Danny Mack Dan Gable (born October 25, 1948) is a retired American Olympic wrestler and head coach. After all, this is wrestling, not chess.. Dan Gable won 13-4 in a match that would serve as the central motivation for Owings two years later. BACK HOME, HE's got a 45-acre spread he's put together in pieces over the years, a place to live out his uneasy retirement. At some point, each loss stopped being a separate thing, blurring into the ones that came before, until there isn't even such a thing as individual losses, just loss. Then doctors told him he couldn't wrestle people any longer, and the Christmas tree and the chain saw nearly took away the Takedown Machine, and that is just about that. He's been doing a lot of that lately, out here by himself, looking back at a life of competition and pain. "Fishing is the only thing I love besides wrestling and my family," he says. Considered to be one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Gable is a two-time NCAA Division I national champion, a world gold medalist, and an Olympic gold medalist.Gable was only the third wrestler to have ever been inducted into the United World Wrestling's Hall of Fame in the Legend . Gable wears the scars of his lifetime of doing battle. This land is a lot of work, and he's getting older. … Gables body is pure function; it looks built to perform.. "This is a new purpose.". They have four children. He mumbled something and kept sleeping, for a few moments, until the information traveled through his subconscious and he rushed to the computer. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? The wrestlers stop in the middle of practice and have Gatorade parties. I never write sympathetic notes. Gable has used his fame to bring awareness, and to lobby behind the scenes, constantly working the phones or getting on planes. I think my wife, the love for my wife ". The eruption arrives. He went 39-0 this season, winning a second straight 220-pound state title. Later that night, some friends sit around the hotel bar, just as baffled as Mackie. The Des Moines Register's wrestling beat writer, Andy Hamilton, said that Gable quit coaching, in large part, because he could no longer stomach seeing wrestlers he cared about lose. He called me a couple of times and said, I cant take this, Dad. He was undefeated in 64 prep matches, and was 117-1 at Iowa State University. One day, as he walks from the hotel to the arena, he tries to explain why. His parents saved his weights from high school, which he still uses in the barn. Not just the past month, or the previous few days, but their whole lives. Gable was a two time NCAA National . He never cheered after one of his own matches, but he'd leap into the air after theirs, and he'd mourn with them after defeats, and sit in a sauna wearing a coat and tie to help them make weight. Sports fans the world over remember Gable as the fierce competitor who climbed limping and bloodied to the victory stand in Munich, West Germany, to collect the gold medal, which he solemnly lifted to his lips and kissed. When he was a small boy, his parents drank, and they fought. Courtesy Gable Family, He is helpless in the face of the sick cat. Instead, she volunteered to be the high school wrestling manager, staying after practice to clean the mats. Gouges and divots cover the bottom, like a target-practice soda can, deep scars and even holes, dozens of them. Courtesy IU Athletics. 1 thing I give them.. Pain, Tomorrow May Never Come, Giving. What would he say? During a lull in the wrestling, the girls and their husbands sit in the suite, trying to connect the stories, explaining how losing the Olympics feels like the beginning of the end to Dan. Enough! In the central Montana mountains, a paralyzed man and his wife are proving the answer just might be yes. In Des Moines, as the tournament gets under way, he starts making noises that sound like an animal's death rattle, a moan that starts somewhere very deep inside. Join Facebook to connect with Kathy Gable and others you may know. Gable is a devoted father and grandfather. He hesitates, considering how much to reveal. When the machine had asked his age, Gable, who is 64, typed in 29, as always, and began attacking the pedals, grinding out frustrations about the IOC and the collapsing Hawkeyes. They left his older sister, Diane, at home. Gable was joined Monday by his 13 grandchildren, his wife Kathy, daughters, Jenni, Molly, Annie and Mackenzie, and sons-in-laws One of Gable's son-in-laws (to his left) was pictured holding three . He's always been a protective parent, never letting his girls stay home alone overnight, even when they were in college, no matter how much they complained. "I couldn't handle it.". "I don't know," he says now. WATERLOO Good things can come out of deep personal tragedy. Gable leaps from the hot tub and dives into the drift of snow. After winning his first 117 matches . The scars on his damaged knees turned bright red and glistened in the blazing sun. She's not alive. He loves the two cats, which like to crawl on his legs. The statue is addressing everyone who passes, demanding that they keep fighting. Another fall might be more than he can handle. They didn't understand. How has marriage and fatherhood changed the super athlete who once was so devoted to the sport that he starved himself to cut weight and ran to classes with 10-pound weights on his ankles. He later wrestled for Furman University. He swings open the door and steps back inside. "Four three two one," a friend counts down, and the horn sounds. He can rattle off the wrestlers who suffered with him but never got the brief redemption of a championship. Dan Gable was dominant at Iowa State, keeping his undefeated streak alive until his very last match, the NCAA finals of his senior year. Mack answered and listened as the neighbor described Diane's half-naked body dead on the living room carpet, in the same room where Dan once sat in the window. I said to myself, She cant be here with me, but she can look down on me and be proud. I tried to accomplish much more for her, Gable recalled. Brad Penrith won an NCAA title for Iowa in 1986, but he needed support from head coach Dan Gable and his wife, Kathy, along the way. If that means running miles every day, lifting weights and grappling with wrestlers on the mat, he does it despite bunged-up knees, a pinched nerve in his neck and chipped bones in his elbows. It's part of their blood.". The three showered together afterward. Dan and his parents went to Harpers Ferry, Iowa, on the Mississippi River, to fish. One evening, his mother screamed, "I wish I'd raised her a whore!" Pain and relief, even then. Gable can't sleep that night, haunted by McDonough's loss and the losses of every wrestler he's seen in the past few days, even ones from other schools, kids he's never met. "I'm gonna step outside.". Every day for two years, he tortured himself, refusing surgery for torn cartilage in his knee, scared he would miss out on the Olympics. He wrestled with a fury his opponents did not understand. During the holidays, Gable sits in front of his television and watches "White Christmas." What does he do? His wife, Kathy, sat at the computer, waiting on the coffeemaker to start. This is the Gable family's favorite part, because it echoes their own lives: a general and his troops, happy to be finished with the battle but missing the fight. Mack Gable told the guy to get in the house and call back. She doesn't know what to do. They have also lived in Rochester, IN. It was taken Jan. 16, 1988, when No. "Dan is a man of purpose," his friend Doughty says. At one point, the floor gave way to the continuous blasts of water and drenched Mack Gable who happened to be passing below. Gable served as the University of Iowa's head wrestling coach for 21 years. Over beers at the bar in the Lansing cabin, he recalled: In Munich, I knew hed win. That night, a local boy raped her and stabbed her to death with one of the Gables' kitchen knives. They're all here." "I had to get it out of me," he says, still sniffling, wiping away his tears. Both talk as if theyd like more children. . And because of Kathys passion for growing things, there will be three gardens, including an asparagus patch. Why was the hardest dude on the planet crying because a wrestler he doesn't coach won a match? In five years, he'll have been retired for as long as he was a head coach. "What's he doing?" . President Donald Trump awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, to Olympic gold medalist and former University of Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable in the Oval Office of . Dan takes a step back, then rushes toward the door. Even Iowa fans will get blas … they want to watch competitive matches and there arent many of those around., Bahr added: I wish Dan Gable would set his sights on the Russians and a world championship. I had to have a win, just to get it out of me.". Dan Gable's career accomplishments are etched in wrestling lore, from his 1972 unscored-on Olympic gold-medal performance on the mat to his record-setting 15 NCAA titles as wrestling coach (a mark unequaled in wrestling history). Im expanding my interests a lot more now because of Kathy. He got out of his bed, crossed the hall and climbed into Diane's bed, turning to face the wall. One of Gable's hobbies, which can seem like an obsession, is studying the health benefits of heat. Gable returns, ready to continue. After the IOC decision -- its ruling can be cemented or reversed in a September meeting, during which wrestling, squash or baseball and softball will be chosen -- the president of FILA, the international wrestling body, was pushed out by his own board. Even now, she alone seems capable of seeing through the shell into the real Dan Gable. Hed feel like traitor if he left.. Drive them through the cornfields to this suite in a deafening, packed arena. His career molded his family, then welded it together. One afternoon, Gable comes into the reception area, making small talk. The sauna is completely quiet except for Dan's voice, which sounds far away. Later, over beers at a local bar, he tries to remember when the collecting began. An excerpt from our 2014 interview with the legendary wrestler and wrestling coach Dan Gable. That sticks in her mind, for some reason -- him peaceful, unaware. Andrew Cutraro. He covets the weekends he spends with his family at the cabin retreat. See what wrestling means out in the middle of the country and in places like it all over the world, where the thin line between survival and extinction is guarded by toughness. Kyle, they explained, was dead. 1 Iowa State, 22-15.