The World's Greatest Athlete - that nobody knew.

de.cath.lon (definition): an athletic event taking place over two days in which each competitor takes part in the same prescribed 10 events.

Before the Trials for the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, Milt Campbell, of Plainfield New Jersey, had never competed in a decathlon.

He'd never pole vaulted,

never thrown a discus,

never thrown a javelin and

had never run a 1500 m race.

How is it possible that he won the Olympic gold medal four years later in the decathlon at the Summer Games in Melbourne, Australia at just 22 years of age?

Several American athletes have earned the gold for the same 10-event Olympic contest, including Jim Thorpe (who was the very first), Bob Mathias (twice), Rafer Johnson, Bill Tomey and Bruce Jenner among others, all claiming the mantel as the World's Best Athlete.  Each of them became famous following their athletic careers. Their names are familiar to many of us who follow sport.

Milt Campbell was the first black decathlon winner.

He was one of them, but nobody mentions him.

Following Bruce Jenner's 1976 decathlon win in Montreal the media splash referenced everybody but Campbell as one of the USA athletes who preceded him in the category.

Strange.  Isn't it?

Perhaps Milt was not recognized because his 10 Olympic events took place in November of 1956

- when the NFL was up-and-running.

Or maybe because it was staged in far-away Australia without TV coverage. Or maybe the sports world in 1956 wasn't ready to acknowledge a black man as the World's Best Athlete.

Olympic champions, Jesse Owens in 1936 Berlin and Cassius Clay in 1960 Rome suffered the same no-response from their countrymen when they returned home.

Incidentally, when Owens showed up to clobber the Nazis in 1936, he was approached by a young inventor - a shoe maker, Adi Dassler.

He wore Adi's shoes for each of his four gold medal wins.

Much later, Adi's company would become Adidas ... but it was too late for Owens to capitalize financially on their friendship and Jesse's Olympic success.

Owens did, however, accept sponsorship money on his return and quickly lost his amateur status and could no longer compete. He ended up being a playground janitor and gas station attendant and eventually went bankrupt.

Cassius Clay

Eighteen-year-old heavyweight Olympic champion, Cassius Clay, was disappointed by his lack of fan response and the prevailing racism

in his Louisville hometown.

No USA company could see the marketing/promotional value of a young man who would become "Ali".

He threw his 1960 Rome Olympic gold medal off the Second St. bridge into the Ohio river. 

Incidentally, in 1976 in Montreal, amateur decathlon athlete, Bruce Jenner, was 26 years old (four years older than Campbell).

Montreal's Big "O"

During the Olympics he stayed in a 5-star Montreal hotel not at the athlete's Olympic village with his USA teammates, drove a Jaguar, and had a year-round address in Malibu CA.

The complete tab for his "amateur" lifestyle was paid for by, you guessed it, Adidas.

When Milt Campbell returned to the USA there were no endorsement deals and no fan support.

"Wheaties" didn't come calling.

However he was selected and drafted by the Cleveland Browns of the NFL and lined up in the back-field with  Jim Brown in 1957 but was released at the beginning of his second year.

Jimmy Brown

Perhaps his skills as the World's Greatest Athlete didn't convert to football.

However, Milt claimed he was released by coach Paul Brown because he'd married a white woman. It was the 1950's.

Milt moved to the Canadian Football League and played with Hamilton, Montreal and Toronto. Game related injuries in Toronto, his last CFL team, left him without a football job and a family to feed.

In 1965 I had just been hired by the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto to sell advertising. I was 20 years old and it was my first job.

The most active advertising clients were car dealers, particularly used car dealers. I had a west Toronto territory and canvassed every dealership from Yonge Street west to Oakville.  My favourite was Argyle Chrysler in Cooksville.... not because of the business but because of Milt Campbell. He was their used car salesman.

Milton

The first day we met I was astonished by his size. He was the biggest man I'd ever seen, gigantic -- made bigger by the size of the tiny office he was holed-up in on the used lot. He was over-the-top friendly. Unassuming. Warm. He called me Michael and I called him Milton.

Rain days on car lots produce zero customers. So one day when I showed up in the middle of a storm he said, "I'm going to show you how to play chess."  I was hooked. Not on the game, on him.

While playing chess, he'd reminisce about his sports accomplishments and never repeated himself - there was so much and I was a very, very good listener.

He'd also been an All American swimmer. That didn't seem right because of his size but he backed it up by stating the day, date and location of each of his wins in the water.

Most of all, he talked about his concern for young black men back-home trying to make their way in the world. It played heavily on him. He had every reason to be very angry about his lack of notoriety but self-promotion wasn't who he was. His success in sport didn't define him.

I made it to his office three times a week. I didn't go for the chess because he always waxed me pretty good. I went because every day there were new stories, every one better than the last. You would have loved to have a beer with him.

Our conversations introduced me to the Olympic Games. I became a fan and continue to be 50 years later. In 1976 I had tickets for the "Big O" in Montreal to watch Jenner capture the decathlon gold. Funny, I'd won the trip for selling the most Olympic Games Magazine advertising for the Toronto Star.

And, in 1996, I sat at the finish line in Atlanta to watch Canada's Donovan Bailey change gears and earn the gold medal for his world record 100m making him the Fastest Man in the World.

The cost of that Olympic trip was paid for by my advertising sales job at Canada's National Newsmagazine.

I now have a vast collection of Olympic memorabilia with emphasis on Milt's Melbourne plus Berlin and Rome and Los Angeles and Atlanta.

All because of my conversations with Milton.

When we were together, he often wondered out loud, "What am I doing in Cooksville?"

So, I wasn't surprised when he told me he had to get home to New Jersey and do more with his life. In 1967, during the Newark NJ riots, he co-founded a community centre and an alternative school that emphasized black history and culture. Milt Campbell had been raised by a very religious grandma. Because of his upbringing he thought it was his responsibility to be his brother's keeper.

He was a guy who didn't get the recognition he deserved. He'd been passed-over. However, knowing him for the short time that I did, I realized the success he had establishing his community centre and school would have far outweighed any medal or trophy he'd earned in sport.

He may have been issued that enormous body to contain his huge heart.

I think about Milton a lot.

Unfortunately, the decathlon gold medalist at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games

passed away in 2012. He was 78 and remains the World's Greatest Athlete nobody knew.