Hall of Famer Dan Gable continues to give back as a top ambassador for the sport of wrestling. Continued from page 8
Whitmer said. “By the time he got done talking, you would’ve thought I won.” Whitmer said the points Gable made were vital to his mindset later in the sea- son. He knocked off Morgan in the NCAA quarterfinals and made true on Gable’s preseason prediction, becoming Iowa’s next national champ. The television cam- eras caught Gable’s first words to Whitmer as he came off the mat: “Strongest Man in the World.” “He could take a person with some raw
talent and a lot of heart and get the absolute most out of that guy,” Whitmer said. “He’d make them believe they could accomplish anything. He believes so much in that individual. I got to the point where I started believing in myself, and it was so much that I wanted to come off the mat having won for myself, I didn’t want to disappoint coach Gable.” The Hawkeye Wrestling Club practice is winding down and Gable’s workout is
about to begin. He strolls into the workout room most days with a black duffle bag filled with gear — mouthpieces, wrestling shoes, boxing gloves, headgear, a neck brace, numerous rolls of athletic tape and a wrench that fits the stationary bikes, just to name a few items.
Gable found himself on small-college campuses throughout the Midwest in recent years as he followed his daughter, Mackie, during her soccer career at Loras. Often times, his internal compass would lead him to the wrestling room to check out the facilities and see if they were being kept up and in use during the offseason. Gable would give each program a
grade. The schools that had wrestlers training in the room during his visit passed. The ones that were using the wrestling room for storage failed. Either way, the head coach would almost always hear from the wrestling icon at some point. “He has a computer in his head and the only thing that computer runs is wrestling,”
Robinson said. “There’s nothing that goes on in there except wrestling, and that’s the beauty of how he is. People don’t really understand it, but they’re not around him. “His mind is focused on one thing and one thing only, therefore it allows it to be far more efficient than most people’s minds. … I’ve never been around anybody who’s consumed like he’s consumed. Not even close.” Gable’s new charge is strengthening a sport that has been bleeding at the top col- lege level in recent years and unifying organizations within wrestling. His pay- checks are no longer signed by the University of Iowa, but Gable is very much still in a leadership position.
“This break from being contracted with the University of Iowa gives me more of a chance to help the sport,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like Iowa. They’re still my team favorite. But now the other peo- ple will allow me to help make the sport a bigger and better sport.”
USA Wrestler 9
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