Birth name Alvin Roy Morrison Height 1.65 m Role Olympic athlete | Name Allie Morrison Sport Freestyle wrestling | |
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Born June 29, 1904 Marshalltown, Iowa, United States Club Illinois Fighting Illini Died April 18, 1966, Omaha, Nebraska, United States Education University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Olympic medals Wrestling at the 1928 Summer Olympics – Men's freestyle featherweight | ||
Alvin Roy "Allie" Morrison (June 29, 1904 – April 18, 1966) was an American wrestler who won the freestyle featherweight competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics. Morrison was the only American wrestler to capture a gold medal at those Games.
Morrison also won three successive United States AAU, National Wrestling Championships, and had an almost perfect career record with merely one contest loss. He was forced to retire in 1929 due to broken vertebra and later coached wrestling and football.
Biography
Morrison was born to Ethan Allen Morrison, a railroad worker, and Sarah Jean Morrison. At 5 feet 5 inches he was shorter than his father. In 1927 Morrison married Ora Bass, a woman from his hometown, they had one daughter, Bessie Jane Morrison Svehla, born in Pennsylvania in 1931. Bass died in 1960.
On March 2, 1929, Morrison broke some of the vertebrae in his neck during a wrestling match. Fearing paralysis, doctors forced him to retire from wrestling. Next year Morrison graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in English and physical education and began coaching wrestling and football. This career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the US Navy as a petty officer. He retired after 1952 and later ran a tavern.