Inductees

June 06, 1959 – January 26, 1996

He won World and Olympic championships in 1983 and ’84, and later added three World silver medals and two bronzes, but Dave Schultz’s quest for an eighth world-class medal was cut short when he was murdered in January of 1996.

By his own admission, Schultz “wasn’t the greatest athlete in wrestling,” but he was one of the most intelligent wrestlers in the history of the sport. Schultz once told one of his mentors, “I cheated! I learned HOW to wrestle.” And thus he was a winner all his life.

Schultz was an NCAA titlist for Oklahoma in 1982 and he won 10 national championships in the international styles-eight in Freestyle and two in Greco-Roman. He won his first national crown in Greco-Roman at the age of 17 and was the nation’s top Freestyle wrestler four times.

He won the 1984 Olympic berth in an epic battle with Hall of Famer Leroy Kemp, but yielded that spot to Kenny Monday during the next two Olympiads. Yet by 1993 he had returned to the No. 1 position and was training for the ’96 Olympic Trials when he was shot and killed by his employer at Team Foxcatcher.

Schultz is the only American to win the legendary Tbilisi tournament twice, and he won the World Cup five times. He captured the Pan American Greco-Roman crown in 1977 and the freestyle gold 10 years later.

For all of his achievements on the mat, Schultz is best known as wrestling’s greatest friend and diplomat, across the nation and around the world. He always had time to talk, he always wore a smile. His sportsmanship transcended national boundaries. He learned Russian so that he could communicate with other wrestlers, and he named his son Alexander, after a friendly rival in the USSR.

As a true champion on and off the mats, and the most-loved international ambassador for peace and friendship the wrestling world has ever known, David L. Schultz is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.