Rafer Johnson and Friends

California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, his wife, journalist Maria Shriver, and Olympic Gold Medal winner Rafer Johnson at the seventh annual Pier del Sol fundraiser for the Special Olympics on the Santa Monica Pier on Sunday, October 19.

   A longtime friend of the Kennedy family and mainstay in the Special Olympics movement, Rafer Johnson is one of the great all-round track athletes in history. As a UCLA student, he focused on the decathlon, set the first of three world records and won the Pan American Games title in 1955, took the silver medal in the 1956 Olympic games, won three AAU titles between 1956 1960 and the gold medal in the 1960 Olympics. That same year, he also won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete.
   A businessman and sometime actor, Johnson was elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame and carried the torch at the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics.