Simeon Garland Iness 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. Weeks after his high school graduation, and on his 18th birthday, Iness placed 6th in the discus in the 1948 Olympic Trials. 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. [More at Wikipedia]

July 9th, 1930 in   /  Died:   May 23rd, 1996