Bob Mathias

Robert Bruce Mathias (November 17 1930 - September 2 2006) was an American decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and United States Congressman.

Early life and athletic career

Robert Bruce Mathias was born in Tulare, California and took up the decathlon at the suggestion of his coach, Virgil Jackson, at Tulare High School early in 1948. During the summer, he qualified for the United States Olympic team for the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London.

In the Olympics, Mathias' naïveté for the decathlon was exposed [http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-mathias3sep03,1,7694410.story?coll=la-news-obituaries] . He was unaware of the rules in the shot put and nearly fouled out of the event. He almost failed in the high jump but was able to recover. Mathias overcame his difficulties and won the Olympic gold medal easily. He was the youngest gold medalist to win a track and field event.

Mathias continued to fare well in decathlons in the four years between the London games and the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. In 1948, Mathias won the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete, but because his scholastic record in high school did not match his athletic achievement, he spent a year at The Kiski School, a well respected all boys boarding school in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania. He then entered Stanford University in 1949, played college football for two years and was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Mathias set his first decathlon world record in 1950 and led Stanford to a Rose Bowl appearance in 1952.

At Helsinki, Mathias asserted himself as one of the world's best athletes. He won the decathlon by 912 points, an astounding margin, becoming the first to successfully defend an Olympic decathlon title. He returned to the United States as a national hero. In 1952, he was, therefore, the first person to ever compete in an Olympics and a Rose Bowl the same year.

After the 1952 Olympics, Mathias retired from athletic competition. He later became the first director of the United States Olympic Training Center, a post he held from 1977 to 1983.

In 1954 a film about his early life called "The Bob Mathias Story" was released, in which he and his wife Melba played themselves. He also starred in a number of mostly cameo-type roles in a variety of movies and TV shows throughout the 1950s.

Political career

Between 1967 and 1975, Matthias served four terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican, representing the northern San Joaquin Valley of California. He defeated 14-year incumbent Democrat Harlan Hagen by 11 points in 1966. This was not surprising, as the area had started pulling away from its New Deal Democratic roots.

Mathias was reelected three times without serious difficulty. However, in 1974, his district was radically altered in a mid-decade redistricting. Most of the more rural parts of his district were cut out and replaced with a portion of Fresno. He was narrowly defeated by Fresno County Supervisor John Hans Krebs, one of several Republicans to be swept out in the wake of the Watergate scandal. From June through August 1975 he served as Deputy Director of the Selective Service. Mathias was also involved in the unsuccessful 1976 presidential election campaign of president Gerald Ford.

He died in Fresno on September 2 2006 at the age of 75 from cancer.

Timeline

ee also

*Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

References

*"The Bob Mathias Story" by Bob Mathias with Robert Mendes;
*"Bob Mathias, Champion of Champions," by Jim Scott;
*"Bob Mathias: The Life of the Olympic Champion," by Myron Tassin;
*"Bob Mathias, Across the Fields of Gold," by Chris Terrence;
*Tulare Historical Museum;
*Wangrin, Mark (1999). "Bob Mathias: Youth Is Served". In "ESPN SportsCentury". Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: Hyperion-ESPN Books. p. 146.
*Advance-Register archives and staff reports.

External links

* [http://www.bobmathias.com The Official Bob Mathias Website]
* [http://www.usatf.org/athletes/hof/mathias.asp Bob Mathias biography at USA Track and Field]
* [http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016202.html Boy-wonder Mathias elevated decathlon] ESPN.com, 2005.
* [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/09/02/obit.mathias.ap/index.html?cnn=yes Mathias dead at 75,] Sports Illustrated.com, September 2 2006
* [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000242 United States Congress Biographical Information for Bob Mathias] , retrieved September 3 2006
* [http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-02-obit-mathias_x.htm Former congressman Bob Mathias dies at 75] , USA Today retrieved September 5 2007
*findagrave|15589623 Retrieved on 2008-02-24