Appreciation: Tommy Seigler will be Missed

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Retired Anderson County Security director Tommy Seigler, a former world champion wrestler, has passed away.

Seigler, who retired from Anderson County in 2019, held multiple wrestling titles including the NWA British Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship, the NWA Tag-Team Championship, and the NWA Florida Television Championship.

I spent some time with him when he announced his retirement and found him to be an old-school gentlemen who lived with grace and humility, and who was still working out with weights in his home gym.

Born to Thomas and Clare Seigler in Fieldale, Virginia in 1938, Tommy moved back to South Carolina shortly after birth, Tommy was raised in Anderson. Upon entering high school, his family moved to Iva, South Carolina, where Tommy attended Iva High School. There he competed in football, basketball, and baseball, and was selected as an all-conference basketball player. He was also one of the student winners of the contest to rename the high school “Crescent High School.”

Upon graduating in 1956, he moved to Flint, Michigan to work in a car factory, but returned to South Carolina a year later. Tommy began working in the construction industry with his father, where he became a master pipe fitter.

In 1963, while on a construction job in Pensacola, Florida, he began working out at a local gym where he was noticed by some local wrestlers who convinced him to give wrestling a try. Tommy began training and only wrestled part-time, while continuing to work in construction. After six years of part-time wrestling, Tommy decided to make it his full-time career. He traveled the world for 15 years as a professional wrestling,  retiring after a serious injury in Hong Kong in 1978.

He spent the next two decades in law enforcement before working in private security, and eventually took on the role of chief of security for the historic courthouse.

The following is an interview I did with Seigler in 2019. He will be missed.