Leroy P. Kemp, Jr.
Entrepreneur/Former World Class Athlete & Coach
Leroy Percy Kemp, Jr., was born Darnell Freeman, in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 24, 1956, to a mother and father he would not meet until 37 years after his birth. At the time of his birth, Leroy's biolgical parents, Barbara Freeman, an eighteen year old, single mother, and Theodore Mathis, Jr., also eighteen, home on leave from the the Army, stationed in Korea, only knew each other briefly. As a young mother of two children, Barbara decided that giving her son up for adoption would provide a better life for him, so as painful as it was she followed through with her plan, with the encourgement of her mother, and gave her son up to an adoption agency in Cleveland, Ohio.
After 4 ½ years in two foster homes Darnell Freeman was adopted by Leroy Percy Kemp and Jessie, his wife. Leroy and Jessie were both nearly 50 years old when they decided to adopt Darnell. Darnell was their only child and after the adoption they changed Darnell’s name to Leroy P. Kemp, Jr. The Kemp’s lived in the city of Cleveland until Leroy Jr., finished 6th grade and then Leroy and Jessie fulfilled a dream of living in the country and they purchased a 25-acre farm in the farming community of Chardon, Ohio, about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland. It was there that Leroy Jr., learned what was to be the beginning of many character qualities that would shape and stay with him for the rest of his life.
It was also in Chardon that Leroy, Jr., got involved in the sport of wrestling his freshman year, after quitting the basketball team after the 2nd day of practice. With the encouragement of several classmates that were wrestlers, Pete Hall and John Taylor, including Joe Novak, Chardon High’s Gym teacher and wrestling coach, Leroy joined the freshman wrestling squad during the 1970-71 season. A virtual novice on the mat his first year of wrestling, Leroy made the Freshman team and finished the season only losing two matches (both by one point) and winning the Conference Tournament. At the beginning of the 1971-72 season, Leroy’s sophomore year, Chardon got a new wrestling coach, Richard Depenbrok, a stickler for the basics and conditioning, who immediately saw the great potential in his new pupil and began developing his raw talent. Leroy may have had the steepest learning curve of anyone in wrestling...In his first years of varsity wrestling, Leroy finished with a record of 11-8-3 in his Sopomore year. In his junior year he faced one of the toughest fields in Ohio Division-II history, defeating the returning runner-up and defending champion on his way to his first title and an undefeated season. By his senior year his mistake-free style was in top form winning his second Ohio state title and another undefeated season and finished his last two years of competition with a record of 55-0-0, with 24 pins.
Shortly after graduating from high school, Leroy gained national attention by winning the High School Junior Nationals in 1974, and by winning his match when a Northeast Ohio “All-Star" Team faced a tough Soviet Junior National Team, in a USA - USSR dual meet in Cleveland, Ohio, in June of 1974. The match in Cleveland was one stop of the Soviet Junior National Team's two-week long, eight city tour of the United States, pitting respective “All-Stars” of those cities with the Soviet Junior National Team. Leroy won a hard fought, 6-5 decision over Alexander Markovich, to join only three other Americans posting victories over their Soviet opponent during the Soviet tour which comprising 80 total matches in all.
Although not heavily recruited, Leroy visited Clarion State University, Michigan State University, Oklahoma University and the University of Wisconsin. Only Oklahoma University and Wisconsin offered Leroy a full scholarship. Oklahoma was too far, and the rural setting of Wisconsin, its nurturing coaching staff of Duane Kleven and Russ Hellickson, recent NCAA Champion, Rich Lawinger - the perfect workout partner, and the budding Freestyle Program with several Olympic caliber wrestlers with sights on the Olympics and World Games led by Hellickson himself, gave Wisconsin the nod. At the University of Wisconsin, where Leroy acquired the nickname "Lee," he soon became a national headliner.
As a freshman, Kemp reached the national collegiate finals, the only freshman to do so, only to be turned back by a split referee’s decision in overtime, a bout in which Lee scored the only takedown. Lee would not lose another collegiate bout. In his next three years, Lee posted 108 victories and one draw against collegiate competition, and won three NCAA titles at 158 pounds. He closed his UW career at 143-6-1, with victories in 87 consecutive matches and an unbeaten string of 103 in a row. The draw with Kelly Ward of Iowa State in the 1978 All-Star Classic kept Kemp from an all-time record collegiate winning streak. Kemp's collegiate wins puts him 4th for all-time wins without a defeat.
On August 27, 1978, in his first international tournament, just two months after completing his senior year of collegiate competition for the University of Wisconsin, Leroy defeated Alexander Nanev of Bulgaria in the finals at Mexico City and won the World freestyle championships. At the age of 21 years and 8 months, he had become the youngest American to capture a gold medal and still holds that distinction to this day.
He repeated as World champion in 1979 and 1982 - becoming the first American to win three times - and added a Bronze medal in '81. Four years in a row, he won the Freestyle World Cup, the first American to do so, and he led the USA to its first, two team 1st place trophies in 1980 and '82. The Pan American Games of '79 and '83 provided further triumphs.
Leroy earned a berth on the 1980 Olympic team, and was an overwhelming favorite for the Gold medal in Moscow, until President Carter's boycott. Lee, however, did defeat the 1980 Olympic Champion from Bulgaria, in a subsequent competition called the 1980 Super Champions Title Match, held in Nagoya, Japan. Kemp placed second in the Olympic trials of 1984 and retired from competition to pursue a business career. Leroy Kemp is one of the most decorated wrestlers in any era and was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on February 11, 1990.
Leroy earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing, from the University of Wisconsin, May 1979, and earned his Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing, December 1983. Leroy began his post athletic career in Chicago, Illinois, in August 1985, as an Assistant Account Executive at Burrell Advertising, Inc., at that time the largest black owned advertising agency in the United States. While at Burrell, Lee assisted in the strategic advertising development for Ford Division's five car lines, targeting the Black Consumer Market.
In September 1986, Lee went to New York City, and joined Lever Brothers Company, Personal Products Division, as an Assistant Product Manager, where he worked on the development and marketing of several of the division’s Personal Care Products brands.
In August 1987, Lee advanced his career in Product Management by joining Clairol, Inc., Consumer Products Division, as an Associate Product Manager, also in New York City, where he worked successfully on the development and marketing of several new hair color products in the Marketing Department. Lee managed the development, marketing and successful launch, in March of 1989, of the Division's first "major brand" men's haircolor product.
In May 1989, Lee applied and was accepted into Ford Motor Company's, Dealer Training Program, where he graduated on November 1990. Since graduation, Lee has took over operations, as the President/Owner of Forest Lake Ford, a Ford dealership located approximately 30 miles north of Minneapolis/St Paul, in the rural farming community of Forest Lake, Minnesota, on January 1, 1991. Since taking over the dealership Lee has been able to reverse the significant loss trends experienced by the dealership and successfully operated the dealership achieving consistent year over year growth of its customer base making the dealership one of the top sales and service performers in the Twin Cities region. The dealership has been named to the 100 list of minority-owned auto dealerships, by Black Enterprise Magazine, in 1995, 96, 97 and 2004.
Lee remains very active in wrestling on a broad scale, teaching and mentoring youth level wrestlers all the way to up to working with our nations very best elite wrestlers. Lee gives honor and praise to God for the many blessings upon his life and is active and serves at Raise His Praise Worship Center in Rosewell, Ga.
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