V 13 N. 25 Rev. Bob Richards R.I.P. at age 97

 

This picture appeared in today's NY Times 

no idea who took it.

Bob Richards, born Feb. 20, 1926 in Champaign, Illinois,   died Feb. 26, 2023 in Waco, Texas.

The oldest Olympic track and field gold medalist has moved on.   Rev. Bob Richards,  first athlete on a Wheaties box,  the only male  two time gold medalist , as well as a bronze in the event.   Not to forget that Yelena Isibayeva won three Olympic pole vault medals as well.   He was only two time gold medalist in the pole vault, at a time when "Men and poles were made of steel" and sometimes aluminum.   He also competed in the decathlon and was 13th in Melbourne in 1956.  He won three US decathlon championships.  In the Pan American Games he won the pole vault in 1951 and 1955 and won the silver in the decathlon in 1955.He won the James E. Sullivan Award in 1951 as the top amateur sportsman in the US.  He became a promoter of physical fitness for adults and in 1970 crossed the US by bicycle to back that philosophy.  

Bob Richards first attended college at Bridgewater College in Virginia.  Bridgewater was affiliated to his faith The Church of the Brethren.  He later transferred to the University of Illinois and received a BA in 1946 and an MA in 1947.

He was possibly the only American Olympian to run for president doing that  on the Populist Party ticket.  I don't know what his politics were, but I imagine they were a bit conservative.  Conservative?  Wow I just looked up the party platform.   Running against Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale in 1984, the Populist Party espoused 

1. Abolishing personal income tax.

2. Cutting federal budget in half.

3. Repudiating the national debt.

4. Deporting illegal immigrants.

5. Denying right to vote to anyone on welfare for more than one year.

He got about 60,000 votes.  Not really a dent in the other two parties.

David Duke was the next candidate for the Populists.

Richards later became a member of the American Freedom Party from 2010 to 2020.

Bob Richards definitely dabbled in a number of things trying to find a niche after his athletic career.  I think he even made a self financed western film at one time.  A number of his sons and a grandson followed him in the event.  One son, Brandon set the national high school vault record at 18' 2" and held it for 14 years.    I can only guess that he had a vaulting pit on his property.   

Photo by J. R. Epernium  from Life Picture Collection

The Wheaties Box ran from 1958 to 1970

Early Wheaties Ad with Bob Richards   link

Bob Richards' best vault was 15' 6".  He cleared 15 feet 125 times.   He worked for CBS, NBC, and ABC reporting on several Olympic Games including Rome, Innsbruck, Tokyo, and Montreal.  He was also a noted motivational speaker giving over 12,000 speeches.

He was voted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975.  His autobiography was "The Heart of a Champion" published in 1959.  In later years he lived in Santo, Texas on a ranch called The Crossbar Ranch.  In later years he retired to Waco, Texas where he died.

                                                     Here's Bob Richards with our previous subject

                                                                         Jim Thorpe on the Wheaties Box

I think I've gone into detail on Bob Richards more than my usual because he had some influence on me as a young track and field athlete.  Somehow I acquired his autobiography as a 14 year old, and my Uncle Louis knew of my interest and  took me to hear him speak at a Kiwanis or Rotary gathering in Dayton about 1960.  It was in a huge banquet room in the Biltmore Hotel.   I took the book with me and went up to him afterward and he signed it, "To my wonderful friend,  George Brose.  Rev. Bob Richards".  He held the book up in the air to show some of the Rotary types standing around.   The book is long gone but the memory is still with me.  

I also recall that during his speech a large banner in paper welcoming him to Dayton, came unglued and fell down off the wall behind him and he was able to make a joke about it and got the audience laughing with him. I think he feigned talking to the Lord.   He then went on to tell a joke about his own church,  The Church of the Brethren.  They are sometimes known as Dunkards or Dunkers because of their belief in full emersion baptism.  The old order Brethren were commonly seen in the rural areas north of Dayton.  They dress much like the Amish, men with beards but no moustache, wide brim hats, and women with long dresses and bonnets,  and although they drove automobiles, the cars had to be black and all the chrome removed from the body.   I think Bob was not an old order Dunkard.   But getting into his story,  he related how a pastor from the church was working in a field and a man who had been obviously drinking heavily came up to him and started carrying on about something.   The pastor, somewhat shocked responded with,  "Sir, I'm a Dunkard pastor."   The inebriated fellow came back with a slur,   "You know, Sir, that's the same thing your neighbor just called me."   Anyway that brought the house down.  My last memory of the Reverend is a two part tv show in the 1950's where he competed one on one, head to head, mano a mano , Bob vs. Bob, in the decathlon with Bob Mathias. It was held indoors at the US Naval Academy.   Mathias may already have been in Congress at the time and not in very good shape.  I just recall that the Rev. Bob won the contest with his strong run in the 1500 meters.   And those are my stories.   George Brose

The football coach at my high school in Socal played at USC and used to show Bob Richards motivational movies and then NFL top collisions to the team before games!   Mike Solomon

Dear George:

Always nice to see a conservative with a sense of humor.  Thom Coyne

George:

My father and brother attended that talk by Bob Richards in Dayton.  I'm not surprised he came to Dayton because the Church of the Brethren, later the Evangelical United Brethren, had their national headquarters on Salem Ave. in Dayton.  They were centered north and west of Dayton with many in Trotwood, New Lebanon, West Alexandria, Englewood, etc.  I doubt Bob was an Old Order Brethren but he was very conservative all his life, probably becoming more so with his move to Texas, especially Waco.  He was one of the few T&F athletes with an overall sports following, possibly because he was also a pastor but certainly a result of his good looks and clean-cut style.

Bill Schnier

George

I was on the team that landed the Wheaties account away from Knox Henderson in Minneapolis. It was the only General Mills cereal we didn’t have until that time, and I became the Account Executive on it. The advertising press plastered the image of me going over a hurdle created by the OU (Oklahoma U.) sports press department. Our president was pleased as punch and called to congratulate me. But I had never heard his voice and had to ask who he was.

I got a lot of mileage out of that assignment. Met famous athletes, like Hank Aaron, and sports broadcasters such as Curt Gowdy and Marty Feldman, a legend in New York. Got tickets to sporting events. It was fun. SVM