Terry and Floyd, champions to the very end
by Mike Chapman
Column from the August 11, 2006 WIN magazine

The sports world lost two of its finest champions within a month of each other this summer. I knew them both, though not very well. They were Olympic champions and both were special men, in many ways.

Floyd Patterson, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world in the 1950s, died on May 11, at age 71. He was a native of the slums of Brooklyn, New York, and used boxing to lift himself up to positions of wealth and prominence. He won an Olympic gold medal in Helsinki in 1952, at the age of 17, then became the youngest heavyweight boxing champion ever just four years later.

Terry McCann died on June 7. He grew up in a tough neighborhood in north Chicago, and wrestled at the University of Iowa, winning two NCAA titles. He won an Olympic gold medal in 1960, in Rome, and used the lessons learned from wrestling to carve out a tremendous career in the business world.

Floyd died of prostate cancer and complications of Alzheimer's disease; Terry died of mesothelioma cancer. Both worked out hard in their prime, and stayed in top shape during their post-athletic life, so it is a tragic irony that they both died so young from such dreaded diseases.

Strange as it may sound, I actually have spent more time with Floyd than Terry, even though Terry came from wrestling and Floyd from boxing.

In 1988, I was in charge of the Jim Thorpe 100 th birthday celebration in Yale, Oklahoma. We scheduled a 5K and 10K race, and I asked Floyd to come and represent the Olympics, as Thorpe was one of the greatest Olympic champions of all time before becoming a legend in pro football. Floyd was pleased to attend and came at no charge.

I spent two full days with him. He was anxious to meet Dan Hodge because the two of them almost battled in the boxing ring in 1959, after Hodge became a professional boxer. The two of them got along great that day and enjoyed meeting each other.

"He was a really class individual and very nice," said Hodge when we discussed Floyd's death. "It was a pleasure to know him."

Another great wrestler who knew Floyd Patterson was Bill Smith, Olympic champion the same year Patterson was, and at the same weight, 160 pounds.

"Floyd was my sauna buddy," said Bill with a chuckle. "In the Helsinki Olympics, the wrestlers and boxers were in the same compound and I was always running into him in the sauna. He was a nice guy, but very quiet."

Floyd Patterson was a true gentleman and someone I was very proud to know.

WRESTLING HAS many great stories in its illustrious past. Terry McCann was a legend, in every sense of the word. He loved playground sports of all kinds and never let his diminutive size hold him back from football and baseball games. But when he saw a photo of Allie Morrison, Olympic champion at 134 pounds in 1928, he realized that wrestling was a sport that gave equal opportunity to smaller athletes.

He took to wrestling like few others ever have, winning two NCAA titles at Iowa and earning a reputation as one of the fiercest wrestlers ever. His hero was Bill Koll, the great three-time NCAA champion for Iowa State Teachers College, in the late 1940s. McCann patterned his aggressive style after Koll's.

A writer from Oklahoma called McCann "tigerish" and noted his "eternal aggressiveness." Terry told me in a phone interview six months ago how he acquired that mental approach to the sport.

"Early in my career at Iowa, Bill Koll came to one of our matches," said McCann. "I had kind of a Chicago style, bouncing up and down and floating around on a mat a little before shooting. Koll came up to me afterwards and said, 'What the heck was that all about? Quit dancing around out there. You go all out, every second you're on the mat. Straight ahead. Attack!'

"I changed my attitude at that point. I worked myself into a lather before a match, into a heightened sense of intensity, jut like Bill Koll used to. Koll was the guy who taught me that, and I wrestled that way from that point on."

After winning the gold medal at 125.5 pounds in Rome, McCann embarked upon a highly successful coaching and business career. Under his leadership, the Mayor Daley Club of Chicago became one of the premier teams in the nation during the 1960s and '70s. During his seven years as head coach, the club won 11 national team championships, including six in freestyle and five in Greco-Roman.

After working at high-level jobs in several organizations, he became executive director of International Toastmasters, a company that offers instruction in public speaking. The company experienced tremendous growth during his 30-year run as the leader.

All the time, he stayed in superb physical condition. He became a surfing expert and a kayak fanatic, often going over 50 miles a day in the kayak. But in April of 2005, he was dealt the biggest blow of his life. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer, a debilitating disease with no known cure.

It was brought on by exposure to asbestos while he was working in the oil refinery business in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It happened during the late 1950s, while he was training for the Olympics.

"It's ironic that the oil refinery business allowed me the opportunity to train for the Olympics and I felt it was wonderful," he said. "Now it turns out that the very same job that gave me the opportunity to go for the gold medal has also given me the cancer that will shorten my life. I was immersed in asbestos for years, and 45 years later this is the result."

Russ Hellickson, silver medallist in the 1976 Olympics and winner of 12 national titles, delivered the eulogy in Dana Point, California. He later told me how he felt about Terry McCann.

"He changed my life, and influenced it in many ways," said the former Ohio State head coach. "I never placed in the NCAAs, so after college I was ready to get out of wrestling and move on. But he and Werner Holzer saw potential and invited me to train with the Mayor Daley Club. He taught me the underhook and it became my signature move.

"He was the most intensive and passionate person I have ever known. I learned so much from him, not just about wrestling but about family life. Nancy and I were a young married couple and we would go over to the McCanns once in a while for dinner. I would see this very driven man, who was building a successful career and coaching, and yet still had time to devote to his family. It left a huge impression on Nancy and me."

"There simply could not have been a more positive role model than Terry McCann."

Terry's legacy will live on in many ways, including in my latest book, "Legends of the Mat." The book includes biographies of 30 of America's greatest amateur wrestlers in a big-book format that is designed to keep their stories (and memories) alive for decades, or even centuries.

"Legends of the Mat" will be out in November, just in time for the 2006-07 wrestling season and Christmas. For a sample of what the book will be like, please click here.