Rafer L. Johnson ’59

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“Victory in sport may have been his, but it is not for victory alone that he is honored; rather it is for the way he has competed, his manner, his attitudes, the regard in which he is held by his rivals and friends. His performance was such that his fellow men could not fail to recognize it as the revelation of pure excellence. His achievement, if only at the instant of rising above himself, was the ageless ideal that in giving his absolute best in body and spirit he was honoring all men.”

This was the ancient Greek concept of excellence, cited when Rafer Lewis Johnson was chosen as Sport’s Illustrated’s 1958 Sportsman of the Year. It perfectly describes the kind of man Rafer Johnson is, his personal philosophy of competition, and the kind of life that he has led in the intervening years. He believes that “too often we slip through the world contributing nothing, using only a minute fraction of our abilities or skills, without discovering what we have within us or what we can do at full power.”

Honored at the 1960 Olympics in Rome as the flag carrier for the U.S. Olympic team, Johnson went on to win the Gold Medal in the grueling Decathlon competition, setting a world’s record on the way to the victory stand. And just as the Decathlon demands a multiplicity of talents and renewed effort, he has accomplished a diversity of achievements in many fields of endeavor throughout his life since that golden moment.

His successful professional career over a quarter of a century has included top-level executive positions with Xerox Corporation, Continental Telephone Service Corporation, and the People-to-People Program, now heading, as President, his own firm, Rafer Johnson Enterprises. Earlier, he enjoyed a successful career in films and NBC television newscasting.

Johnson has given enormous quantities of his personal time to community service work. His many contributions center around the role that sports participation plays in building the self-esteem of young people who are physically handicapped or socially disadvantaged. He has long been a board member and national head coach of Special Olympics, Inc., and is currently president of the board of the California Special Olympics as well as a trustee of Parents and Friends of Mentally Ill Children, Inc. Because of his work with the retarded, a school for exceptional children in Bakersfield has been renamed “The Rafer Johnson Elementary School.” He speaks passionately about his work with these special children: “It’s not important whether they win or lose,” he says, “but in sports, each time you’re tested, it helps develop character.”

Johnson came to UCLA from Kingsburg, Calif., as a most sought-after prep athlete. As a sophomore, he paced the Bruins to their first Pacific Coast Conference and NCAA track team championships. The same year, 1956, he placed second in the Olympic Decathlon in Melbourne, even though handicapped by injuries. He was a letterman in track and basketball and in his senior year served as ASUCLA president.

In recent years, he participated in activities benefiting UCLA, serving as a trustee of The UCLA Foundation, chairman of the Annual Fund campaign, a member of the 50th Anniversary Committee, and a participant in the College of Letters and Science’s Athletics and Academics Program. In 1979, he was honored by the Alumni Association with a special University and Community Service Award. Other public and community service activities have included leadership roles in the Close-Up Foundation, California State Athletic Advisory Panel, March of Dimes, American Red Cross, and Crenshaw YMCA. On a national level, he has served abroad as a goodwill ambassador for the U.S. State Department and has been a member of the President’s Commission on Olympic Sports and Council on Physical Fitness. As a deacon in the Bel Air Presbyterian Church, he aids the ministerial staff in their work with the community. He was active in the 1984 Olympic Organizing Committee and will long be remembered for bearing the torch up the steep steps of the peristyle to light the Olympic flame at the Opening Ceremonies in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

His achievements as an athlete include sports’ highest accolades: the Pan American Games Gold Medal, 1955; Olympic Decathlon Gold Medal, 1960; and the prized Sullivan Award. He has been named “Athlete of the Year” numerous times and is a member of the National Track and Field, Helms, Black Athletes’, and UCLA Athletic Halls of Fame.

It was the impact of the man himself, though, rather than his victories, that made Rafer Johnson the worthiest sportsman. He is a rare concentrate of the classic virtues of tolerance and humility. His personal qualities leave the most lasting impression of this gentle giant. A sports columnist observed: “The warmth flows out of him, without effort, catches the people he’s talking to; and they return it. He has the same lean, athletic look he had when he won the Olympic Decathlon gold medal at Rome; the same articulate voice that normally is soft, but can rise with passion when the subject is one that springs to flame inside of him.”

When honored by the Coro Foundation at its annual awards dinner, Rafer Johnson was presented with a crystal eagle and introduced with these appropriate words: “The eagle represents the best, and so does Rafer.” UCLA today proudly pays tribute to its eagle, Rafer L. Johnson, as 1986 Edward A. Dickson “Alumnus of the Year.”