A Grand Era: Dan Gable, Today
One of the winningest coaches in college sports' history retired at an earlier age than most. Today, he has 14 reasons he knows it was time.
Wondering how to write anything original about Dan Gable is an exercise in futility.
What isn’t known? What can be said that hasn’t been scribed already about the guy who won every competitive wrestling and coaching award possible, with a Presidential Medal of Freedom and his own line of beer thrown in for good measure?
Most Gable fans know he went 181-1 through high school and college. They know the name Larry Owings, precisely because of the “1” that sits to the right of the dash. They know Gable won gold at the 1972 Olympics in Munich without surrendering a single point. They know of his renowned intensity, where his body occasionally, physically shook while coaching close matches involving his Iowa Hawkeye wrestlers. TrueGableFan OGs know of his Pan Am, Tbilisi and six consecutive Midlands titles. They know he coached his Hawkeye teams to 15 national championships, more than coaches named Krzyzewski, Wooden or Saban ever won.
What can possibly be fresh material when it comes to writing about a man whose statue stands outside Carver-Hawkeye Arena?
Inspiration arrived on the wings of remembering Gable has had a different title for two decades.
Today, Gable is 75. Since he is who he is, he’s sought to promote the sport to which he’s given his life. He’s asked to make appearances and give speeches. To the degree that he’s able, Gable obliges.
To the degree that he’s able?
Well, yes.
For the last 20 years, Dan Gable has been a grandpa.
***
If sorrow and grief were a river, Gable carried the Nile for years. When he was a sophomore in high school, his 19 year-old sister, Diane, was raped and murdered by a 16 year-old neighbor. The neighbor, John Thomas Kyle, had made a crass, sexually suggestive comment about Diane to Gable weeks before.
Gable, 15 at the time, kept it to himself, chalking it up as a crude, uncouth comment characteristic of the language of many high school boys.
A yoke of the unfairest weight, fastened by a thousand what-ifs, hung itself on Gable’s soul when Kyle was arrested.
“He said something to me that, if I had communicated, might have saved her life,” he told Joe Rogan three years ago on Rogan’s podcast. “You always feel a little guilty.”
You always feel a little guilty.
It isn’t an incidental, throw-away line. It’s revealing, manifesting itself in places today where his family says it shouldn’t.
“I missed a lot with my own kids while I was coaching,” Gable said. “Some of it, I couldn’t help, but some…”
He paused.
“I probably could have been a better husband, a better father. Probably could have come home an hour earlier, made it home for dinner more, tuck the kids in more, things like that. I didn’t do that enough. Maybe I’d stop on the way home at the local yokel for a beer. You can’t be Dan Gable and go into a bar and be quick about it. People line up to talk when they see you’re there.
“Things like that, it was a mistake. It took me 10 years before I learned. Around 1987, I started to turn all that around. I started getting home more.”
***
Gable and his wife, Kathy, have four daughters: Jenni Mitchell (Brian), Annie Gavin (Mike), Molly Olszta (Danny) and Mackie McCord (Justin). It doesn’t take long to gather that grandchildren Gable, Jake, and Eliza (Mitchell), Danny, Elsie, Betsy and Archie (Gavin), Mickey, Louie and Sammy (Olszta) and Kate, Hank, Mack and Finn (McCord) have lassoed the heart of America’s wrestling icon.
“We live the farthest away, about three hours,” Molly said. “My parents still visit to watch my kids’ activities. When it’s Dad watching them wrestle, I think some people think he’s going to be crazy intense. He isn't. He’s just grandpa. He cheers them on. He lets the coaches do their thing and just lets his grandkids wrestle.”
“Dad’s good with them,” said Mackie, who lives next door to her parents. “I have four, and they’re the youngest of all the grandkids. Dad’s good at getting to their levels. It’s sometimes to the point where he’s literally almost a grandkid himself.”
She laughed.
“My one year-old will be waiting with me for my other kids (to get) off the bus. Dad works out at that time in the shed. He’ll come out clapping when they get home, always cheering them on.”
Recently, one year-old Finn was holding a stick while greeting his siblings.
“I started watching Finn and my dad,” Mackie said. “They started having a sword fight and I just stood there watching them. It was like two one year-olds playing, having fun.
“People don’t see that side of my dad often. It was really sweet.”
***
When Gable stepped away from coaching in 1997, it’s easy to picture locals wondering how the legendary coach would spend his post-coaching years. A press conference had been held, customary adieus made. Life, as Gable never knew it, awaited.
It didn’t matter that, at 48, he was far from when most consider retirement. Years of self-inflicted stress, whether orthopedic or his national-champs-or-bust mentality, contributed to the decision. As Gable told Flowrestling’s Kyle Klingman in February, 2022, a broken hip in December, 1996, and the ensuing surgery in January, brought wrestling’s Man of Steel a dose of reflection.
“I had a lot of thinking time,” Gable told Klingman. “I wanted to save my life a little bit…have some longevity.”
Thinking time? We’d surmised Gable was a doer, not a thinker. Opponents aren’t pondered into submission.
His words, however, provided an inkling. Perhaps there was more to the man many thought they knew. Perhaps there was something beyond his reputation, beyond the no-nonsense, pedal-to-the-metal fire that drove him to unprecedented heights.
A certain-something found Gable obeying an interior whisper. Striving for excellence, constantly, takes its toll.
“There were times I’d be ranting and raving about the day or something with the team and Kathy would have to listen,” he said. “Maybe she listened and maybe she didn’t, but she had to hear a lot of it because it was every day. I definitely could’ve done better.”
I shared Gable’s regrets with his wife and daughters.
“I don’t know why he’d say that,” Kathy said. “We never thought that.”
As they did throughout his career, the Ls stick with Gable more than the Ws.
“That kinda chokes me up a little bit,” Annie said. “I wish he didn’t think that, wish he didn’t put that pressure on himself. I look back on my dad’s job with no resentment; it’s actually the opposite. I think of all the experiences and relationships we built with people.
“He took us on the road with him, always had us in the same hotel room. My dad was coaching a team, but had his whole family with him.”
Molly agreed.
“Dad has always had a good sense of family first,” she said. “We usually rode the bus to school, but if Dad’s schedule allowed, he’d pile us into his truck and drive us. There was one point where three of the four of us were all in the same elementary school together. I remember before we got out he’d say, ‘Look around. This isn’t going to last forever,’ meaning all of us being able to be together.
“We’d joke about it, probably roll our eyes, but I look back and it made sense. Now we say that to our kids when we’re all together.”
***
If it’s true we continue loving our kids by having them see us enjoy theirs, Gable’s oldest, Jenni, suggests her dad has nailed fatherhood-done-right.
“Dad still fathers his four daughters today,” Jenni said. “I think being a grandfather is his top thing in life now. It’s trumped everything. He’s goofy with his grandkids. He’s almost like another kid when he’s with them. He has fun with them.”
For the last two decades, his priorities have become uncomplicated. Simply being there, whether for baseball, softball or football games, wrestling or golf matches, swim meets, attending theatrical productions or boating and fishing with the grandkids, Grandpa Gable makes sure he’s there.
He even steps up for less-than-desirable duties.
“I don’t think my dad changed too many diapers with us,” Molly laughed. “But, he’s doing it for the grandkids.”
Mackie chimed in.
“This might be too much information,” she said. “My dad watched my son last week and had to change a…”
She stopped.
“Yeah, this is definitely too much information.”
In true Gable fashion, Mackie forged ahead anyway.
Of the two options, Gable changed the type of diaper everyone least prefers. Bottom line, pun intended, Grandpa got the job done.
***
Married 50 years this year, Dan and Kathy have relished the life their oldest grandchild, Gable Mitchell, introduced to them 20 years ago. For both, grandparenting has been the crowning jewel of family life.
How much has grandfatherhood impacted Waterloo, Iowa’s most famous son?
“He gets joy from it,” Kathy said. “He just loves being with them, going to all their sports, their activities, taking the boys out fishing. They like going to our place in Minnesota, catching walleye, but a lot of times Dan won’t even fish himself. He just loves going out with them, loves being around them.”
Sports aren’t necessary for Gable to be captivated by his grandkids’ talents.
“Our grandson, Archie, is a fifth grader and he’s in the musical, Shrek,” Kathy said. “He’s really worked at it, taking voice lessons, all that. He was here recently and I was asking him about it.”
Archie volunteered to sing a few parts for his grandma.
“I had Dan come in, and Archie put on a little performance for us,” she said. “Dan was kind of leaning over the couch, watching and listening. Archie sang some songs; he was amazing.
“I looked over at Dan. He was all choked up.”
It was a common refrain of his wife and daughters. Increasingly, certain songs, performances, and moments stir Gable’s soul. Sentimental tears aren’t uncommon.
“I think it's the age he’s getting to,” said Kathy, known to be affectionately direct. “He gets emotional. Dan will hear a song and all of a sudden he can start getting all blubbery.”
***
These days, Gable’s schedule involves reading a grandchildren-favorite book on scary looking fish. It involves the annual turkey hunt, in which Gable fires a blank and leads his grandkids to the pre-hidden prey lying in the woods. The youngest ones believe Gable’s story, that he shoots a magic bullet which freezes and wraps the turkey upon impact, explaining the fully packaged Butterball they find after following grandpa through the woods.
His schedule involves watching his grandson, Mickey, three hours away in Manhattan, IL, wrestle whenever possible. It involves watching Eliza’s wrestling matches or seeing Eliza’s brother, Gable, play baseball for the Hawkeyes. It involves following his favorite outfielder for the Gustavus Adolphus College (MN) baseball team - grandson, Danny - or shedding tears at Archie’s theatrical and musical performances.
“I went to one, and I cried during his whole performance,” Gable said. “And why did I cry? Because he was doing a great job. He wasn’t just out there, dinkin’ around. Here he was, one of the lead persons - whatever you call it - and the way he was doing it was like he was up to bat or getting a takedown or scoring a touchdown. It was coming out with so much emotion that it created emotion in me.”
And some days, Gable’s schedule - and heart - is filled by not leaving home at all. Often, it’s merely answering the doorbell when three year-old Mack strolls over from next door to ask Grandpa if he wants to play catch, build a fire or gather pine cones.
Mack’s never been turned down.
Author’s Note: If you liked this piece, please hit SUBSCRIBE. These articles are FREE.
Sponsors: Industrial Solutions Authority: www.isaelectric.com
Healthy Valley Chiropractic: www.healthyvalleychiropractic.com
The Music Salon: www.themusicsalon.com