Dan Gable

West York Wrestling

The Courage to Succeed

AP Photo
▪ Washington's Larry Owings (left) was the ONLY wrestler who ever felt what
it was like to have his hand raised against Dan Gable in a 13-11 NCAA Finals win.
Dan Gable
"Right out of high school I never had the fear of getting beat,
which is how most people lose." Dan Gable
www.dangable.com

"When I lifted weights, I just didn't lift just to maintain my muscle tone. I lifted to
increase what I had already had, to push to a new limit. Every time I worked, I was
getting a little better. I kept moving that limit back and back. Every time
I walked out of the gym, I was a little better than when I walked in." Dan Gable

During the summer before Dan Gable was a freshman at Iowa State, he worked out
with Bob Buzzard. Buzzard had won two Big Eight wrestling titles. He recalls,
"Dan was a tough kid. Some days I'd crunch him, some days I'd fool around
and let him make some moves, But on the last day before I went back to
Eastern Michigan University, I wanted to show him he had a ways to go, even
though he had won three consecutive state high school championships."

After Buzzard finished with Gable that night, Dan fell to the mat crying tears of anger.
Right then Gable recalls, "I vowed I wouldn't ever let anyone destroy me again.
I was going to work at it every day, so hard I would be the toughest guy in the world.
By the end of practice, I wanted to be physically tired, to know that I'd been through
a workout. If I wasn't tired, I must have cheated somehow, so I stayed a little longer."

To push one's body to the limit of endurance and beyond, to deny one's self normal
pleasures while all around others are enjoying those pleasures, to persevere under
grueling competition is, to me, a rare act of courage. Gable decided that he would never
allow himself to get tired in a match again. Dan's strength and endurance allowed
him to be on the offense all the time, always pressing, never giving an opponent a
chance to relax or counterattack.

After a college career (Iowa State) in which Gable won two NCAA wrestling titles
and lost only one match, he found a new motivation...the Russians, the dominant force
in wrestling. Before the Olympic Games of 1972, Gable had defeated a dozen Russians
in dual meets. At a banquet after one match, the Russians made a vow to Gable that
they would find someone before the games in Munich who would beat him.

Between the banquet and the Olympics, Gable tore the cartilage in his left knee. The
doctors recommended an operation, but Gable wouldn't hear of it...he just kept on
practicing. The injury did, however, force Gable to alter his wrestling style.

"I changed my style of wrestling from simply offensive scoring to what I call defensive,
offensive scoring. In this situation, I actually made myself a better wrestler because
I learned a new way of scoring."

Once the games began, Gable encountered more adversity. He received a head-bump
to the left eye in his first match and doctors sewed up the eye with seven stitches.

"The blood was obstructing my opponents chances of wrestling, and consequently,
the medical doctor almost disqualified me," he recalls. "I can remember thinking in my
corner while the doctors were bandaging me up that nothing was going to stop me."

Neither the Russians nor any country found a wrestler who could beat Dan Gable
in the 1972 Olympics. He won he gold medal without giving up a point to any of
his six opponents. Dan Gable had a goal, and he would not allow anything or
anyone to stop him.

THE LOSS THAT MADE THE MAN
Full Article by Eric Neel
On Saturday, March 28, 1970, Dan Gable of Iowa State lost to Larry Owings of the
University of Washington in the 142lb. weight class at the 1970 NCAA Wrestling
Championships in Evanston, Ill. by a 13-11 decision. Gable, a senior, entered the
match with a perfect career record of 181-0 through high school and college.

Dan Gable was asked one time - What is Perfection?
What has it meant to chase it for so long? Dan Gable is still in pursuit, he says...
"If I could figure out how I could have gone back and saved Diane (Gable's
older sister, Diane, had been murdered when he was a high school sophomore.
He knew who had done it even before the police told him. He'd had a
bad feeling about the guy) and how I could have gone back and not had
that one loss (to Owings) in that tournament, and still gone on to be the
same person I am today, that would be perfect." Eric Neel - ESPN.com

Danny Mack "Dan" Gable - born 10/25/48 in Waterloo, Iowa.
* A Good Littler Man Wins Big - Owings drops 31 pounds to meet Dan Gable!
* Gable Was One Match From Glory by David Hinckley

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