Bruce Baumgartner Biography - Collegiate Wrestler, Perennial Champion, Athletic Honors, Chronology, Awards And Accomplishments - CONTACT INFORMATION

time wrestling haledon championship

1960-

American wrestler

Amateur freestyle wrestler Bruce Baumgartner won the U.S. national championship seventeen times in as many years. An eight-time Midlands Champion, he medalled at four Olympic Games, from 1984-96, earning gold medals in two. After winning the World Cup Championship in 1997 for the eighth time, he retired from competition. In 2002 Baumgartner was named to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Bruce Robert Baumgartner was born on November 2, 1960, the second son of Robert Sr., a diesel mechanic, and Lois Baumgartner of Haledon, New Jersey. A late bloomer by some standards, Baumgartner was a humdrum athlete and an unimpressive student at Haledon's Manchester Regional High School. As a child he was not much interested in watching television and was too large to play peewee football. Disinterested in Little League, he finally turned to wrestling for lack of other options. At 190 pounds in the ninth grade, his exceptional size worked to his advantage on the mats, and by senior year he had progressed to third place in the statewide freestyle wrestling standings.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: 12765 Forrest Drive, Edinboro, PA 16412. Fax: (814) 734-4475. Phone: (814) 732-2776. Email: bruce@brucebaumgartner.com. Online: www.brucebaumgartner.com/.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

"Bruce Baumgartner." Contemporary Newsmakers 1987, Issue Cumulation. Detroit: Gale Group, 1988.

Periodicals

Christian Science Monitor (March 8, 1996): 13.

Christian Science Monitor (July 23, 1996): 12.

Sports Illustrated (October 20, 1986): 78.

Sports Illustrated (July 22, 1997): 118.

Time (Summer 96 Special Issue): 80.

Sketch by G. Cooksey

Additional Topics

Bruce Baumgartner - Collegiate Wrestler

Because wrestling is not a lucrative sport, Baumgartner had little trouble dodging college recruiters and their scholarship offers. Free to choose any college, he enrolled at Indiana State University (ISU) at Terre Haute in 1978, where he joined the wrestling team and competed for four years of college. By his senior year, he had suffered only twelve losses over four seasons, for a won-loss record…

Bruce Baumgartner - Perennial Champion

Armed with a master's degree from Oklahoma State, in 1984 Baumgartner moved to Pennsylvania where he settled into a paid position as a wrestling coach at Edinboro University. With limited funding from USA Wrestling, the New York Athletic Club, and an athletic shoe manufacturer, he continued to train and compete. By the time the Olympics came around in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988, Baumgartne…

Bruce Baumgartner - Athletic Honors

Baumgartner, who was nominated for the AAU's James E. Sullivan Award in 1986, and from 1992-94, captured the elusive honor on a fifth nomination in 1995. He bested an impressive field of competition for the award that year, including golfer Tiger Woods. Baumgartner was only the second wrestler to receive the Sullivan since its inception in 1930. At his fourth Olympic competition, in Atlanta…

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