 The son of Bohemian immigrants, Joseph "Joe" Stecher was born on April 4, 1893 on a farm in Dodge, Nebraska.Joe was the youngest of the family’s eight children, and as a youth, he excelled in numerous sports, including swimming, golf, tennis, and baseball.While the boys were still young, Frank Stecher enrolled his three sons in a wrestling course at the local Fremont YMCA, and Joe's older brothers soon emerged as accomplished amateur grapplers.