Bob Mathias - Timeline

Timeline

Year	Comment
November 17, 1930	Bob Mathias was born, the second of four children (including older brother Eugene, younger brother James, and younger sister Patricia), to Dr. Charles and Lillian Mathias.
1948	At age seventeen, graduated from Tulare high school after an illustrious high school athletic career in football and track and field. Wins National Decathlon Championship at Bloomfield, N.J. He qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team and went on to win gold medal in decathlon at the Summer Olympic Games in London, England. After huge celebration and parade in Tulare, presented with "Key to the City" by Mayor Elmo Zumwalt. Enrolls at Kiskiminetas Prep School, Saltsburg, Pa. Honored with the James E. Sullivan Award, presented each year to America's top amateur athlete.
1949	Won National Decathlon Championship at meet held in Tulare. Enrolled at Stanford University, where he starred in track and field and in gridiron football.
1950	Won National Decathlon Championship at a meet held in Tulare.
1951	On New Year's Day, he played fullback for Stanford University in the Rose Bowl. Mathias played football during junior and senior years at Stanford. In the University of Southern California vs. Stanford football game, Mathias returned U.S.C.'s Frank Gifford's kick-off 96 yards for a touchdown. Spent the summer at U.S. Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego, California.
1952	Won the National Decathlon Championship and Olympic Trials at meet held in Tulare. Won the Olympic Gold Medal in the decathlon at Helsinki, Finland, setting a record for points scored in a decathlon.
1953	Graduated from Stanford. Drafted by the Washington Redskins, though he never played in National Football League.
1954	Married his first wife, Melba. They later had three daughters, Romel, Megan, and Marissa. Mathias and his wife starred in the movie "The Bob Mathias Story." Entered active duty in the Marine Corps as a Second Lieutenant.
1954-56	Visited more than forty countries as America's Good Will Ambassador.
1956-60	Continued work for the State Department as a Good Will Ambassador to the world. Acting career took off, employed by John Wayne's Batjac Productions. Starred in the movie "China Doll" with Victor Mature, the TV series "The Troubleshooters" with Keenan Wynn, as King Theseus in the movie "Theseus and the Minotaur" and in the movie "It Happened in Athens," opposite Jayne Mansfield.
1966	Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican, serving four two-year terms.
1974	Lost his re-election for fifth term.
1976	Mathias and wife, Melba, divorced.
1977	Appointed director of U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Bob and Gwendoyln Alexander married. Gwen has one daughter Alyse, from a prior marriage to Bill Alexander, former U.S. Congressman. Bob also has a son, Reiner, from a prior relationship. Tulare high school stadium renamed in Mathias's honor.
1983	Appointed executive director of the National Fitness Foundation.
1988	Returned to the Central Valley, in rural Fresno County.
1996	Olympian Sim Iness died. He was Mathias's high school classmate and teammate and the winner of the Gold Medal in the discus throw during the 1952 Olympic Games. Doctors discovered a cancerous tumor in Mathias's throat.
June 6, 1998	"Across the Fields of Gold," a tribute dinner honoring Mathias on the 50th anniversary of his first Olympic medal, was held in Tulare. More than 300 people from throughout the state attended, including Olympic medal-winners Sammy Lee, Bill Toomey, Dave Johnson and Pat McCormick, and Sim Iness' widow, Dolores.