StaggHigh - Presidents

	George Washington The 1st President of the United States of America George Washington was first a champion wrestler. At 18, the big, shy Washington apparently held a ''collar and elbow'' wrestling championship that was at least county-wide and possibly colony-wide. Washington never lost his touch. At the age of 47, ten years before he became the first President of the United States, the Commander of the Continental Armies still had enough left to defeat seven consecutive challengers from the Massachusetts Volunteers. The ''collar and elbow'' style devised its name from the starting position. Standing face-to-face, each wrestler placed one hand behind his opponent's neck and the other behind his elbow. While doing away with such tactics as bull-like rushes, the position opened up many possible skill maneuvers.
	Andrew Jackson The 7th President of the United States of America, Andrew Jackson was also a wrestler similar to the style and way of George Washington.
	Zachary Taylor The 12th President of the United States of America, Zachary Taylor was also a wrestler similar to the style and way of George Washington. Taylor never wrestled against Lincoln, but he was a skilled competitor in collar and elbow during his service with the Illinois Volunteers for the Black Hawk uprising. He always favored wrestling as an army sport.
	Abraham Lincoln The 16th President of the United States of America Abraham Lincoln was also a wrestler. Renowned for his wrestling skills was young Abraham Lincoln, who was the wrestling champion of his county as early as 1830, at the age of 21. Lincoln was an impressive physical specimen, thin but wiry and muscular, strengthened by hard work in the fields and towering to a mighty 6 feet, 4 inches in height. It was at this time that Lincoln had his celebrated bout with Jack Armstrong, the local tough and county wrestling champion. Lincoln was keeping the store at New Salem, Illinois, when his boss backed him to out-wrestle the feared Armstrong. From the start, Lincoln proceeded to hand out a thrashing to the local champion. Frustrated by Lincoln's enormous reach, Armstrong started fouling his opponent. Lincoln stood it for a while, but eventually lost his temper. Picking up his opponent, the storekeeper dashed him to the ground and knocked him out. Armstrong recovered in time to keep his cronies from starting a free-for-all. A couple of years later, while serving as captain of a company of the Illinois Volunteers, raised because of the Indian uprising by Black Hawk, Lincoln suffered his only recorded defeat in a wrestling bout. He fought a soldier from another unit and lost a rugged struggle by the odd fall. This time it was Lincoln who averted the free-for-all which seems of have been the customary follow-up to an individual wrestling bout. Often forsaking the ''common British'' style of collar and elbow for the free-for-all style of the frontier, Lincoln undoubtedly was the roughest and toughest of the wrestling Presidents. Also known as ''catch-as-catch-can,'' this style was more hand-to-hand combat than sport. Lincoln progressed rapidly between the ages of 19, when he defended his stepbrother's river barge from Natchez thugs, throwing the potential highjackers overboard, and 29, when he cautiously mentioned himself as possibly the second best wrestler in southern Illinois. Lincoln certainly did not achieve any national fame as a wrestler, but his career was typical of the way the sport was conducted in the first half of the 19th Century.
	Ulysses S. Grant The 18th President of the United States of America Ulysses S. Grant, was also a wrestler similar to the style and way of George Washington.
	Chester A. Arthur The 21st President of the United States of America Chester A. Arthur , was also a wrestler similar to the style and way of George Washington.
	Theodore Roosevelt Perhaps the most enthusiastic of the wrestling Presidents was Taft's immediate predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who continued regular wrestling workouts throughout his term as Governor of New York. Roosevelt, of course, had an affinity for most kinds of strong physical exertion.
	William Howard Taft William Howard Taft, the heaviest wrestling President at his ''best weight'' of 225, was a lifelong follower of collar and elbow. Big Bill was intramural heavyweight champion at Yale, and was a fourth generation wrestler in the Taft family. He was the 27th President.
	Calvin Coolidge The 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, was rated ''tolerable good'' as a wrestler by his father, old Colonel John, until at around 14, Cal took to ''duding around and daydreaming about being a big-city lawyer.''