Talk:Rafer Johnson

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A fact from Rafer Johnson appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 May 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that former U.S. decathlete Rafer Johnson ignited the Olympic Flame during the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/May.

Wikipedia

LA Times article

[1] has some good tidbits about Rafer Johnson. howcheng {chat} 06:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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additional sources

Rivals: Legendary Matchups That Made Sports History, edited by David K. Wiggins, R . Pierre Rodgers, "Ch. 1 The Purest of Rivalries: Rafer Johnson, C.K. Yang, and the 1960 Olympic Decathlon," by Joseph M. Turrini, Fayetteville, Arkansas, U.S.: University of Arkansas Press, 2010.

I think our article can still use a fair amount of work, so please jump in and help if this topic interests you! :-) FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Question about "Intercollegiate All-American Football Players Honor Roll"

The article states, "Johnson is a member of The Pigskin Club of Washington, D.C. National Intercollegiate All-American Football Players Honor Roll." This is odd, as Rafer Johnson never played football at UCLA. He ran track and played basketball. Do we have a source on if he is a member of this honor roll, and, for curiosity's sake, does anyone know why he was inducted if he never played the game collegiately? Washiwiki (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:03, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cause of death

I read some articles and they don’t say that he died from complications of a stroke. Instead, they just say no cause of death was announced.

This is the only one that says stroke:

http://www.thesportsexaminer.com/athletics-olympic-decathlon-gold-medalist-rafer-johnson-passes-at-85/ MikaelaArsenault (talk) 19:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Date of birth

In this article 1934 is given as Rafer's year of birth. On other language versions 1935 is given, which to me looks correct. See this identity card on the Familysearch site: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5YW-VD8?i=127&cc=1932363&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AK8HB-FMZ --Maarten1963 (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the same record, and updated his year of birth accordingly. But the year was then changed back by another contributor. Reviewing various historical news and book sources, 1935 is the much-more-commonly cited year. The book "Current Biography 1961" has a very long article on him and also shows 1935. The article can be viewed here: https://archive.org/details/currentbiogr196100mori/page/222/mode/2up?q=Rafer T Paradise (talk) 04:13, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I found some newspaper articles from 1955 where he is mentioned as a 19-year-old sophomore, so 1934 must have been an error. --Maarten1963 (talk) 09:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All major news sources say he was 86, but some acknowledge that sources differ. Why can’t we at Wikipedia do the same? If we don’t we get this constant and tedious editing back and forth, which in the end will only lead to the page getting protected...90.235.7.144 (talk) 10:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia can do the same, and I have done so. Reliable sources have reported the family has stated the "1935" birth date is erroneous, and so we can cite that directly. Otherwise, we could state that sources differ, but can't declare which date is "correct" without performing original research. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Filmography"

Since the "Filmography" does not list all his acting jobs & etc., shouldn't the section title be either "Partial filmography" or "Select filmography" in order for it to be factual and accurate?

Otherwise, any reader will be misled into thinking that he had an extremely limited acting career - - - and that is simply not the case.

And why no "External link" to IMDb? 2600:8800:785:9400:C23F:D5FF:FEC4:D51D (talk) 01:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]