RAFER JOHNSON DIES AT 86
• Rafer Johnson was first Black captain of a U.S. Olympic team, decathlon champion at the 1960 Olympics and a leader of the Special Olympics. He died Wednesday.
Rafer Johnson, who carried the American f lag into Rome’s Olympic Stadium in August 1960 as the first Black captain of a United States Olympic team and went on to win gold in a memorable decathlon duel, bringing him acclaim as the world’s greatest all-around athlete, died Wednesday at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles.
He was 86.
Michael Roth, a family friend and spokesman, confirmed the death.
Johnson never competed after that decathlon triumph. He became a goodwill ambassador for the United States and a close associate of the Kennedy family, taking a leadership role in the Special Olympics, which were championed by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and joining Robert F. Kennedy’s entourage during Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968. He was remembered especially for helping to wrestle the senator’s assassin to the ground in Los Angeles in 1968.
Johnson’s national profile was largely molded at the 1960 Olympics, one of the most celebrated in the history of the Games, a moment when a host of Black athletes — including Muhammad Ali
(then known as Cassius Clay), Wilma Rudolph and Oscar Robertson — burst triumphantly onto the world stage.
Johnson had been chosen to speak on behalf of the American Olympians at a sendoff rally at City Hall in New York.
He “f lawlessly called out the names of the dozens of teammates who stood at his side,” David Maraniss wrote in “Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World” (2008). “He had a firm grasp of the occasion, and team officials took notice. His performance in New York, along with his stature as the gold medal favorite in the decathlon, convinced the officials that Johnson should be the U.S. captain in Rome and the first black athlete to carry the U.S. f lag at an Olympic opening ceremonies.”
Johnson’s narrow decathlon victory over C.K. Yang of Taiwan and UCLA, a good friend, provided a thrilling moment in its own right.
Johnson, a 25-year-old graduate of UCLA and a chiseled 6 feet 3 inches and 200 pounds, was the favorite going into the two-day decathlon, a 10-event test of versatility, strength, speed and endurance. He had won silver in the decathlon at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, where he was injured in training, finishing behind Milt Campbell of the U.S. He had bested Vasily Kuznetsov of the Soviet Union
at a meet at Lenin Stadium in Moscow in 1958, inspiring spectators to put aside Cold War issues and cheer his achievement. And he scored a worldrecord 8,683 points in the decathlon at the 1960 Olympic track and field trials in Oregon.
But he faced a stiff challenge in Rome from the 27year-old Yang, who was representing Formosa, the Olympic designation at the time for Taiwanese athletes. Both were trained by Elvin “Ducky” Drake, the UCLA track and field coach.
The decathlon duel was decided in its final event, the 1,500 meters, in which Yang was especially strong. Johnson, leading on points, didn’t have to win the event to capture the gold medal, but he did need to finish within 10 seconds of Yang.
“I planned to stick with him like a buddy in combat,” John
son told The Los Angeles Times in 1990. “I had one other advantage, and I don’t think C.K. knew this at the time. This was my last decathlon. I was prepared to run as fast as I had to in this last race of my life.”
Yang, who died in 2007, recalled, “I knew he would never let go of me unless he collapsed.” Johnson finished 1.2 seconds behind Yang, good enough to capture gold, with Yang getting silver and Kuznetsov capturing bronze.
Johnson met Robert Kennedy at an awards ceremony soon after the Rome Games and became part of the senator’s campaign for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.
Rafer Lewis Johnson was born on Aug. 18, 1934, in Hillsboro, Texas, south of Dallas, to Lewis and Alma (Gibson) Johnson. The family went to California when Rafer was a youngster and eventually settled in Kingsburg.
Johnson excelled in football, basketball and baseball as well as track and field in high school, but he focused on the decathlon, inspired by seeing the Olympic gold-medalist Bob Mathias in action in nearby Tulare.
He entered UCLA in 1954 and played for the renowned coach John Wooden’s basketball team there while training for decathlons. He also became president of the student body.
Johnson married Elizabeth Thorsen in 1971. She survives him, along with his brother Jimmy Johnson, a former cornerback for the San Francisco 49ers and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame; two children, Jennifer Johnson Jordan, who was a member of the U.S. women’s beach volleyball team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is now a volleyball coach at UCLA, and Josh Johnson; and four grandchildren.
Johnson’s final moment in the Olympic spotlight came when he climbed a precarious 99 steps at the Los Angeles Coliseum to light the caldron for the 1984 Games.
“I was, in a sense, an Olympian again, preparing to will my body to do something exceptional,” he wrote in his memoir. “Was I concerned about making it to the top of the stairs? Yes. Was I thinking about whether I might trip or fall? Yes. Did I have any doubt that I would come through? No.”