An NCAA champion and three-time All-American for the University of Oklahoma and a four-time Oklahoma state wrestling champion for Tulsa Webster High School, Paul Aubrey was instrumental in the promotion and growth wrestling in the state of Texas.

He beat 1960 Rome Olympics gold medalist and National Wrestling Hall of Fame Distinguished Member Shelby Wilson in the finals at the 1958 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships.

While working as a pilot for Braniff Airlines, Aubrey began visiting high schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to share the virtues of wrestling.

Several schools started club programs, including R.L. Turner High School in Carrolton, Texas, where Aubrey started the program in 1970 and enlisted a fellow pilot Don Hadden to assist him. When the school couldn't afford to purchase a mat, Aubrey purchased a truckload of Christmas trees that he and his team sold in the school parking lot. In an effort to get experience Turner's teams traveled to Oklahoma, trips that were paid for by Aubrey and Hadden. As wrestling grew in popularity administration became concerned that one of their teams was being coached by a non-employee of the school district. Aubrey declined the contract he was offered and instead coached the team for $1 per year until the school finally had to hire a full-time coach.

Aubrey then began working to get wrestling sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League, an organization that creates rules for and administers almost all athletic, musical, and academic contests for public primary and secondary schools in the state of Texas. Following petition after petition, the UIL sanctioned wrestling in 1999, 20 years after Aubrey began the program at Turner.

In 1972 R.L. Turner began hosting the Paul Aubrey Christmas Tournament, which continues to this day.

Aubrey served in the United States Marine Corps from 1960-66 and flew 70 missions in an A-4 Skyhawk during the Vietnam War.

Following Aubrey's passing from cancer in 2003, former R.L. Turner wrestler Bob Pickens wrote that "But it wasn’t just the time and money that he gladly donated, it was the life lessons, the encouragement and the sportsmanship that he taught each young man that came to the team wanting be a wrestler. He gave as much to the not-so-great as he did those with some ability. He wouldn’t let us quit, not on ourselves or on the team."