William Calhoun - Early Life

Early Life

Born on August 3, 1934, William Dee Calhoun grew up on a farm in McKinney, Texas; a rural suburb located in Collin County about 30 mi (48 km) north of Dallas. William was an unusually large child with an extraordinary appetite, it was said that he regularly ate a dozen eggs for breakfast; and by age 14, he already weighed 300 lb (140 kg). Still wanting to get bigger, by the time he was in his early 20s, Calhoun tipped the scales at over 600 lb (270 kg), prompting his personal physician to suggest he did not have long to live, unless he reformed his diet.

However, Calhoun enjoyed his enormous size and owned an astonishing degree of physical strength in that he was usually able to perform the manual labor of several men while working on his family’s farm. In fact, legend says that Calhoun was eventually discovered by a group of traveling wrestling promoters while physically moving his cows by literally picking them up off the ground and carrying them across the field. Regardless, Calhoun first broke into the sport in 1955; and he began competing for local promoter (and the inaugural National Wrestling Alliance World Champion) Orville Brown, who recognized how a behemoth of his size could become a major box office attraction for a sport that was in great need of added popularity.