Dan McCool

August 31, 1959 – May 4, 2020

Only a handful of non-wrestlers have ever been inducted into the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame over the past 53 years. Dan McCool is being honored for his dedication to the sport as both a journalist and author. The award is being given posthumously after he passed away in 2020.

Dan’s dedication to the sport of wrestling began in high school. He attended Clarion High School where he developed a love for photography and writing. He began his journalism career as a contributor for The Predicament, a long-time Iowa wrestling publication, as a high school student. After graduating, Dan became a sports journalist and photographer, working for publications in Knoxville and Cedar Falls, Iowa, as well as in North Dakota.

McCool spent 30 years as a reporter for the Des Moines Register where he covered wrestling at the high school, college, and international levels. He also reported on baseball, football, and boxing, among other sports. He enjoyed and wrote about many sports, but wrestling was always #1 for him. His toughest challenge on winter weekends during wrestling season was picking just one (or two if he could) wrestling tournaments to attend. If he could have gone to them all, he would have. Dan was thrilled to have the opportunity to cover wrestling at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

For many years while working at the Register, Dan was responsible for publishing the top wrestlers from each class in the paper. While this was a great deal of work, he looked forward to talking to coaches each week to learn more about their wrestlers.

Dan was always concerned about being honorable to the sport of wrestling and was reluctant about personal recognition people often wanted to give him. Nevertheless, McCool received numerous national wrestling awards, including Journalist of the Year from the National Wrestling Media Association, the Amateur Wrestling News Bob Dellinger Award and many others. After presenting Dan with the inaugural award in 2017, the Iowa Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame now annually presents the Dan McCool Media Award to a deserving journalist in the state for excellence in wrestling coverage. In October 2019, he was inducted with the Lifetime Service to Wrestling Award by the Iowa Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Following his newspaper career, McCool had the opportunity to write books about wrestling in Iowa, most notably chronicling 100 years of the Iowa high school state wrestling tournament.

McCool was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2023 along with Jason Christenson, Ken Gallagher and Cliff Moore.

High School

Clarion High School