This gets me riled up. They just announced the 2009 inductees into the California Hall of Fame and Tulare's Bob Mathias isn't one of them. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver unveiled the list of 2009 inductees Tuesday.
Mathias was considered the best athlete in the world at age 17 after winning the decathlon in the 1948 Olympics. The world stood still watching the high schooler win the Olympics. He repeated in the 1952 Olympics. He later played football at Stanford, and they made a movie of his life. He played himself in the movie. Mathias served in Congress and later was the director of the United States Olympic Training Center.
The Bee's editorial board complained last year about the lack of Valley representation in the California Hall and suggested Mathias, Olympic champion Rafer Johnson, author William Saroyan, baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver and astronaut Barbara Morgan, the first teacher in space. This year, they selected Rafer Johnson, so we made some progress in raising the awareness of state Hall of Fame.
Here are this year's inductees: Entertainer Carol Burnett, former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, governor and U.S. senator Hiram Johnson, decathlete and philanthropist Rafer Johnson, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, philanthropist and peace activist Joan Kroc, film-maker George Lucas, football commentator John Madden, gay rights advocate Harvey Milk, artist Fritz Scholder, author Danielle Steel, fitness and bodybuilding pioneer Joe Weider, and Air Force test pilot General Chuck Yeager.
I didn’t realize this! This is unconscionable! I have this strange feeling - that in Democrat California, this has to do with his being a Republican!
My guess he or another worthy candidate was probably sacrificed so that Governor Swcharzenegger put pinch in Harvey Milk to appease AB 2567 supporters that he disappointed by not signing an identical bill last year.
TC if Mathias was kept out for being Republican then why did Hiram Johnson, Rafer Johnson, Fritz Scholder, Danielle Steel, Chuck Yeager, all Republicans make it in? You need to take a lesson fro the newly inducted hall of famer John Madden who said, "I judge people by their merits not their part affiliation."
I am not so naive that "who you know" tends to have an impact on who gets in each time; however party affiliation has little to do with it.
What do you expect??
He'll get in. Look for him next year. We interviewed him for a story that ran on MedWatch. Real nice guy.
And....when I played high school football in Orange County (southern California), we always watched an inspirational film Friday afternoon before our game that night. One week we watched the Bob Mathias Story. I still remember it. "Follow through Bob."