Freestyle: The Victories of Dan Gable (1999)
Freestyle: The Victories of Dan Gable(alternate title: Gable; directed by Kevin Kelley,1999). his HBO documentary, produced by the University of Iowa Video Center, suggests that Waterloo native Dan Gable is to wrestling what the Babe was to baseball and Michael Jordan has been to basketball. Gable wracked up 182 consecutive victories in high school and college competition, narrowly losing a championship match his senior year. In 1972 he won an Olympic Gold Medal; his six opponents failed to earn a single point. As coach at University of Iowa, his Hawkeyes dominated college wrestling for 20 years, until he retired in 1997 with a .932 winning record. An image that opens and ends the film is the older Gable sweating as he does pull up after pull up in an empty gym, creating the illusion he has been working out throughout the length of the film. This is the message about Gable: he is the personification of the Iowa work ethic and stubborn, single-minded, successful pursuit of a goal. Video is available from www.DanGable.com . Marty Knepper Morningside College knepper@morningside.edu & John Shelton Lawrence Morningside College j.shelton.1@gmail.com
