THE VAULTING VICAR
Born Robert Eugene Richards (but always known as ‘Bob’), in Champaign, Illinois, he was the third of five children born to Leslie Richards and Margaret Palfrey. Leslie was a telegraph lineman.
Bob had a very unhappy childhood and his parents divorced when he was small. He began to run with gangs of thieves and robbers, and was soon in trouble with the law. Bob said five of his gang ultimately ended up in prison.
Bob was rescued by the local Minister who took him into his own home.
At High School, Bob was the Quarterback in the football team and the star of the basketball team. However, it was in athletics that he really excelled. His specialty was the pole vault, although Bob competed in the decathlon as well.
From childhood, Bob suffered a terrible stammer and constantly tried to overcome this difficulty.
In 1946, whilst a student at the University of Illinois, Bob married Mary Leah Cline, the daughter of his college President. They were to have three children, Paul, Robert Junior (a.k.a. Bob Junior) and Carol.
Bob completed his BA in 1947 and his MA the following year.
Whilst he was at university, Bob competed for the National Collegiate championship – and won the first of 20 American Athletic Union (AAU) titles – seventeen in the pole vault andthree in the decathlon.
Bob also became only the second man in history to clear fifteen feet in a pole vault (4.57 metres). The first was Cornelius ‘Dutch’ Warmerdam in 1942. Although ‘Dutch’ held the world record for many years, he was denied the opportunity to ever compete in the Olympic Games because of the outbreak of the Second World War.
Bob was selected for the American team to participate at the London Olympics in 1948. He won the bronze medal at the games in driving rain. “I was lucky to even place. I was competing with a slippery pole.”
In those days, vaulters used aluminum poles (although Dutch had used bamboo). The modern fibreglass poles were a long way off.
Bob was an extremely religious man and was ordained as a priest in the Church of the Brethren (Anabaptists), hoping that preaching in church would help cure his stammer.
He continued to compete as an athlete and earned the nickname, ‘The Vaulting Vicar’.
In 1951, Bob won the gold medal at the Pan American Games.
The following year, he was selected for the Helsinki Olympics. The Cold War was at its height, and this was the first games that Russia had competed in since the 1917 Communist revolution.
The Americans were very anti-Russian, so Bob’s four-hour struggle with Soviet vaulter Viktor Knyazev, gripped the nation. Bob won the gold medal and was lauded as America’s ‘Cold War Hero’.
However, the Russians also loved Bob. Every time he completed another jump, they all slapped him on the back and shouted, “Boot-iful, Boot-iful”.
At the end of competition, Knyazev gave Bob a big bear hug. This was heavily criticised in the USA, with some people accusing Bob of being a traitor and anti-American. He responded, “These people who want to wave the flag and play the band, that’s not the spirit of the Olympics. One day we’ll get out of all this flag waving and nationalism.”
Bob was also selected for the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, competing in the decathlon as well as the pole vault. He came thirteenth in the decathlon but won the gold in the pole vault – thus making him the only man ever to defend his title in the event.
It also meant that he became the first person to win three medals in this event in the Olympics. This feat has since been matched by the Russian Yelena Isinbayeva, who got her third medal in 2012.
Bob also won gold in the 1956 Pan American Games.
Despite his successes, Bob never held a world record. The highest he ever jumped was fifteen feet, six inches – but he did clear fifteen feet 125 times in competition.
In 1957, Bob appeared as a guest on the TV quiz show, ‘What’s My Line’?
The following year, Bob became spokesman for the Wheaties Sports Federation, a programme supported by President Eisenhower to encourage healthy living in the USA. Bob appeared on packets of Wheaties cereal, advertised as “The Breakfast of Champions.”
In 1959, Bob published his autobiography, ‘The Heart of a Champion’. He was also the subject of a TV documentary, entitled ‘Leap of a Champion’.
By now, Bob had retired from competition (although he kept vaulting for personal pleasure for many years). He set up his own company and toured around the USA giving inspirational talks.
He also continued to preach in his church at Long Beach. There he inspired a teenage girl, Billie Jean Moffitt. He asked her what she wanted to be. She replied, “The greatest tennis player in the world.” Later, as Billie Jean King, that is exactly what she did.
Bob commentated on track and field events from every Olympic Games between 1960 to 1976.
In the late 1960s, Bob and his wife, Mary Leah, were divorced.
A few years later, Bob remarried – Vonda Joan Beaird (known as ‘Joni’), an actress. They met when she was auditioning for a film that Bob was helping to produce. They had three children: Tom, Brandon and Tammy.
Joni and Bob became lifelong business partners, setting up a number of successful companies in different fields.
All four of Bob’s sons became pole vaulters. Bob Junior was National Championship runner-up in 1968 and took his father’s national record in 1973, whilst Brandon won the National High School record in 1985 (previously held by his father) – and retained this for 14 years. Tom became Californian Champion in 1988.
In 1984, Bob decided to run for President of the USA, on a far-right populist ticket. His policies were to abolish income tax, cut national spending by 50%, to refuse to pay the USA’s national debt, to deport immigrants and deny the vote to those on welfare. He only got 66,000 votes nationally and was soundly beaten by Ronald Reagan.
Bob was elected to the US Olympic Hall of Fame, the Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame.
His faith remained strong. He used to say, “The family that prays and plays together, stays together.”
Bob lived on a ranch in Santo, Texas, known as the ‘Crossbar Ranch’. He undertook oil and gas exploration and kept horses and cattle.
Eventually, Bob retired to another ranch in Waco, Texas, where he built his own golf course – the Lake Waco Golf Club.
Bob became an avid collector of classic cars. Joni was a gourmet cook.
Bob’s grandson, Riley, was twice Texas State Champion in pole vault and then got a scholarship to Baylor University, where his father, Brandon, is a track and field coach.
Bob’s wife, Joni, died in 2019.
By the time Bob died, pole vaulters were regularly jumping over nineteen feet. The world record is twenty feet four- and three-quarter inches, held by Swedish vaulter, Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis.
When Bob died, his son, Brandon, said, “America has lost a national treasure.”
RIP- Richards = International Polevaulter
