Reach for the Stars: The Iowa High School State Wrestling Tournament

by Daniel McCool

Overview

Wrestling is as much a part of winter in Iowa as is snow and cold. Dreams of state championships begin in elementary school and, since 1972, come to fruition-or heartbreakingly fall short-at an arena in Des Moines in February or March. The tournament finals sell out, and individuals and teams carve their names on the sport's history tree each year. Some champions were deaf, some were amputees, but all earn the respect of thousands for their work ethic-a hallmark of the state's populace. Is this heaven? No, it's better than that. It's high school wrestling in Iowa!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496961716
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Pages:	790
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.74(d)

Read an Excerpt

Reach for the Stars

The Iowa High School State Wrestling Tournament

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By Dan McCool

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Daniel McCool
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-6171-6

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CHAPTER 1

"He was always my uncle Norm."

Norman Borlaug of Cresco never won a state wrestling championship, but not every gold medalist grows up to devise a way to feed over one billion people in impoverished countries.

Thirty-eight years after placing third at 145 pounds in the 1932 state meet, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. That gold medal ranks higher than a similar one from a state event, national meet or Olympiad because it signifies service to mankind.

"What he did for the world is really unfathomable when you think that he saved over a billion peoples' lives. To put it in perspective, it's like he said, 'You really can't have peace in anything until people don't worry about food,'" said Minnesota wrestling coach J Robinson, a former assistant coach at the University of Iowa. "He was a very, very humble man. I got to know him really well. We ended up having a really unique and special relationship. We didn't see each other a lot, but when we saw each other it was like seeing one of your old best friends.

"The first time I met him is when I got the job at Minnesota. I was sitting in the office and he walked in one day and introduced himself, 'Hey, I'm Norm Borlaug.' I think he was in there to see the AD or something. We talked about an hour and a half. He told me he was from Cresco, (former Minnesota coach Dave) Bartelma was his coach and how Bartelma would send him around the state and he reffed the first (high school state tournament). I had this nagging thing in my head ... Borlaug, Borlaug ... I'm a history major. When he left, I realized who he was. The beauty of who he was is you would have never known. If you'd have come to one of our booster parties and he was there, he'd introduce himself as Norm and he would say nothing about it."

That selfless approach was no act, according to Newton wrestling coach Bill Reed, Borlaug's great-nephew.

"He was always my Uncle Norm. My grandmother was his sister," Reed said.

At a memorial service for Borlaug at the University of Minnesota, Robinson told a gathering that he and the scientist talked about their common bond.

"We talked wrestling, how he wrestled in high school in a small town in Iowa called Cresco and had to share rides to school and practice with the three other farm families in the area," Robinson said in his speech. "He said he couldn't always get to practice because a different family drove the kids to school each day. One of the families didn't like wrestling so he couldn't get to practice one day a week, so Norm said, 'I had to work harder the other 4 days.'"

Dan Gable, an undefeated three-time state champion at Waterloo West, earned legendary status in wrestling by winning NCAA and Olympic gold medals and NCAA team championships in coaching. Gable said Borlaug is an excellent role model for selflessness.

"I look at Norman Borlaug because he was a wrestler, but he did something greater and affected the world," Gable said. "That's the way your thoughts have to be: 'How can I affect the people to be a better person, to get more out of himself?' That's what Norman Borlaug did. He is a guy that's going to live forever because when you affect the world, you live forever."

Borlaug presented himself as a simple, humble man whose DNA likely included smudges of dirt from growing a work ethic on the small farm he grew up on outside of Cresco. He became the first American to win Nobel laurels since Dr. Martin Luther King in 1964.

"I think the beauty of Norman Borlaug is what he believed in and that he spent the time. He lived in Mexico for 30 years, maybe, before he was nominated," Robinson said, "as opposed to (President Barack) Obama, who gets it for nothing. He earned it as opposed to it just being deferred upon him."

When Borlaug died in 2009, the Wall Street Journal described him as a person who came of age in the Great Depression – the last time widespread hunger permeated the United States – and eventually went to work easing those pangs in underdeveloped countries.

"The cool thing about him is who he was and what he did for the world, but the way in which he did it is that he set out to do something and then he lived the life that we all talk about," Robinson said. "The second part, what he did for wrestling, is that he never, ever forgot what wrestling did for him. Every time, without question, he would talk about how wrestling impacted his life, how it made him who he was, how it was a one-on-one sport.

"He would always reiterate to when he went in to talk to the Prime Minister of India and he said it was like a wrestling match, trying to get them to use this new wheat. He said, 'I went in there and I wasn't going to lose.' He did the same thing when he talked to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. They had this new wheat, this rust-resistant wheat, and it would take someone to get out there and do it."

Hard to imagine Borlaug lost in his first attempt to get into the University of Minnesota. "Norm didn't necessarily plan on coming to Minnesota, but a football player from his town (Irv Upton) was heading up to Minneapolis to go to school and suggested Norm tag along," Robinson said during his speech. "When he got to Minnesota, Norm failed his entry exam. But that Borlaug determination prevailed. Norm got into school and he wrestled anywhere from 140 pounds to heavyweight in his career as a Golden Gopher. Boy, what I wouldn't give for someone that versatile and with that much determination today."

That determination went into his work in the field.

"On the day Norman Borlaug was awarded its Peace Prize for 1970, the Nobel Committee observed of the Iowa-born plant scientist that, 'more than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world.' The committee might have added that more than any other single person Borlaug showed that nature is no match for human ingenuity in setting the real limits to growth," the Wall Street Journal article stated. The New York Times obituary for Borlaug noted, "His breeding of high-yielding crop varieties helped to avert mass famines that were widely predicted in the 1960s, altering the course of history. Largely because of his work, countries that had been food deficient, like Mexico and India, became self-sufficient in producing cereal grains."

According to the Times article, Gary H. Toenniessen, director of agricultural programs for the Rockefeller Foundation, said in an interview that Dr. Borlaug's great achievement was to prove that intensive, modern agriculture could be made to work in the fast-growing developing countries where it was needed most, even on the small farms predominating there.

By Toenniessen's calculation, about half the world's population goes to bed every night after consuming grain descended from one of the high-yield varieties developed by Dr. Borlaug and his colleagues of the Green Revolution. "He knew what it was they needed to do, and he didn't give up," Toenniessen said. "He could just see that this was the answer."

Borlaug's office at Texas A & M University included a Minnesota wrestling poster. "He always carried his roots with him," Robinson said.

Borlaug had a wrestler's approach to rejoicing in his Nobel award.

"I'll be out in the field again tomorrow pulling plants," Borlaug was quoted in regards to planning a day-after celebration.

The honor afforded Borlaug the banner headline IOWA'S OWN MAN OF PEACE in the October 22, 1970 copy of the Des Moines Register. According to a story in that day's paper, when his wife Margaret informed him of the win, Borlaug's first thought was, "Somebody must have made a mistake."

Reed, who started wrestling in first grade in Fort Dodge, was told Borlaug wrestled in high school. But it was later that Reed learned he had a relative to really be proud of.

"My first memory of Uncle Norm ... I remember the big to-do about him winning the Nobel Peace Prize in '70, that's the first I remember of grandma's brother being somebody really special," Reed said. "I had probably met him before then but it wasn't really clicking because he was just a scientist at that point in time."

Reed and Borlaug had a love of wrestling. Both made the finals of the state tournament. Borlaug had another match in the 1932 tournament after losing in the 145-pound finals to Howard McGrath of Clarion. Borlaug lost to Johnny Merryman of Fort Dodge in the wrestle-back and finished third. Reed was beaten by Brian McCracken of Bettendorf in the Class 3-A 185-pound finals in 1981. The wrestle-back for second his great-uncle went through was discontinued long before Reed made the finals.

Borlaug also played football at Cresco, teaming up with Robert Smylie, who would later serve three terms as the governor of the state of Idaho.

"From day one when I remember meeting him, he always asked me about wrestling and talked about what wrestling was going to teach me, how that was going to help me do something," Reed said. "We talked more about wrestling, but he would always remind me to make sure I was doing my studies. It wasn't always just me, it was about the sport – making sure that work ethic and that mindset that he had about wrestlers being able to do anything because of what wrestling taught you always came out."

Robinson said he had Borlaug talk to his wrestlers periodically. The message was old in years, but timeless in importance. "Norm always quoted Dave Bartelma, his college coach at Minnesota, and gives him a lot of the credit for reinforcing the lesson of hard work and dedication: "Give it the best God gave you. If you don't do that, don't bother to compete."

Robinson visited Borlaug not long before the world legend died in September 2009. "What was amazing is that our friendship transcended a lot of things because it was wrestling. There were tons of people trying to get in to see him, I mean like cabinet members and prime ministers, and I was one of the few people allowed in to see him, and it was because of his wrestling roots."

Waterloo West coach Bob Siddens remembered being impressed by meeting Borlaug at Cresco in 1994, when Borlaug was inducted into the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame. Joining Borlaug on the trip to his hometown was his wife, Margaret.

Siddens said he went up to Borlaug to introduce himself. "Borlaug said, 'You're Bob Siddens, the old West High wrestling coach.' That was exciting to hear this Nobel Peace Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner say 'I know you,'" Siddens said. "We got talking about material things, we got talking about the athletes and he said, 'Bob, I want to tell you something. Margaret came to me one time and said "Norman, I wish you would have had a job that pays more money." And he said, 'Margaret, what do you need that you don't have?' In my way of looking at it, I never made a lot of money, but everything that I've needed, I had – six wonderful children, 14 grandchildren. There are so many things that take place and transpire."

There are discussions among wrestling fans about who the greatest wrestler was or who the greatest coach was. Robinson said there is no argument about Borlaug being the most valuable wrestler.

"You can't even compare. Because you look at wrestling, you look through very narrow glasses – Cael, Gable, Lee Kemp or any one of those guys," Robinson said, "but that's in the wrestling world. This transcends the wrestling room. You're talking about saving a billion people's lives. Most Americans can't comprehend what that's like."

Borlaug wrestled at the University of Minnesota, where he was a NCAA qualifier. His coach was Bartelma, the same man who coached him at Cresco. Reed wrestled at Iowa State, where he enrolled as a botany major. Another Cresco wrestler, Harold Nichols, was at the helm of the Cyclones' nationally known program when Reed enrolled. Having a Nobel Peace Prize-winning relative might make landing a summer internship a bit easier. There was also the thought of medical school.

"In God's plan, that wasn't His plan for me. My plan was to be a teacher and coach," said Reed, who teaches biology at Newton.

Borlaug never got to see Reed on the mat, but the talks were always about being in position for success.

"It wasn't as much what's the technique I was using, it was 'Are you working as hard as you can all the time? You've always got to do your best, always give your best effort because that's the only way you're ever going to know if you're reaching your full potential,'" Reed said. "He asked me about my favorite moves. He always liked his hammer lock. I think it's illegal (now), but he would lock on the arm, block the knee and set them, down that way. He was a farmer, he had farmer strength."

When Reed got into coaching, the discussions had a twist. "It changed from 'Are you working hard?' to 'Are your kids working hard for you, are they studying, are they getting good grades too, or are they just good wrestlers?'" Reed said.

Not every coach can introduce his charges to a world-famous relative like Reed did for a band of wrestlers when he was an assistant at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines.

"He was happy to see they were wrestling in terms of that was going to teach them work ethic, but beyond wrestling it was, 'What are you studying? Are you reading lots of books?'" Reed remembered. "Sports taught you the work ethic but you have to keep your mind fresh by reading a lot. Don't just read science because you like science, make sure you read history and lots of different things because that keeps your mind fresh too, and it broadens your perspective on things. He would never, ever let up on the education."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Reach for the Stars by Dan McCool. Copyright © 2015 Daniel McCool. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

1. "He was always my uncle Norm.", 1,
2. "You have your eye on one goal ...", 9,
3. "... O.K., but you're making a mistake.", 26,
4. "It was just natural for me to gravitate towards wrestling.", 36,
5. "I would have rather been doing dishes.", 46,
6. "Virtually every boy in Iowa is interested in grappling", 57,
7. "Coop's Boys", 66,
8. "I'll see you over at West High School this afternoon.", 75,
9. "There isn't anybody in the state that's going to beat you at heavyweight.", 84,
10. "We just believed in him for some damn reason", 91,
11. "I didn't plan on doing as well as I did, but I'm thankful I did.", 100,
12. "If there were no cameras and no anything, I'd still be out there for the same reason I am right now ... just the love of wrestling.", 107,
13. "I didn't really know until it happened, what a kind of a history-making event that was.", 115,
14. "I wouldn't say I am, I just listen to the plan. If I do what I'm told, then I can win", 125,
15. "It wasn't one button fits all except for the respect that we developed for this guy.", 133,
16. "Man, this was all worth it.", 141,
17. "If there was a person who defined the word coach, it's Jim Fox ...", 146,
18. "I did seem to have an affinity for wrestling.", 151,
19. "He just called it like he saw it, and in plain words.", 156,
20. "I knew him as dad.", 161,
21. "... every time the blue ribbon was put up for grabs, he was there first.", 174,
22. "... this boy is the finest wrestler I've ever coached.", 182,
23. "Peter, your mama's here.", 190,
24. "It was everything that I ever expected it to be.", 197,
25. "He came in with an inspiration of winning.", 203,
26. "That's the bar that I looked at.", 214,
27. "The darn thing's still going.", 269,
28. "I think anything I've done is because I believed in hard work.", 274,
29. "I guess we all have to be ready for second opportunities, and this was my opportunity.", 286,
30. "I wish I could have worn a green singlet to go with it, but I knew they wouldn't let that happen", 294,
31. "I thought it was the coolest thing when I witnessed that.", 304,
32. "All of a sudden it was like 'Maybe this guy knows what he's doing.'", 312,
33. "I was fortunate enough to live through it.", 320,
34. "I never wore the banner for the blind world.", 330,
35. "I think the toughness that wrestlers have is bigger than any physical limitations", 338,
36. "It was an amazing experience for us. Very inspiring.", 348,
37. "Maybe wrestling's the route we ought to go.", 356,
38. "I knew where I was at heading into high school.", 364,
39. "Winning the state tournament as a team wasn't even on the radar.", 372,
40. "You're not going to be anything with your smart aleck attitude.", 378,
41. "It was really quite a challenge to do it because it was a three-ring circus.", 384,
42. "I found something I really liked and couldn't get enough of it.", 390,
43. "I think becoming a wrestler was a given.", 398,
44. "... the biggest thing we had in common was our families.", 408,
45. "I was someone who actually halfway paid attention as a kid.", 418,
46. "No day is an easy day.", 427,
47. "I slept on that pillow for like 10-15 years.", 434,
48. "That is the fastest match I ever wrestled. It seemed like it was 30 seconds long.", 441,
49. "You weren't getting off your back if you got on your back.", 449,
50. "We were fortunate enough to have luck on our side for both of us.", 457,
51. "This team was not going to be denied. They were too good.", 465,
52. "Trying to fill Dan Mashek's shoes, I was pretty nervous.", 481,
53. "People would say, 'That's the state tournament guy.'", 495,
54. "I was very familiar with a tackle. A tackle was a double-leg drop.", 502,
55. "When you've got Brad Smith as your coach, and you had Al Baxter, you never give up.", 508,
56. "If you're good at something, you don't have to tell anybody.", 519,
57. "He did not wrestle like a freshman.", 535,
58. "He's done things for me that he doesn't even know. I'll never forget everything he's done for me.", 542,
59. "He was the guy for me to look up to, and he's winning four, so in my head I'm saying, 'I've got to win four.'", 550,
60. "What kind of amazed me about both of them was the focus and the drive ...", 558,
61. "I always would try to do the best I could for him, not because he was my dad but he was also my coach.", 566,
62. "It's always just wrestling. All we did, every single one of us.", 572,
63. More true tales from matside, roadside and beyond, 577,