Robert “Bob” Eugene Richards, three-time Olympian and two-time Olympic gold medalist in the pole vault, passed away at his home in Waco, Texas at the age of 97, Sunday, February 26, 2023
Visitation: 7 – 9PM Thursday, March 9 at Lake Shore Funeral Home.
Funeral Service: 10AM Friday, March 10 at Lake Shore Funeral Home.CLICK HERE to view the Live Stream of the service.
Burial: Waco Memorial Park.
Born February 20, 1926 in Champaign, Illinois to Leslie and Margaret (Palfrey) Richards, Bob was the third of five children and became interested in athletics from boyhood. Gifted five dollars by a shopkeeper to join the YMCA, Bob participated in basketball, diving, and football, taking up pole vaulting in junior high school. He built a pit in his backyard, jumping over a crossbar set between a tree limb and telephone pole.
Bob attended Champaign Central High School, where he quarterbacked the football team and graduated in 1943. He began his higher education at Bridgewater College in Virginia, where he played basketball and continued vaulting. Under the guidance of his mentor, Dr. Merlin Garber, Bob became an ordained Brethren minister in 1946, then transferred to the University of Illinois, receiving his Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1947 and Master of Arts Degree in 1948. While working on his doctorate at his alma mater, Bob held a fellowship in philosophy and became an instructor of sociology in 1949. He was an instructor of philosophy of religion at Bethany Biblical Seminary in Chicago in 1950 and assistant professor of philosophy, logic, psychology, and church history at La Verne College in California that year. He received honorary doctorate degrees from the Northwood Institute (1972), Johnson & Wales College (1979), and Bridgewater College (1981).
Bob met his first wife, Mary Leah Cline, at Bethany Biblical Seminary in 1946 and fell in love after hearing her sing. Mary had a voice like an angel, studied music, and performed in churches and organizations throughout the community. They married soon after, and as wife and mother, Mary was the quiet, strong presence keeping the home fires burning with their children, Carol, Bobby, and Paul, while Bob studied, trained, and traveled.
Known as the “Vaulting Vicar” and “Pole Vaulting Parson,” Bob won a bronze medal in the pole vault at the 1948 Olympic Games in London and captured his first gold medal at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. Four years later, he successfully defended his title at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, making him the only man to win two Olympic gold medals in the pole vault. Bob won the Pan American Games in 1951 and 1955 and made the U.S. Olympic decathlon team in 1956.
Bob won 20 A.A.U. championships indoors and outdoors, including 17 in the pole vault and three in the decathlon. He won the 1951 A.A.U. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the U.S., a crowning achievement. By all accounts, Bob was “one of the most dominating athletes of his time, leaping as high as 15 feet 6 inches with a stiff metal pole.”
Bob was the first athlete to appear on the front of Wheaties cereal boxes and was Director of the Wheaties Sports Federation, promoting physical fitness through sports. Bob was a presenter for Wheaties for fourteen years, coining the phrase “Breakfast of Champions,” and on the “Bob Richards Fitness Crusade,” he bicycled 3,300 miles from Los Angeles to New York to stimulate national interest in physical fitness.
Bob met his second wife, Vonda Joan Beaird, a singer and actress who played Kookie’s girlfriend on 77 Sunset Strip, when she auditioned for a role in a film Bob was producing. They wed in 1970 and Joan was by Bob’s side as they traveled the country and the world. “Joni” as she was affectionately named, was a gourmet cook and impressive businesswoman, equally comfortable speaking to large groups, and they complimented each other perfectly. They had three children, Brandon, Tommy, and Tammy, and of all the roles Joan played, it was her role as wife, mother, and grandmother that made her most proud.
From pulpit to dais, Bob was a commander of motivational speaking and was the first speaker to use illustrative stories from sports to inspire and motivate others. He delivered 12,000 speeches to corporate sales forces, civic organizations, and more than seven million high school students. His filmed speeches were sent out by General Mills for free to schools and institutions when Bob could not make it in person, and his speech films were viewed around the world.
Bob was a reporter for NBC, CBS, and ABC on the Olympic Games in Rome, Innsbruck, Tokyo, and Montreal, and recorded 100 five-minute radio shows for NBC and CBS about the inspirational figures of sport. He filmed and produced the first Russia–U.S.A. dual track meet and ABC’s Wide World of Sports debuted in 1961 with Bob as field reporter. He played himself in Leap to Heaven, a film dramatization of his life for ABC’s Dupont Theatre, hosted a weekly children’s television program in Los Angeles, and was featured in numerous documentaries and television specials, including This is Your Life, America’s Greatest Olympians (TNT), and The Spirit of the Games (HBO).
Bob was inducted to the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975. He was inducted to the Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame in 1963, the Helms Hall of Fame in 1964, and the Illinois Hall of Fame the same year. He was an Olympic Torch Bearer for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta and named a member of the 100 Golden Olympians team, celebrating the hundred greatest Olympic athletes of all time. Bob was inducted as a Laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln by the Governor of Illinois in 2000, the state’s highest honor. He was a Golden Gavel Award recipient in 1979 and was inducted to the Speakers Hall of Fame in 1983.
Bob earned the Big 10 Conference Medal of Honor in 1947 for proficiency in athletics and scholastic work. He served as Goodwill Ambassador to Asia in 1954, was appointed to the President’s Council for Youth Fitness in 1956 and named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men in America in 1957. He developed the Junior Champ Program in 1964 for the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce, served as a member of the Advisory Conference on Physical Fitness and Sports in 1972 and represented President Nixon at the Olympic Games in Munich.
His book, The Heart of a Champion, was published in 1959 and became a national bestseller. Revell released the 50th Anniversary Edition in 2009.
A long-time rancher on his beloved Crossbar Ranch in Santo, TX, Bob continued to compete in masters athletics and passionately coached his sons and grandchildren who followed him into vaulting and decathlon. A classic car enthusiast and avid golfer, he retired to Waco in 2012, where he owned Lake Waco Golf Club. At his core, Bob was a family man who loved to sing, dance, and laugh. He was a voracious reader with a scholarly lens and an infinite motivator to vaulters training in his backyard or burgeoning young athletes he met on a track. To quote Bob from The Spirit of The Games: “If the winds of the stadiums could only speak.”
Bob was preceded in death by his father, Leslie; mother, Margaret; brother, Danny; sisters, Lucille and Shirley; wife, Joan; and mentor, Dr. Merlin Garber.
He is survived by his brother, Kenny; sons, Bobby and wife Cheryl, Paul and wife Cynthia, Brandon and wife Tammy, Thomas and wife Tonai; daughters, Carol and husband Bill, Tammy and husband, Eric; stepdaughter, Mindy Herring and husband Donny; stepson, Brian Birk and wife Kitrina; grandchildren, Chris, Steve, Tishri, Russell, Lauren, Paul, Jr., Riley, Kendall, Landon, Kalli, Talen, and Sterling; 19 great-grandchildren; and his cherished dog, Boy.
Place of Service: Lake Shore Funeral Home Chapel , 5201 Steinbeck Bend; Waco, TX 76708
Print Obituary & Condolences
We send our condolences to your family and we’re praying for you.
Keeping you and your family in our hearts with loving, healing thoughts & prayers.
Thinking of you all and praying for comfort through this very difficult time. Bob was an amazing man and I am so proud to say I knew him!
Love to the whole family!!
I send condolences to your family. His lovely daughter is a dear friend…Carol!! Love and prayers Sally Shaw
We send our condolences and prayers to all of the family.
Condolences & Prayers for the Family…Ron Ewing
To a friend, a fellow athlete but more importantly a man we adored and loved. Back in the early days of competition Don Bragg …he was a boy of 13 witnesses Bob at a Track Meet and told his Dad this is what I want to do. The rest is history. Bob became his mentor and tutor and he watched as his prodigy went on to become one of the greatest vaulters in aluminum alloy poles. Many a conversation between them on the ruining of vaulting with fiberglass. But through the years their bond became stronger. To his family I pray for your strength and you will always have the greatest memories of a sports legend. He was truly a GOAT. Family of Don “Tarzan” Bragg.
Remembering fun times with Bob and his Model”A” rumble seat car and carrying his pole in the Chicago Daily News
Relay Event !
with caring love– Don and Minnie Sandstedt
I had the pleasure of meeting Rev. Bob Richards at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, In. in 1952 where the Olympic Decatholon trials were being held. I was also able to obtain his autograph which has been lost. He also had time to talk to me as I was only 10 years old. Don Wilkinson 765-543-6079.
My thoughts and blessings are with the Richards’ family…Diane Jenkins Cox, niece
I send my condolences to the family of Bob Richards. What you may not have known, that doesn’t appear in his obituary, is that Bob was also a “seagoing cowboy” who helped take care of a load of horses and cattle sent to Greece by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) on the S.S. Virginian the end of June 1945. I’ve spent the past 20 years researching, writing, and speaking about the seagoing cowboys who helped deliver relief livestock to Europe following World War II, and it always makes me sad to lose another cowboy. I’m sorry that I was never able to speak with Bob about his experience. Members of his crew wrote a booklet about their trip, noting that Bob preached on two Sundays during the trip.
On another note, my husband has fond memories of Bob and his family staying at his home (the home of Gerald and Mary Miller) in Elkhart, Indiana, when Bob was speaker there for a week of revival meetings at the Elkhart Church of the Brethren. This would have been during the 1950s, and included a measles outbreak and quarantine.
I met Bob in 1975 at a conference where he was speaking in Orange County , CA with my boyfriend, a dear friend of Bob’s, Tony Conkle.
I’ll never forget as Bob was waiting to be introduced he and Tony were having a hand standing competition ! Both of these men were true lifetime athletes. I’ll never forget this experience. Love to you Conkle.