[1] He attended Tulare Union High School,[2] where he was a classmate and long time friend of Sim Iness, the 1952 Olympic discus gold medalist.

Mathias overcame his difficulties and with superior pole vault and javelin scores was able to push past Ignace Heinrich to win the Olympic gold medal.

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[6] and led Stanford to a Rose Bowl appearance in 1952, the first nationally televised college football game.

His 7,887 point total at the Helsinki Olympics remained the school record at Stanford for 63 years until it was broken in 2015 by a freshman, Harrison Williams.

In the 1959–1960 television season, Mathias played Frank Dugan, with costars Keenan Wynn as Kodiak and Chet Allen as Slats, in the TV series The Troubleshooters, which featured 26 episodes on events at construction sites.

[10] In 1960, he also appeared as an athletic Theseus in an Italian "peplum," or sword-and-sandal, film: Minotaur, the Wild Beast of Crete.

[12] Mathias was re-elected three times without serious difficulty, but in 1974, his Congressional district was significantly redrawn in a mid-decade state redistricting plan.

Renumbered as the 17th, Mathias's district acquired a large section of Fresno while losing several rural areas.

Mathias was narrowly defeated for re-election by John Hans Krebs, a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.

He was survived by wife Gwen, daughters Romel, Megan, Marissa, stepdaughter Alyse Alexander, son Reiner, brothers Eugene and Jim, and sister Patricia Guerrero.

Enrolls at Kiskiminetas Prep School, Saltsburg, Pa. Honored with the James E. Sullivan Award, presented each year to America's top amateur athlete.