Dan Gable
Encyclopedia
Dan Gable is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 amateur wrestler
Amateur wrestling
Amateur wrestling is the most widespread form of sport wrestling. There are two international wrestling styles performed in the Olympic Games under the supervision of FILA : Greco-Roman and freestyle. Freestyle is possibly derived from the English Lancashire style...

. He is famous for having only lost one match in his entire Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...

 collegiate career—his last, and winning gold at the 1972 Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 in Munich, Germany while not giving up a single point. He was the head coach at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 where he won 15 NCAA team titles from 1976–1997, after which he turned over his head coaching duties to Jim Zalesky
Jim Zalesky
Jim Zalesky is the head wrestling coach for the Oregon State Beavers and a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Prior to joining the Beavers, he was the coach of the University of Iowa wrestling team from 1998-2006. At Iowa, he succeeded Dan Gable as head coach, under whom he was a...

. In 2006, after the program took a downfall, Gable asked Tom Brands
Tom Brands
Tom Brands is the head wrestling coach at the University of Iowa. He won a gold medal in the 1996 Summer Olympics....

 to become the head coach.

High school career

Although Gable was not permitted to wrestle on the varsity wrestling squad during his freshman year, he was an undefeated state champion during his sophomore through senior years. The only recorded high school loss suffered by Gable was during his freshman year when he lost an unofficial match to a teammate named Ron Keister.

As a sophomore in high school, Gable experienced a personal tragedy. His older sister, Diane, was brutally raped and murdered May 31, 1964, in the Gable family home, while Dan and his parents were on vacation. Diane Gable's killer, John Thomas Kyle (a classmate of Dan Gable's), pleaded guilty to charges in connection with her death and was sentenced to life in prison. Kyle died in a Kansas state penitentiary on June 17, 2011; Gable was in northeast Iowa—the same area where he was vacationing when his sister was killed—when he learned of Kyle's death. Gable later recalled that the event gave him a singular passion for wrestling as a way to uplift his shattered family. In his documentary Gable, he said, "I needed to give them enough entertainment that they didn't have to look other places."

Collegiate and Freestyle career

After high school, Gable wrestled
Collegiate wrestling
Collegiate wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the collegiate and university level in the United States. Collegiate wrestling emerged from the folk wrestling styles practised in the early history of the United States...

 for the Iowa State Cyclones
Iowa State Cyclones
The Iowa State Cyclones are the athletic teams of Iowa State University. The university is a member of the Big 12 Conference and competes in NCAA Division I, fielding 16 varsity teams in 12 sports.*Men's sports...

 of the Big Eight Conference
Big Eight Conference
The Big Eight Conference, a former NCAA-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football, was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association by its charter member schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University...

. Gable wrestled for Iowa State's varsity squad for three years and won two NCAA titles. Gable's overall collegiate mark was 181-1. His only collegiate defeat was in his final match where he lost to Larry Owings of the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

.

Gable wrestled on the national freestyle wrestling circuit between 1967 and 1976 where he earned a record of 67-4. He wrestled internationally between 1971 and 1973 where he earned a record of 29-1. Overall, his freestyle record was 97-5.

1967

  • Gable was not permitted to wrestle on the varsity wrestling squad at Iowa State because of NCAA rules that did not permit freshmen to wrestle.
  • 1966-67 Midlands Tournament Champion, wrestling unattached
  • Gable's domestic freestyle record in 1967 was 3-2. He went 3-2 at the U.S. Freestyle Nationals

1968

  • 1967-68 Midlands Tournament Champion
  • Big Eight Champion
  • NCAA National Champion
  • Gable's domestic freestyle record in 1968 was 8-2-1, including a 3-2-1 mark at the Olympic Trials

1969

  • 1968-69 Midlands Tournament Champion
  • Big Eight Champion
  • NCAA National Champion
  • U.S. Freestyle National Champion

1970

  • 1969-70 Midlands Tournament Champion
  • Big Eight Champion
  • NCAA Runner-up
  • U.S. Freestyle National Champion
  • Dual champion with wins against Kajuan Mawe and Wade Stalling

1971

  • 1970-71 Midlands Tournament Champion, wrestling unattached
  • Gable's international freestyle record in 1971 was 17-1-1.
  • Lost to Vasily Kozakhov at the Tbilisi
    Tbilisi
    Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

     Tournament.
  • Lost to Ryan Schilling at the Rapids Open
  • Tied Nasrulla Nasrualaev in a dual meet with Russia.
  • Pan-American Games Champion
  • World Freestyle Champion in the 68 kg category at Sofia
    Sofia
    Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

    , Bulgaria
    Bulgaria
    Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

    .

1972

  • 1971-72 Midlands Tournament Champion, wrestling unattached
  • Gable's international freestyle record in 1972 was 11-0.
  • Tblisi Tournament Champion.
  • Olympic Champion. Did not surrender a single point in Olympic Games.
  • Accepted coaching job in Grinnell Iowa with assistant Josh Larson

1973

  • Gable's international freestyle record in 1973 was 1-0, defeating Pavel Pinigan in a dual meet with Russia
    Russia
    Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

    .

Coaching career

Gable became head wrestling coach at the University of Iowa in 1976. He formed a dynasty
Dynasty (sports)
A sports dynasty is a team that dominates their sport or league for multiple seasons or years. Such dominance is often only realized in retrospect...

 matched by none. From 1978 to 1986, the Hawkeyes won the NCAA title each year, a record nine in succession. He continued to coach the team until a sabbatical after the 1997 season. His record in dual meets was 355-21-5 which included 15 NCAA titles and 21 straight Big Ten titles.

In 1997, the Hawkeyes were expected to lose to the favored Oklahoma State Cowboys
Oklahoma State Cowboys wrestling
The Oklahoma State Cowboys wrestling team is a NCAA Division I wrestling program and is one of five Big 12 Conference schools which participate in wrestling. Since the team's first season in 1914-15, it has won thirty-four team national championships , 133 individual NCAA championships, and 213...

. But Gable, who was by this time coaching on crutches after hip replacement surgery, led his team to its 17th NCAA team title and to an unprecedented NCAA-record 170 points. A documentary following him that year "Freestyle: The Victories of Dan Gable" directed by Kevin Kelley and produced by David L. Gould aired on HBO 2.

In addition to his leadership at the college level, Gable was head coach of the United States Olympic team in freestyle wrestling
Freestyle wrestling
Freestyle wrestling is a style of amateur wrestling that is practised throughout the world. Along with Greco-Roman, it is one of the two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic games. It is, along with track and field, one of the oldest organized sports in history...

 in 1980, 1984, and 2000. Currently, he is an assistant athletic director at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

.

Gable's successor at Iowa, Jim Zalesky
Jim Zalesky
Jim Zalesky is the head wrestling coach for the Oregon State Beavers and a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Prior to joining the Beavers, he was the coach of the University of Iowa wrestling team from 1998-2006. At Iowa, he succeeded Dan Gable as head coach, under whom he was a...

, won three NCAA titles under him. It was announced on April 14, 2006, however, that Gable would be rejoining the coaching staff at Iowa as top assistant coach to current coach and former Gable national champion Tom Brands
Tom Brands
Tom Brands is the head wrestling coach at the University of Iowa. He won a gold medal in the 1996 Summer Olympics....

.

Gable remains involved with the team, but stepped down from his assistant coach role in October 2007.

Family life

  • Dan is married to Kathy Gable with whom the couple has four grown daughters - Jenni, Annie, Molly, and Mackenzie.
  • Dan's daughter Jenni married Brian Mitchell.
  • Dan's daughter Annie is married to Mike Gavin
  • Dan's daughter Molly is married to Danny Olszta.
  • Dan's daughter Mackenzie is a substitute teacher.
  • Dan has 7 grandchildren Gable, Danny, Jake, Elsie, Eliza, Betsy and Mickey.

Popularity

  • A popular expression among Iowans is "Michael Jordan is the Dan Gable of basketball," which while alluding Jordan's dominance of his sport during the 1980s and most of the 1990s, it remains comparatively inconsequential against Gable's imprint on U.S. wrestling as both athlete and coach.
  • In an Esquire
    Esquire (magazine)
    Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...

    interview, actor
    Actor
    An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

    , and high school wrestler Tom Cruise
    Tom Cruise
    Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

     considered Gable his greatest hero. Gable himself was profiled in Esquire by the novelist and former University of Pittsburgh
    University of Pittsburgh
    The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

     wrestler John Irving
    John Irving
    John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...

    . The story was entitled "Gorgeous Dan".
  • Gable has perennially been on the wishlist for a Republican
    Republican Party (United States)
    The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

     candidate for Governor of Iowa or Congressional
    United States Congress
    The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

     positions.
  • Gable was praised extensively during the speech given by the Iron Sheik at his induction to the WWE Hall of Fame
    WWE Hall of Fame
    The WWE Hall of Fame is a hall of fame for professional wrestlers maintained by WWE. It was officially created on the February 1, 1993 episode of the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw television program...

     in 2005.
  • In 1999, Sports Illustrated
    Sports Illustrated
    Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...

    selected Dan Gable as the greatest sports figure in the history of the state of Iowa.
  • During Gable's tenure as coach, the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell
    Saved by the Bell
    Saved by the Bell is an American television sitcom that aired between 1989 and 1993. The series is a retooled version of the 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was itself later folded into the history of Saved by the Bell...

    referred to the University of Iowa and a fictional coach that had appeared to scout AC Slater portrayed by Mario Lopez
    Mario López
    Mario Michael Lopez, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared on several television series, in films, and on Broadway. He is best known for his portrayal of the character A.C. Slater on Saved By The Bell, which he also portrayed as a regular on Saved by the Bell: The College Years...

     for their team.
  • Gable appears in the documentary film 'Catch: The Hold Not Taken' in which he speaks of the origins of amateur wrestling. He recalls that, growing up, he knew high school wrestling as 'Catch as catch can', which is the name of the traditional style from Lancashire, England.

In the movie "Never Back Down", Dan Gable is mentioned in a scene as the greatest Olympic wrestler ever.

External links

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