85-Year-Old Wrestling Legend Still Coaching Teens for Free

At 85, Fran McCann still teaches takedowns and technique to high school wrestlers five days a week. He just doesn't get down on the mat with them anymore since turning 70.

The 5-foot-3 dynamo has been volunteering at Penn High School in Indiana for nearly two decades, asking for nothing except the chance to be in the gym. No headlines, no paycheck, no fanfare.

Yet McCann is wrestling royalty. He placed third in the NCAA championships, coached Olympic gold medalist Bruce Baumgartner, and earned spots in six halls of fame including the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. His brother Terry won Olympic gold in 1960.

When Notre Dame discontinued its wrestling program in 1992, McCann could have walked away from the sport entirely. Instead, he found new purpose helping local high school teams.

"Wrestling has been so good to me, gave me a career," he says. "This is payback."

That sense of purpose became even more important last year when his wife Cathy died after a long battle with cancer. They had been married 57 years after meeting on a racquetball court in Minnesota.

Now McCann shows up for Penn's wrestling team the way Cathy showed up for him every day of their marriage. He works out daily and has no plans to retire.

Sunny's Take

The relationships McCann has built tell the real story. More than 25 years ago, he was asked to work with a promising blonde-headed kid named Brad Harper who had just won a match. McCann helped him win a state title.

Today, Harper is Penn's head wrestling coach with McCann as his volunteer assistant. "We're like father-son," McCann says. When he recently told Harper he was cancer-free from prostate cancer, Harper gave him the biggest hug of his life.

This past season, McCann coached Vinny Freeman, son of Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman, to a state finals appearance. He watched Vinny remind his younger brother Gino to thank Coach McCann after practice, even though Gino already had.

McCann has discovered something unexpected in his volunteer years. He loves coaching the girls' wrestling team, which now competes separately from the boys.

"Unlike a lot of the guys who just want to get out there and brawl, the girls are fascinated by technique and understand its importance," he says.

For someone who once refused to let his own daughters wrestle, it's a full-circle moment that shows you're never too old to grow.