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Donald Rumsfeld Opens Wrestling Room at Brother Rice

 Bill Weick and Donald Rumsfeld have a friendship that dates back to high school wrestling. Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense under both President Gerald Ford and President George W. Bush, helped cut the ribbon on a new wrestling room for his friend on Tuesday at Brother Rice High School in Mount Greenwood.
Bill Weick and Donald Rumsfeld have a friendship that dates back to high school wrestling. Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense under both President Gerald Ford and President George W. Bush, helped cut the ribbon on a new wrestling room for his friend on Tuesday at Brother Rice High School in Mount Greenwood.
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DNAinfo/Howard A. Ludwig

MOUNT GREENWOOD — Donald Rumsfeld was quick to inform everyone on Tuesday that his friend Bill Weick never beat him in a wrestling match.

Of course, the longtime friends never wrestled the in the same weight class either.

Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense under both President Gerald Ford and President George W. Bush, unveiled the William J. Weick Wrestling Facility at Brother Rice High School on Tuesday.

Rumsfeld, 82, and Weick, 83, were once contemporaries on the mat. The Chicago natives both wrestled at area high schools. Rumsfeld went on to wrestle at Princeton University and later for the Navy. He even trained for the Olympics in the 160-pound weight class.

Meanwhile, Weick won the Illinois state title while at Tilden Tech High School in 1949. He went on to win two NCAA titles competing for the University of Northern Iowa in 1952 and 1955.

 Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense under both President Gerald Ford and President George W. Bush, has been friends with Bill Weick since their days as high school wrestlers. The pair reunited on Tuesday to dedicate a new wrestling room at Brother Rice High School in Mount Greenwood.
Rumsfeld at Brother Rice
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Weick competed nationally in Greco-Roman wrestling for several years until turning his attention to coaching. Weick was on the U.S. Olympic team coaching staff in freestyle in 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988.

He was named the coach at Brother Rice in 2004 after spending 18 years coaching at rival Mount Carmel High School in Woodlawn.

Rumsfeld has credited wrestling as an influential part of his life. He even went so far as to write a chapter on the sport in his book, "Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life."

"I think the first thing wrestling teaches you is the relationship between effort and results," Rumsfeld said Tuesday.

Brother Rice assistant wrestling coach Jan Murzyn said Weick reached out to Rumsfeld three years ago as he began to rebuild the program at the all-boys, Catholic high school.

Rumsfeld was immediately receptive, offering both his insight and pledging his financial support toward the creation of the 3,224-square-foot wrestling room at 10001 S. Pulaski Road in Mount Greenwood.

Rumsfeld, who also served three terms in the U.S. House, spoke earlier to the media at Brother Rice about his career in politics. At age 29, he was elected to congress, representing Chicago's North Shore.

It was along this path that he became President Ford's chief of staff in 1974, following the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

"They were very different," Rumsfeld said of Nixon and Ford.

He's currently working on a book about Ford, who Rumsfeld said is the only person to ever ascend to the presidency without winning a presidential election or being on the ticket as vice president. Ford was appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned.

Rumsfeld briefly spoke on his time in the Bush administration before offering his take on ISIS and the current threat of terrorism throughout the world.

"We are living in a world where weapons are increasingly lethal," he said, comparing the current efforts to snuff out terrorism to the Cold War.

Rumsfeld met with Brother Rice students studying government and history just ahead of the ribbon cutting. In the chapel, he offered insights on leadership as well as the dangers of corruption.

"Nothing is quite as corrosive to our democracy as corruption," he said.

But he always managed to bring the conversation back to wrestling and his friend Bill Weick, whom he occasionally teased about his cauliflower ears.

"His is a career that has touched the lives of so many young people," Rumsfeld said of Weick.

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