“The World’s Strongest Man”

I was recently helping our youngest son through a rehab period as a result of some very involved back surgery. His employment requires some moderate lifting and positioning of heavy and cumbersome sales samples, so I began looking at various websites for large rolling product and display cases.

While exploring the internet, I found an interesting looking website in Vidalia, Georgia, and decided to call them. It was a small custom order shop where you talked a real person (not a series of phone prompts) and this time to a woman with a distinct southern accent. When I placed my order and gave them my name, “Paul Anderson”, I heard a small chuckle from the other end of the line. The woman said. “Do you know who Paul Anderson was?” I told her I did indeed although I had not been asked that question since the late 1950’s. Back then, I was asked that question at least two or three times per month.  But I told her I had not been asked that question in well over forty years.

The first time I saw Paul Anderson was in the summer of 1958 when he made a guest appearance on the old “George Gobel” Comedy Hour.  George Gobel was a former night club comedian who was featured in a weekly television variety hour which was similar to the television comedy shows of Steve Martin, Jackie Gleeson, Lucille Ball and other successful entertainers of that era. George’s special guest that evening hoisted up the rear end of a Volkswagen about chest high. (I never fully appreciated the irony of lifting up a German made car rather than an American made car until much later). To my then surprise, George Goebel introduced his special guest as “Paul Anderson, The Strongest Man in The World!”

Paul Anderson won that title through a series of events beginning in 1955 when he was twenty-two years of age by winning the USA National Athletic Union Weightlifting Championship. That won him a trip to Moscow where he captured the world’s attention by lifting more weight on his first lift than any of his Russian competitors. In the fall of that year, he won the World Championships in Munich Germany surpassing two more world records. He was booed by German spectators because he so easily defeated other well known European competitors. In 1956, he won the Gold Medal at the Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. To date, he is the only American Super heavyweight to come away with the “gold” at the Olympic Games. For many years, Paul Anderson was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for dead lifting and incredible 3,270 pounds, the greatest weight ever raised at that time by a human being, a feat accomplished on June 12, 1957 in his hometown of Vidalia, Georgia.

But the most incredible statistic for Paul Anderson was not the astonishing amount of weight he was able to lift, but the fact that he released his amateur standing in order to lift the spirits of homeless boys between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one by establishing The Paul Anderson Youth Home in his hometown of Vidalia Georgia. The boys were selected as high risk individuals for whom prison was a likely option. Paul purposely chose parentless boys who had never been selected for anything other than, “most likely to cause trouble”. Paul chose to invest tremendous resources in order to help small numbers of boys in a residential setting-one boy at a time. Giving up his amateur status so he could raise funds, Paul raised money by giving lifting exhibitions and accepting speaking engagements across the United States. The youth home opened in 1961. Parenthetically, The Oklahoma Lions Boys Ranch in Perkins, Oklahoma which houses and serves a maximum of 12 residents is similar to the model of the Paul Anderson Youth Home. The Lions Boys Ranch accepts referrals from the State Department of Welfare for abandoned boys who are considered too risky for state facilities. One of their graduates from many years ago is now a youth Pastor in Stillwater. Another went on to graduate from OSU and recently earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Desert Storm. He now teaches school in Oklahoma City.

Paul was diagnosed with Bright’s disease in 1983, but continued to take on more than 500 additional speaking engagements and lifting exhibitions. Many who heard him recall his booming voice which inspired and mesmerized. He spoke to civic clubs, high schools, colleges, business industries and military bases. According to most reports, he and his wife Linda almost singlehandedly raised the majority of funds necessary for the large endowment necessary to operate The Paul Anderson Youth Home.

This “gentle giant” credited his Olympic victory and other successes to The Lord. He was ordained into the ministry by his home church in 1965. His simple message focused upon Jesus Christ, family values, patriotism, and the free enterprise system. He used his influence as a Christian athlete to instill moral standards and set spiritual goals for the nation’s youth.

Crossings Church in Oklahoma City hosted a recent national convention for The Fellowship Christian Athletes (FCA), and Former First Lady Laura Bush was their honored guest and keynote speaker.  The program noted that Paul Anderson once served on the Board of the Directors of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). Paul was was awarded the FCA Branch Rickey Award in 1992, the highest honor presented to laypersons by the FCA.

Paul went on to be with the Lord in 1994. Paul’s wife Linda continues to operate the Youth Home in Vidalia.  Each boy receives her personal attention just as if they were her own. Paul and Linda’s only child, Paula Anderson Schaeffer, lives in the home where Paul was born. Paula is an Executive Director for a local YMCA. She continues to serve on the Board of Trustees of her parent’s ministry.

One of the greatest reported comments given to Paul Anderson of Vidalia Georgia was made by a state media reporter who spent several days with him as he traveled the country. The reporter’s final statement was: “Paul Anderson is The World’s Strongest Man, and he also lifts weights”!