Photo: The Ray Center / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Wrestling matters in Wright County, and much of the reason runs back to Dan Gable.
Gable grew up in Waterloo and wrestled at Waterloo West, then Iowa State, where he lost one college match, in his final NCAA tournament. At the 1972 Munich Olympics he won gold without giving up a single point.
As head coach at the University of Iowa from 1976 to 1997, he won 15 NCAA team titles, including nine in a row. His teams were known for conditioning and pressure that wore opponents down.
He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020. The Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo holds the National Wrestling Hall of Fame’s Iowa branch. Almost every small-town wrestling room in the state has a coach who can tell a Gable story.
Kim Sanders writes for Clarion News Online.