William T. Smith

(1928- ) lived in Lincoln. Athlete, coach, won gold medal in 161-pound division of freestyle wrestling at 1952 Olympics, coached at the Olympic Club of San Francisco, which won three national team titles in freestyle and four in Greco-Roman wrestling, and for the 1968 Canadian Olympic team; coached state championship wrestling teams at Rock Island Illinois and Concord, California; previously coached at University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1957 to 1960, elected to amateur National Wrestling Hall of Fame at Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1978. Consult Bill Mallon and Ian Buchanan, Quest For Gold: The Encyclopedia of American Olympians (Leisure Press, 1984) 396 and Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Basketball and Other Indoor Sports (Greenwood Press, 1989) 659-660 and Mike Chapman, Encyclopedia of American Wrestling (Leisure Press, 1990) 523-524.

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