This is for the few trying to compare Gable to a KY wrestler:

On Saturday, March 28, 1970, Dan Gable of Iowa State lost to Larry Owings of the University of Washington in the 142-pound weight class at the 1970 NCAA Wrestling Championships in Evanston, Ill. Gable, a senior, entered the match with a perfect career record of 181-0-0 through high school and college.

In chemistry class, he wrote scouting reports in his notebook: height, weight and record of his next opponent; lists of the guy's tendencies; stick-figure sketches of moves and counters. He marked time between one match and the next the way they do at Cape Canaveral. The countdown began when the referee held up his arm after a win. Every second, every day, every gesture and ritual from that moment on ticked him closer to zero hour: The next time the whistle blew. No variation. No distractions.

Gable's older sister, Diane, had been murdered when he was a high school sophomore. He knew who had done it even before the police told him. He'd had a bad feeling about the guy. Maybe if he'd said something earlier, he could have saved her. He couldn't bring her back. He could only wrestle. "I was wrestling to recover, to lift my family up somehow," he says. "I thought every match could make things a little better." No variation. No distractions.

And then, with one match to go, he wavered. Three days before the final, he read a headline: Owings said he had come to the tournament to beat him. Gable never read headlines. Why now? Two nights before the match, he attended a banquet in which he was honored as wrestling's man of the year. He never went to banquets. He didn't care about awards. Why now? In his early matches in the tournament, he found himself glancing up, eyeballing Owings on another mat. He never looked anywhere but straight through the heart of his opponent. Why now?

Thirty minutes before the final, when he should have been going through his routine, 10-9-8 ..., he was taping a television interview, stumbling through takes in which he looked into the camera and tempted the fates: "Hi, I'm Dan Gable. Come watch me finish my career 182-0." Why now? And on the mat with Owings, even when he had a lead midway through the third period, he heard conversations going on in the crowd, noticed people moving in the stands. He was elsewhere. Why now?

"I don't know. I got caught up. I got distracted," he says. "I wasn't doing anything the way I normally would, and I'm really not sure why." Maybe he got a little full of himself. Maybe he hadn't made Owings a goal, a target, the way Owings had focused on him. Maybe the pressure to win every single time out (he had gone undefeated in winning three consecutive Iowa state titles at West Waterloo High School, too: 64-0) finally broke something inside him. Maybe the weight of Diane's memory was something he had to finally put down. It could have been all these things, he thought.

He stood there on the mat, watching Owings' hand go up. Can't even remember if he said anything to him. Didn't know what to do. There was no way to mark time now. No next match. No countdown. He was lost. The guilt hit him in waves, first for letting his family down by losing, and then, all over again, for letting harm come to his sister. "I didn't know until then how connected they were in my mind," he says.

The drive back to campus was quiet. He couldn't speak. Had no idea what to say. He walked into Beyer Hall, the recreation center at Iowa State, went up to the wrestling room and found someone who would get down on the mat with him. No variation. No distractions. "I was still good," he says. "That kind of shocked me. It made me know I could go on."

He went on to win at the World Freestyle Championships in 1971. In 1972, he won an Olympic gold medal in Munich. And beginning in 1976, he became the most successful coach in the history of collegiate sports, leading the University of Iowa to 15 NCAA titles and 21 consecutive Big Ten crowns.

The losses, first Diane and then the match to Owings, made him. He didn't just go on, he got better. That was the hardest part, he says. The focus came at such a high price, with so much hurt underneath.

You ask him: What is perfection? What has it meant to chase it for so long?

He's still in pursuit, he says: "If I could figure out how I could have gone back and saved Diane, and how I could have gone back and not had that loss in that tournament, and still gone on to be the same person I am today, that would be perfect."

Boy oh Boy.

Has everyone blown this camparison out of sorts???

I in no way believe nor believe anyone else thinks that Sullivan and Gable are 2 of a kind.

The only thing I was comparing was a similar event happening.  Gable lost his final match of his college career.  Sullivan lost his final match of his High School Career.  Gable was undefeated in 4 years of cllegiat wrestling.  Sullivan was undefeated for 4 years on high school wrestling.  Gable lost the match instead of his opponent defeating him.  Sullivan lost the match instead of his opponent defeating him.

Both were saddled with a great deal of pressure, by themselves and others.  We know the outcome of Gable after his defeat.  What will Sullivan do after his. 

Gable went on to finish a glorious career after the loss.  He also was an outstanding high school wrestler. 

The only thing I was pointing out was that the two events are similar. Y'know the saying about history repeating itself. 

understand, but it was worth the read. How many people knew the history behind his loss.

The best ever, metro wrestling: Dan is still the man

By JIM NELSON, Courier Sports Writer

It has been 41 years since Bob Siddens coached Dan Gable to his third and final state championship at Waterloo West High School.

But to Siddens, the legendary wrestler and coach is still Daniel.

To almost a person who has any wrestling knowledge in the Cedar Valley, Gable is the best wrestler to ever wear a singlet in the Cedar Valley.

That isn't a hard conclusion to formulate.

Gable lost just one match in his prep and collegiate days and culminated his athletic career by capturing a gold medal at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. There is not another Cedar Valley wrestler who has similar credentials.

But there have been rumors that Siddens said Gable wasn't the best wrestler he coached. Siddens, arguably the greatest prep wrestling coach in history, put those rumors to rest recently.

"After his last match, last title, as Daniel walked off the mat, I told him, 'You're the best wrestler I've ever had with your intensity, work ethics, this and that. I've never had one like you before or will have another like you,'" stated Siddens.

Where the rumors failed, Siddens explains, is Gable may not have been the most gifted athlete he ever coached. When athletic ability is the primary consideration, names like Tom Huff, Dale Anderson, Rod Harp and Tony Cordes quickly rise to the top of any Siddens list. And all four of those wrestlers were multi-state champions at West, as well. .

"When I would go out and put on seminars or clinics, people would come up to me and say, 'You're Dan Gable's coach,'" said Siddens. "I would respond by saying I was very fortunate and lucky to have that young lad around. And, to be honest, I was very fortunate for many years to have many fine young lads.

"I'm so proud of Daniel's accomplishments as a wrestler. But in many ways he's still that little red-headed kid with a crew cut who came to my wrestling room every day with this tremendous work ethic. He was so great to have around. He rubbed off on a lot of my other talented lads."

While naming Gable as the Cedar Valley's best-ever wrestler is easy, our staff here at the Courier wanted to do more than state the obvious. So we decided to ask ourselves and some other area wrestling experts what other former Cedar Valley greats would we like to see wrestle Gable, regardless of weight class, if both were in their prime.

But what complicates this part of the equation is Gable, at his prime, may have been the best ever ... period.

Two highly decorated Waterloo wrestlers -- Chuck Yagla, a two-time national champ at Iowa, and Jim Miller, a two-time Division II national champ at Northern Iowa -- recalled personal stories of Gable as he prepared to leave for the Olympic Games.

"It was just after my senior year in high school, and Tony Cordes called me up and said Gable was coming to his garage with Ben and John Peterson and Chris Taylor for a workout," said Yagla. "I didn't participate, but I watched as Gable mopped all these guys up.

"None of them came close to doing anything to Gable, and I'm thinking, 'How do these guys think they have a chance at winning at the Olympics if they can't do anything against Gable?' It was an incredible workout and it went on forever."

For the record, the Petersons and Taylor, all Iowa State teammates of Gable, went on to great success at the Olympics that year. Ben won a gold medal at light heavyweight, John was the silver medalist at middleweight and Taylor, called the Gentle Giant because he tipped the scales somewhere around 400 pounds, won a bronze medal at super heavyweight.

Gable, for that matter, didn't allow a single point en route to his victory at lightweight.

"That just goes to show you how much better he was than everybody," added Yagla.

Yagla also recalled Taylor saying this about his workouts with Gable, "I could do good the first 30 minutes, but after that he got the best of me."

During that same training period prior to the Olympics, Miller said he took part in a workout with Gable, the Petersons, Mark Fox, Ken Snyder and Mike McCready at UNI's West Gym wrestling room.

"We -- Fox, Snyder and Miller -- traded off with him like three times each before the Petersons and McCready got there," said Miller. "Then he went at them. He dominated. It was incredible to witness."

When it comes to a prime-time match, there is another great Gable story Siddens recalls.

In 1968, both Gable and Anderson, who won two national titles at Michigan State, started the year at the same weight class -- 137. Over Christmas vacation, both were in Waterloo working out at West High when Siddens suggested that one of them drop a weight class in order to give them both a chance to win a national championship.

Nothing was said about the subject that day, but a couple of weeks later Gable beat Anderson in overtime to win the Midlands championship. A few weeks later, Siddens got a phone call from Gable.

"About three weeks before nationals at Penn State, Daniel called me and said, 'I'm dropping to 130,'" said Siddens. "I said, 'That's great.' I then called up to East Lansing and got Dale on the phone and told him what Daniel was going to do. Then there was this hesitation from Dale, and when he did talk, he said, 'I'm dropping to 130.

"After another pause," added Siddens, "Dale said, 'I'm just kidding coach. There is no way I could get to 130. I've been wrestling a lot at 145 as is.'

"It was a great decision for both because they both went on to win. It was kind of exciting. But at the same time, I feel Dale, in his mind, has always believed he could've beat Gable."

It should be noted, Anderson had already won the 1967 137-pound national title.

With those stories in mind Yagla, Miller and Siddens came up with a short list of opponents they believed would be great "in your prime" opponents for Gable.

Leading the list is Anderson, as a 1968 rematch would've been a barn-burner. Also making the short list was Huff, who pinned Gable in a 1968 Olympic Trials pre-tournament.

Bob Buzzard, a 1972 Greco-Roman Olympian and two-time East state champion, makes the list.

"Dan told me, 'Bob, who was a few years older than Dan, could handle him pretty good," said Yagla.

Miller said the one guy he would've loved to see Gable face was Bill "Beets" Dotson, the former East state champ who later beat Huff for the 1963 137-pound national title.

"He was one bad dude," said Miller of Dotson. "He was a brawler and ornery enough to stay with Gable."

Other names include 1953 Iowa State Teachers College national champion Jim Harmon. three-time Cornell College Division I national champion Lowell Lange and his former Waterloo West teammate Dick Hauser.

One could also add Joe Gibbons, who won the first two of his four Iowa state prep titles at Waterloo Columbus before he went on to win a national title at Iowa State.

Paul Stinson, East's only three-time state champ, and another Trojan, Jim Duschen, also make the short list.

Cedar Falls' three-time state champ, Kim Rhoades, makes the list as does West's Mike VanArsdale.

The list could be extended, but chances are, the 1972 Gable might have taken them all on and probably would have came back for seconds and thirds.