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Bob Richards was an Olympic gold medalist in pole vaulting who became the first athlete featured on the front of Wheaties cereal boxes.
The Vaulting Vicar
Richards was ordained as a minister in the Church of the Brethren in 1946. When he first came to prominence as he competed in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, the news media nicknamed him the Vaulting Vicar. Richards won a bronze medal in pole vault that year, but he would go on to win gold at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. This feat made him the only male athlete to date to win gold twice in pole vault. Richards also competed in the decathlon in 1956. After his Olympic career, he became the spokesman for Wheaties and was the first to be featured on the front of the box that would become famous for showcasing athletes. He worked as a pastor in later years, with his parishioners including a young Billie Jean King, and he ran for president in 1984 on the Populist Party ticket. Elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983, Richards was one of the carriers of the Olympic torch in advance of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Notable quote
“It’s in the striving, not in the winning—that’s the Olympics. It’s not in the gold medal, but in trying to be your best, in reaching out. If we can get the peoples of the world together and just sit down in a common athletic park, that is what the Olympics is all about.” —from a 1992 interview for the Los Angeles Times
Tributes to Bob Richards
Full obituary: Waco Tribune-Herald
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