By Mike Chapman, W.I.N. Columnist

There’s never been a family in all of sports quite like the Morgan family of Minnesota. Their list of accomplishments in the world of “tough” is simply unbelievable.

There are six boys (and six girls) in the family of Jim and Olive Morgan and every one of the boys is tough as nails. For instance:

• The oldest three brothers — Glenn, Mike and Danny — all won Golden Gloves boxing titles as amateurs and had very successful professional ring careers, Danny was 40-1 at one point with 30 knockouts;

• The next three brothers — John, Gordy and Marty — were boxers at a young age and all became national champions in wrestling at one style or another;

• John won five national titles in Greco-Roman wrestling, was a four-time Division II All-American at North Dakota State and placed seventh in the 1988 Olympics;

• Gordy was a three-time national champ in Greco-Roman, a Big Ten champ and All-American at Minnesota and made the 1996 Olympic team in Greco-Roman wrestling;

• Marty was an NCAA Div. II champion at North Dakota State and then NCAA Division 1 champion for Minnesota. He also won two Greco-Roman national titles and made two World teams.

The Morgans are a unique clan in the world of sports, to say the least. And it all started with Jim Morgan, the patriarch of the family.

To meet Jim Morgan today, you would never guess he was a tough-as-nails athlete who once took on all comers in the rugged world of carnival wrestling. Jim is always smiling and easy going. He seems to like everyone and everyone likes him. But when you get around “old-timers” who knew Jim in his wrestling days — well, there’s another side to the story.

“He was tough, tough, tough,” said Red Bastien, a legendary professional wrestler who knows Jim very well. After all, they barnstormed around the Midwest together as carnival wrestlers in the 1940s, taking on all comers. They were close friends, and Jim wound up marrying Red’s sister, Olive Bastien.

They began training under a truly great Minneapolis-based wrestler named Henry Kolln and learned all the tricks of the trade. Even today, decades after his own wrestling career ended, Jim talks about Kolln with a sense of awe in his voice.

“He was the best wrestler I ever saw, period,” said Jim. “He was simply great. I don’t think anyone even near his weight could beat him. He trained with Farmer Burns and knew most the great pros of his day. He was really something.”

Farmer Burns is a man who many historians consider the greatest wrestling trainer of all time. It was Burns who took Frank Gotch to the top of the wrestling world in the early 1900s and even coached Cedar Rapids Washington High School to the first Iowa team title in 1921. Burns owned a legendary wrestling school and mail order business in Omaha, Neb., and his training methods and techniques are still studied by serious students of the sport. Kolln learned a lot from Burns, passing it on to pupils like Bastien and Morgan.

JIM MORGAN was born in Wagner, S.D., and moved with his family to Sioux Falls. He joined the Navy and after discharge went to Minneapolis to work and attend school at the Minneapolis School of Art. He had lots of boxing in his background, but had never wrestled much. He met Red Bastien there and his entire life changed. Not only did he marry Red’s sister, Olive, he fell in love with wrestling.

“I was dating Olive and had done a lot of boxing but little wrestling,” explained Jim. “Red and I began training with Harry Kolln. It was a real education. We actually had our first matches in a bar/nightclub setting. They would roll out a mat on the dance floor and ask for challenges from the crowd. It got pretty rough at times,” he said with a chuckle. “You learned fast.

“The manager would yell out to the crowd, ‘If you think wrestling’s fake, then come up and give it a try.’ The manager would pay us to wrestle the guys in the crowd. That was in the winter. In the summers, we would hit the carnival circuit.”

Though little known today, carnival wrestling in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s was a breeding ground for the really tough pro wrestlers of that era. Wrestlers and boxers would travel from town to town with the carnivals and their bosses would offer money to any of the local tough guys who would dare to climb into the ring with them, offering a payoff to the locals if they could beat the pros.

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