Mathias, "Bob" (Robert B.)
Track and Field
b. Nov. 19, 1930, Tulare, CA
d. Sept. 2, 2006
After he became the youngest person ever to win a gold medal in the decathlon at the 1948 Olympics, Mathias was asked what he would do to celebrate. The seventeen-year-old replied, "I'll start shaving, I guess."
Mathias averaged almost 9 yards a carry in football and 18 points a game in basketball during his high school years. At a high school track meet, he once won the shot, discus, and high hurdles, anchored the winning sprint relay team, and finished second in the high jump. His track coach suggested he should try the decathlon, even though it isn't usually a high school event. A month later, Mathias won his first competition, the Pacific Coast Games, and two weeks after that he finished first in the Olympic trials, beating Irving Mondschein, a three-time national champion.
At the 1948 Games, Mathias was the youngest member ever of a U. S. Olympic track team. He was in third place after the first day of competition, but he took the lead with a discus throw of 144 feet, 4 inches on the second day and still held the lead after finishing the 1,500-meter run at 10:35 that night.
When he returned to his hometown, the plane had to circle the airport until the runway was cleared of the crowds who had come to welcome him back. Mathias won the Sullivan Award as the nation's outstanding amateur athlete for his feat. He also received more than two hundred marriage proposals.
He enrolled at Stanford University after graduating from high school. A fullback on the football team, he played in the 1952 Rose Bowl, a 40-7 loss to Illinois, and then finished first in the Olympic decathlon trials again.
At 6-foot 3 and 205 pounds, Mathias was 3 inches taller and 15 pounds heavier than he had been in 1948, and this time he won the gold medal easily, setting a world record of 7,887 despite a badly pulled thigh muscle. His margin of victory, more than 900 points, is the largest in Olympic decathlon history.
Mathias won all 11 decathlons he entered, including the AAU national championships from 1948 through 1950 and in 1952. He appeared in four movies, including The Bob Mathias Story, in which he played himself, served as a U. S. Congressman, and then became director of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.