Johnson was a standout student and played football, basketball, baseball and track and field at Kingsburg Joint Union High. It was less than 25 miles from Tulare, the hometown of Mathias, who would win the decathlon at the 19 Olympics and prove an early inspiration to Johnson.

They eventually settled in Kingsburg, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. Although some sources cite Johnson's birth year as 1935, the family has said that is incorrect. 18, 1934, in Hillsboro, Texas, he moved to California in 1945 with his family, including his brother Jim, a future NFL Hall of Fame inductee. Johnson later called the assassination ''one of the most devastating moments in my life.''īorn Rafer Lewis Johnson on Aug. Johnson joined former NFL star Rosey Grier and journalist George Plimpton in apprehending Sirhan Sirhan moments after he shot Kennedy, who died the next day. On June 5, 1968, Johnson was working on Kennedy's presidential campaign when the Democratic candidate was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. At a welcome home meet afterward in Kingsburg, California, he set his first world record, breaking the mark of two-time Olympic champion and his childhood hero Bob Mathias. Johnson won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1955 while competing in just his fourth decathlon.

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