Bob Mathias

Mathias was born in Tulare, California, to a family with partial Greek lineage. He attended Tulare Union High School, 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 with superior pole vault and javelin scores was able to push past Ignace Heinrich to win the Olympic gold medal. At age 17, he became the youngest gold medalist in a track and field event. Mathias continued to succeed in decathlons in the four years between the London games and the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. In 1952, he was the first person to compete in an Olympics and a Rose Bowl the same year. After the 1952 Olympics, Mathias retired from athletic competition. ==Post college==

After graduating from Stanford in 1953 with a BA in education, Mathias spent two and a half years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was promoted to the rank of captain and was honorably discharged. In 1960, he also appeared as an athletic Theseus in an Italian "peplum," or sword-and-sandal, film: Minotaur, the Wild Beast of Crete. ==Political career==

Between 1967 and 1975, Mathias served four terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican, representing the northern San Joaquin Valley of California. Mathias was re-elected three times without serious difficulty, but in 1974, his Congressional district was significantly redrawn in a mid-decade state redistricting plan. Renumbered as the 17th, Mathias's district acquired a large section of Fresno while losing several rural areas. Mathias was narrowly defeated for re-election by John Hans Krebs, a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. Mathias was one of several Republicans swept out of office in the wake of the Watergate scandal. From June to August 1975, Mathias served as the deputy director of the Selective Service. Mathias was also a regional director in the unsuccessful 1976 presidential election campaign of Gerald Ford. ==Death==

Bob Mathias was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, and died from it in Fresno, California on September 2, 2006, at age 75. He is interred at Tulare Cemetery in Tulare, California. He was survived by wife Gwen, daughters Romel, Megan, Marissa, stepdaughter Alyse Alexander, son Reiner, brothers Eugene and Jim, and sister Patricia Guerrero. ==Timeline==

Information from World Athletics profile unless otherwise noted. ==Filmography==