He was neither a wrestler nor a coach, but Jess Hoke stands among the giants of the sport as its first true communicator. As founder and editor of Amateur Wrestling News, now in its third decade, he had monumental impact on wrestling's tremendous growth, coast to coast.

His interest in wrestling was stimulated during his days as a student sports writer in the early stages of Edward C. Gallagher's coaching career at Oklahoma State. He had a personal interest, too, in Coach Gallagher, who had been his Scoutmaster and track coach. The account of the first major Cowboy victory, over Nebraska in 1920, carried Hoke's byline.

In the 1950s, when four of his seven sons journeyed to Michigan State to wrestle for Fendley Collins, he discovered that college students then, as now, were inconsistent about writing letters home. From his interest in Michigan State results came the full-scale idea of a publication to carry wrestling results across the nation. At that time, wrestling was a regional sport; nobody knew what was happening a few miles away.

Thus was born Wrestling News and Reports, soon to become Amateur Wrestling News, annually publishing thousands of dual meet summaries and complete reports on activities from high school tournaments to the Olympic Games. For a time, Amateur Wrestling News was joined by a second Hoke publication, The Young Wrestler, a youth-oriented magazine.

With Amateur Wrestling News as his forum, Jess inaugurated many projects to stimulate interest throughout the sport, such as national rankings of college teams, tournament forecasts and achievement awards to coaches, wrestlers, writers, photographers and other contributors. He also persuaded the Helms Foundation to launch wrestling's first hall of fame. In 1962, he was the first recipient of the sport's Man of the Year trophy.

His role in establishing wrestling as a nationally known sport is without parallel. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the sport, Jess Walter Hoke is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.