Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), who died Friday in a plane crash, was a conference champion wrestler at the University of North Carolina and was a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's Hall of Outstanding Americans in Stillwater, Okla.
Wellstone was undefeated in two seasons as a 126-pound wrestler at North Carolina, and won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1964.
I wrestled at that weight in High School. Lost only twice.
A friend of mine was [x]-time National Collegiate Champion (NCAA Division 1), [x]-time All American, in his weight class, and was on the US Freestyle Wrestling Team, even went behind the Iron Curtain to wrestle in the World Championships - he got knocked out on the mat by an [allegedly] errant elbow to the temple by (IIRC) some Bulgarian dude. heh
His spot on the US Olympic team was virtually guaranteed, but being a star athlete on a Big Ten Campus has certain advantages, and being the social era that it was, he discovered "free love" and, worse, heroin....it all went down the crapper from there.
I won't provide any more specific details since he probably wouldn't appreciate me telling people he became addicted to heroin (among other things). But, as long as nobody can figure out who it is, no harm done.
Its actually quite a depressing story, one of those "I had the world in the palm of my hand...and threw it all away over drugs" stories. At his former college, a couple of his records still stand, 20+ years later. Yet, he is NOT a member of the wrestling hall of fame.
Apparently, when you drop-off the face of the earth for 20+ years because of a drug problem, you don't get nominated. heh
Hell I didn't even know about this for over a year, until he mentioned the time he spent in Europe, which led to me asking how he came to be in Europe, which then led to him dragging out an old scrapbook packed with newspaper and magazine articles. I was like..."Holy Sh-t! What the hell happened?"