Milt Campbell, a Gainesville resident and 1956 Olympic gold medalist, died Friday. He was 78.

Campbell, a native of Plainfield, N.J., won the Olympic decathlon at the 1956 Summer Games. He was considered the greatest athlete in New Jersey history and one of the all-time great Olympic champions.

Campbell died at his home surrounded by family members.

“Campbell was, to me, the greatest athlete who ever lived,” Olympic documentarian Bud Greenspan told The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., in 2000.

Campbell was born in Plainfield in 1933 and was a standout in track and field, football and swimming. He lived in Gainesville in recent years recovering from the effects of cancer and diabetes.

He earned most of his fame on the track. As an 18-year-old entering his senior year at Plainfield High School, Campbell won the silver medal in the 1952 Olympic decathlon, finishing second to Bob Mathias.

“I was just a high school kid and I was hanging with the best athletes in the world,” Campbell told the Star-Ledger in 2000. “I was just happy to be there, but at the same time I wasn’t intimidated or nervous. I knew four years later I would get the gold.”

Four years later, Campbell became the first African-American to win the Olympic decathlon in Melbourne, Australia.

Campbell scored 7,937 points, an Olympic record at the time. Campbell, the first black athlete to win the decathlon, beat silver medalist Rafer Johnson by 350 points.

“I told Rafer in a hotel two nights before the decathlon started that I was going to whip him good,” Campbell told the Star-Ledger. “I knew I was the best in the world. Winning the gold was a great feeling of accomplishment. I set a goal and I went out and did it.”

In 1957, Campbell set world records in both the indoor 60-yard high hurdles (7.0 seconds) and the outdoor 120-yard high hurdles (13.4 seconds).

Campbell is a member of both the New Jersey Hall of Fame and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

In 2000, Campbell was named the New Jersey Athlete of the Century by the New Jersey Sportswriters Association.

But he was far from a one-dimensional athlete. He also an All-American swimmer and an All-American running back at Plainfield where he earned a selection to The Star-Ledger Football Team of the Decade for the 1950s.

A 1996 Sports Illustrated article quoted Arthur Daley of The New York Times from 1953 writing this about Campbell: “The massive Milt was a fullbacking terror. He was a combination Blanchard-Davis, a Mr. Inside and a Mr. Outside combined into one. His terrific speed enabled him to flee wide and his crushing power enabled him to smash through the middle. Like Bronko Nagurski, he could be stopped only by gang tackling.”

The 6-foot-3, 210-pounder is the only athlete enshrined in both the National Track and Field and National Swimming Hall of Fames.

After the Olympics, Campbell returned to football. Drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1957, he played in the same backfield as Hall of Famer Jim Brown. He then played professionally for seven years in the Canadian Football League before finishing his career in 1964.

Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Memorial Park North Riverside Chapel. Visitation is set for 4-8 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.

Jim Lambert of The Star-Ledger contributed to this story