TAMPA, Fla., May 23— George Zaharias, husband and manager of the late golfing champion Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias, died at a hospital here Tuesday after a long illness. He was 76 years old.

Mr. Zaharias was a professional wrestler when he met Babe Didrikson at a golf tournament in Los Angeles in 1938. They married late that year in St. Louis and were seldom apart thereafter as he quit wrestling and followed her throughout the country while she became one of the world's best-known golfers. Mrs. Zaharias was stricken with cancer in 1953 and died in 1956, at the age of 42.

Mr. Zaharias was born Theodore Vetoyanis in Pueblo, Colo., but later adopted the name under which he wrestled as a 300-pound villain. He had been in declining health and confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke in 1974.