A Wrestling Life 2: More Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable
195
A Wrestling Life 2: More Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable
195eBook
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Overview
Through stories funny, heartfelt, intense, and always engaging, Gable shares more about the life he has lead and what can be learned from those experiences. He goes on to detail what have come to be known as the Gable Trained principles that he follows to keep his life full of “wins,” the revelations about how to cultivate success at the highest levels, and the reasons behind these steps for living well.
A Wrestling Life spent two months on the New York Times sports bestseller list, and has become an instant classic of sports memoirs. A Wrestling Life 2 is sure to add to Gable’s ever-growing legacy and entertain and inspire wrestling fans everywhere.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609384852 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Iowa Press |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 195 |
| File size: | 23 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Puzzling
In order to make great teams, a coach needs to be able to fit many different pieces together, pieces that may not normally fit together in any other way. These different pieces may not always come together all the time, but getting them to match up at the proper time can make all the difference.
At my high school, West Waterloo, assembling the pieces of the wrestling puzzle started well before my coach, Bob Siddens, came on the scene. Because of this, he wasn't starting from scratch and, therefore, it was easier for Bob to put the pieces together.
Laying a foundation is always tough. West Waterloo had five straight state championships between 1942 and 1946 with coaches Finn Erikson (1942–43) and Roy Jarrard (1944–46). With this foundation, Coach Siddens reeled in eleven state championships from 1951 through 1977, as well as several second-and third-place team trophies over those years. Many of these great wrestlers graduated and moved on to championship college teams, and they helped to develop and support the total sport.
One such college was Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, which won the 1947 NCAA tournament with several West Waterloo wrestlers. The Dream Team of 1947 by Arno Niemand tells the fascinating story of this historic season. In 1950, Siddens was himself a member of the NCAA championship team for Iowa State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls. It's unbelievable the effects these experiences have on a person — they carry them for life.
Even today, many different people continue to contribute to the sport, whether they're a former wrestler themselves or a family member or a friend of a wrestler. A great example is Dave Bunning, whose dad, Jim, was a state champion at West Waterloo in 1956. Dave contributes to the sport of wrestling at a high level. It's a system that carries on throughout families and through people's lifetimes. Look at me: I was a West Waterloo wrestling graduate and was positively affected by Coach Siddens; then I in turn helped positively affect Iowa State, the University of Iowa, USA wrestling, and the world of wrestling to this day.
Another great example is two-time West Waterloo state champion and two-time NCAA champion Dale Anderson and his contribution to Michigan State University and its wrestling program, as well as the Big Ten. Michigan State in 1967 won the NCAA wrestling team championship, being the first to do it from the Big Ten Conference. Dale brought with him West Waterloo's wrestling tradition and Bob Siddens's winning ways to help with that 1967 NCAA wrestling title. You can read about it in Dale Anderson's book on their performance, A Spartan Journey.
Back in the day, I watched Siddens take individuals from both sides of the tracks, get a lot out of them individually, and help them win as a team. He brought them together by helping them experience the individual excellence one needs in life to be successful in their professions and with their families. When all or even most of the wrestlers were able to do this at the same time, while working toward the same goal, it brought them together as a team in a way nothing else could.
One thing I've always liked about wrestling is that one wrestler can make a name for themselves, and it affects a whole town, state, or country. When an entire team can have this kind of success, it brings people together even more.
Bob Siddens would get the different kids to feed off each other, yet those weren't the only kinds of pieces that came together. Kids with a less-than-perfect home life, especially ones who might not have strong parental role models, often became more driven toward wrestling success and community involvement. Sometimes it was the family themselves who was looking for something of value for their kid. They would see our wrestling team's success, both on the mat and in the community, and think, "I want my kid to go out for wrestling, because I know he will benefit." That was the thing: Coach Siddens led us so that everyone benefited: the wrestlers, the families, the school, and the community. And he was able to do this by bringing together all of these different pieces of the puzzle and by making them fit together in the right way at the right time. An interesting read about Bob is called Siddens!, authored by Don Huff and Mike Chapman. That book gives more insight into Bob's career.
Another good example of puzzling pieces together occurred between me and Chuck Jean of Albert Lea, Minnesota. He and I were two pieces of a puzzle who would not normally fit together. Chuck was always very social, while I was more quiet and a homebody. Without wrestling, we probably would not have gotten along. Through wrestling, we fit together as part of the larger puzzle that made Iowa State wrestling.
Chuck was a year behind me in school, which was probably a good thing for me. The rule of not competing for the school as freshmen was good for many, as it gave us time to adjust to the level of discipline needed for competition at this level, as well as the academic expectations, but it was not good for Chuck. Without competition as his main focus, Chuck jumped right into the social scene of college, and that became his top priority. Luckily, by the time he came along, I was already set in my ways in terms of practicing, working out, and studying.
In spite of our different temperaments, Chuck and I got along well. There's just something about Chuck that made you like him, and he definitely made a name for himself, both in the wrestling world and in the social world on campus.
Chuck liked to work out late at night when the ISU training facilities were closed. At some point, he discovered that the underground steam tunnels on campus were a good place to run during the cold Iowa winter nights. The tunnels went all over campus and were filled with heated pipes, so the temperature was well over one hundred degrees, which was great for when he needed to lose a few extra pounds for weigh-ins before a match.
One night he asked me to join him on a run through the steam tunnels. I had never been down in them and was curious, so I agreed. We set out late at night and ran to the nearest manhole cover on campus. Chuck slid it open, we climbed down, and then he put the cover back on. We were in a dark tunnel that was hot and steamy. Chuck's flashlight showed me what we were up against: pipes were everywhere, a few of them low hanging, and even some rats here and there. It was hot and dangerous, especially when running. The flashlight helped, but it was too dangerous to run fast. But wow did I sweat!
At some point not long into our run, I asked, "How do you know where you are?" I trusted Chuck, and wasn't too worried about getting lost in the maze of tunnels, but wondered about how he navigated them.
Chuck responded, "You don't. Not to worry though, because there are many manholes for escaping."
Chuck wasn't one to train too long, so shortly after that we stopped and went up to what I thought would be civilization. This particular manhole cover was right in the middle of campus, and we came up in the middle of a protest against the Vietnam War that was just quieting down for the night. Many of the student protesters had just laid down in their sleeping bags to spend the night outside so they could continue their protest first thing in the morning.
Needless to say, we surprised several of them, coming up out of the ground right beside them! At this point, I just wanted to run back to the house, but Chuck apparently didn't agree with this group. He picked up a few of the sleeping bags and shook them so the students slid right out! I grabbed him and started running. Chuck came along with me but was grumbling to himself the whole way. I don't think he wanted to be done with that group just yet.
Anyway, I thought that was the end of it. Apparently the students at the protest weren't happy about Chuck's actions though. None of the protesters recognized him, so he didn't get in trouble, but they did recognize me. I got called into the vice president's office shortly afterward, and the administration put a letter of censure into my file. Any more trouble, and there could be serious consequences for me.
So my one time in the steam tunnels under ISU was over. It made no sense to me as a training method, but it did to Chuck. It must have worked for him, too, because he won two NCAA titles at Iowa State. He had to transfer shortly after his second title, and went on to win two more national titles in the NAIA division for Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. Those last two were mostly on sheer talent alone, with very little practicing.
Chuck was definitely one of those difficult pieces to fit in the puzzle to make the picture complete. But Iowa State's coach Harold Nichols was able to do so. He had many pieces to work with to make one complete puzzle for many years. It wasn't perfect, but Nichols, like Coach Siddens, put those different puzzle pieces together and created winning teams out of them many times. Years later, I was able to do the same because I had so many great teachers.
CHAPTER 2A Special Place
In early to mid-June in 1971, I was staying in a cabin supervising and teaching young wrestlers in church camp facilities along West Okoboji Lake near Okoboji, Iowa. At this point, my main focus was on training to become a World and Olympic champion wrestler, but even though this wasn't a formal training camp at the USA level, it was great for me in several ways. I was living in spartan facilities, and all of my focus was on wrestling development and training.
Dave Martin, who had been one of my roommates at Iowa State, ran the camp, and he gave me a few teaching duties, but mostly just allowed me to train. The other wrestling counselors and teachers were all great workout partners, so I got some high levels of training in. Plus, most of the wrestling training was done in a church, so I felt like someone was looking out for me.
I was also learning new training tricks, even though I didn't fully understand them. During one of my first days there, wrestling training was about over for the day and I was a little hotter than usual. I let my instincts take over and walked out the door down to a dock on the lake a mere thirty yards away. After quickly undressing (except for my briefs), I jumped into the cold, clear lake water.
Wow! What a great feeling that was. I stayed in the water for a couple minutes and then got out. Then I jumped back into the lake again and took a quick exit back onto the dock and sat down in a chair. After sitting for a short period, I realized how quickly I had recovered and that I was ready to go back to training. So I grabbed a clean, dry shirt and went back to the wrestling mats. Even though I was almost finished with wrestling training for the day, I was able to go longer than normal, and I still felt good while doing so. Science was working for me, but that was over my head at the time. What I knew came from the on-the-job training that I learned through practice and experience.
Those dips became more regular during the next two weeks, depending on my need to recover.
At the end of the day after these wrestling workouts, I would change from wrestling shoes to running shoes and would have another counselor drive to pick me up after about ten or fifteen minutes of running. The thing is though, the people who were supposed to pick me up must have been playing my own mind games on me, for as the time got closer to when I thought they were going to appear, time seemed to stretch on longer. Still, I didn't let up on my pace. The more I thought they were sure to be there, the faster I ran.
If the object of their game was to encourage me to not let up, even at the end of a full day, it certainly worked. That ten-to-fifteen-minute run ended up being closer to thirty or forty minutes by the end of the two weeks of camp. Thanks, guys, for toughening me up!
A little sidenote about that summer in Okoboji: I've seen a photo of me on the dock after one of my recovery splashes. This was simply of me getting out of the water and sitting and recovering before going back to wrestling training in the church. In my view, there are some girls sunbathing on the dock right next to the camp's dock. Believe it or not, one of these girls was Kathy, my future wife, hanging out with her girlfriends. Of course, this group of girls had very little effect on my training. At that point in time, my mind was always, or at least mostly, on wrestling.
Okoboji continues to be a special place for many. For me, it was mostly the time spent at the camp that was special, but with continual connections of that dock shot (Kathy) and with people like Don and Jane Mittelstadt (Tom Brands's wife Jeni's parents) living there, along with former Iowa student wrestling volunteer, Julie Fillenwarth, and her family resort, the place still rocks. Of course, the lake helps!
CHAPTER 3Show Me the Way: The Peterson Brothers
The environment one grows up in and continues to put oneself in often determines a person's outcomes.
In the spring of 1968, Ben Peterson was finishing his senior year in high school in Cumberland, Wisconsin. He wasn't on the radar of many big wrestling schools after finishing in second place in his weight division at the Wisconsin high school state wrestling tournament. But the 1968 Olympic wrestling trials were in Ames, Iowa, on the campus of Iowa State University, and Ben qualified to come through a regional wrestling event. Of course, his name did not stand out among the many older, credentialed athletes in the group, but Iowa State head wrestling coach Harold Nichols watched the trials and something about Ben struck him. Coach Nichols offered him a partial scholarship after the trials, which Ben accepted. He knew of the wrestling program's reputation for excellence, but Iowa State was the best match for his academic interests.
Ben started wrestling at Iowa State during my second year of eligibility in wrestling. I was coming off an individual NCAA title, and was always looking for good workout partners. Ben turned out to be a great one for me, even though he was considerably bigger (I wrestled at 137 pounds, and he wrestled at 190 pounds). He had an attitude that kept me alert and intense during practice sessions. He could always come back for more, and we could battle every day if needed. He helped me a lot physically, but I probably helped him more. Working out together, he took on a new and higher level of commitment. Of course, I could probably say the same, because I now had a partner who would do many of the extras alongside me. I have found that having a good, motivated partner always helps with training. In high school, I had Doug Moses. In college, I had Ben Peterson helping me — and the entire Iowa State team — to victory.
Ben learned to adopt goals of higher magnitude being around a roomful of highly motivated recruited wrestlers. He did the same with his academics. Beyond that, not much changed with his already disciplined life as a devout Christian. At the end of his freshman year, Ben had a precise goal of capturing the starting position in his weight class the next season — and he did. He wrote the motivating words of his competition on a chalkboard in his house so that he woke to that daily.
Like Doug Moses, Ben went on to even higher levels of achievement on the mat. He was a three-time All-American, two-time national champion, and went on to win two Olympic medals: gold at the 1972 Munich Olympics and silver in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. He also qualified for the 1980 Olympic team, which boycotted the Moscow-based event due to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Ben earned a bronze medal at the 1973 World championships as well.
Who's even more unbelievable is Ben's older brother John, who didn't win any high school state wrestling tournaments and didn't win national championships in college at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. John came to train at Iowa State after college, and he saw how Ben and I were working. He began training with the two of us, and he started to improve quickly. It didn't take long for John to realize his potential in an atmosphere focused on hard work and dedication.
I had been planning to live by myself the year after I won the World championships, but I invited John to live with me instead. In that year of living with me and working out with all of us, John just kept getting better and better. He went on to win the 1972 Olympic silver and the 1976 Olympic gold, and he ending up medaling twice at the World championships: bronze in 1978 and silver in 1979.
"I've said over and over that if it hadn't been for that invitation to come down and train at Iowa State, there is no way I would have ever made the Olympics," John says now. "I was a good NAIA wrestler. I'm sure I had the ability to win the national tournament, but didn't. Dan helped my confidence come way up.
"When we would work out together, I quickly found out that I couldn't keep up with this guy. He'd get me so tired and I'd get discouraged that I might not be in the same league as him. But I was determined that I was going to stick with it.
"There were times in practice where I felt humiliated about my performance, but the thing I really appreciated about Dan was that he never humiliated me. There are some guys who enjoy punishing people. Dan had a way of making me feel ashamed if I quit too early without ever saying a word or acting in a way that was degrading me. He let me know that you can't stop and you have to keep going. Little things he would say were really encouraging."
One never knows what he or she is capable of until they're put in the right atmosphere. Everyone should think hard about what they need to succeed and bring out the best in themselves.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Wrestling Life 2"
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Copyright © 2017 University of Iowa Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents Thanks! Gable Trained: An Introduction 1. Puzzling 2. A Special Place 3. Show Me the Way: The Peterson Brothers 4. Iowa State to Iowa: The Move in Hindsight 5. Life Directions 6. The Unexpected Becomes Expected 7. Mama’s Boys 8. Royce, Mark, and Bruce: The Toughest, the Smartest, and the Hardest Worker 9. Ten Miles × Two 10. Equalizers Rule 11. It’s More Than Just a Name 12. Just Normal 13. Truth Serum 14. Total Confidence 15. Fan Favorites 16. Know Your Limit 17. The Smartness of Hard Work 18. The Missing Year-Round Plan 19. Sign of the Times 20. Big Ten Streak 21. The Sun Rises, the Sun Sets 22. The Final Season 23. Crazy but True 24. Regrets—Not Many 25. Cartered, Bushed, Trumped, and the IOC 26. The Run for or From 27. The Mirror 28. The Gable Edge 25 Years of All-Americans and Big Ten Champions in My Words, 1973–1997 Names in the Sport IndexWhat People are Saying About This
"As a wrestler and a coach, Dan Gable is inimitable. In A Wrestling Life 2, Gable shares the methodology behind his unrivaled success with the Gable Trained Principles, something we can all use as a roadmap to enhance and improve all aspects of our lives. ‘The longer’ you wait to read A Wrestling Life 2 ‘the longer’ it will be before you are on your own path to greatness!”
“Dan Gable is one of my heroes. Meeting him changed my life. His life (as a wrestler, as a coach, as a man dedicated to his family) has served me as a model. Gable’s life is truly inspiring.”
"This book is a rare thing: a guide to greatness from a man who has both conquered the world and spent the time to understand how he got there, and what he gained and lost along the way. Here is a blueprint for being great, as an athlete, as a man, as a father, learning from his successes and failures, from his honesty and devotion and love."—Wright Thompson, ESPN