The Heritage Rooms within the Madison Heights Historical Museum have been closed since spring of 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a subsequent flood that occurred while they were closed that required some renovations, but on April 15, 2024, they allowed the public in again for the first time in four years, with a special presentation titled “The History of Music: In Madison Heights and Beyond,” but that wasn’t the only new attraction.
The Heritage Rooms features a new exhibit celebrating the legacy of a beloved teacher and coach named Jim Myers, perhaps better known as WWE Hall of Famer George “The Animal” Steele, who lived and worked in Madison Heights, Michigan, for the first 50 years of his life.
I recently made the drive to the Madison Heights Historical Museum to visit the new exhibit, and to meet some special people who personally knew Myers/Steele, including Madison Heights Historical Commissioners Margene Scott and Martha Kehoe. Scott even co-authored the Madison Heights volume of the Images of America book series, which includes a forward by Steele, who is also profiled in the “Notables” chapter of the book.
“I am proud to be from Madison Heights,” Myers/Steele wrote.
Ahead of my visit, Scott and Kehoe retrieved a box of ephemera about Myers/Steele, which included a variety of newspaper clippings about his life and 25-year career as a high school football and wrestling coach and physical education teacher, as well as a professional wrestler. One particular highlight on display was his Michigan High School Coaches Association membership card. This assortment of information isn’t part of the new exhibit, so I greatly appreciated that they made it available to me, and it shows what they have on-hand if others are interested in learning more about Steele.
Another special guest they invited to the exhibit was Berney Gonzales, who wrestled for Myers throughout high school. Under Myers, Gonzales became a two time MHSAA State Champion and the first American to win a Greco-Roman gold medal in international competition (the Junior World Championships) and has since been inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Gonzales generously gave me a personal tour of the Myers/Steele exhibit and shared some great stories about his former coach, mentor, and friend. He said Myers discovered him when he got into a fight with a school bully. Gonzales said he’d taken the bully down to the ground with a double-leg takedown, and was in the process of pounding the daylights out of the bully, when he felt a giant hand on his shoulder, and a voice said, “I think he’s had enough.” Myers broke up the fight, and told Gonzales that he was going to wrestle for him, and the rest is history.
Gonzales said that everybody knew Myers was a professional wrestler, first as The Student then as George Steele, but they kept quiet and respected the different aspects of his life. Gonzales said they would frequently go and watch him wrestle in Detroit at “the air-conditioned Cobo Arena.” Steele would play the heel and throw their popcorn back at them, and his students would play along in the crowd and yell and boo and not tell anybody he was their high school wrestling coach.
The Madison Heights Historical Museum has a great exhibit dedicated to Jim Myers/George Steele, featuring a variety of photographs, newspaper clippings, books, and even action figures, including one from Myers’ personal collection, and as they showed me, they have much more that they can retrieve upon request, but what truly made the visit special was the conversations I had with Margene Scott, Martha Kehoe, and Berney Gonzales, who actually knew Jim Myers, the man, and not just “The Animal.”
If you live in/near Michigan, or plan to travel near Madison Heights, I highly recommend you make an appointment to visit the Jim Myers/George Steele exhibit at the Madison Heights Historical Museum Heritage Rooms.
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