Editor’s Note: Dan Gable, who won two NCAA championships and one Olympic gold medal as a wrestler and 15 team titles as a coach (1976-97), recently spoke to WIN editor Mike Finn about early-season pitfalls.

            WIN: Regarding the All-Star Classic, which has been held early in the season the past five years, is a guy ready for such a level of competition this early in the year?

            GABLE: The All-Star meet being the first match is a little shocking.

            WIN: Half of the winners at this year’s All-Star Classic came from behind to win. Win or lose, doesn’t such an experience help someone more in the early part of the season?

            GABLE: What it does is give you the same kind of read, but at a higher level of competition. I’m not worried about matches that come down to the wire. If you are trying to build a guy’s confidence, you don’t want him to take a big beating. One-point wins or losses are good matches.

            WIN: How about the early-season match between Ohio State’s Mike Pucillo and Kent State’s Dustin Kilgore, who beat the higher-ranked Buckeye? How should each of those guys look at themselves after that match?

            GABLE: You have to go back and analyze each one’s history and there may be things we don’t know. Someone might have been sick all week. There are a lot of factors that take place. A good coach will work on what is needed to bring your guy to another level after that. If Kilgore just thinks he can just beat Pucillo again, he may be in trouble. Sometimes people fall asleep like that.

            Because it is early in the season, you have to remember that it is a long season. Human tendency is to get a little lazy and think everything is going to happen again.

            There are edges and sometimes when you get to a high level, you sit back. Once you’ve won before, you have to be just as hungry. Sometimes when you see upsets, it’s just human tendency. You did if for reasons that are internal and drive you. Sometimes those things simmer down. If they do, you are going to simmer down.

            WIN: Did you face as many challenges in the early part of the season like wrestlers do now? Did you have to pace yourself?

            GABLE: You don’t pace yourself. That word is not good. Pacing is only good in pace cars in auto races. If you pace yourself, you are pretty much staying with everyone else. Most of my life I was lucky to keep getting better all the time. I was able to get motivated and thrive off success. I felt like there was a higher level that I could go to. I don’t think a lot of people understand how high of a level you can go to.

            Each wrestler has to understand where he wants to be in the long run and where he is in the short run and how much further he has to go. Every time I fell asleep, it cost me. Sometimes you get hit so hard that you don’t fall asleep.

            I can remember talking to a kid who made a mistake (in a match and lost in the Big Tens) and didn’t go to the NCAAs. He was unbelievably devastated, which I liked. I told him you have to remember this; how bad this feeling is. I made the mistake of not filming it so he could see his pain because that pain went away.

            WIN: Are you saying it’s important to keep the pain?

            GABLE: Yes, or at least be able to look back and see what it was like.

            WIN: Early in the year, what is more important: developing the physical part of a wrestler or the mental part?

            GABLE: You can’t split those. You don’t have one without the other because then you have a deficiency. You have to know the kid inside and out. Then you have to have a plan and make him believe in the plan. Depending on who the kid is will let you know how much more mental preparation he needs. Some kids have the ability to perform up to a certain level but they are going to need a certain level of that physicalness, no matter who they are.

            It’s great to have exciting moves in your back pocket, but they aren’t primary. A guy who has the moves and the confidence, you have to add to it. I love kids with confidence because it’s the hardest thing to get.

            WIN: What you are saying is that you can’t have a deficiency in either?

            GABLE: Not at a high level. You can sometimes have it in high school. Both are essential, but I love the mental edge.

            WIN: Unlike other sports, where most athletes redshirt as true freshmen, wrestling redshirts its athletes at many different times, including at the end of a career like what Minnesota did with Dustin Schlatter. Why is wrestling different?

            GABLE: It has to do with mental and physical development. Wrestlers don’t come from the same place as other athletes do.

            WIN: Are there some wrestlers you need to throw into action as true freshmen to see what they do for a couple years?

            GABLE: You determine that about Jan. 1. You have a month to six weeks under your belt. When you are first starting a program, you have to put those guys in there. You can still test a guy with a redshirt on.

            WIN: Regarding how high school coaches determine what weight wrestlers compete, why don’t coaches have wrestlers build up to become stronger at a heavier weight than cut and compete with weakness at a lighter weight?

            GABLE: I don’t think it is an issue if you go about it in the correct way. If you are going to gain weight, that takes longer than what it does to lose weight. You have to do that in the off-season.

            WIN: What recommendations would you make for parents trying to help their sons deal with weight issues?

            GABLE: You just go with the systems that are already set up. The NWCA has a system that you can find on their website (NWCAonline.com). Parents just need to learn that the kids have to eat healthy; whether they are gaining weight or losing weight. Parents should check with experts in the field and educate yourself.

            WIN: Should parents or coaches do a better job of being aware of a future growth spurt when it comes to determining a weight?

            GABLE: You don’t know when the growth spurts are. That’s the problem.

            WIN: Coaches have just finished signing their early recruits. How important is recruiting? How do you know how much someone may get better or worse?

            GABLE: A better question would be: how good of a system does the school have? I really felt that our system was so good that I didn’t have to worry about who was coming in. Sometimes you have to work a little bit harder but if you believe in your system and it’s good enough, you can help any kid.

            If you can say that any kid can fit in your program, you don’t have anything to worry about.

            WIN: Who would you rather coach: a Junior National champ who thinks he’s great or would you rather coach a guy who just placed in his state and is still hungry?

            GABLE: I want a hungry kid whose won the Junior Nationals. A real critical thing is how much does he want to be part of your program; not just how much you want him.

            WIN: What are the things that both a coach and wrestler should focus on early in the season?

            GABLE: Iowa just had five duals in one afternoon (Nov. 20). It wasn’t the best competition but you are doing the best to read it and not sacrifice a team loss. If you learn something, you are gaining. There were a couple stars on the Iowa team that did not look good that day. You don’t see that in practice. You only see it in competition. I don’t know how one of the stars won a match because he was in so much pain. Anyone who might have looked at him might have thought he lost.

            WIN: So are you saying that wrestlers need this type of competition early to test themselves and see who they really are?

            GABLE: The funny thing about these guys was that they had their problems in their first match of the day … and now they had four more matches. Coaches really saw how they reacted.

            WIN: Who benefits more; the guy who wins all early-season matches easily or the guy who struggles? Does the guy who dominates really get anything out of that domination?

            GABLE: Oh yeah, anytime you dominate, you get a lot of confidence.