He was a national champion wrestler as a collegian, but Harold Nichols left his indelible stamp on the sport as one of its most successful coaches.

Wrestling at Michigan for another Hall of Fame coach, Cliff Keen, he won the NCAA title at 145 pounds in 1939. When Don Nichols followed him to the victory stand a year later, they formed one of the first championship brother combinations in collegiate wrestling.

After wartime service as an Air Force pilot, Harold spent six years as a successful coach of wrestling and track at Arkansas State University.

But it was at Iowa State University, starting in 1953, that he truly launched the fabulous coaching career that produced six national team champions, 11 runners-up, 38 individual titlists and a staggering total of 493 dual meet victories. His teams won four national trophies during a five-year span starting in 1969.

Seven of his Cyclones represented the United States in the Olympic Games, winning two gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Four times Dr. Nichols was honored with a national coach of the year award, three of them from his colleagues in the National Wrestling Coaches Association. In 1966 he was elected wrestling's Man of the Year.

Alongside his achievements as a coach, he had a monumental impact on the progress of the sport in the United States through long and dynamic service on the NCAA national rules committee, AAU and Olympic committees, initiating a host of noteworthy improvements.

Nichols' effect on young wrestlers spread far beyond the boundaries of his own wrestling room. For three decades he was one of the nation's leading clinicians, operating his own summer camps.

In recognition of his profound influence on the lives of young men as a wrestling coach and a teacher of sport and sportsmanship, Dr. Harold J. Nichols is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.