Alana Baranick
Plain Dealer Reporter
John T. Vaughan, former Case wrestling champion, patent-holding engineer and philanthropist, who afforded many amateur wrestlers the opportunity to compete on international mats, died Saturday at a nursing home in Tampa, Fla.
The 91-year-old resident of Lutz, Fla., sponsored Olympic hopefuls so they could train without worrying about providing food and shelter for themselves and their families.
“He was more than just that, “said John Smith, two-time Olympic wrestling champ, four-time world champion and head coach of the Oklahoma State University wrestling team that won the last four NCAA championships.
“He was a very inspiring man to be around. Very motivating. No matter what the outcome was, his support was always there. You always felt he had a strong sense of pride for the United States. That really rubbed off on the athletes.”
The Cleveland native graduated from Shaker Heights High School. He helped pay for his education at Case Institute of Applied Sciences by working at a foundry, where his duties included stoking the furnace.
After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering in 1937, Vaughan wrestled competitively for the YMCA.
His firsthand perspective of heat-treating and hardening metals at the foundry proved valuable in his pioneering work with metal-heating technology. While working for Ohio Crankshaft Co. in Cleveland, Vaughan helped find more effective methods for hardening metals to keep crankshafts from cracking at high speeds.
During World War II, he helped develop bullets hard enough to penetrate the steel plates of enemy tanks.
His work with induction heating earned him several patents after the war.
In the 1950s, he started his own restaurant-equipment-manufacturing outfit, which he moved from Cleveland to Tampa.
In the mid-1960s, he forged a partnership with Case classmate Tinkham Veale II and founded Alco Standard Co. Before his retirement in 1984, the company incorporated more than 100 partner firms in 11 countries.
Vaughan played a dominant role in the creation of USA Wrestling, the national governing body for wrestling. He belonged to the marketing commission of FILA, the international wrestling federation. He helped support American Greco-Roman wrestling, several college wrestling programs and the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes.
He was a founder, chairman and inductee into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Stillwater, Okla. The museum’s John Vaughan Hall of Honors wing, the hall of fame at Case Western Reserve University’s Veale Convocation Center and national youth wrestling championships were named in his honor.
“Wrestling has done so much for me over the years, “Vaughan told the St. Petersburg Times in 1991. “I would like to think I’ve had some kind of influence in the sport. I see what it does for so many people. That’s the only reward I could ask for in return.”
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
[email protected], 216-999-4828
John T. Vaughan
1914-2006
Survivors: wife, Helen; daughters, Mary Kay of Washington, D.C., and Nancy Miholland of Port Townsend, Wash.; son, Byron of Land O’ Lakes, Fla.; stepchildren, Doreen Lavelle of Herndon, Va., and John Ferlita of Land O’ Lakes; five grandchildren; and a brother.
Memorial services: at a later date at the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Contributions: National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum, 405 W. Hall of Fame, Stillwater, Okla. 74075.
Arrangements: Blount and Curry Funeral Home, Tampa, Fla.
Wrestling Gear
