Gerald Leeman Wrestling Icon returns to Osage

I guess I should say my friends, my fans, my teammates and all you wonderful people from Osage! consider my hometown. This is hard for me I want you to know. I usually do this pretty well. But you have been so good to me. I was here 55 years ago and I didn't think I was that bad when I spoke to you but you didn't call me back. (Laughter) I won't talk too long tonight and I hope there are some people here that haven't died since I first talked to you, there must be since you turned out so heavily to hear me speak. (Laughter) I was born at Little Cedar Iowa and moved to Osage very young and I lived down by the railroad tracks. It has been said, my older brother was the first state champ Osage ever had, he won it twice and he was a great inspiration to me. And one of the things that we use to have to build our confidence when you asked where we lived, we said we live on Tough Street, the farther you go the tougher they get and we live on the last house on the corner. (Laughter & Applause)

You people know that unless you have combed the depths of pessimism, despair, and even hunger a little bit once in a while you don't really enjoy scaling the heights. I have been both places believe me. My family was pretty much held together by a Christian, loving mother and she had faith and hope. For our family we all turned out pretty well. Very much thanks to you people in Osage. Many people took care of me, gave me cloths, treated me well and I will tell you some of reminisces about these things. There was a lady by the name of Kelly and she had a restaurant down there on Main Street and every time I'd go to a tournament or go to anything wrestling I'd go by there. She'd shake my hand and she would give me a silver dollar. Needless to say I always went by the restaurant before I'd go. But those were the kind of things people did FOR me.

When I spoke here last time, 55 years ago, I just came back from the Olympics and they had a special day called the "Germ Leeman Day" and they devoted the entire day to me. They had a white convertible. They put me in it, they put my wife in it and George Sawyer got in it. Now some of you people know who George Sawyer was. He was Superintendent of Schools here FOREVER. Laughter. He was here when I came and he was here when I was gone. And he said when we road in the convertible, he said, "Gerald......., he said this is one of the proudest days of my life." (Pause) That meant a lot to me. It meant a great, great deal. I think I must have been Symbolic. He said that a ragged little kid, from down the corner and he made something out of it, he must have been very happy to see that he chiseled something good out of that. (Laughter) And I appreciated those words so much and I never forgot them. We went down to Old Central School where we worked out in a little room about as big as where those kids are sitting. That's where we wrestled. And down from that is where we practiced football. A guy by the name of Carl Conway was the MC and I remember he said that Lehigh (Osage) band got new uniforms for this occasion. They are green, and they're white and they are paid for. (Laughter) And they had Coach Mitchell and I want to tell you, that you have been so good to me. You flatter me, you've humbled me but Coach Mitchell was such an inspiration and he had such a great way of motivating me from the old school. If he would have told me to put my head down and run through that wall, I'd have run through it. He had a way, he could say "Germ, you better fire up". Everything was motivation, "Fire up" and then "you better bear down". And those were the two things that I took with me when I left in order to get the job done. And we are talking about the weight room, and adding champions. You got to fire up, be enthusiastic, just fire up, and you got to get this job done. And you got to bear down and do the job.

I feel so inferior when I look around at all these great champions that are here. And I feel they should be up here talking about them instead of me but I'm so proud of what I did here. And I spent my whole life, it was a labor of love. I don't know what I would have done had I not been able to wrestle here and go out and coach. And I was so fortunate, I coached at one of the great institutions in the United States at Lehigh. As a matter of fact, when I went to Lehigh), the Athletic Director was a retired 30 year General and they had talked to me, I knew I was going to get the job. All he said to me was "you and I are going to get along just fine and you are going to do the getting along." (Laughter). And I think that's the part. You got to get along and you got to do the job. I suppose I could tell you about a lot of things that went on in my life, but I want you to know that what happened to me HERE, I found out where I belonged, what I should do and it became my whole life. This day is very hard for me, to face you people. I can usually go talk but there is too much emotion about what I got here. (Could I have a drink of water)? A couple things I want to tell you, thank you....I'm shaking.

They just had the world Championships in ? City, they invited every person that had medaled in the Olympics to come into New York. They wanted to get together as many medalist who had won a World Championship First, Second or Third or Olympic wrestlers First, Second, or Third. They're special, they had a banquet. The wrestling took place in Madison Square Garden, the new Madison Square Garden, they drew 18,000 people. Had a big crowd. These medalists came from all over the world. World Champions they came from Scandinavian countries, they came from Satellite countries of Russia and they were all there and they honored six men there during this period. One thing these men were not all great wrestlers but they all wrestled and they had all been involved in wrestling.

The first person to get up was Dennis Hastert - the speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America and Dennis Hastert coached a winning team in wrestling in the state of Illinois and wrestled heavyweight. He told how much wrestling meant to him and how it shaped his career.

The second person was Donald Rumsfeld. Don Rumsfeld of course is the Secretary of Defense. He wrestled for Princeton. He wrestled against Lehigh and we beat him but he was a good wrestler. (Laughter). And he spoke and he made me feel so good. I don't want to sound like bragging but when he came off the elevator, this general, we were at the New York Athletic Club is a very posh place, when he came off he said "Coach Leeman" I felt like I knew the president of the United States. Don Rumsfeld spoke and he reiterated what had been said, how important this had been and how formative it had been to his career.

Third person was in the Arts. John Irving who wrote books, won an Oscar and the books always had wrestlers in some part written in the books. He wrestled for the University of Pittsburg a little bit, not too great, then he came up to lowa and our Dan Gable came by and he wanted to wrestle Dan Gable, he was taking graduate courses. He said that Gable just killed him which is not surprising. John Irving the author.

Steve Friedman wrestled for Cornell and he won a United States Open Championship and Steve Friedman was the CEO of Goldman Sachs, the largest bond Company in the world and he is now the Financial Advisor for the President of the United States. He just built a facility for Cornell University. He wrestled against Lehigh team that I coached and he is a very good wrestler. And he built this beautiful facility just for wrestling, just for practice.

The last person to speak, there was another one but I want to tell you about this last one. This man's from Cresco Iowa and he won the Noble Peace Prize. He wrestled, he went the first thing, when I talked to him and I talked to him a number of times but he told me he went to a one room school house for eight years and then wrestled there when he went to Cresco High School. He then went up to the University of Minnesota. He developed a wheat that grows in desert like areas. He is credited to saving more lives than any man of human kind, and he spoke, wonderful, wonderful gentleman.

I think the important thing I want to bring out here is what wrestling can do for people. It doesn't have to be wrestling, but you have to find your niche in life, you have to know where you belong and we hear so much bad about athletes and the things they do but you don't hear anything good about the ones who do good and these are some of those that do good. I'm telling you when they introduced those people...I was Proud. My Sport. So I think this is important what you do here for these guys. What you did for ME! They have a saying when you go to the hall of Fame. They say you are a Distinguished Member of the Hall of Fame. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame. The Lehigh University Hall of Fame. Northern Iowa Hall of Fame. The Cresco Hall of Fame. They say you are distinguished. I look in the mirror...I don't look very distinguished. (Laughter). But I feel it! And that's important! Thank You! Applause - Standing Ovation - Awarded "Key to the City" by Mayor Steve Cooper.

Thank you so very much and don't wait another 55 years until the next time. (Laughter)