Paul Anderson

Football Player

• Born: October 17, 1932
• Birthplace: Toccoa, Georgia
• Died: August 15, 1994
• Place of death: Vidalia, Georgia

Sport: Weightlifting

Early Life

Paul Edward Anderson was born on October 17, 1932, in the village of Toccoa, Georgia, located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Paul’s father was a construction engineer, and the family often moved from town to town in Tennessee and Georgia so that his father could find work. Paul was sick as a child, suffering from rheumatic fever and kidney disease. The Anderson family always returned to Toccoa after the construction jobs were finished. Paul attended high school in Toccoa, where he was a football player and a class officer.

The Road to Excellence

Paul excelled as a football player at Toccoa High School, where he played fullback. He was short, at 5 feet 6 inches, and heavy, at more than 200 pounds, but he was surprisingly quick for a player his size. He was, however, used mostly as a blocker for the other running backs. Paul helped Toccoa High School to nine wins in ten games and was offered football scholarships by a number of colleges. He chose Furman University, a small college in Greenville, South Carolina.

Paul played on the freshman football team in 1950, but, because he did not like to study, he decided to drop out after one semester. At Furman, Paul had begun to lift weights with some of his friends on the football team. When he returned home from Furman, Paul began to lift weights in earnest. He built his own weights using automobile axles, and buckets and barrels filled with concrete. In his first meet in 1952, Paul won the Tennessee state heavyweight weightlifting championship and broke every state record in his weight class.

Injuries suffered in an automobile accident, however, as well as a broken wrist and strained leg, kept Paul from competing in big meets. Paul kept training, lifting huge amounts of weight that often exceeded world records. “I would have won the world championship at any time from 1952 on but I always had injuries,” Paul recalled.

Paul’s chance came when he was finally healthy, at the 1955 amateur championships held in Cleveland, Ohio. He lifted only once in each of the events and broke the world record with a lift of 436 pounds in the clean and jerk. His total lift for the three Olympic lifts was a new American record of 1,152.5 pounds. More important to Paul, he was selected to join the American weightlifting team that was to leave almost immediately to compete in the Soviet Union.

The Emerging Champion

In the Soviet Union weightlifting is an important sport, so more than fifteen thousand fans crowded Gorky Park in Moscow on a rain-soaked day in June, 1955, to watch the American and Soviet teams compete in weightlifting. Of the twelve athletes competing in the event, Paul appeared the least like a weightlifter because, at 5 feet 9 inches and 340 pounds, he looked short and overweight. The other weightlifters looked muscular and well built. Paul also wore his own uniform because he had not been expected to make the team, and a uniform had not been made for him.

In the first event—the military press—the Russian made an excellent lift of 330 1/2 pounds. Paul asked for an unbelievable 402 2/5 pounds to be put on the bar. The crowd laughed because that was 20 pounds more than the world record. Fans wondered how the short, heavy American could expect to lift that much weight. When Paul made the lift, the crowd sat shocked in silence, then broke into wild cheering. In the next event—the clean and jerk—Paul also set a world record. The Russian crowd was so impressed that they called him “a wonder of nature.” Overnight the squat, round Paul went from obscurity to the title of “world’s strongest man.” He became a national hero. Later that year, he won the world weightlifting championship in Munich, Germany.

Paul’s next big challenge was the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. He was so heavily favored to win that the Russian team did not even send a man to compete in his weight class. However, bad luck struck. Paul got sick with a severe inner ear infection that made him dizzy and gave him a high fever. In the two weeks before the Olympics, Paul lost 30 pounds and could not train. Three days before Paul was to compete, the doctors were not sure if he could lift.

On the day of the competition, Paul took heavy doses of aspirin, which reduced his fever and made him feel well enough to try to compete. He was, however, still very weak, and taking the gold medal he should have won easily became difficult because of illness. “I felt it was God showing me that I needed him,” said Paul.

After the first of three events, Paul was in second place behind Humberto Selvetti of Argentina. He had to lift an Olympian record of 413 1/2 pounds in the clean and jerk to win the medal. Twice Paul failed. On his next lift, he asked God for a little extra help. “I was not making a bargain,” he said, “I needed help.” On that third lift, he forced the weight up and held it high in Olympic victory. “As I look back, getting sick was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” he said. “It gave me a type of humbleness.”

Continuing the Story

Paul overcame illness and injury to become an Olympic champion and the “world’s strongest man” because of his dedication, hard work, and strong faith in God. After he retired from competition, he devoted his time to raising money for a home for troubled boys. In 1962, the Paul Anderson Youth Home was opened in Vidalia, Georgia, by Paul and his wife, Glenda.

Paul traveled in the United States, giving as many as five hundred lectures and exhibitions a year to raise money for the home. During those appearances, he performed feats of strength. The Guinness Book of World Records credited Paul with lifting the most weight ever by a human being when he lifted 6,270 pounds off of a set of trestles with his back. Because of continuing health problems, however, in later life he was no longer able to perform exhibitions.

Summary

Paul Anderson was an unlikely hero. The short, squat, sickly man from the foothills of rural Georgia endured endless hours of training and many injuries to become a world and Olympic champion. However, he remained humble, and at the height of his fame he dedicated his life to serving God.

Bibliography

Anderson, Paul, and Jerry B. Jenkins. The World’s Strongest Man. Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1975.

Anderson, Paul, Jerry B. Jenkins, and James R. Adair. A Greater Strength. Old Tappan, N.J.: F. H. Revell, 1990.

Strossen, Randall J. Paul Anderson: The Mightiest Minister. Nevada City, Calif.: IronMind Enterprises, 1999.