Sports Illustrated Vault: Bill and Jim Scherr
Originally Published in September 14, 1988 issue of Sports Illustrated
By Craig Neff
As the annual rodeo parade in Mobridge, South Dakota, turns right onto Main Street this baking hot Fourth of July morning, hometown heroes Bill and Jim Scherr are sitting with some former high school teammates and coaches on a float bearing the banner "32 Years of Mobridge Wrestling." The float, a sparsely decorated flatbed trailer, is being pulled by a 15-ton semi that belongs to Frank Scherr, the twins' father.
"They wanted to stick me and Jim, a Distinguished Member inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2002, in a car by ourselves, but we said 'Nope,'" says Bill, a Distinguished Member inducted in 1998.
Most of Mobridge (pop. 4,174) has come out to greet the town's humble, hard-working, first-ever Olympians. The 27-year-old Scherrs will go to Seoul as one-fifth of the U.S. freestyle wrestling team,
Bill in the 220-pound class and Jim at 198. Both are brainy, cautious wrestlers with excellent chances of winning medals, though Bill, who has lost two close matches to top-rated Leri Khabelov of the Soviet
Union, has a slightly better shot at a gold. Jim finished second at last year's world championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and Bill, a former 198-pound world champ who moved up in weight two years ago to open a spot on the national team for his brother, placed third.
Along Main Street, the Scherrs are already champions. They won state titles at Mobridge High, handled virtually all the field events for the track team, got good grades, starred in football and proved their mettle as team ropers and bull riders in rodeo.
"I quit bull riding after I started having nightmares of bulls chasing after me," recalls Bill.
Watching the parade, their father, Frank, says, "You know how they got their wrestling strength? Stacking and hauling bales of hay every summer from the time they were 10 years old."
During summers, Bill and Jim would work from dawn to dusk, six days a week, loading as many as 1,500 bales a day onto their dad's three Scherr Trucking Co. rigs. How much were they paid? ''They got a car (a 1970 Pontiac Catalina) to share when they were 16,'' says Frank quietly but firmly. "And they got to go to wrestling camp every year."
The Scherr boys never stopped working. While in high school, Jim toiled nights loading beer trucks, while Bill punched in as a low-key country-music deejay on the local radio station. ''My girlfriends used to listen to Bill before they went to bed,'' says Teresa, his high school sweetheart-turned- wife. ''They said he helped put them to sleep.''
Even after they left Mobridge for the University of Nebraska, where both won NCAA titles as seniors in 1984, Bill and Jim came home often to visit their parents and six siblings and to work with the town's young wrestlers, four of whom eventually followed them to Nebraska on wrestling scholarships.
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By Craig Neff
As the annual rodeo parade in Mobridge, South Dakota, turns right onto Main Street this baking hot Fourth of July morning, hometown heroes Bill and Jim Scherr are sitting with some former high school teammates and coaches on a float bearing the banner "32 Years of Mobridge Wrestling." The float, a sparsely decorated flatbed trailer, is being pulled by a 15-ton semi that belongs to Frank Scherr, the twins' father.
"They wanted to stick me and Jim, a Distinguished Member inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2002, in a car by ourselves, but we said 'Nope,'" says Bill, a Distinguished Member inducted in 1998.
Most of Mobridge (pop. 4,174) has come out to greet the town's humble, hard-working, first-ever Olympians. The 27-year-old Scherrs will go to Seoul as one-fifth of the U.S. freestyle wrestling team,
Bill in the 220-pound class and Jim at 198. Both are brainy, cautious wrestlers with excellent chances of winning medals, though Bill, who has lost two close matches to top-rated Leri Khabelov of the Soviet
Union, has a slightly better shot at a gold. Jim finished second at last year's world championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and Bill, a former 198-pound world champ who moved up in weight two years ago to open a spot on the national team for his brother, placed third.
Along Main Street, the Scherrs are already champions. They won state titles at Mobridge High, handled virtually all the field events for the track team, got good grades, starred in football and proved their mettle as team ropers and bull riders in rodeo.
"I quit bull riding after I started having nightmares of bulls chasing after me," recalls Bill.
Watching the parade, their father, Frank, says, "You know how they got their wrestling strength? Stacking and hauling bales of hay every summer from the time they were 10 years old."
During summers, Bill and Jim would work from dawn to dusk, six days a week, loading as many as 1,500 bales a day onto their dad's three Scherr Trucking Co. rigs. How much were they paid? ''They got a car (a 1970 Pontiac Catalina) to share when they were 16,'' says Frank quietly but firmly. "And they got to go to wrestling camp every year."
The Scherr boys never stopped working. While in high school, Jim toiled nights loading beer trucks, while Bill punched in as a low-key country-music deejay on the local radio station. ''My girlfriends used to listen to Bill before they went to bed,'' says Teresa, his high school sweetheart-turned- wife. ''They said he helped put them to sleep.''
Even after they left Mobridge for the University of Nebraska, where both won NCAA titles as seniors in 1984, Bill and Jim came home often to visit their parents and six siblings and to work with the town's young wrestlers, four of whom eventually followed them to Nebraska on wrestling scholarships.
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