A Kid Who Doesn't Kid Around

"He was always so antsy," says Bob Siddens, his wrestling coach at West High. "I have a habit of shaking hands with each boy before and after each match. But Dan was always so anxious to wrestle that he would prance around in front of me and try to get me to shake his hand and send him on his way before the previous match was even over."

"He was always losing things—shoes, socks, jocks," Mack recalls. "I got mad at him once and he said to me, 'Dad, you got to remember that wrestlers have lots to remember, things like holds and moves and strategy.'

"When he was young he was the meanest, orneriest kid alive," says Mack. Many tales are still told. About how he came across a construction site and destroyed hundreds of bricks. About the day he chased a cat up a tree and across a roof, tearing up dozens of shingles in the process. About the time his mother took him for a haircut and he bolted out of the barbershop, locked himself in the car and refused to let his mother in. About the day he tied a boy's hands together with wire and dragged him all the way home from school. About the time he was eating an ice cream cone in the backseat of the family car, got angry at his father and whomped him on the head with the cone. About the day his mother took him shopping and he spotted a saleslady bending over and bit her rump.

Dan Gable got his share of spankings, but he and his father have always been close. Mack came to most of his son's high school practices. "One day The Kid says to me, 'I wish you'd get out of here. I was doing O.K. until you came in, and then I got whaled on.' For two, three nights I didn't go to practice. Then he gave me a picture of himself in uniform and told me to read the back. He had written, 'Missed you at practice the last couple nights. Come on back.' "

As a ninth-grader Gable lettered in three sports—baseball, football (he was a single-wing quarterback on an unbeaten team) and wrestling—and in the seventh grade he had won the state YMCA 50-yard backstroke championship. The next year he dropped out of all sports except wrestling. As a freshman he had to agonize through one of the most torturous and questionable ordeals in wrestling, cutting his weight from 127 to 95 pounds. "It was an awful struggle," Mack admits. "He went three days at the end without food and it got so bad he couldn't sleep."

But it paid off. In his first junior high match Gable trailed 3-0 going into the final period, then utilized his stamina and determination to win 5-3. After a loss in junior high he was so distraught that he locked himself in his room for the night. In high school he never had to lock his door.

Mack, who had been a high school wrestler, used to work out with Dan. "But one day when he was a sophomore he beat me so bad I could hardly move," Mack says. "I told him that was it, that he was too good for me and that I was through. So The Kid says, 'You can't quit, Dad. Not after all the years you beat me up. You can't quit now.' The Kid never liked losing to anybody. Not even in practice. If someone gave it to him in practice, he got furious."

During the summer following his sophomore year at high school Dan and his parents were on a fishing trip on the Mississippi when they got word that the Gables' only other child, 20-year-old Diane, had been raped and murdered in the living room.

"When we came back we moved into a hotel," Mack says. "We were going to sell the house. Kate and I never wanted to set foot there again. But The Kid said, 'You can't do that. They took my sister from me, but I'm not going to let them take my home from me.' So we moved back in. I couldn't sleep for two years and my wife almost went to pieces. I had 15 men working for me in my real-estate office. Within a year I closed the business. But we did it for The Kid. We moved into the house and right away he moved out of his room and took Diane's room. And whenever a tough match came up, he'd say, 'Don't worry, Dad. I'm going to win this one for Diane.' "

He always did. When Gable graduated from West High he was undefeated and had won three state championships.