Peter Joseph Mehringer (July 15, 1910 – August 27, 1987) was an American

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

gold medal-winning

freestyle wrestler Freestyle wrestling is a style of wrestling. It is one of two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic Games, along with Greco-Roman wrestling, Greco-Roman. scholastic wrestling, High school wrestling and men's collegiate wrestling in the U ...

from

Kinsley, Kansas Kinsley is a city in and the county seat of Edwards County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 1,456. It is located along Highway 50. History The community was originally called Petersburg, and un ...

. Mehringer was nicknamed the "Kansas Whirlwind". After learning how to wrestle from a correspondence course, he went on to win two

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

high school state championships, and then three Missouri Valley Conference titles while attending the University of Kansas. He was an

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

n and national runner-up at the 1932 NCAA championships. The KU sophomore won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympic Games, becoming the first KU athlete to ever have won an Olympic gold medal. Mehringer returned to KU in 1932 for his junior season and solidified his place among KU's all-time great athletes by earning All-

Big Six Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associati ...

honors in

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

as a 214-pound tackle. Financial considerations prevented him from graduating from KU. Mehringer went on to play professional football with the

Chicago Cardinals The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons. Roots ca ...

and the Los Angeles Bulldogs, and worked occasionally as a

movie extra A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera, or ballet production who appears in a nonspeaking or nonsinging (silent) capacity, usually in the background (for example, in an audience or busy street ...

and

stunt man A stunt performer, often called a stuntman or stuntwoman and occasionally stuntperson or stunt-person, is a trained professional who performs daring acts, often as a career. Stunt performers usually appear in films or on television, as opposed ...

. He is also KU's only

grappling Grappling is a fighting technique based on throws, trips, sweeps, clinch fighting, ground fighting and submission holds. Grappling contests often involve takedowns and ground control, and may end when a contestant concedes defeat. Shou ...

icon to have pursue a career in

professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...

, mostly doing tours in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. He was inducted into the

National Wrestling Hall of Fame The National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum and hall of fame for amateur wrestling, headquartered in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2010, it began operating the Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. History The museum was awarded to Stil ...

as a Distinguished Member in 1983 and the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1984.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mehringer, Peter 1910 births 1987 deaths American football tackles People from Kinsley, Kansas Olympic gold medalists for the United States in wrestling Wrestlers at the 1932 Summer Olympics American male sport wrestlers Players of American football from Kansas Kansas Jayhawks football players University of Kansas alumni Medalists at the 1932 Summer Olympics 20th-century American sportsmen