Although among the smallest of competitors, Robert “Bobby” Brooks Weaver, Sr., overcame great odds to achieve feats of gigantic proportion in the sport of wrestling.

When he was just nine years old, Weaver’s father passed away. Two years later, his older brother Brad, a standout wrestler himself, was killed in a car accident. Weaver threw himself heart and soul into the sport of wrestling, and, by the time he was a junior in high school, had earned his way to an alternate spot on the U.S. Freestyle Team for the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada.

Already a two-time Pennsylvania state wrestling champion for Easton High School, he returned for his senior year and won his third title, this time earning Outstanding Wrestler honors. After a postgraduate year at Blair Academy where he won the National Prep School Championship and another Outstanding Wrestler trophy, Weaver enrolled at Lehigh University where he won two league championships and earned All-America honors, finishing third at 118 pounds in 1982 in spite of being more suited to the international weight of 105.5 pounds.

But it was in freestyle wrestling where he truly made his mark, beginning his junior year of high school and never looking back. By the time he finished his year at Blair, he had already won an AAU National Open Freestyle Championship, a World Cup silver medal, a Junior World silver medal and just missed a medal in the World University Games, finishing fourth.

Just two years out of high school, he finished second in the World Championships in San Diego. In all, he qualified for two Olympic teams, won six national freestyle championships, two World Cup gold medals, two World Cup silver medals, gold medals in tournaments in Germany, Poland and Cuba and a silver medal in what many consider the toughest freestyle tournament bar none, Tbilisi.

In 1984, in front of a home crowd at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Weaver jumpstarted an impressive American performance, pinning Japan’s Takashie Irie in the finals and winning the first of seven U.S. gold medals. His back flip in celebration electrified the partisan crowd.

He has been honored with induction into the New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame, the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Hall of Fame, the Lehigh University Athletics Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania State Wrestling Hall of Fame and the District 11 Wrestling Hall of Fame. He currently teaches sixth grade math at Phillipsburg Middle School and passes his love of wrestling onto youngsters at the Weaver Elite Wrestling Club.

For his success in wrestling far beyond his stature, Robert “Bobby” Brooks Weaver, Sr. is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.