Former Pasadenan Rafer Johnson Dies At 86

The Olympic Torch at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be lit through sundown today in memory of 1960 Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson, who famously lit the torch to open the 1984 Summer Olympic Games.

Johnson died Wednesday at his home in Sherman Oaks. He was 86.

Beyond his decorated athletic career, Johnson gained fame for helping to capture Sirhan Sirhan, a former Pasadena resident, after the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968. 

Johnson came to Pasadena in 2014 when Pasadena was named a host town for the 2015 Special Olympics World Games which he co-founded in 1969.

Then-Mayor Bill Bogaard presented the organization with the key to the city.

Johnson was also renowned for his sportsmanship and civic generosity.

“Rafer’s career and accomplishments are widely and rightly

Celebrated. But beyond the headlines and medals, what distinguishes him in my eyes are the truly outstanding qualities of character I have witnessed in him,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

“I will always remember his genuine warmth and compassion, his driving sense of civic responsibility, and his unwavering commitment to service and the well-being of others,” Block said.

Johnson was hailed as the “World’s Greatest Athlete” after winning the grueling 10-event decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics, where he also broke social barriers as the first Black flagbearer for the United States team. 

Born Aug. 18, 1934 in Hillsboro, Texas, Johnson was the second of six children of farmworkers Alma Gibson Johnson and Lewis Johnson. They moved to California when he was still a boy, relocating to the town of Kingsburg in the San Joaquin Valley, where they were the only Black family.

Johnson and his siblings picked cotton when they weren’t in school, and he said in his 1998 biography that he believed the hard work made him strong and gave him and his brother the discipline to be successful athletes.

His sibling, Jimmy, played for the San Francisco 49ers and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In high school, Johnson lettered in football, baseball, basketball and track and field. At UCLA, he was a starting forward on its basketball team for the 1958-59 season, leading the team in shooting percentage, the first qualifying player in school history to shoot better than 50 percent for a season.

Johnson was the first Black man at UCLA to join a national fraternity, Pi Lambda Phi, and was elected student body president.

At UCLA, he became friends and rivals with teammate Chuan-Kwang “C.K.”’ Yang of Taiwan, and the pair’s finish after their two-day battle in the Rome Olympics — ending with Johnson winning the gold by 58 points and setting the Olympic record — is widely considered one of the most memorable moments in Olympic history.

UCLA Athletics mourned the loss of the legendary Bruin, who received the UCLA Medal — the university’s highest award — in 2016.

“We are devastated by the news of the passing of Rafer Johnson,” a statement from UCLA Athletics said. “Words cannot sufficiently express what Rafer means to this athletic department, to this university and to our grater community.

“A true humanitarian, Rafer’s profound impact transcends sport. He will be forever remembered not only for his historic athletic achievements, but also for his heart and for the tremendous example he has set for all Bruins.”

Johnson also won the decathlon gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1955, earning himself an appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” In the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where he was the favorite, an injury set him back, but he still pulled through with a silver medal.

And in 1958, during the Cold War, Johnson faced off against world record holder Vasili Kuznetsoz in a U.S.-USSR track meet in Moscow, where he beat Kuznetsov and set another world record. And, despite the tensions of the time, the Soviet fans rushed the field and raised him on their shoulders as they shouted his name.

Sports Illustrated selected him as the 1958 Sportsman of the Year after that meet. He also was named the Associated Press Athlete of the Year and won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s outstanding amateur athlete in 1960.

Johnson’s other honors include selection to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame, Pac-12 Hall of Honor, and being a charter member of the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame. He was 53rd on ESPN’s list of the 100 greatest North American athletes of the 20th century.

Johnson drew headlines of an entirely different sort for teaming with football player Rosey Grier and journalist George Plimpton to tackle Sirhan after he shot Kennedy on June 5, 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel.

Sirhan graduated from John Muir High School.

Johnson, who had been working on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, served as a pallbearer at his funeral.

That year, Johnson began collaborating with Kennedy’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, to grow the Special Olympics, which she founded.

“Over the past 50 years, Rafer was involved in guiding Special

Olympics and spreading acceptance and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities throughout Southern California and the world,” the organization said in a written statement issued Wednesday. “Today we lost one of the biggest champions for people with intellectual disabilities.”

The two-time Olympian also served on the executive committee of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and was a founding member of the LA84 Foundation for youth sports, formed after the 1984 games. The foundation supports Southern California youth sports organizations through grants and funding facilities and fields of play, while also training coaches, commissioning research and speaking out about the role of sports in positive youth development.

 Johnson is survived by Elizabeth “Betsy” Thorsen, his wife of 49 years, and two children, Jennifer Johnson Jordan and Joshua Johnson, along with four grandchildren. 

His daughter, a beach volleyball player, competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is a coach for UCLA’s beach volleyball team. His son competed in javelin at UCLA, where he was an All-American.

A private memorial service was being planned. The Johnson family requested that anyone wishing to make a donation in his honor do so through the Special Olympics Southern California Rafer Johnson Tribute Fund; the UCLA Athletics Rafer Johnson Endowment Fund; or the Play Equity Foundation’s Rafer Johnson Impact Fund.