Inducted in 2003 in the Old-Timers Special Award category … 1918 Spring Valley H.S. graduate … one of the greatest athletes Rockland has ever produced … Rockland’s only two-time Olympian … made the U.S. Olympic wrestling team for the 1924 Games in Paris and the 1928 Games in Amsterdam … wrestled in the light-heavyweight (198-pound) category … was prevented from competing in ‘24 due to blood poisoning from a mat burn while training on the boat heading to Paris … the alternate, John Spellman, replaced Strack and went on to win the gold medal … Strack was NCAA Div. I wrestling champion at heavyweight in 1926, competing for Oklahoma A&M … He was national AAU wrestling champion in 1924 and ’26 … also a football standout, he played one year in the NFL (1928) with the Chicago Cardinals and was a teammate of Jim Thorpe … he starred at Oklahoma A&M as a guard and kicker … At Colgate, which he attended for two years before transferring to Oklahoma A&M, he excelled as a boxer and in the shot put, discus and javelin in track … many people remember Strack for his successful career as a professional wrestler from 1928 to 1944 … he wrestled all over the world (Ireland, New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia) against such well-known grapplers as Gorgeous George, The Angel and Strangler Lewis … a man of enormous strength who could pull a tire off a rim barehanded … also a man of many talents, he coached wrestling at Spring Valley, was a coach and field judge in track & field, swimming instructor, machinist, auto salesman, and was once chief of police for construction at the Newfoundland (Canada) Naval Air Base … Strack worked as an investigator for Rockland Light and Power (which became Orange & Rockland Utilities) … he is a charter member of the Colgate Athletic Hall of Honor and also was inducted into the Spring Valley H.S. Hall of Fame … although a large man, he was described as quiet-voiced, placid and good-humored … his brother, Ernest Victor “Rooster” Strack, the former president of the Ramapo 2 (East Ramapo) School Board, also was a standout amateur wrestler … Charles Strack died in 1967 at age 67.