Can someone inform me about what exactly happened to Dave Schultz? I knew he was a great wrestler, and that he is no longer with us, but I didnt know that he was murdered until I was doing a search on the net the other night and saw something about some millonaire murdering him.
What I remember was that Schultz was living at the estate of the DuPont guy who financially backed several Olympic training teams and the DuPont guy shot him. Maybe do a search on DuPont for more info.
Did you know that even the Pro Wrestling mark magazines covered that story when it happened. A true sad day for the world of wrestling.
By that I mean the tragedy and not the fact it was mentioned in a pro-wrestling mag.
From an interview of his brother Mark, I read that he was killed by a mentally unstable man.
Kurt Anle had a little bit about it in is book sad dupont just pulled up to his house and shot him in front of his wife
Yup, go to any search engine and look for 'dave schultz dupont murder'. Dupont was eventually found guilty but mentally ill. People put up with Dupont's shit for years because of his financial contributions to the sport.
John DuPont, an heir to the DuPont fortune, was a modern pentathelete who failed to make an Olympic team. He was a passionate sports fan, and especially had a heart for wrestling, a sport that his family looked down upon, and deemed it an activity for "ruffians." In the mid 1980s, DuPont built a large training center for Olympic level wrestlers on his estate in Newtown Square, PA. He invited them to come train and live on the estate grounds, all for free. To top it off, he paid a small stipend to the top wrestlers at their weight classes. Team Foxcatcher was born.
In a sport like wrestling, where $5 is still sometimes a lot of money, DuPont's offer seemed like a godsend. Many of the top U.S. international wrestlers and coaches flocked to the estate, including Dave Schultz, one of the greatest ambassadors for the sport of wrestling. Schultz, a 1983 World and 1984 Olympic champion, was widely known for being a great champion, a great sportsman, and someone who was cheered by all wrestling crowds, no matter of what nation. He was a technical genius when it came to wrestling. Although still competing, Schultz often doubled as a freestyle coach and athlete, and was often sought after by other top wrestlers for advice. He moved his family onto DuPont's estate, and became one of the most prominent individuals on Foxcatcher.
On the other side of Dupont's generosity was the fact that he began displaying increasingly bizzarre behavior. His nearby neighbors had always considered him an eccentric - he was known to have driven his cars into rivers or swimming pools under strange circumstances. One woman recalled how he drove his battle tank (he had quite a collection) down the street late at night, pulled up to their house, and asked her husband if he wanted to "come out and play." These an other similar incidents were for the most part ignored by the authorites because of DuPont's great wealth and friendship with the local law enforcement (being a marksman, he helped them with their shooting skills).
As his wrestling club grew, Dupont's behavior grew increasingly more paranoid. He would have binges involving alcohol and illicit drugs. He began to have symptoms of frank psychosis, including visual hallucinations, and paranoid delusions. While appearing stable at times, he would make whimiscal decisions that caught people's attention, such as cutting several black wrestlers from the team. His behavior began turning towards violence - the biggest red flag was his taking an AK-47 in hand, walking up to 1992 Olympic alternate Dan Chaid on day, and telling him to "get the f--k off the estate." Many of the wrestlers, who at the time were training for the 1996 Games, began planning to move out once the Games concluded.
Schultz tried to help DuPont, believing he could help him battle his demons. He began spending more time conversing with DuPont, and while big-hearted, he was not afraid to tell him off about his behavior.
Somewhere along the line, this all turned terribly wrong, and on one day in January of 1996, DuPont approached Schultz as he was working on his car, pulled out a gun, and shot him dead. With the whole world watching, DuPont holed up in his estate for several days before law enforcement lured him outside and arrested him. He was prosecuted and found guilty but insane, and sentenced to time in a psychiatric facility, where he resides today. The DuPont estate later settled with Schultz's family for an undisclosed amount.
Scully
His family go like 30 mil
"there has to be more to the story than what we have heard."
Try reading "Fatal Match" by Bill Ordine and Ralph Vigoda; it's a summary of the Philadelphia Inquirer's investigations into the incident. A great read.
Scully
It was a truly sad day for the sport. After Dave's death, his wife Nancy started the Dave Schultz wrestling club to help support former members of Team Foxcatcher. Today it is one of the top clubs. Nancy is very nice person and has done much for the sport. I have had several opportunities to be around her. She is a great person, and like her late husband, an ambassador for the sport.
TTT for Dave Shultz
Lance couldn't be more correct. Nancy is a great ambassador for the sport.. she won a huge settlement against DuPont, with what she recieved, she could have chosen to horde all of it, and not invest anything back towards the wrestlers.. since the settlement was from her husbands death, and he couldn't be here to help wrestlers, she chose to invest a lot of the money back towards wrestling instead. The Schultz International Open was this past weekend, and is always a great tournament, with some great matches and afterwards she throws a huge banquet for the wrestlers, which is always a great time.
DuPont was an absolute loon... He had asked people to refer to him at one point as the Dalai Lama.. his mansion had lots of spaces between the walls (ever see "people under the stairs?" Kinda like that movie) and was convinced at one point that there were people inside the walls out to get him. So he had one of the wrestlers (name withheld) go into the walls to chase these fictional people out of the wall, while DuPont was firing a gun at at the walls. Another wrestler (name withheld) who was living on the property was requested to come to the mansion late at night... DuPont had referred to himself as the "Golden Eagle of America", and when the wrestler arrived at the room DuPont was in.. DuPont was sitting in a homemade giant sized birds nest, naked as the day he was born, arms bent, flapping his elbows like wings, and squaking like a bird.
SuperMarioSak,
Actually, no, there's really not much more to the story than that. DuPont was getting progressively more and more loony and more and more aggressive in behavior.. USA wrestling was thinking about dropping DuPont as a sponsor, and a lot of the wrestlers were thinking about leaving Foxcatcher Farm and team Foxcatcher. Schultz and his family were still there, and DuPont shot him.. plain and simple. (little known fact... coutnry singer Garth Brooks actually donated money to USA wrestling after DuPont was dropped as a sponsor. Brooks was a pole vaulter in college, and one of his big hits was inspired by a wrestler.. "Much too young to feel this damn old")
Jon,
Actually, both of them were all american's at Iowa.. the one you're thinking of is actually the one involved in the Golden Eagle incident.
Cool, personal story about Dave.
Me and 4 of my teammates were wrestling in the '95 NCAA's in Iowa City. We went to the arena to check our weights and work out. The wrestling room was jam packed with guys so Coach Borelli took us down to the arena floor where all of the mats were out for the tourny. We all started getting warmed up on the first mat where two older guys were drilling in one corner off the same mat. We started wrestling a nd kept rolling and falling into the little corner of the mat the 'older guys' were using. After about the tenth time the old guys laughed, smiled and moved over to another mat.
Coach Borelli walks up yo us and says, "Do you guys know who you just kicked off the mat?" We had no idea who it was. Coach B informed us we had just run-off Dave Schultz and Townsend Saunders!
We had no clue! He was so unassuming... and cool for letting us have the big portion of the mat.
After DuPont shot Schultz, the Brands brothers continued to accept money from him. Shows you the kind of guys they are.
"After DuPont shot Schultz, the Brands brothers continued to accept money from him. Shows you the kind of guys they are"
Lets also mention that Rico Chiapparelli,who lived at the mansion, refused to take any blood money after the murder.
Jeter,
If you're going to pass judgement like that, there's a number of people who could be blamed. Earlier that year, USAwrestling talked about dropping DuPont's sponsorship, as he was getting out of hand... the decision was made to wait until after the '96 olympics. And the Brands brothers wrestled the remained of that year for Hawkeye WC, not Foxcatcher. The Brands brothers are both great guys. Have you actually been around them at all?
It sounds like a rodeo song to me