Gable: Southwestern

CNA photo by LARRY PETERSON Tour guide: Former Iowa wrestler Mario Galanakis of Greenfield (right) showed former Hawkeye coach Dan Gable (left) around southwest Iowa and Creston Tuesday as Gable spoke at the I-Club banquet here. Galanakis will graduate from Iowa on May 17.

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should add wrestling By LARRY PETERSON CNA sports editor Now that he’s no longer coaching, Dan Gable is an ambassador for the sport of wrestling. Promoting the sport is one of his primary duties as special assistant to the director of athletics at the University of Iowa. “I market the sport of wrestling world-wide,” Gable said. “I help anyone who wants me to help them in the athletic department, just like tonight.” Gable represented wrestling on the panel of speakers at the Southwest Iowa I-Club event Tuesday night at Creston Elks Lodge. Prior to the program, he pursued one of those marketing ideas with Bill Krejci, Southwestern Community College athletic director. “I spoke with the athletic director of the local community college here about wrestling,” Gable said. “All this great wrestling here, and we have so many of those guys going up to community colleges up north. (Iowa Central) won national championships two years in a row. NIACC brought it back last year and got fourth in the country. Nobody in this area is attracting those kids.” Krejci has said the college has entertained the idea of renewing the sport of wrestling, which was once active and coached by Rich Downing of Creston. Former Simpson College wrestler Cody Downing has also discussed the topic with Krejci. While there are architectural plans drawn for an auxiliary gym and wrestling room, Krejci said no capital campaign has officially been planned for the project. But it’s on the horizon for serious discussion. “I think Mario, here, would be someone who would be perfect to get involved as a coach, too,” Gable said, referring to former Hawkeye wrestler Mario Galanakis of Greenfield, who attended Tuesday’s event. Galanakis is graduating from Iowa this month with a degree in health and sports studies, with an interest in coaching wrestling. Hawkeye officials introduced Creston/O-M wrestling coach Darrell Frain, in attendance Tuesday night, and Gable spoke of the program’s tradition in winning state titles in 2007 and finishing runner-up this year. “With Dylan Long (former UNI wrestler coaching at Iowa State) and Andrew Long (Iowa State recruit), you have a great connection here,” Gable acknowledged. “That’s a good thing. You have a lot of good wrestlers here and it would be great to provide them an opportunity.” Gable also spoke of the rapid rise of the Hawkeyes to a national championship after finishing eighth in Tom Brands’ first year. Gable did not coach this year, but coached with Brands when he came back to Iowa from Virginia Tech to succeed Jim Zalesky. “I saw some things coming, but to jump and win the national title by 38 points, that was even surprising to me a little bit,” Gable said. “And that’s hard for me to say, because I have my sights set pretty high.” Three of five transfers from Virginia Tech were native Iowans, Gable said, who followed Brands to Virginia because they wanted to wrestle for him. Among them was 149-pound national champ Brent Metcalf, who received the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate wrestler. A wrestler who started at Iowa under Zalesky later earned two national titles for Brands. Mark Perry was the 165-pound NCAA champion and a four-time All-American. “I knew something good was starting to happen late in Brands’ first year,” Gable said. “I saw Mark Perry do something in practice that he had never done before. It was a mentality thing. Brands was working on developing the culture, an attitude, and it takes time.”