A Kid Who Doesn't Kid Around

"I'm afraid Dan might commit suicide," said one onlooker. "I mean, what else has he got in life but wrestling?"

But all Dan Gable did was cry. Long before the NCAA tournament, a banquet had been planned in his honor. Although the words came slowly, Gable spoke at the banquet—about the virtues of competition, about how he had no excuse for losing and about how he was going to keep on wrestling.

"At first after the loss I couldn't face my parents," he said. "I felt I had let them down. I know they didn't feel that way, but it took time for me to adjust. I worked out a little, stayed up late, went out with the guys. I couldn't keep my mind straight. Two weeks after the loss I won the national AAUs, was voted the Outstanding Wrestler there, and that got me back on the right road."

That road has taken him almost around the world. In 1971 Gable won a gold medal at the Pan-American Games in Cali and a gold and the Outstanding Wrestler Award at an international meet in Tbilisi. "The Russians gave me all kinds of awards," Gable says. "A huge picture of one of their great wrestlers, lots of gifts, trophies and a huge horsehair cape that weighs 15 pounds. And then 10,000 fans clapped. At a banquet afterward they kept giving me wine, and when I put my hand over my glass they tried to pour it through my fingers."

Just as Kierkegaard found that constant pleasure is no pleasure at all ("In the bottomless ocean of pleasure I have sounded in vain for a spot to cast an anchor"), Gable discovered that everlasting pain has its limits.

"Now I make a conscious effort to be more outgoing," he says. "I like to surround myself with outgoing guys because I sort of envy them. I also used to shy away from adulation, but now I realize it's an important part of sports. If a kid wants me to show him how to do something in wrestling, I take the time because I can see how much it means to him. There was one fan who flew over from Iowa to see me wrestle at the World Games in Sofia. He was too shy to even come over to me and I didn't know he was there until we came back, but if I'd known I'd have spent time with him. Once you're out of sports you're less known each year. Soon people say, 'Dan who?' You've got to make time for people now. That's been an important word for me—now. It's so easy to put things off, and I learned that you have to do things now."

Gable's priorities being what they are, though, he has postponed his fun because the time to get ready for Munich is now. Almost every morning he runs 2.2 miles along a dirt road on the outskirts of Ames, Iowa. One recent morning the Glass twins—Ron and Don—who wrestle at Iowa State, drove out with him for the run. Then, while Don drove Dan's car at a slow pace, Ron and Dan loped alongside. The window on the driver's side was down so the runners could hear the blaring music: "Knock, knock, knocking at my door, just like you did before." They ran past freshly manured cornfields, past goats, barns, cows and yipping dogs. Gable was almost hidden beneath layers of sweat clothes and his red hair was drenched. On they ran past wire fences, wooden fences, past horses, pigs and creeks. Ron jumped on the back of the car, exhausted. Dan plodded on at a seven-minute-a-mile clip. Sweat rained from his sleeves. When Gable finished his run his face was hollow, his eyes staring out like two burned holes in a blanket. As always, though, he chose to push himself farther, driving home with the windows up and the heater on full blast.

"I beat 10 different Russians at various world meets," says Dan, "and at a banquet in Kiev they vowed that they would find someone who would beat me."

If they don't, his injured left knee could. Three doctors have urged him to undergo surgery on a torn cartilage, but Gable has refused to take time off from practice.

"Wrestling with one leg has made me a better wrestler," he maintains. "I've had to find new ways to do things and I've improved a lot."