Henry Wittenberg

Henry Wittenberg (September 18, 1918 – March 9, 2010) was an outstanding American wrestler and Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling. He won two Olympic medals and was the first American wrestler after 1908 to achieve this feat. He at one point in his career wrestled 300 matches without losing. He taught wrestling at Yeshiva University and City College of New York for thirteen years. In 1977, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Biography

Henry Wittenberg was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He became an excellent wrestler despite not wrestling at William L. Dickinson High School, where he instead swam and played chess. As a student at City College of New York he did not even consider himself athletic. However, the wrestling coach, Joe Sapora, introduced him to the sport. By his junior year of college, he was placing in prestigious college tournaments. After college, Wittenberg entered eight AAU tournaments. He won all eight of them. In the AAU tournaments he did not lose a match. He wrestled over 300 matches in a row and did not lose a single one. Wittenberg was the co-captain of the CCNY wrestling team together with Stanley Graze in 1939.