1948 Olympic team and won the gold medal in London. Upon his return to the small farming community of Tulare, Mathias was a full-fledged hero. Looking back on his victory in London many years later he said: "I was just too young to be intimidated. I really didn't understand what the Olympics were all about. Don't forget, there had been no Games for 12 years, and there was no television then."
While at Stanford University, Mathias set the first of his three decathlon world records in 1950. He capped his brilliant career by repeating as Olympic champion at the 1952 Games in Helsinki, winning by the largest margin in Olympic history and setting another world record at age 21. His total of 7,887 points was an astounding 912 points more than that of second-place finisher and fellow American Milt Campbell, who won the event four years later. Never defeated in the decathlon, Mathias was a four-time national champion in the grueling ten-event challenge.
Also a star fullback for the Stanford football team, he played in the 1952 Rose Bowl, making him the only person ever to compete in that event and an Olympics in the same year.
After his competitive days, Mathias was a member of the U.S. Congress from 1967 to 1975, and from 1977 to 1983 he was director of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. A movie about his life "The Bob Mathias Story," was produced in 1954, with Mathias starring in the lead role. He was elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 and the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1974.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6, at the Tulare United Methodist Church in Tulare, Calif.
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