A collegiate champion for the University of Nebraska, Bill Scherr earned five consecutive world-class medals, including a World championship in 1985 and an Olympic bronze in 1988.

Scherr was a two-time South Dakota champion at Mobridge High School and won the Junior Nationals in 1980. He was a three-time All-American at Nebraska, with a record of 133-8, and won the NCAA crown in 1984 at 190 pounds, just a few minutes after his twin brother, Jim, had won at 177.

Competing for the Sunkist Kids, Bill won six national championships in Freestyle and one in Greco-Roman. After winning the gold medal in the Freestyle Worlds at 198 pounds, he moved up to 220, primarily because Jim had outgrown the 180.5-pound limit.

Bill won silver medals in the 1986 and 1989 Worlds, bronze medals in the 1987 Worlds and 1988 Olympics. He won a gold medal in the Pan American Games in 1987 and was World Grand Champion in 1989. Jim was his teammate along most of that stretch, winning two silvers and a bronze in the Worlds, a bronze in the Pan Am Games and fifth place in the 1988 Olympics.

One of Bill's most spectacular and meaningful triumphs came in the Goodwill Games of 1990. Trailing Andrei Golovko 1-0 in the closing seconds, Scherr unleashed a winning two-point throw just as time expired to win the gold medal and give the USA a momentous victory over the Soviet Union.

That result, before a roaring, sellout crowd at the University of Washington, spurred the Seattle media to vote wrestling the No. 1 attraction among the 33 sports, and the wrestling finals the most spectacular event of the entire Goodwill Games.

As a wrestler who was best in the nation, then best in the world, William Scherr is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.