Gary Joseph ALEXANDER

Gary Alexander was considered a possible for the 1972 Olympic wrestling team but only three months before the Games, and shortly before the Olympic Trials, while in his own apartment, he was shot in the jaw by an off-duty policeman. Alexander underwent surgery to wire his jaw back together, and watched the 1972 Olympics while sipping liquid food through a straw. Alexander did not wrestle for nine months but made the 1975 Pan American team, where he won a silver medal in featherweight Greco-Roman, with the bullet still embedded in his neck. Alexander wrestled at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1967. He was AAU Champion in Greco-Roman from 1972-75, and competed three times at the World Championships.