Look Homeward, Hawkeye

"Barry was at the cash register with a sack of doughnuts and some M & M's in his hand. When he saw me, he dropped everything on the floor and said, I haven't ate anything, Coach.'

"I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and said, 'How could you do this to me? I'm a human being, too. I don't mind if you can't make weight, but you can't run off on the team like this.' At 7:15 we were back at the gym."

Gable and Davis caught an 8:06 flight for Ann Arbor, and during a layover in Chicago, the two rushed to a nearby hotel for an 80-minute workout in a gym. That was more than sufficient to get Davis below 118 pounds. Then it was on to the Big Ten championships, where he finished first in his division.

"I had told him to lose the weight at Michigan, not to try to do it before we left home," Gable says. "When you're hungry and alone, it's hard to lose. It helps if you've got people around to motivate you."

Davis was strongly enough motivated thereafter to win six straight matches and top off his 46-1 sophomore season by beating Iowa State's Kevin Darkus 7-5 for the NCAA title Saturday night.

Like Davis, Fitzgerald has proved he could come home again. "I left the team two years ago and went to Austin, Texas, where I had a friend," he says. "I didn't think I liked wrestling that much anymore." After six months of selling insurance, Fitzgerald decided he liked wringing opponents' limbs more than ringing doorbells. "He's been easier to work with since he came back," Gable says of Fitzgerald, who was seeded eighth at the NCAAs and finished seventh, getting the Hawkeyes six points.

A few weeks after Fitzgerald left in 1980, Lou Banach took off. On the third day he returned. "I got on a bus and was going to see an old girl friend in Denton, Texas," Banach says. "By the time I got to Oklahoma City the next day, though, I was tired of the bus. I stayed one day and flew back to Iowa City the next."

Banach went on to become the 1981 NCAA heavyweight champ, and at last week's 490-match tournament he took part in three of the most talked-about bouts. The first was against North Carolina's 407-pound Tab Thacker, who outweighed Banach by 192 pounds. Thacker hoisted Banach off the mat in the first period of their quarterfinal match. But Thacker, who had Banach's right arm clamped tight, made the mistake of taking Banach down on his left side. That enabled Banach to brace himself for the impact with his free left arm and shoulder. The bull-strong Banach exerted tremendous power with his hips and rolled Thacker onto his back and, a second later, Banach pinned him.

On Friday night, however, Banach was a 7-4 loser to Oklahoma's Steve (Dr. Death) Williams. Dr. Death is an offensive guard for the Sooners and, off the field, a rather gentle 285-pound soul. Friday night, though, he was at his snarling best. Banach and Iowa State's unranked Wayne Cole then fought it out for third place Saturday afternoon, with Banach winning this punishing match 11-10.

Saturday night's crowd of 14,204 swelled the three-day attendance to a record 73,566. Aside from Davis, Iowa had two other titlists, Jim Zalesky at 158 pounds and Pete Bush at 190.