William Thomas SMITH

While at Iowa Teacher's College (now Northern Iowa), Bill Smith won two NCAA championships in 1949 and 1950, and three straight AAU titles, starting in 1949. After winning his gold medal, he continued to wrestle competitively, and at the 1956 Olympic Trials he became the only person to ever give Dan Hodge a decisive defeat. But Smith did not wrestle at Melbourne, because he was taken off the team when it was revealed that he had been paid to coach in an Illinois high school, which was then a violation of amateur status. His career was as a high school teacher and he coached wrestling at both the high school and collegiate levels.