The Olympian…
Sam Hall was born in 1937 the son of a business owner who later became the Mayor of Dayton, Ohio. He was the oldest brother of three, one was to become a future Congressman/Ambassador and the other was to be a leading expert in drug prevention in America's secondary school systems. This family surrounded Sam as he grew to mature as an athlete and hold numerous springboard diving titles including 3-Big Ten, 3-NCAA and 3-NAAU. Sam also captained the Ohio State, Pan Am and Olympic traveling teams and was ranked All-American for three years and number one in the world for two years. In 1960, Sam won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Rome, Italy.
Sam was the frontrunner and the best in the world. He was poised to win. To everyone else in his life, a silver medal was an incredible accomplishment; to Sam, it wasn’t good enough. He wanted to be 1st at everything that he would do for the rest of his life.
Shortly after the Olympics, Sam enlisted in the Air Force. His intentions were to express his love for a country that had already given him such great opportunities. The Special Services asked him to dive for them but Sam wanted to master something besides diving so he ran track. While preparing to compete in the World Wide Air Force Track Meet, his right leg was injured. After a series of operations he was given a medical discharge, feeling empty and lost.
To temporarily fill the “loss”, he ran for the Ohio state legislature and won. When his term was over, Sam’s brother Tony took over his seat in the legislature and Sam took over his father’s real estate development firm. After two failed marriages, Sam was now on his third marriage which brought about 3 children. He had the house, the beautiful family and the great career. Many people would have killed for Sam’s life, but settling down left Sam feeling restless and drove him to a third failed marriage and a major drug addiction. Then life took a different turn. Sam found his religious faith, got off the drugs and took his love for the military and country one step further.
The “Spy”…
It wasn’t until Sam hit his forties (when most people hit a midlife crisis) that his story was JUST BEGINNING.
Since his short stint with the Air Force hadn’t scratched his military itch, he got himself trained as a commando by the Israelis and started helping them take out terrorists. Later in Africa, he set up a small strike unit called The Free Lancers which fought against terrorism and rescue captured children. Then Sam found himself on the front lines helping implement President Reagan’s Iran-Contra strategy. He went on secret missions in El Salvador and Honduras and led a band of Miskito Indian fighters in Nicaragua. He was a volunteer counterterrorist in Central America fighting on the side of anticommunist forces and serving as an advisor to the Nicaraguan contras.
On December 15, 1986, Sam was captured by Nicaraguan government forces, which announced the capture of a ‘’spy”. Sam was on a N.S.A. spying errand on an airbase outside Managua when he was captured and ended up trying to convince the local authorities that a map hidden in his shoe was really just an arch support. This unfortunate event was documented in news stories and interviews in most large media outlets including Mike Wallace (60 Minutes), Good Morning America and the Larry King Show. On January 29th, 1987, the New York Times headline read “Freed By Nicaragua”. This ended his 49 days as a prisoner in a communist prison.
Sam likes to say that he was a counterterrorist before counterterrorism was cool
The Humanitarian…
What Sam has been doing since his Nicaragua imprisonment is what has brought him his greatest satisfaction and led him to the feeling that he is the best at something.
Sam has discovered that volunteering for duty in danger zones to help others gives him a jolt of what he calls “God’s grace”. All of these efforts are different in type, geography and expertise needed, but they are all the same to Sam and make him feel like he is the best at something; fulfilling God’s calling and giving his all for efforts that he believes in.
In the past 15 years, Sam has worked as a covert cutout for the FBI helping bust drug dealing big shots, helped hurricane victims in Florida, North Carolina and victims of hurricane Katrina. He served as a tunnel rat and digger at Ground Zero hours after 9/11, taught counterterrorism techniques to first responders, lent a hand in the clean-up after the Columbia space shuttle disaster and helped fight forest fires in the West and especially in California during the 2003, 2006 and 2007 holocaust. He has served with the Salvation Army building hospitals and schools in war-torn Iraq, helped to enlarge a leper colony in Iraq and lead a disaster relief unit after the devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran. Sam also helped out in Sri Lanka after the terrible tsunami, spent time at the North Pole drawing attention to and trying to save the last of the harp seals and has been involved with dangerous animal rescue work in Africa and in hurricane-decimated New Orleans.
Sam currently lives in Clearwater, Florida with his wife Melinda and near his three children. Together, Sam and his wife have established a one-hundred-fifty-million dollar construction business. When Sam is not saving animals or planning his next humanitarian effort, he finds peace climbing mountains including The Grand Tetons, Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Himalayas toward Mt. Everest.
Speech Topics:
Achieving Greatness
Overcoming Obstacles
Moving Beyond Failure
Becoming A Successful Business Person
Believing In Yourself
From ‘Wholesome’ To ‘Awesome’
Do You Want To Be Paid Back Ten Fold?
NO To Ordinary, YES To Extraordinary
Gaining Confidence To Tackle Some Of The World's Toughest Problems
You Are More Capable Than You'll Ever Know
Other Areas Of Expertise:
Animal rescue worldwide
Bird Flu
Business motivation
Inspiration with an emphasis on Christian doctrine