Franck GotchFrank Alvin Gotch never stepped onto the mat in high school. He did not wrestle in college, nor was he a member of a U.S. Olympic wrestling team. After all, organized amateur wrestling programs were few and far between when he was growing up in north-central Iowa in the late 1800s. However, as a professional wrestler in the early 1900s, Gotch became a sports superstar who helped fuel interest in "the oldest and greatest sport" beyond the pro ring, leading to the establishment of amateur wrestling programs in YMCAs, schools and colleges throughout the U.S. in the early 20th century.
Today's sports fan would not recognize Frank Gotch's world of a century ago. Organized college sports were in their infancy, including collegiate football and basketball... with the NFL and NBA still in the future. Popular professional sports in the 1900s included baseball and cycling -- high-speed bicycle racing on a banked oval track.
As for combat sports 100 years ago ... there was no mixed martial arts fights; the UFC and Bellator would emerge decades later. Boxing seemed to be on two tracks: one, "the manly art of self-defense" was a staple at private men's clubs and many colleges as a pure, amateur athletic endeavor, while, professional boxing matches were outlawed in many states. (The same year Gotch won the world wrestling title, Jack Johnson became the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, having defeated white champ Tommy Burns in Australia, which did not help boxing's cause among many U.S. politicians or fans in an era of Jim Crow laws and overt racism.)
Today's WWE fan would be completely thrown off by professional wrestling of the Frank Gotch era. There was none of the theatricality and showbiz elements we associate with the WWE, either in terms of the participants -- no costumes, no flamboyant personalities, no "heels" (villains) or "faces" (baby-faced good-guys) -- nor in their actions in the ring (for example, no piledrivers, no spectacular jumps from the ring's top ropes).
Farmer Burns and Frank GotchGotch was a strapping, farm-raised young man who first started wrestling classmates -- and his male teacher -- at a one-room schoolhouse outside Humboldt. As an 18-year-old, he wrestled a man purported to be a traveling salesman in match held on the cinder track at a local high school. Gotch lost ... but the "salesman" was actually professional wrestler Dan McLeod, who was so impressed with the young man's grappling talent, that he told Martin "Farmer" Burns about Gotch. Burns, famous for his mail-order wrestling instructional program, took Gotch under his wing ... and transformed him into a seasoned pro wrestler.
Beginning in 1899, Gotch wrestled hundreds of matches throughout the U.S. In 1908, Gotch earned a shot at the world title held by George Hackenschmidt, nicknamed "the Russian Lion" (but actually from Latvia). Hackenschmidt was known for his incredible physical strength and impressive muscular physique, with neck and chest measurements equal to Brock Lesnar's in his college prime. (Teddy Roosevelt -- who boxed and wrestled even while at the White House -- said of the world champion from Europe, "If I weren't President, I would want to be George Hackenschmidt." Gotch himself said, "Picture the most perfectly developed man, and you've described George Hackenschmidt.")
Frank Gotches battles George HackenschmidtThe two met again in the ring, again in Chicago, on Labor Day in 1911. This time, Gotch made short work of Hackenschmidt, using his feared toehold to defeat the former champ in two rounds adding up to about a half-hour of actual wrestling. It was Hackenschmidt's last professional wrestling match.
Frank Gotch's popularity as world champion transcended wrestling. His matches were front-page news in newspapers across the country. (The two Gotch-Hackenschmidt matches got the same sort hype that today's media employs in covering the Super Bowl.) Standing 5'11" and weighing in at about 210 pounds, Gotch was a handsome, articulate champion -- and, coupled with his earnings from the ring -- an eligible bachelor who reportedly dated the most beautiful actresses of the era. However, when it was time to tie the knot, he married a young woman from his hometown, Gladys Oestrich, who he known for years, in 1911.
Frank and Gladys had one son, Robert Frederick. Gotch retired from the ring in 1913, but kept in the public eye by participating in a circus where patrons could earn $250 if they lasted ten minutes with the popular wrestling champ. No one collected that prize. Sadly, by 1916, Gotch's health started to decline. He consulted with doctors from around the country, and visited therapeutic springs in Colorado and Arkansas. Gotch was eventually diagnosed with kidney failure caused by uremic poisoning, which led to his death on Dec. 16, 1917.
Gotch's death was front-page news in a number of newspapers across the nation. Here's part of an obituary from an unidentified newspaper of the time:
"Although dispatches told from to time to time that Frank A. Gotch, the great grappler, was far from being a well man, the news of his death came as a distinct shock to many friends in all parts of the country. Those who had not seen him in the past two years could not realize how the hairy giant had failed physically. They thought his ailment was nothing serious and that he would soon be his jolly self again, ready to kid and joke along with anyone and so full of animal life...
"Those who saw Gotch in his prime as a wrestler saw one of the greatest physical human specimens that ever came to grips with another man. He was about 5 feet, 11 inches tall, built as round as a barrel around the chest, his neck was 19 inches round, his legs were thick and strong, and he was as quick as a cat on his feet... In addition to his great physical qualifications, Gotch was a quick thinker, and he beat many a good man by tricking him..."
Years later, here's how Mac Davis, author of the book "100 Greatest Sports Heroes", described the reaction to Frank Gotch's passing:
"When news of his death reached the people of his native Iowa, the whole state went into mourning. In Humboldt, his hometown, every store closed down, the schoolhouse was shuttered and empty, on the day of his funeral. Thousands of weeping mourners, gathered from many parts of the land, trudged the icy path to the rural cemetery on a cold December day to bid a final farewell to the farm boy who had been the greatest wrestling champion in history."
Frank Gotch is entombed, along with his wife and child, in a mausoleum at Union Cemetery on the north edge of Humboldt. However, his legacy lives on. Each year there's a wrestling tournament that bears his name at Humboldt High School; earlier this summer, former Michigan State wrestler Curran Jacobs won the 2017 Frank Gotch World Catch Wrestling Tournament in that same gym.
One significant legacy of Frank Gotch's popularity -- and the popularity of the sport he participated in -- is that his era helped propel the growth of amateur wrestling in the U.S. Among the top college wrestling programs that got their start when he ruled the wrestling ring: Penn State (1908), University of Iowa (1911), Oklahoma State (1916) Iowa State (1916) and University of Oklahoma (1920). The Iowa high school state wrestling championships -- one of the first in the nation -- was established in 1921.
Frank Gotch has earned a number of honors. He has been welcomed into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 1951, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002, and the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame -- part of the Dan Gable National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, Iowa -- in 1999. There's a 67-acre state park named in his honor just south of Humboldt. In addition, an eight-foot tall bronze statue of Gotch was unveiled in Humboldt's Bicknell Park, site of his outdoor training camp, in 2012. A street near the park was also renamed in his honor.
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