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

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 b ...

Gold Medal-winning

freestyle wrestler Freestyle wrestling is a style of wrestling originated from Great Britain and the United States. Along with Greco-Roman, it is one of the two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic Games. American high school and men's college wrestling i ...

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. History Kinsley was originally called Petersburg, and under the latter name laid out in 1873. It w ...

. 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 state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

state championships, and three Missouri Valley Conference titles while attending the University of Kansas. He was an All-American 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 Associat ...

honors in football 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 ...

Pete Mehringer Past Stats, Statistics, History, and Awards - databaseFootball.com
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 ...

. Although he declined to discuss it in his later years, he is KU's only

grappling Grappling, in hand-to-hand combat, describes sports that consist of gripping or seizing the opponent. Grappling is used at close range to gain a physical advantage over an opponent, either by imposing a position or causing injury. Grappling ...

icon to pursue a career in

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

. 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 Stillw ...

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

References

External links

Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame

National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum

KUhistory.com Biography

{{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