USA Olympic Gold Medalist Rafer Johnson Dies at Age 86

Olympic gold medalist, NFL draftee and college basketball player Rafer Johnson died on Wednesday at the age of 86. The LA84 Foundation—of which Johnson was a founding member—announced the news.

Johnson won the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics, played basketball for head coach John Wooden during his time at UCLA and showed enough as an athlete to convince the Los Angeles Rams to draft him as a running back in 1959. 

"Our sense of loss is only eclipsed by the gratitude we will always feel for the opportunity to work so closely with Rafer," Peter Ueberroth, CEO of the 1984 Summer Olympics, said (via Reuters). "He embodied the Olympic Movement. There are so many lives he touched and improved as a true hero who cared deeply for others. Each day we are focused on honoring his legacy."

Reuters noted Ueberroth chose Johnson—who helped found the LA84 Foundation—to light the torch for the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

While Johnson was best known for his gold medal, which landed him on the covers of Time and Sports Illustrated and helped him win the AAU James E. Sullivan Award as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States, he also worked for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign and was a civil rights leader.

In fact, he was one of those who subdued Sirhan Sirhan after he assassinated Kennedy.

He also acted following his athletics career, appearing in Bond film License to Kill and Elvis Presley's Wild in the Country, as well as episodes of Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man and Dragnet 1967.

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti reacted to Johnson's death, saying he was "one of the greatest people I have ever known—an athlete without peer, an eyewitness to history and a leader in making it, a founder of the Special Olympics, a champion for justice and our city."

UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block wrote a message to the "Bruin Community" praising Johnson for his athletic achievements and his "truly outstanding qualities of character."

Block wrote, "The poverty and racial discrimination he suffered as an African American child fueled his racial justice activism as an adult and contributed to the highly developed sense of compassion that led him to help found the Special Olympics in California."

Johnson is survived by his wife Betsy, daughter Jennifer Ann Johnson Jordan, son Joshua Ray Johnson and son-in-law Kevin Jordan.