Bob Mathias, Requiescat in pace.

America has lost yet another hero.

SAN FRANCISCO -- At the 1948 Olympics in London, Bob Mathias became the youngest gold medalist to win a track and field event. British journalists asked the 17-year-old decathlon champion how he planned to celebrate.

"I guess I'll start shaving," he said.

Mathias died of cancer Saturday in Fresno at age 75, his record intact.

An Olympic historian said Sunday that Mathias' achievements, which included a second gold medal in decathlon at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, came at a simpler time in the history of sports.

"There were no sponsors. There was no money. There were no drugs," said David Wallechinsky, author of "The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics.' "He was just doing it to perform well -- not to be in an advertisement."

Mathias' 1948 medal came in only his third decathlon. He qualified for the Olympics by winning two events in the United States.

At the 1952 Helsinki Games, he became the first athlete to repeat as Olympic champion in the decathlon. A Stanford star who led that team to the Rose Bowl, Mathias was drafted by the Washington Redskins but never signed. He won the 1948 Sullivan Award as America's top amateur athlete.

Eugene Mathias said his brother was a gifted athlete from childhood, often outperforming older children.

"I tried jumping the high jump and I couldn't make it. He was three years younger and he said, 'Let me try it.' He did it and he made it," Eugene Mathias recalled. "We knew then that he could just do anything athletic."

Although fans marveled at his athleticism, Mathias worked determinedly at both sports and academics. As a child, he suffered from anemia and had to eat special foods, take vitamin supplements and frequent naps, and he fell ill to measles, whooping cough and scarlet fever.

He spent a year at The Kiski School, an all-boys boarding college in Saltsburg, Pa., before entering Stanford in 1949. The 6-foot-3, 204-pound Mathias led Stanford to a Rose Bowl appearance in 1952.

After retiring from sports, he served four terms as a Republican congressman representing California's San Joaquin Valley from 1967-74. After his political career, Mathias became the first director of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

He also is a member of the U.S. Olympic and national track and field halls of fame.

"Bob Mathias was one of those rare individuals with the ability to inspire a nation through his determination and perseverance. He was a champion in every aspect of life, and he embraced the values that make our country and the worldwide Olympic movement special," U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth said in a statement. (Thanks to The Sporting News for this obituary.)