After retiring as the virtually undisputed greatest wrestler in the history of the sport, he decided to go ahead and become its greatest coach. "It was my mom's worst fear." The final seconds ticked down, and it was actually Owings, in the lead, who went for a final takedown. It was my moms worst fear. Feeling stripped of his powers after his loss, Gable was finding out what it was like to be human. He was presented with the Man of the Year award during the championships, the media sought him out before and after every match, and he was struggling under the burden of a 181-match winning streak. Is the hardest S.O.B. National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum, "Bio: Dan Gable 15 National Championships. Gable made numerous attempts to explain the only defeat he would ever know. With none of his family members in attendance that day, Owings remembers staggering around, trying to process what just happened. From 1967 to 1970, Gable attended Iowa State University, where he competed in folkstyle wrestling. Gable got his rematch against Larry Owings, who handed Gable his only defeat at Iowa State, when he defeated Owings in the 1972 Olympic Trials. After defeating Gable, Owings left the crowd at Northwestern stunned having witnessed wrestling history. My strategy was to throw everything I could at him, keep him so busy he wouldnt be able to get into a rhythm in the match, Owings later said. Terms at draftkings.com/sportsbook. He coached 152 all-Americans, 45 national champions, 106 Big Ten Champions and 12 Olympians, including eight medalists. Pac-8 Champion and three-time NCAA finalist. \DP,uaO@LtT H]v[?Nr)|cXB!>Br$<4y3gz 1oZu, FO]+#3* u_i!c+pIf'iwC+)p\G National Champion. Dan had a lot of pressure on him. He coached for a while, then settled into obscurity of teaching and administrating. Check out the highlights. Results Placement Matches (16 Man) Team. He was Goliath, but David was coming to the mat, ready to live out a dream. Desperation is something that brings out unusual things," Gable said. This was Owings' opportunity, the fateful moment when his never-used leg sweep caught Gable by surprise. Both athletes pushed the pace, with Owings fearlessly attempted a duck under with the goal of spinning around behind Gable, but the Cyclone was too tough and he put himself on the board first by coming around for two points with a single leg takedown within the first minute of the period. With less than a minute remaining, the scoreboard showed Owings leading 9-8, but Gable actually had a 10-9 lead. Stillwater, OK 74075 After beating up on them, he thought to himself, OK, Im still good. Gable calls his loss to Larry Owings of Washington his greatest loss. % While the result of the match against Owings was unusual, in comparison with Gable's previous results, his effort is undeniable. Theres the verbal stuff, here and there. The night before the start of the tournament, a teammate asked if hed seen the front page of the Chicago Tribune sports section. "Probably some day," said Roderick, who is president of the museum. Highlights of his career include gold medals at the 1971 Tbilisi Tournament, the 1971 world championships, and the 1972 Olympic Games. Phone: (319) 233-0745 When he was 15 years old, a teenager from his neighborhood raped and murdered Gable's 19-year-old sister. Facing a wrestler legendary for his endurance, opponents of Gable would almost always go for broke from the opening whistle. And when I was younger, I really was pretty fat. View the profiles of people named Larry Owings. We got up, and he offered me his hand and we shook. Jean made it out just in time; he won the match, and the national title. In that stadium full of 9,000 screaming fans, the only one who thought Owings had a shot at taking down Gable might have been Owings himself (and, as he would later admit, probably his brother, and maybe his coach). Gable says that the loss was "like a death in the family." Finally, Gable says in a quiet, raspy voice, I know that the match affected my entire life. Im emotional about it. The regular season winds downs on the final Sunday before conference tournaments. He noticed that the UW wrestler was making "all kinds of mistakes but still ended up pinning his opponent." All people still wanted to talk about was that match, he says. I kind of wish he had gotten me with his best move.". It was during 117-1 at Iowa State University that lost to Larry Owings in 1970. World Champion", "Named for an icon, Gable Steveson becomes a legend in his own right", "Where are they Now: Catching up with Dan Gable and Larry Owings", Website of film 'Catch: the hold not taken', Gable's wins and losses between the years 1963 and 1973, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dan_Gable&oldid=1134702764, Chen, Albert. Every once in a while now Owings will still go to the mat. A stalemate brought the wrestlers back to the center, but, within seconds, the match was over. Lyle Ballew, a teammate of Owings', reported back to Owings that during the Iowa State practices, Gable would work with teammates on every possible countermove to the cradle. Canby Then is brought to you by Retro Revival. No one had ever said something that, at least no one who could back it up. He was, perhaps, the most superbly conditioned athlete the sport had ever seen. AZ, CO, CT, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, (select parishes), MD, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY, CA-ONT only.Eligibility restrictions apply. Only 30 seconds remained in the match; and Gable, despite the fact that he could coast to a one-point win, continued to stand up and circle with Owings. He will show up at a practice at a high school just a few miles from where he lives now, and he will stand in front of the teenagers and say, If you can score on me, you can win the state title. Some of the wrestlers will think hes joking. 2014. It doesn't matter that it's been 30 years. Gable was in the locker room when he heard the water running in the shower. Gable is in the U.S. Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla. Owings, despite a national title and an 87-4 record at Washington (52-1 in dual meets), is not. Only one man who ever lived can say he beat Dan Gable, and that man is 1968 Canby Union High School grad Larry Owings. What bothered him was how he was always introduced to the room, but now, it almost makes him proud, the words, Larry Owings. The words hang in the air. f&6wZ> Owings neighbor and close friend of two decades showed up to a tournament a few years ago and saw Owings in the stands wearing a shiny purple Washington jacket. He could't believe he was the one affected by his opponent's reputation. We were on our knees at the end of the match. There is, however, still the open wound from 1970. At Iowa State, he became an NCAA Division I national runner-up and two-time national champion. Just sitting here, talking about it it hurts. THIRD PERIOD: Both wrestlers anxiously waited for the whistle to start the third, leading the referee to caution the men. Within the first 30 seconds, Gable got up 2-0 with a takedown, but Owings came back on a takedown and escape to lead, 3-2. He has one VHS cassette of the broadcast but the tape is the only copy of the match hes ever owned, so worn that hes afraid that if he runs it in the VCR one more time the tape will be ruined forever. For the first time in history, the two living [] They shut down the whole tournament for 15 minutes. It meant that when they met, it would be for the national title - Gable's final college match. The OFFICIAL Facebook site of Western Australia's premiere Pro Wrestling organisation - EPW Perth. The result, though unexpected, put the crowd of 8,500 on its feet throughout the match and gave them [the athletes] a shattering ovation when it ended, per the New York Times. The Cyclone star did rack up his time in control and actively worked for the turn with an arm bar before resetting and continuing to ride. And if he could use them to help somebody else, he should. Every sport except boxing and wrestling, she said. The next match featured Grant, like Gable a defending Champion from 1969. Is that so? Despite leading Iowa to 15 team championships and cementing his legacy as one of the best leaders in the sport, he still thinks about Larry Owings. Im emotional about it because theres still a lot of meaning Gable told, How Dan Gable coached Iowa to 15 team titles, The complete history of one of the greatest college wrestlers, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. He was a legend in his home state and across the country with his work ethic and drive to succeed in wrestling. And then I got greedy. Gable had pinned an astonishing 70 percent of his opponents entering the final, and now he determined to pin Owings to close out his collegiate career. Its been 17 years since he coached his last match, but his life still revolves around wrestling and fixing problems within in the sport, both small and big, from the new freshman at the university who needs a kick in the butt to the sports very survival -- last year, after the International Olympic Committee dropped wrestling as one of its core sports in February 2013, Gable made it a personal crusade to have it reinstated. Owings looks like hes one sweaty workout away from his wrestling weight at Washington. Then lost in '70 @ 142 when Owings beat him 13-11. Gable said no thank you. How about a nod to the wrestler Owings so very wisely avoided. Lately hes been calling around -- to the University of Washington, to the Wrestling Hall of Fame in Iowa named after the loser of the match, to ABC, which was there to broadcast the event -- to see if anyone can send him a DVD, but no one seems to have one. See, Larry Owings is the The Man Who Beat Dan Gable. The Cyclone collected himself after the takedown, taking a timeout to adjust his contact lens before going back to the middle. I seem to remember hearing or reading once that Owings wrestled all season at another weight class, but bumped down to 142 just for the Big Dance. Facebook gives people the power to. Gable remembers wrestling an opponent while at the same time watching Owings lose on an adjacent mat. The Hawkeyes can still earn a double bye, but a lot hinges on the trip to Indiana. Indeed, from a family of state champion wrestlers, Larry wound up as the best of the bunch, winning the 136-pound crown in 1967 and 141 in 1968. One day his mother finally showed up at his door and when she saw Dan, she slapped him across the face, walked away, and made the one and a half hour drive back to Waterloo. Grant won in '69 @ 145 and again in '70 @ 150. "I was a scrambling type of wrestler, and I think he was more of a controlled wrestler," Owings told the Associated Press 17 years after his win in an article headlined "Gable's rival, former bosses look back. All Rights Reserved. The most dramatic moment came in the final 30 seconds, with Gable technically in the lead although the scoreboard showed otherwise, when Owings slipped underneath his arms for a brilliantly executed leg sweep that dropped Gable to the mat for the winning points. More than any other sport, wrestling is rooted in self-belief and desire: being big, strong, fast and talented can take you only so far; in the end, it is about endurance, stamina, conviction. [6], From 1971 to 1973, Gable competed internationally in freestyle wrestling. If we would have tied and there was an overtime, I dont think I would have won, he says. Email: info@nwhof.org, 303 Jefferson St. His voice cracks, his eyes flicker, and suddenly, he goes silent, grasping for words. I didn't know how the referee would score it.". No, with his movie star looks and charisma, and a physique that would make Chris Hemsworth jealous, he was legitimately world famous. A few years ago, at a wrestling banquet, Les Anderson, a former assistant coach at Iowa State, pulled his former protg aside, and said, Gable, I just want to apologize for that last match. I remember asking him what he did in Colorado. Instead, he thought of it as a reason to train with even more determination: "The more you can settle into focusing on what you have and what you would like to do and where you want to go a positive point of view the quicker things turn around and positive things start to happen. Gable was inducted into the USA Wrestling Hall . 13-11. Owings got four points for the move -- two for the takedown, two for exposing Gables shoulders to the mat. stream 405 West Hall of Fame Avenue Stillwater, OK 74075 Phone: (405) 377-5243 Email: info@nwhof.org 971K views, 7.2K likes, 334 loves, 948 comments, 4.9K shares, Facebook Watch Videos from NCAA Wrestling: Only one man stopped Dan Gable in his college career: Larry Owings. USWF Greco-Roman and freestyle champion and Outstanding Wrestler. Phone: (405) 377-5243 The tributes to Dan Gable on the Internet are endless, but time, it seems, has forgotten the one man who beat him. He was stunned he had lost. Wrestling is just two people out there -- anyone can be beat, anything can happen. Owings had dropped two weight classes to wrestle in Gables class at 142 pounds. Owings told UW Coach Jim Smith that he was aiming directly at the legend. "I really didn't want to see it or talk about it much. And that was it, he says. 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