Bob Richards biography
Bob Richards, byname of Robert Eugene Richards, (born February 20, 1926, Champaign, Illinois, U.S.), American athlete, the primary pole-vaulter to win two Olympic gold medals. Sportswriters referred to as him “the Vaulting Vicar” as a result of he was an ordained minister.
Richards was concerned with athletics from boyhood, collaborating in diving and tumbling earlier than taking on the pole vault in junior highschool. He was additionally a soccer quarterback in highschool. After a troublesome adolescence and the breakup of his residence by divorce, he was reared by a minister within the Church of the Brethren. He started his larger training in 1944 at Bridgewater College (Virginia), the place he performed basketball and continued pole vaulting, after which transferred to the University of Illinois, the place he acquired his A.B. diploma in 1947. He had turn out to be a Brethren minister in 1946 and in 1948 acquired his M.A. from Illinois.
Richards received or tied within the pole vault at Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) meets 9 occasions (1948–57). In the identical interval he additionally received eight indoor championships. He was the second particular person ever to pole vault over 15 toes (4.6 metres), a feat he achieved in 1947. At the 1948 Olympic Games in London, he received a bronze medal, and he received his first gold medal on the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, repeating this accomplishment on the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. He additionally received decathlon championships within the 1951 and 1954–55 AAU meets. He acquired the James E. Sullivan award in 1951 for excellent newbie athlete.
Richards retired from athletics in 1957 and have become a spokesman for Wheaties cereal. He taught sociology on the University of Illinois within the late Nineteen Forties and later was a member of the school of La Verne College (California; now University of La Verne) in addition to holding pulpits within the Church of the Brethren. Richards additionally grew to become concerned in politics, and he was the Populist Party’s presidential candidate within the 1984 election; he acquired roughly 66,000 votes. His autobiography, Heart of a Champion, was printed in 1959.