Legends By The National Wrestling Hall Of Fame | Chronicling The History And Legacy Of Wrestling's All-time Greats

Episode 10 of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's LEGENDS podcast features the introduction speeches and acceptance speech from 1979 inductee Joe McDaniel. McDaniel passed away in 2011, but archives unearthed at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame have given us his voice from that Honors Weekend. He was destined to be an Olympic champion, but the Games of the XII Olympiad were engulfed in the holocaust of World War II. So Joe McDaniel had to settle merely for recognition as the outstanding wrestler of the world. Three times he was a National Collegiate winner for Oklahoma State University, each year leading the Cowboys of coach Edward C. Gallagher to the team trophy. As a 118-pound junior, he was voted outstanding wrestler of the 1938 tournament, an honor won a year earlier by his roommate, Stanley Henson. Three times he reigned as National AAU champion, twice as a collegian when the Cowboys also won team honors, and again in 1941, two years after graduation. McDaniel's only serious exposure to internat