Werner Peter HOLZER

Werner Holzer wrestled in college at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1959, where he won two Big 10 Championships. He got out of wrestling for a few years but in 1962 his job took him to Los Angeles where he started working out with other wrestlers. He returned to Chicago and helped form Mayor Daley’s Youth Foundation Wrestling Club. Holzer started competing again and won the 1966 AAU title in Greco-Roman and competed at the World Championships in 1966-67. Holzer later got into coaching, leading the US team at the 1971 Tbilisi tournament in the Georgian Republic of the former Soviet Union, the first US team to compete at that event. He later helped form the US Wrestling Federation, which became USA Wrestling, and would serve as President of that group. Holzer was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1993.