Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with dan
gable from two years ago
i did not previously publish this
conversation as part of this podcast
but as a separate thing and as a result
it did not receive many listens
let me be honest and say that while i
usually don't care about how many
listens reviews something gets
in this one case i feel like i've failed
one of my heroes i feel i didn't
properly introduce a truly special human
being to an audience that might find him
as inspiring as i did
dan gable is one of the greatest olympic
athletes of all time bigger than records
and medals to many like myself he's a
symbol of guts spirit mental toughness
and relentless hard work
as a wrestler he was undefeated in high
school undefeated in college until his
very last match and having lost that
match he found another level and became
a world champion and an olympic champion
and most importantly he did so
perfectly dominating his opponents he
did not surrender a single point at the
1972 olympic games
as a coach he led the iowa hawkeyes to
15 national titles and 25 consecutive
big ten championships he coached 152
all-americans 45 national champions 106
big ten champions and 12 olympians
including eight medalists he's the
author of several books including
wrestling life 1 and 2 and coaching
wrestling successfully
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as a side note let me say that i spent a
few days in iowa and got to attend a
wrestling duel meet in the historic
carver hawkeye arena part of me wanted
to stay in iowa forever to drill
takedowns to start a family to live life
simply
wrestling is one of the pure sports both
beautiful and brutal
where both mental toughness and
technical mastery of the highest form
are rewarded with victory and everything
else is punished with defeat
and every such loss weighs heavy on the
minds of anyone who has ever stepped on
the wrestling mat including myself
the same is true for one of the greatest
wrestlers in history of the sport the
man who graciously welcomed me into his
home for this conversation the legend
dan gable
if you enjoy this thing subscribe on
youtube review it on apple podcast
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connect with me on twitter lex friedman
and now here's my conversation with dan
gable
you're persistent i love that because
you've been trying to get me on this
podcast for a long time
and until i saw you
on another podcast
and you said you were russian
did i call you back then it was over
because russia to me you know is leading
the world in wrestling
almost every year what's the difference
between american wrestling and russian
wrestling he showed me this painting
well it's mit it's science it's science
you know and
they they really study the sport they're
really good technically they're really
really good in strategy
they don't really push like
the real toughness they don't push like
uh conditioning
right and so americans we need what they
have
russians need what we have
and if when they when you get to two
together and for me
why i could beat the russians is because
i went their way a little bit
but i i kept my toughness
but you're known you're you're known for
your toughness
yeah but i wasn't known for my art
i wasn't known for my science so when
did you become a bit of an artist it
took a loss
delario most people thought i was
already
an artist just because i won 181
straight dominance in seven years and
not just winning but you know kind of
punishing people yes and from from that
point of view yeah it might have been
pretty good but i had a long ways to go
yet and i didn't really realize that or
i should have i should say
i didn't really know how to get it out
of me until i had a loss and then i
realized i gotta buckle down learn some
of that science become more of an artist
how do you become an artist so
that the russian way has this
drilling technique
thousands of reps
how do you think
you work on the science the art part you
got to study the best in the world
i think dave schultz was our guy in
america that probably
showed us that
being artistic
you needed that and he studied it he
went over there as a high schooler
and wrestled in some major tournaments
over there and he
saw their ways
he used that russian science and then he
was already an american and he saw what
how i trained athletes he saw what i did
in the olympics saw what other people
how he held up and he applied that as
well but
i'd have to say he was more the artistic
type he was more of a russian than an
american when it came to uh
uh wrestling
you've coached 45 national champions 106
big ten champions and eight olympic
medalists
which is incredible
what is a common thread between them
and what are
maybe some of the fundamental
differences
i think the common thread is
that
they all had one of those two avenues
that we talked already
and because we intertwined them
so in a russian wrestling room they got
the same people most the time in an
american wrestling room we had the same
people
but when i was out recruiting
at first i recruited just attitude
but i needed more than that i needed
some
genetics in that wrestling room
to actually
that hard work people
you know they could look and see
wow
that execution
that's unbelievable
but yet i can beat that guy
after the first minute
so you think you think uh the art the
the technique is genetics you're born
with it you think it's not i think your
pop and your
you know your ability to move timing and
timing and
your quickness and your strength you
know the russians
they
usually picked out
the people that can go into that sport
that was the old-fashioned sports school
but it's it's mostly like when you see
when you walk into a russian wrestling
room you see him hitting
skills techniques you know you don't see
them banging against each other that
much but then when practice is over you
might not see a bunch of sprints you
might see them walk over to the uh
the ropes and they drop down from the
ceiling and they'll jump up and climb a
rope boom boom boom and then they come
down and then they don't jump right back
on they have three or four other guys go
and then they jump back on whereas
i probably made my guys climb them get
right back down climb them right back
again
but
i also realized that
i had to have a mix of that what was the
role what was your role i mean those
guys looked up and dan gable and
what was the role in helping these
athletes become their best these
national champions we had to first of
all prove that you were
knew what you were doing in terms of
technique or in terms of everything
everything they just you had to be the
first guy there and the last guy to
leave and you had to be the most
dedicated guy even though they were the
ones that's trying to win the
championships uh you had to prove that
you were going to work just as hard as
they were as a coach and what does that
look like what so you can see it when
you you know when you see it well you
you're there ahead of them yeah and
you're there after they leave
you know it's that's it's that simple
i'm picking up after them and you're
analyzing them you out work them you out
work them and you out thank them and so
you know use that type of strategy and
over time when you prove it works
because
some of my kids that were the best kids
in the world
really
shouldn't have been a wrestler i mean
they weren't very coordinated
yeah but they work so hard to develop
themselves
what was your role in that process i
mean that means pushing kids to their
limit if if you're not going but you
can't push kids to their limit and even
when you push them to their limit that's
not their limit because their limits
above and beyond that right i mean yeah
coaches sometimes accidentally don't
they lose kids yeah
because of the heat because of hard work
and all that and you gotta you gotta
know where to when to back off
you got to read your athletes and
by that i mean you got to know them
pretty well every once in a while you
make a little bit of mistake but if you
don't react right on that mistake before
it gets too far then it's going to be a
casualty and i don't mean somebody dying
necessarily but maybe something that
could turn them off or maybe something
that can run them away or maybe
something that
wow that was close i maybe shouldn't
have pushed him that far
so you really have to be very educated
and it's not just
what you know is what you know about
them and i'm not talking about the team
i'm talking about each guy individuals
yeah each person on the team and you you
know it
how you see it now you know how because
you're the first one there and you're
the last one to leave and and you set in
the uh environment with them you're
there for in the morning for practice
sometimes you're there in the afternoon
for two or three hours after practice
you might have a
a hot room or you might have a sauna or
a steam or a whirlpool and you get in
there with them and you listen you know
you're not just feeding out information
you do that but you're taking in a lot
of that too and i'm telling you when you
get in an atmosphere that they're
relaxed and they feel comfortable it's
like a massage
and that's after practice in one of
those areas that people are around you
you learn a lot i mean you got a lot to
learn as a coach
and when you get in that atmosphere when
all of a sudden you feel like very
comfortable
words start flowing
and when those words flow
you take them in as a coach and there's
something probably going to be said
that you can do and act upon that's
going to help
certain situations i've saved a couple
kids lives for sure
that we're on the brink you know
sometimes performance is at such a high
level in a high level atmosphere
that
life and death is actually
involved and i don't mean pushing a kid
to where he just dies but i mean he
might feel himself as a failure then he
may go home and take his own life
yeah i mean but that's part of it you're
putting
so much heart so much blood and heart
and sweat and every your whole meaning
of life becomes winning so and sometimes
it's so hard to lose within that context
so if if in your i think the first
wrestling life you wrote about chad
zappato who
lost i mean incredible wrestler but lost
in three finals in the nationals and has
this tattoo
of a uh hawk clawing out the human heart
yeah so what lessons is there any
lessons from
the
incredible wrestling he's done but also
the incredible suffering that he went
through
on himself yeah again you like that word
suffering which is okay
okay no no no no no keep it keep it
because it fits right in where i want
yeah i have to turn that suffering
around
to where he makes him feels good about
himself
are better
does not feel perfect yeah because he
did lose yeah you know
and so but you have to actually
get him to realize that yeah he's still
unique compared to the walk of the earth
he was unbelievably unique right at the
top just a little bit short of but
because it was
you know he felt the suffering
you now have to go about and change that
and put it into good will some way and
because he's you really have a lot of
good will you can do a lot of goodwill
and so
and it's not easy
it took him probably
years
years of tattooing yeah
years of covering the tattoos
and
you know he told me moved to keller i go
why are you moving to california because
he was here for a couple years after
his wrestling was done because he had a
good job around here and he was i
thought he was doing a good job but he
he just
he said i had to escape you know it's
the same as the wrestling tattoo i had a
wrestling terminology i have to get
i hate to say this i hate to say this
i go where are you going
he says i'm going to go to california
and i go is there any reason why you're
going to california
he says that's where
everybody goes to hide
but i said
i think you're wrong there but
you know i think what will determine
your life will be what you do from now
on you know and if you can and he's
actually turned it around i mean he's
actually turned around you have to
discover that yourself exactly and he
went someplace that he thought
he could fit into
and i think he did and i think he's got
a good job and he's helping people and
uh
he covered that tattoo with uh feathers
uh another tattoo well in the end it's a
beautiful story yeah it is it really is
suffering and overcoming yeah and he's
not done yet he's not done yet no he's
not done he he's
got a lot more to do
so you mentioned roger bannister again i
think in your first book
somebody you looked up to
that's the man who broke the four-minute
mile right
when everybody said it was impossible
everyone thought it was impossible
because he would die he would die it's
not human it's not human
yeah so what
well you've done your homework
for what the book or what i don't know
for me you've done your homework yeah i
know but yeah
[Laughter]
sent sent here by putin to do research
yeah
so what lesson do you take from that
story for yourself the impossible trying
to accomplish the impossible well the
impossible is possible
it's just that simple
time changes things i mean
i mean if you look at what
where the mile time is right now
compared to that four minute mile
which when it was broke by a couple
tenths or three or four tenths
it's now broke by
uh another 20 seconds
yeah i mean by 700 people yeah yeah i
mean by tons of people and it's pretty
much the common knowledge that you got
to run a four minute mile if you're
gonna go somewhere now or or below if
you're going to win win events
at major level you got to be able to do
that
and so you can take that and you can
look at what
in time history
has as its
record performance
and you can realize that
that record performance
is going to change yeah
and and they don't take into all the
factors
of knowledge
they don't take in all the factors of
better shoes
they don't take in all the factors of
better understanding and nutrition
i mean it's like me as an athlete
i went to practice every day in high
school for
at least my sophomore in my junior and
part of my
senior year and all of a sudden
a new rule came up
i said
the rule said um before that said
oh yeah
at least most of the coaches
uh you you we don't want you drinking
water at practice
yeah and
and okay why because you gotta toughen
you up that's a weakness water
and so we would go through practice i
mean and you're sweating and then you're
sweating so much that you're almost out
of sweat yeah and so
you're mostly at the end of practice
you're not even wrestling excuse me
you're you're sitting against the wall
yeah because you're tired so then all of
a sudden
they say okay
go ahead drink water during practice
drink gratery during practice and all of
a sudden at the end of practice we're
still out there
competing and so i look at my career for
two and a half years where i end with
junior high too
so i got another three years
where i didn't really wasn't able to
push as good as i could because i just
was probably under under hydrated yeah
yeah so what so but at the individual
level in terms of the impossible
when did you first believe
the thing that maybe probably people
would laugh at you about that you would
be in the
champion well i always
visualized me being the best you
believed it in the very forever forever
yeah i was because i was i don't think
you call it a dreamer or somebody that
i was just involved with competitive
sports at the ymca from the from age
five
did you tell people that dream that
you're gonna be olympic champion one day
you can be the best in the world i think
they knew
and the only reason why they knew
because there was something a little
different about this guy
he was uh he's not gonna stop well he
was out in the yard
yeah and he was swinging baseball bats
yeah you know at six at seven and eight
at nine and ten
and he was swinging baseball bats
so much right-handed and so much left
hand with nobody even there throwing the
ball yeah
that all of a sudden when they walked by
and they all of a sudden the grass was
down to dirt
on both sides
so it's like
they saw me on the yard
playing by myself sports
or you know
or you get the neighborhood kids you
play a lot but if they weren't there
you know if you walked in my front room
i was hiking a ball like i was the
quarterback and i was running not and
running through the through the
furniture
you know that type stuff so
you know who who saw this guy mostly was
probably the parents yeah and the the
coaches at the ymca level the junior
high level they saw this guy come first
and and end up last but
i wasn't that great
i wasn't the fastest guy at that time
and i wasn't the strongest guy you know
actually before i went to the olympics
when they tested me they tested
everybody and i probably came back with
one of the highest scores but it was
it was not like the highest
person on this and this and that i was
all high across the board straight
across the board high on every one of
them but there was always people that
were higher than genetics but then they
would go down yeah then they would test
on something else and go back up mine
stayed high all across the board and so
i you know i really didn't have too many
flaws but i didn't have any things that
also said that you were going to be
unscored upon at the olympic games
right so take me through that day if you
could 1972 when you were going for the
68 kilogram freestyle wrestling gold you
scored
57 points if i'm correct and had zero
points scored on you
57 0. so
maybe
uh take me through almost the details
what was your routine what was your
process what was going through your mind
your thoughts of that day yeah first of
all
uh it was quite a day
because uh we weighed in every day
at that time in the morning and that and
that yeah we weighed in two hours before
the start of the competition
and so that didn't mean that you weighed
in two hours for your russell because
you didn't know whether you're gonna
wrestle right away or later on in fact
in that day i don't think i wrestled uh
until
later on in the evening so
had all day to recover but i didn't
really need it anyway because you know
it wasn't really
pulling a whole lot of weight but just
uh it was just interesting but what was
in your mind what would what were you
thinking were you nervous were you i was
confident
i was confident you knew you were going
to win the gold yeah i knew i was going
to win uh but in reality you're i'm not
i didn't know it from a cocky point of
view i only knew it
because for the last
three and a half years
i've been going to practice
and i'd been winning every practice you
felt good and i i hardly ever lose a
takedown and if i lost this if i
somebody scored on me
it was like
when i went to bed i couldn't sleep
until i
figured it out
or if i didn't figure it out i would
fall asleep
and i would be whoa i would wake up with
the answer of what i needed why i got
scored upon so maybe
now that you've won the gold can you
tell me in the practice room when
somebody took you down how how do you
take dan gable down in the in the
practice room timing very difficult but
yes somebody could
because
they were going for one move
all i wanted was one move whereas you
know if you can arrest somebody and rest
in the whole practice or half of
practice for at least 10 15 minutes
and they were maybe gonna score
if they could work it in their mind
but they knew that was going to be their
victory so in the practice room
maybe you can educate me
and that when you're going for the
olympic gold
it you didn't want to allow any
takedowns so there's no such thing as
working on some kind of weird position a
weak point or something it's important
to not let down the take down it's kind
of like what we're saying before if
something happened and somebody scored
on me in a certain way
i would go over that situation
over that situation over it again
and i would come up with an answer and
then i would actually test it
maybe i wouldn't go right back the next
day because i didn't want the guy to
you know do not have some
i didn't want him to think that i was
thinking about it all night i didn't
tell him but maybe three days later when
he wrestled again
i uh actually had it figured out because
it it he wasn't able to
or even if i was in on to take
a a an offensive move and i got stopped
and didn't score
you know i had to go back and filter
that
but it wasn't something that
usually i couldn't solve right i could
usually solve it let's go back to the
olympic games so i get up in the olympic
in the morning and i'm not sure when the
weigh-ins were but i think i was
probably a pound over
uh you know and that's about a half a
kilo and 1.1 pounds is a kilo because we
went in kilograms so what do you do with
that pond you're right
no i just i just went over to the they
had a sauna there and i got in the sauna
and the and the funny thing was the
morning of the of the
of the finals
there was there was another athlete in
the sauna
and american or no it was a european
i didn't i don't remember where she was
from not a russian well you know what i
kind of think it was a plot
[Laughter]
because it was a girl interesting and
she didn't have her top on oh wow
[Laughter]
and that was pretty common and so you
know it's kind of interesting
you you think back about it because
there's some funny things that
that go on
behind the scenes in olympic games in
world games anytime when you have
country against country and so there's
some crazy stuff mine goes on yeah did
any of it affect you
did you was there anything well i almost
stayed too long in the sun
you los you lost a little bit of i lost
a little more in a pound yeah
but uh but it didn't really bother me
because i wasn't like
i wasn't like cutting a lot of weight so
so
your match against the russian the um
how's your life yeah jolietf he's went
on to be a two-time world champion a
silver medalist as well i mean this is
an incredible wrestler
so what was going through your mind
uh before stepping on the mat with that
guy you've beaten a bunch of wrestlers
haven't had a point scored on you
and you're stepping on the mat against
the russian who you said was really they
picked the soviets picked to beat you
right and i know why they picked him
because he had a great attitude so he
wasn't just the typical artist
he was a good artist he he hooked elbows
like sad gelav and he's from that area
of the world where they have some of
those types of moves but he was and he
was a goer
but
by cutting him down a weight he lost
some of that go
and i don't know if you you got to
that's a process you got to go about
scientifically yeah you know and so you
know if you don't do it as an american
it can really hurt your performance if
you don't do it as a a russian it can
hurt your performance and they already
didn't really
do that a lot where you usually wrestle
the weight where it was more like your
weight
and so by cutting him down you know
maybe slowed his
belief down a little bit you saw it in
him the spirit was a little bit gone
when you were facing yeah but then he
came back and he won you know rest of
the matches and he was in the round
robin and he was able to go to the
finals
uh but he had lost another match
actually against in the round-robin
against the japanese so
i i think
i had already gained enough of artistic
being able to finish a match once i lost
my match in college for the last two
years i took on some of that artistic uh
work and i think that he was already
hoping to win
but he was hoping to win by a long ways
because
he had to pin me or beat me by
eight points to be able to win the gold
and
uh you know that wasn't going to happen
i mean the chances of pin is pretty good
is it hard to pin down gable versus take
down
like have you taken risks where you
could pay for them
i can't remember too many that i took
uh that would actually put me in a
danger position i've taken risk but the
risks were so scientifically technically
correct that i wouldn't land in that
danger
zone it's like if i'm going to lock up
and throw you i'm not going to throw you
to my own back and roll you through i'm
going to turn in the air
so you're scientific about it yeah
exactly i you know he just
i learned the hard way early on there
was moves from collegiate wrestling
that you did that exposed your shoulders
which
it cost me in some early freestyle
matches against great wrestlers
but
i would go back to my
collegiate
escaping type moves to where i hit a
granby roll where you expose your
shoulders and you lose two points every
time but you learn that that's not the
system but if you hadn't wrestled much
you would get exposed under
maybe
a desperate situation you would hit it
so you won the gold how did it
feel
i think it would have i think the
question would be how would it feel if
you lost the gold
for me because
i already went through that once
not at that highest level but the
national collegiate championship level
my senior year the larry owings law
larry owings yeah
and that didn't set well were you afraid
of that happening again at the olympic
level was that no i really wasn't but it
was why i changed my
philosophy of training and added to
the scientific artist type and i if i
had won that match even though i
wouldn't have felt good about it even if
i
squeaked it out
i wasn't feeling good about that match
it would have affected me a little bit
but if i don't want it i would have got
over it i mean i'm not over it now yeah
i mean i don't know why i was doing this
kind of stuff right before my match yes
by by that i mean this kind of stuff
talking interviews oh yeah journalists
yeah and i really wasn't a good talker i
mean me and you were talking pretty good
right now except for i got a little cold
but but uh
i don't think i could say two words
hardly then and
they took takes wide world of sports
says hey just
we want you to be the introduction for
our next week's show yeah so just say
hey i'm dan gable come watch me as i
finish my career undefeated 182.00
that's what they want me to say
everybody assumed you'd be undefeated
and i
said it i had to take it 22 times
and in the last two or three times they
wrote it out and i read it and it still
it wasn't like i just said it yeah i was
reading it like hi i'm
dan gable
come
come up
you know that type of stuff so it and he
finally just closed the book and said
hey that's good enough
but i turned and it was my time to
wrestle
yeah and so
you know you just you learn that
and for me it was great coaching
experience
because that's what i turned into be you
know i coached for longer than i
wrestled yes and i put out a lot of
champions but you learn
through mistakes that even in your own
career that you had made
you know it's it's a never learning
process it's an ever learning process
have you ever been afraid on the map
does fear have any role do you think
for a wrestler or it must be well i'm
sure fear is out there and i'm sure that
was to my advantage almost every time
i'm sure in my olympic finals as really
if he had these doubts he probably had
these doubts
and that gave gives me the the edge
and i don't know if i really ever
had fear
but
obviously there was points and times
where i didn't perform as well not many
but a
few and if i look back of it look back
at it i don't think it was that
american you know raw raw raw stuff i
think it was
probably the fear of uh
not being an artist as much you know
maybe this guy might be better than me
uh scientifically
and uh you know you're a scientist i
think that got to me more than anything
else i i said early on that i want to
eliminate ever having to worry about
getting tired in a match
so i kind of eliminated that so i got
rid of that point and i do think that in
wrestling that is one of the fears
that a lot of wrestlers have actually
how they feel during the match and and
do they get are they going to get tired
and and is it going to affect my
performance
and as a coach that really was one of
the things i tried to eliminate on all
my athletes so there wasn't that fear
factor but that fear factor would be
put upon my opponent which would give me
an edge
uh but that's not what i needed as much
i need to just focus make sure that i
was doing the right things and i needed
my team to be focused so i made sure
that for my mistakes as an athlete or
even as a coach sometimes that i didn't
repeat them
didn't repeat them and if you make a
mistake once and then you can repeat it
then it's like
you didn't learn anything
your goal throughout your wrestling
career as you've beautifully put was to
work so hard that you pass out on the
mat right that you would be carried off
the mat so you never did successfully in
that's one of the ways you failed in
your careers you've never worked so hard
that you've passed out
have you ever come close do you remember
a time you've come close you've been
pushed to the limits of exhaustion you
know the question is really a good
question about that pushing to you
collapse yeah because i don't as a coach
today i don't think i could
if i said that to my athletes
i don't know i could get in trouble
because you know it's understood isn't
it
by the athletes
yeah they understand it
but the outside might not understand it
because it's almost like what do you
mean they're you push them to the point
where they go
collapse that means they may die or that
something might happen to them
and you know that's dangerous that's
dangerous we can't have our kid in that
type of atmosphere but
it's something that's highly unlikely
that's going to happen but i'm going to
tell you there's many times in a
practice where i had pushed myself to
all of a sudden
the whistle blew or it was time to stop
and when i got up off the mat or
wherever i was at and i
needed water
i need
i needed fresh air
because you're usually in a fairly small
room with a lot of guys that the heat
rises
and you know it's hard to breathe
and that i can remember and i stayed a
lot of times not by the door the far end
of the room i can remember walking from
the far end of the room to that door and
i can remember am i going to make it the
next step
am i going to make it the next step i
need air i need water i need oxygen i
need to get out of here
it didn't happen often but i can cut
recount four or five times in my career
that i pushed myself to that level where
i thought i was gonna maybe
go out but
every step i was dizzy
but once i got to that door i was able
to open it and go out yeah and grab the
water and get cold water in my face and
so no i never really was able to do that
and i think the story is in a book where
my
my daughter pushed a collapse molly he
made you proud oh my gosh you know she
didn't win yeah
but she pushed her collapse yeah now
did she
suffer because of that
well she didn't get to go to the next
event because she didn't she had to
qualify but
i think it
probably helped her too realizing
because she was wood in the race and she
was beating people she normally never
pushed but she was at a new level that
she had never been before and she only
needed about five feet to finish and it
was just one of those things that
i bet there was a lot of learning that
she did there and uh it probably
made her realize that
she could be better but she had to hold
up though
so you mentioned in wrestling life that
the brand's brothers
looked up to
royce alger who was known for pushing
the limits of physical wrestling
but not getting too rough so how do you
find the line between extreme physical
wrestling but at the same time not rough
wrestling or angry wrestling so that
line between aggression tough wrestling
and anger well i think anger
would cause
less successful wrestling i think anger
would cause you to make mistakes and
actually get out of position
because i think anger is kind of a loss
of control
and
there can be a furious type of
attack
but i think if it crosses the line to
anger
then you're going to be vulnerable
and so
royce
and the brands
wrestled
to the edge
through the edge but when the whistle
blew
they stopped and there's people that
when the whistle blows they keep going
it's like in a football game
a fight breaks out and it's after the
whistles blow
well when the whistle blew
they they backed off
so that whistle
was
something that in a match
that that kind of
gave them the boundaries
but perhaps it could be a little bit of
fuel so in wrestling tough the book that
you just got from mike chapman uh the
new addition talks about bill cole
undefeated northern iowa wrestler
and
uh how he talked about
how my strength speed and ability to
think were increased tremendously by
just sitting apart from the action prior
to the match
and getting into a state of controlled
anger
so
can anger trolling controlled yeah
so anger could be fuel as long as it's
controlled right exactly you have that
line
one side of the line you can have an
anger
for performance and the other side of
the line
you
if you go beyond that it's not going to
be for performance it's going to be for
not performance because you're gonna
lose points
it's a fine line there's definitely a
fine line
you're talking about roy selger you're
talking about tom brands you're talking
about terry brands i mean you got world
championship titles there you got
olympic championship title there you got
a world silver medalist in uh
in uh and roy selger
and you know and that that's what when i
talk to him about the world silver
medalist
he's haunted by that because he was
actually 20 seconds away from winning
when he got beat in the end there but
that's part of the game
and
it's i don't know whether he's okay with
it or not because he says every after
talking about things he goes
i'm okay with it now
but then he keeps talking about it
so i don't really think he's okay with
it
and i it's it's hard for him to actually
make amends to himself
when you really don't do it i mean it's
no matter what the situation even with
the owings loss yeah
it still eats i mean yeah i'm a world
champion he's not
and he wanted to be i'm olympic champion
he's not he wanted to be one of the
greatest coaches of all time yeah yeah
yeah and so you know so he
you know it's like
why do i keep going back to it because
because you're not you don't get over
those things so royce really keeps going
back to it even though he says he's fine
and he and
but then he realizes he's really not
fine because that's just the nature of
the game and that's why he was able to
win national titles and and make uh
world teams and and stuff like that uh
you know even if what's interesting
about him he's analyzed all the people
that he's wrestled and a lot of them
have won world and olympic championships
and he's beaten every one of them at one
time or another and he didn't get to
that world championship gold or a
limping cold
and
that i
i he says it because
they did it so he show he's showing
people that
that i beaten those guys yeah
but apparently he didn't beat him at the
right time
and
so it still haunts him you don't get
away from that stuff i mean it's just
like anything in life that's
really high
i mean it doesn't have to be athletics
i mean you think i'm ever going to get
over uh
the murder of my sister
and you might not even know that let me
pause for a second please you've talked
about it you've written about it
so i hope it's okay for me to say that
your sister your older sister
on may 31 1964
was
raped and murdered by a local boy
so the echoes of pain and anger from
that tragic day
do they ripple through your life still
through your wrestling through your
coaching through your the way you when
you wake up in the morning what is that
like
it can be very emotional to me
under certain circumstances
and
it can be
the mood i'm in right
you know it can be
maybe if i've had a mountain dew or or
maybe if i've had a gable beer yeah yeah
or or or
uh
or maybe if you turn the country music
up a little bit loud
you know it emotions come out
and everybody has them
in their life
it just so happens
you know what brings it out and
hopefully it's nothing that you do to
the extreme point of to where it brings
it out for me it's not extreme i don't
have to have any of that really i can
get emotional
how did that change you as a man
what it did was realize that i was
already
pretty well developed because i was only
a sophomore 15 years old in high school
and
i had parents that weren't making it and
my parents are a lot older than me
and now that we're down just to me and
my parents
and i'm going to be around the house for
another two years
and they had just lost a a daughter that
was the only only other
sibling
they weren't handling it they they were
the ones that were suffering much more
than me
even though
i always
look back upon one area that i wasn't
good at was communication at that time
except inside the wrestling room
because i had been tipped off
and tipped off what do you mean
well the neighbor boy said that
something to me about my sister just
three weeks before that that's right
that really
wasn't
normal or practical
and i said nothing to nobody you
you don't
is there a part of you that blames
yourself
yeah
absolutely
but i'm 15 years old and
you make mistakes
uh and you don't really act on
everything
that happens in your life
but i can tell you how it affected me
and i acted a lot on
anything that maybe wasn't even of that
consequence i mean because i had four
daughters and i'm telling you when they
left every time to go somewhere in a car
or go out with someplace i always said
something to him and they would always
say dad you said that last night
i don't care what like i love you or
like i'd be careful i'd stay like don't
be driving and drinking or or don't be
uh in a car with somebody that's uh you
know of of the of the same nature or you
know stay out of trouble you know don't
go be somewhere where you you know you
have i said you know how to get out of a
car if you if your car goes into the
river you know you know i just you know
i'm always thinking ahead a little bit
just in case if something uh
did happen and i it goes back to that
goes back to that walk to school with
that with that young man that when he
was talking to me and i just
i took it and i kept it inside me and
once i found out she had been murdered
it
it took me maybe
25 to 30 minutes
and i told my dad i think i know who
killed her
and
he looked at me and he just like he
slapped me actually he pushed me against
the car he didn't slide he pushed me in
his car my mom slaps me and she was the
one that slapped me around a little bit
but my dad
he uh
he he pushed me against his car what do
you mean you might know something about
this
i said dad i i don't for sure but
and i would probably all crying but and
i don't i doubt if i was crying yet
i've probably cried a lot of tears since
but but you know i just said
hey
i was walking to school
with this neighbor
and i never had walked to school with
him before
and he was kind of a troubled kid
and he said something about diane
and it wasn't good
but i
i didn't he goes why didn't you say
something i said i daddy i i just boy
talk you know so you know and so he
hugged he hugged me he hugged me he
hugged me and uh
you know it it was one of these things
that
it's definitely made me
a lot of who i am because there's been a
lot of choices and i don't i took the
word choice out of my life
and i just like to say okay do the right
thing do the thing that's that you
should do and so i don't really i don't
it's like you're going to do this or
this well what do you mean which one's
better
you know well then i'm so i don't have
that choice yeah just give me the right
way to go and so
it's not that i've been perfect by any
means but it's made a big difference in
my life
uh on how i
handled my life it's it's probably
given me the opportunity to be married
for 44 years it's just given me
opportunities to uh be better in my life
and and i you know i i want to thank
my sister for that you know it's uh
and i think my family was ready to make
a split
because of that incident they're blaming
each other and i think that uh
i was able to help but more than that
they really liked each other but they
didn't really know it at the time
until i got out of the house two years
later
it probably was going on for a couple
years until i moved on and went to
college then they found out they really
liked each other
when they were alone
and it worked out pretty good but
i think them being able to follow me
not just through
college and olympics and worlds but my
coaching so it's the same the same
success and factor you know the
excitement and and all those things gave
them a real purpose
and uh it gave my four daughters it gave
my wife uh you know a real purpose to be
able to be close to all these champions
and championships and and and now it's
because now it's like there's a family
of 22
and they're all interested in what what
we're interested in and it's going good
knock on wood but
you know it's something that when all of
a sudden you've got too much time in
your hands and you're not doing
accomplishing much
that things probably
you know get off get off track what do
you think is the role of family in
wrestling can a man do it alone and if
not
where's family most important
you know you could do it alone
but why would you want to
yeah i think the chances of doing it
alone are much less than the chances of
doing it together yeah
i know they say don't bring your
profession home sometimes they say that
this might never i never got away from
my profession yeah and you know
sometimes i
it's like my house right here
so when i'm moving home
and i'm not gonna have an office because
i'm not gonna coach anymore or i'm not
gonna be an assistant athletic director
for a while
that
got to do something that
gives you a little bit of a break not
you necessarily maybe the person you're
living with
and so i don't know if you looked
outside there i got a cabin right out of
my backyard you probably can't see it
right there but what's in the cabin
that's my
house away from my house it's only 30
feet from my house and it's my office
and it's my workout room it's my i got a
sauna there it's it's a bed upstairs if
i need it if i ever uh get too close and
she says hey why don't you go sleep in
the other house
but you know he kicks me out of the bed
but get the heck out it's never happened
yeah but i do spend a lot of time out
there and uh it's uh
you know you gotta have a little
distance sometimes and you gotta know
you're gonna know your role and so all
of a sudden when you're a guy that's
been gone your whole life from eight
o'clock in the morning until close to 7
30 or 8 o'clock at night so 11 12 hours
a day then all of a sudden you're not
gone as much
even though you still work she's trying
to slow me down now i'm doing uh not so
much like here what we're doing right
now but when i get in the car and drive
somewhere or fly somewhere you know like
just last night i just went to bed and i
hadn't told her that this guy called me
and he wants me to uh
speak for uh
you want to build another wrestling
wants to start another wrestlers in
business networking out in uh
delaware because we don't have any
colleges and wrestling in delaware and
so i said well you know you know gladly
that because that's my life you know so
but then all of a sudden i i didn't say
anything to my wife until all of a
sudden this morning
and i told her that i might go on the
friday the 21st of december oh no well
well i said that's not this christmas
she goes
we're celebrating christmas that weekend
early because a lot of the family can't
be i'll be here except for that weekend
yeah
and i said oh well that's not gonna work
but i kind of didn't say anything to her
first and then
well i'll tell you she started getting a
little emotional
and if i want to stay married for
another year 45 years
then i better
tell those people that
i got family obligations
because
uh
yeah it depends what's most important
i love wrestling i love wrestling and i
want to start another west helper start
another wrestlers and business network
but there's more than one dang gable out
there well maybe not but
but
but there's there's a lot of people that
are um
maybe even closer yeah and they got big
names i mean we're we're doing pretty
well right now i mean we got first two
years ago
and we got second this year
uh and then we got the women's
freestyles doing good in wrestling we
got to work a little bit on our greco
yet but
but they are working on it but our men's
freestyle team right now
are
are excellent and you know and uh
the key for them is to get them all on
the same page
instead of
just
have new highlights and by that i'm
saying who look you look and see who won
this year well the three guys that have
never won before won this year we had
three world champions our two past world
champions
didn't win this year i mean they they
did okay you know they got medals
yeah deborah's win no he did not
he got third
oh that's right he got bronze yeah and
inside got i mean um
snyder got second so those two are our
main guys you know so the three new guys
that came through
were guys that hadn't won
world gold in fact two of them have
never made a world team before and so
when we have three world champions this
year but we needed all five of them to
come through to win the uh the
championships and so the key really is
getting them all to do the same at the
same time year in and year out and not
just uh based on
okay uh burl's got beat this year so
he'll win next year it's got to be every
year if you're capable of doing that and
that's what the coaching staff has to do
it's kind of funny that i do have a lot
of influence actually on the coaching
staffs right now at the usa level
because the the women's freestyle guy is
uh is terry steiner and he wrestled for
me he was a national champion he's got a
twin brother that's at uh fresno state
and then billy zaddick is the uh
freestyle coach and he wrestled for the
hawkeyes back in uh
the early days and uh he was the
national champion so
we got a lot of
uh former gable influence on there but
but it's got deep roots in there
in 2013 the international olympic
committee ioc voted wrestling out of the
olympics
so
a lot of folks know about this the
absurdity of it and so on but in a big
picture you can step back now it's five
years later what did you learn from that
experience
well first of all
did it surprise me
yeah
but
did it really surprise me no
you gotta run you gotta have
people running
the organization
that are top-notch
if you take anything for granted
and you're not the person of authority
somebody can
kick you out
and even though we had a lot of
authority because we're wrestling we're
the one of the first sports in the
olympics ever
and that we
uh
think that
you know we're in 180 some countries
and uh
some of the number one
countries in the world that are
politically strong have the sport
you know we thought we were okay but
then you got to look and see who's
running the ilc
the ioc the international olympic
committee yeah
and then you got to see that
in wrestling we don't have anybody in
there
i mean that shocked me
we've never had anybody on the ilc
from wrestling yeah you know why
because we didn't have to
but yes that's wrong
you have to and if you don't
have somebody looking out for you right
within the structure
then it's pretty easy people turn their
head yeah but all it took
was
the statement you guys are kicked out of
the olympics you guys are done everybody
came together i think well yeah i mean
it's the first time in ever in history
that probably all this competitive
people
that were working for their own agenda
turn that agenda
to the sport
and that so that made a big difference
and we got a lot done in fact
in america
there was several people
that were
really
out there that we didn't know about
until this point in time
and when they came aboard
now they're still aboard
that doesn't mean we're doing everything
perfect because just because we got
voted back in before we even got kicked
out really
that doesn't mean we're by any means
safe
we have to do some of the things that
i'm talking about or some of the things
that we didn't do before we can't fall
right back into the same mess yes and so
our leadership got changed
and it's
better
but it's got to stay better
but
there are things that we could still be
doing to make sure that we don't
have situations like this happen i'll
tell you when i first learned about it i
was like
i broke down and wept
yeah again it's like every once in a
while i'll break down and and and cry
about
my sister yeah or i'll break down
i don't know if i cry about losing to
owings but
i'd probably get more determined but
that's kind of uh you have to go back
and and think about those moments when
you heard when i heard that moment and i
i said i it just overcame me it was like
four o'clock 4 4 30 in the morning
when i heard about it and uh my wife had
been been up looking at the internet and
she she woke me up i thought she was
joking
but i jumped out of bed really quick
when she said that i knew she was
serious and i started
making phone calls right then
to find out if it was true and when i
found out was true you know it was just
like devastating
you know and it was one of these things
that
it's a nightmare
and
but you don't let it happen again
it's that simple yeah and you keep
getting stronger yeah
and uh if people haven't read they
should read the loss of dan gable by ray
thompson the espn article that kind of
in this very beautiful poetic way
ties together
uh all the losses of dan gable the
losing your sister losing to larry
owings losing wrestling from the
olympics all of these tragedies
of various forms
so that's
the ioc there's politics and you're sort
of being very pragmatic but
stepping back wrestling is one of the
oldest forms of combat period dating
back there's cave drawings 15 thousand
years ago
and if you look at uh the ancient
olympics the greek olympics twenty seven
hundred years ago
did you ever when you wrestled or
coached do you now
see wrestling in this way a freestyle
folk style wrestling the purity of
sort of two human beings locked in
combat the the roots of that us just
human beings
this fair struggle between two men or
two women
i don't think i ever
looked at it
as anything but just to a combat
and
i think there's times
that have made me figure out how to make
that combat better
there's little
markers
or little points in time in your life
that make you
wonder or i should say determined
to be able to get more out of yourself
and to be able to take it to a new level
and i don't think people can actually
feel that way unless you've actually had
a lot of accomplishments in anything
i think there's anything out there i
mean no matter what sport or or breaking
the four minute mile i mean when you
broke that when they broke that roger
banister broke that four minute mile i
can't imagine him breaking it from his
best time being 4 30.
you know it's one of these things that
along the line there that he did
had some close calls
or he had some coaching that was given
him the opportunity to become a little
better but i think because he
was doing well and being very successful
that the opportunity came and so as for
me it's like the same thing i had so
much
success
and so many practices
that went well
and so much
goodness out of this sport
that it gave me the opportunity
to really
look more
finite and look more how i can even make
it better and so it's like if you look
at my library upstairs i got a library
upstairs
and there's a lot of books up there
from the family and but if you look at
the gable books up there
i got a lot of
russian technique books
[Laughter]
i can't read the book
but i can see the diagrams
and i can see this the figures
they don't really show it in pictures
they do it in drawings
and
and so it's like when i was trying to
beat the best that has
labeled the best because they win the
world championships every year since
they've been just about involved and i
don't think they got started involved
until like the 50s but
but you know it's
something you know you study the best
who's out there but then you don't focus
so much on the best that you can't beat
the best
you learn from them
but there's something that they don't
have
that you can have
toughness to technique to the art to the
science yeah all that stuff and that's
why even talking to you when you're
sitting over there you love mit and
you're bragging about it over harvard
you know
you know it's because it's true
in your eyes and and that's and that's
great and it might be
but uh but it's the same type of thing
that uh
you know there's something that you're
probably stealing from harvard yeah but
you won't give them credit well then
in the interest of time
uh i've read that you're pretty serious
you're pretty seriously into fishing
so what's the biggest fish you ever
caught
what are we talking about here are we
you're talking about
no
i don't think i've ever caught a big
ocean fish i'm not i'm a river lake
fisherman i have
trout no probably uh
probably northern okay i probably caught
a northern that weighed 20 some pounds
uh you know i my fish i like to catch is
walleyes and that the reason why i like
to catch them because they're really
good eating fish
and the best eating fish are not the
real big ones uh
you know it's kind of kind of
interesting they i got people hunting
deer right on my land
and
they're looking for the big bucks but
they're not the best eaters if you want
if you want to eat them but they're the
best trophy so you know i do have a
couple trophy walleyes on the wall but
but uh
most time i throw the big ones back and
put them back in there so
i don't know if you know there's a book
by hemingway called old man in the sea
and part of it and uh ernest hemingway
ernest hemingway yeah
and he uh there's a there's an old man
that basically uh
catches an 18-footer but it can't pull
it in doesn't have the strength so they
together spend
while the sharks eat away at it
i mean this is very powerful story i
think one in the nobel prize but he says
it's better to be lucky
the old man says it's better to be lucky
but i would rather be exact that that
that way when luck comes you're ready so
let me ask
uh
what do you think about luck do you
believe
in free will that we have actions
that control the direction destination
of our life or does luck and some other
outside forces
really
land you where you end up
for me
i'm not about luck
but i do think there is
luck is involved
but i think it's mostly created
uh just how lucky you are through
preparations
and things happen things have happened
in my life
forever
and a lot of good things
and a lot of people could say hey you've
been pretty lucky to win all these
awards
i don't know if you analyze
my life
i don't think it was involved with luck
you know i think it was more involved
with preparation and you know and again
science
had you been smarter had you understood
that you could do some things
and be just as lucky that'd be great but
i'm only as smart as today
so when i was training in my life and me
even training people
in my life
as of that moment that's how lucky i am
to uh be able to um
have whatever is available to me
and that's what you call that a lot of
science so for me i
i think that uh you know like right now
if i look back i do a lot of things
different
just because
things are proven
differently like i'd
give people water during practice and i
did
and i would let them change their
running wrestling shoes into running
shoes to run sprints on the concrete
or i would actually maybe um
maybe i had a guy climb 12 ropes after
practice one after another and then
maybe the next day i'd do it again
ah you know i might not make him do it
the next day i might let him recover a
little bit more
and
uh you got to learn keep adding to your
philosophy and your philosophy may have
been great at that time but it's at that
time and what is really important is
where you at with this time today
and so there's better ways to do things
now if you ever take attitude out of it
and just depend on
total science
then you know you're not going to be as
as uh you know i think it's i i listened
to a couple of people that are really
pretty famous people uh one of them was
john irving he was a
writer yeah and he told me he said you
think i really
learned how to be a great writer
in uh
writing school
i he said yeah i learned a lot there
but really what gave me
the ability
to stay focused just to work extra hours
to be more disciplined was wrestling
practices
that's right he was a wrestler yeah yeah
he goes i go back to that that's what
gave me that chance
you know and and there's a guy in iowa
that uh
a guy named norman borlaug
he uh
he he learned he
he invented a process to feed the
underprivileged countries
of the world
and
he was a wrestler and he said the same
thing and he worked extremely hard and
he said
i give a lot of credit to the sport of
wrestling
and even though i was i'm known for this
and i got a statue in in
washington dc because i saved a billion
lives plus
uh i'm gonna give wrestling a lot of
credit so you know i think
some of these
mma stars
and some of these guys that maybe
weren't wrestlers that had to wrestle
russell had to fight wrestling guys and
stuff missed a little bit there but i
think the ones that did have wrestling
probably have a really good chance and
can adapt to the other ones but you know
i think every
martial art or every activity is good
and you probably can't skip any but i
don't think they're ever going to
overlook and say that wrestling's
pretty not are not valuable because
it is
however that doesn't mean you're going
to make it you still got to take the
values and apply it
whatever area you're going to be in and
and some people forget that some people
can't get over
the highness of getting your arm raised
in a wrestling match and i and you know
what what's even greater than
me getting my arm raised is that i if
i'm a coach or if i doesn't belong with
you that you get your arm raised yeah
and even if you don't get your arm
raised it's what you walk away with
and how and how you learn
to uh
handle that as well because there's
going to be some losses
but you don't want many
because you don't want to get used to
losing i can tell you that that's the
hunger for the win it's the brotherhood
the sisterhood of the wrestling room and
it's hard work and science that's going
to be luck
at the end of the day
absolutely that luck you know i'm you
know i i like luck but i think it's
created by uh the opportunity that
you make your luck you make your luck
yeah dan it was a huge honor thank you
for welcoming me into your home and for
having this conversation yeah no problem
good man
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now let me leave you with some words
from dan gable
the first period is won by the best
technician
the second period is won by the kid in
the best shape
and the third period is won by the kid
with the biggest heart
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time