Robert Bruce "Bob" Mathias (November 17, 1930 – September 2, 2006) was an American decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, actor and United States Congressman representing the state of California.

Mathias was born in Tulare, California. He attended Tulare Union High School, where he was classmates and long time friends with Sim Iness, 1952 Olympic discus gold medalist. While at Tulare Union, Mathias took up the decathlon in early 1948, at the suggestion of his track coach, Virgil Jackson. During the summer after his high school graduation, he qualified for the United States Olympic team for the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London.

In the Olympics, Mathias's naïveté about the decathlon was exposed [1]. He was unaware of the rules in the shot put and nearly fouled out of the event. He almost failed in the high jump but was able to recover. Mathias overcame his difficulties and won the Olympic gold medal easily. He was the youngest gold medalist to win a track and field event.

Mathias continued to fare well in decathlons in the four years between the London games and the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. In 1948, Mathias won the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete, but because his scholastic record in high school did not match his athletic achievement, he spent a year at The Kiski School, a well-respected all boys boarding school in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania. He then entered Stanford University in 1949, played college football for two years and was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Mathias set his first decathlon world record in 1950 and led Stanford to a Rose Bowl appearance in 1952.

Milton Campbell (born 15 May 1976) is a former track and field athlete from the United States who mainly competes in the 400 metres.

His success comes during the indoor season. At the 1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships he set a world record of 3:02.83m over 4 x 400 metres relay together with Andre Morris, Dameon Johnson and Deon Minor.

Campbell won the American Indoor Championships over 400 metres in 2004 and 2006.

Campbell is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He was a junior state, regional, and national champion runner with Quicksilver Track Club from Atlanta. In junior track, Campbell was as dominant in the 1500 meters as he was in the 800 and 400 meters.

Campbell was a state champion in the 400 and 800 meters for Douglass High School of northwest Atlanta in Georgia's then largest division, 4A.

Simeon ("Sim") Garland Iness (July 9, 1930 in Keota, Oklahoma – May 23, 1996 in Porterville, California) was an American discus thrower and Olympic gold medalist.

As a child of sharecroppers, in 1934 his family left Oklahoma due to the on set of the dust bowl and moved to the small San Joaquin Valley town of Tulare, California. There he became lifelong friends with classmate and teammate at Tulare Union High School and Olympic team-mate, decathlon champion Bob Mathias.

Iness first attended college at Compton Junior College, where he won the National Junior College discus championship in 1949. He was also a member of the winning Compton football squad along with future NFL Hall of Famer "Hurricane" Hugh McElhenny, which won the 1948 Junior Rose Bowl game, becoming National Junior College champions. He then transferred to the University of Southern California where he won the NCAA discus championship in 1952 and 1953.

Iness competed for the United States in the 1952 Summer Olympics held in Helsinki, Finland in the discus throw where he won the gold medal with a throw of 55.03 m. His gold medal triumph started the longest USA winning streak in the discus event in modern Olympic history. He set the discus world's record on June 28, 1953 in Lincoln, Nebraska at 57,93 m, being the first man to throw over 190 feet. He went on to appear in two Hollywood films, "Lady Godiva" with Maureen O'Hara and "Sign of the Pagan" with Jack Palance and Jeff Chandler, both in 1954. He was an Olympic torch-bearer for the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics.