When his mom died in 1994, he found hundreds of letters he'd written in college. For their first date, two years later, he invited her on a bike ride. He was undefeated in 64 prep matches, and was 118-1 at Iowa State. His shoulders heave up and down, shaking. No team in history had won nine championships in a row, and no team in history had won 25 straight conference titles.Gable's fierce persona became part of reputation, and he describes himself in his book Sweat, determination and the hard-to-find alloy called guts led Gable to gold year after year after year in Iowa City, and though he would retire in 1997, he’s never truly left. "I've had some unbelievable conversations with Kathy Gable that Dan Gable doesn't know about in that f---ing closet right there," says current Iowa coach Tom Brands, sitting in the Iowa wrestling room. A year ago, McDonough dominated people, and now, for some reason, he is wrestling without anger or energy. Gable ripped Zaputil's shirt off, and what he saw staggered him. So did his family. "You want me to be dead in about two years?" Olympic Wrestling Champion and Legendary Wrestling Coach/Motivational Speaker. He's on fire these days, energized. His face hardens, his mouth curving into a frown, his muscles firing, looking like a weapon.Gable leaps from the hot tub and dives into the drift of snow. John bucks and twists, and with 38 seconds left, he breaks his opponent's grip and takes a 3-2 lead. It's part of their blood. 1 Iowa State, 22-15. The logs are still wet, and the air smells like oak and elm. he yells, his voice sounding like a gut-shot deer looks, ragged from days of this. "Because we love him.

"I have these kids," Annie says. "He thought quitting would spare him the pain, but he was wrong. Taking on other people's pain is why he left the sport. "I got out of it to save my life. "Dad coached McDonough's dad," one of the girls explains.Generations now have come and gone, and Gable remembers the losers more than the winners. It sounds like coachspeak and only makes sense once you've watched Gable watch wrestling. So, let's look at warm-ups in a whole new light. The girls' bedroom doors had holes in them; they'd slam and lock them, and Dan would punch through them. I had to have a win, just to get it out of me. "If they drop wrestling," son-in-law Danny Olszta says, "he'll feel he failed. In 1972 Dan Gable became the first American to win a World and Olympic title in consecutive years. McGuire would also go on to win two titles.

Even before the IOC decision, Gable worried about the future of his sport and hoped to inspire people to save it. Leaning over, he carefully wipes the snow off with his hand.The Gable statue outside Carver-Hawkeye Arena calls "stalling" on those who pass by.

They refused. ""Four ... three ... two ... one," a friend counts down, and the horn sounds. They're all here."

"I feel like none of us would be here were it not for wrestling," Jenni explains. "I had to get it out of me," he says, still sniffling, wiping away his tears. They got a neighbor to go check. "Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy." GET OUT OF THERE! It was the prison. When Dan reached the cabin, he found his mother pounding her head on the floor, over and over again. Owings, the No. "It's hot," Gable says suddenly. "Gable can't sleep that night, haunted by McDonough's loss and the losses of every wrestler he's seen in the past few days, even ones from other schools, kids he's never met. They're not wrestling aggressively, not attacking until the end of the third period, and after yet another defeat, Annie rushes back to Dan and says, "Dad, you gotta start coaching again," an idea that is repeated not much later by a former college wrestler in the suite. "It's not over! "Over time there's no telling how many this will actually make a difference with in a positive way," Gable said. That's how Gable ended his career.

A quote from Gable about this loss is, “then I got good”. Mack answered and listened as the neighbor described Diane's half-naked body dead on the living room carpet, in the same room where Dan once sat in the window. It's hard to explain, this dichotomy, but when he gave up that job, they all lost something. "I almost feel -- not useless, but ..."The IOC's decision is based on internal politics, he explains. Gable's life is governed by justification and guilt, as if he's forever paying off some unseen debt. Dan remembers his parents feeling antsy. Everyone in the Gable suite celebrates, except Gable himself, who is almost panting, his eyes glassy. He was 15 years old when his older sister, Diane, was raped and murdered in their family home in Waterloo. It swung back and forth, slowly, back and forth.