VanBebber competed at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where he won the gold medal in the freestyle welterweight (72 kg) division.

[1] In 1950, he was named one of the ten greatest amateur athletes in the western hemisphere for the first half of the 20th century.

VanBebber served four years in the infantry during World War II, three of them in the Pacific theater.

For more than 50 years he was the only American-born wrestler to win three NCAA titles and an Olympic gold medal.

In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Member.