Editor’s Note: Legendary Iowa State wrestler and former Iowa coach Dan Gable recently spoke to WIN editor Mike Finn about the current events in college wrestling, including when Penn State swayed former Cyclone national champion and coach Cael Sanderson from Iowa State.

            WIN: What was your reaction when you heard that Cael Sanderson accepted Penn State’s offer?

            Gable: I heard the rumblings of Penn State for a few years, actually, even though they got third two years ago. I think (Troy) Sunderland would have needed to have done a really good job to keep that job. Never in my wildest dreams did I think about Cael taking that job. I don’t look at it like Cael and probably don’t look at things like a lot of people. I’m a state of Iowa guy, which sometimes gets me in trouble.

            I had a couple opportunities to go out of state. One was as an athlete when I was to visit Michigan State (as a recruit). (Former high school teammate) Dale Anderson was at Michigan State and I was supposed to visit there. It came down to late the night before the visit when I was to catch an early-morning flight for the visit. But I cracked that night before and said, “I’m not going out of state.” So I called and cancelled and they were very upset with me.

            As a coach in 1984, Oklahoma State came after me. Coach Myron Roderick and a group of boosters offered me three times what I was making at Iowa. If you could triple your salary for a ten-year period, I thought I better look at it. I was supposed to call them and tell them it was OK for them to come up and see me. I thought about it for 20 minutes and said, “I can’t do this.”

            It was my allegiance to my family in the state and to the state of Iowa.

            Cael is from Utah, which didn’t have any programs that were outstanding so he went to Iowa State. He got a chance to stay there as a coach, which also surprised many. I was from there and didn’t get a chance to stay there as a head coach. He had loyalty to that institution. He’d ask me every time where my red and gold colors were. I always felt that he had deep feelings.

            I figured once he got that job, he would be there for 15, 20, 25 years; however long he wanted to coach. He seemed to be doing a good job. He had three Big 12 championships in a row; no one else there had done that. He also had a lot of family here and married a girl from Iowa and his roots were growing deeper here.

            It was the same thing that happened to me in 1984. Cael was not as engrained as much in this state as I was engrained. He also sees things at Penn State that he does not have to compete with in this state. He was giving up one of the best jobs in America to go to a place that potentially can be a really good job.

            Penn State took a big jump recently with an enormous new facility and seem to be making a huge commitment. Money does not seem to be a problem at Penn State, where They have over 100,000 football fans filling their stadium.

            It was shocking for me because I thought he was going to be (at ISU) forever. I couldn’t have done it myself. I don’t think it was necessarily about the money. I think it was about the Pennsylvania recruits.

            WIN: Nationally-speaking, was it a bigger story what Penn State did to improve its program or that Iowa State would lose someone like Cael Sanderson?

            Gable: That’s a tough question. I like the fact that Penn State did what it did. That was healthy for our sport. It happens a lot in football and basketball. What was the bigger story? I don’t think you could have had either one of them without both. Cael would not have been lured without the impact of what Penn State is doing. There may have been a lot of reasons for someone leaving that we don’t know and Cael might not even tell you all the reasons.

            WIN: Do you think this was more about Cael Sanderson than Iowa State?

            Gable: I think so. You have a guy who is young. It’s a different era than what I was in. He grew up in a different environment where someone young can succeed and all of those things weighed as factors on him. Maybe there were things going on at Iowa State that we didn’t know. Perhaps they were not putting in the resources or support administratively. It’s hard for me to believe that Iowa State is still not one of the better jobs. I listened to Iowa State’s athletic director Jamie Pollard, who after losing Sanderson, talked so much about wrestling clubs and kids also winning World and Olympic championships. So I think Iowa State has upped the ante already.

  What does this do in the total perspective at other schools? It’s going to force others to sharpen their pencils and not allow something to get so one-sided that other people cannot compete. That’s where USA Wrestling, the USOC, the NCAA and institutions go back and look at what they can do. This is bringing these concerns to light more and I don’t think it’s a bad thing because our National Wrestling Coaches Association has been on a dozen-year flow of protecting our sport. There will be programs wondering how do we compete with that. There will be checks and balances put in place for everybody.

            WIN: At a time when other programs are being cut, we have Penn State raising the standards. Isn’t there a concern with some programs which might say they cannot compete?

            Gable: I don’t think they want to compete with that. Because of an already established system of high school wrestling, some of these schools do not have to compete for the Division I national title. They can have a good program with a good coach and can work at some of these benefits.                        

There are other clubs like New York Athletic Club, Gator and Sunkist that can help your program. That’s why I say they have to sharpen their pencils.

            We had programs drop this year and that’s going to happen considering our economy. We could have had a lot more if we didn’t have a strong coaches association. There are some programs being dropped because we aren’t raising the standards of the coaches.

            When a coach only has five to seven kids in the program, how do you keep a program. That should never happen with the number of kids wrestling in high school.

            We have 323 teams competing in all the divisions. Each one of those schools should be represented in our coaches’ convention coming up in August. We normally only have a third represented. That can’t happen anymore.

            You can learn some things that you can do that are necessities to have a program.

            WIN: Why did programs like Penn State, Ohio State last year and Missouri a few years ago decide to really make a commitment to wrestling when not every other program does?

            Gable: If programs do their homework, they will see a lot of light there. On the other hand, it’s not by luck that they got a good coach, who makes a difference. Sometimes you get lucky and find a good kid who does a lot with your program even if you don’t have a great coach.

            I don’t think anyone wants to have a bad program. I’m sure there are some administrators who say if we keep this a bad program, we can get rid of it. Coaches have to make their sport visible. People have to know who you are and you have to know who they are. We have lost over 400 programs. Coaches cannot be obscure. It does not work.