The Ultimate Winner

And you can still whip them all?

"I don't care if they ever wrestle like I did. All I do is tell them how to do it, without putting me in the picture. I expect them to win. And I want them to expect to win."

And you can still whip them all?

"Look, I don't have to prove anything. Whether I can whip them or can't is beside the point:"

Gable just has no ego to be fed, which makes him different, too, in an ego-overloaded sport. He even likes coaching better than competing. "The thrill of victory is greater," he says. "I never jumped for joy when I won. It was an inner satisfaction that I didn't show outwardly. Now I go into hysterics and make a fool of myself. It's like my inner feelings now are out of my control."

Totally within his control, however, is how he conveys everything he's about—intensity, dedication, devotion, focus, magic, lack of ego—to his wrestlers. "The only reason we win at Iowa," says Randy Lewis, a former Hawkeye wrestler, "is because of Gable. And the only reason we have hope at the Olympics is Gable. You just always know he'll pull you through."

Wells says, "People say they work hard but they don't know what Dan means by working hard. What he demands is unreasonable, bizarre—and it works." Bizarre? Is it bizarre when Gable and several wrestlers are discovered in a hotel hallway in Chicago working out, bouncing off the walls? Is it bizarre when Gable has his Iowa wrestlers out in front of a Ramada Inn in Stillwater, Okla. working out on a February morning following this past season's only dual meet defeat, to Oklahoma State? In truth, it's bizarre only if total effort isn't your game. A former Iowa State teammate, Jim Duschen, explains, "Wrestling is a job for these other coaches. For Gable it's life."

But Gable, in teaching wrestling, a.k.a. life, never asks his wrestlers for a single ounce of effort that he didn't—and doesn't—expend. So a wrestler wants to talk injury? Gable has had sprained ankles, a broken bone in his left foot, broken fingers and a broken nose. Both his knees have been operated on (the left one four times, the right one twice), as has his left elbow. He has undergone surgery on his upper lip six times for benign tumors. He has cauliflower ears, eyelids that have been stitched four times, torn cartilage in his ribs and a severely pinched nerve in his neck.

Yet, when a former Iowa wrestler, Harlan Kistler, wanted to work out at 11:30 one night during last March's NCAA tournament, Gable was ready. Of course. Never mind that Kistler was there only as a spectator, to watch his brothers, Lindley and Marty, compete for the Hawkeyes. Never mind that team trainer Dan Foster first told Gable his neck wouldn't allow him to, then pleaded, "At least wear your neck brace." Said Gable stoically, "I'm going to wrestle, and I'm not wearing no neck brace, because I'm not giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing me with it on." Later, Gable said, "I don't have a muscle, a joint or a bone that hasn't been injured. But, really, I'm lucky I haven't been injured much." O.K., you want to talk injury?

Being rough, tough and talented as an athlete, however, is no guarantee of coaching success. The history of sports is littered with stars unable to cut it as coaches or managers: Otto Graham, Bart Starr, Wilt Chamberlain, Norm Van Brocklin, Maury Wills, Ted Williams, to name a few.