Dave Johnson (decathlete)
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
April 7, 1963 (age 53) Missoula, Montana, U.S. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Medal record
|
|||||||||||||||||||
David Allen "Dave" Johnson (born April 7, 1963) is a former Olympic decathlete from the United States. A native of Montana, he grew up in Missoula and Corvallis, Oregon. He was part of Reebok's "Dan & Dave" advertising campaign leading up to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, where he won a bronze medal in the decathlon. After retiring from competitive athletics he became a school teacher and administrator, and served as athletic director of Corban University in Salem, Oregon starting in 2009. On November 14, 2012, Johnson resigned from the position to pursue a position with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Johnson accepted a position as Director with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Oregon in June 2013. He now coaches all field events at South Salem High School.
David Johnson was born in Missoula, Montana. As a child he attended C. S. Porter Elementary School and later attended Sentinel and would have graduated from Big Sky High School. Johnson's family moved to Corvallis, Oregon, in 1980, and he attended Crescent Valley High School, graduating in 1981. He was involved in a series of petty thefts as a teenager, primarily stealing soda pop and beer from local distributors with an assortment of childhood friends until one of them was caught and informed on the rest. He later detailed his experiences to reporters prior to the Barcelona Olympic games and used the material for his book and speaking tour as an example on how to turn one's life around.
During adolescence Johnson was afflicted with Osgood-Schlatter disease in both knees that kept him from participating in high school sports for the most part. During his junior high years he excelled in track, touch football and was on a Kiwanis basketball team for two years. In elementary school he played organized Little League baseball and had some familiarity with boxing.
...
Wikipedia