Road to Gold Book is Here - Free Sample Chapter!

Several hundred copies have already been sold and more orders are pouring in every day! 

Road to Gold tracks John and I all the way from our childhood on a Wisconsin farm to the 1972 Olympics.

In it, you will read

- what factors brought us from average farm kids to Olympic Gold and Silver
- what happened after mom said "NO son of mine will ever wrestle!!"
- how John went from no-name college wrestler who barely made the national
team to Olympic silver medalist
- what it was like to be Dan Gable's personal training partners
- experiences in the record setting Iowa State wrestling room
- plenty of pictures and personal stories of John, me and many of our
teammates
- how we overcame a broken leg, no state championships, and not wrestling
until high school
- biggest lessons I learned about mindset and training from the best in
wrestling

I have gotten feedback from all kinds of readers. Wrestlers looking for inspiration and fresh knowledge, coaches reading for insight into how John and I developed under our coaches, and plenty of moms looking for something to read during those long Saturdays in the stands!

​I am more than happy to do signed copies for no extra cost, so be sure to state who the book is for when you order!

You can order the book directly at CampofChamps.org

This sample chapter covers my sophomore year at Iowa State, which was a roller coaster year to say the least. Struggling to make the team, watching Dan Gable and other teammates blast the competition while I stumbled along, managing to beat the #1 ranked wrestler before stumbling again. Great chapter for any wrestler looking to attack the end of a season no matter what the challenges. 

Short warning: the blog might make the formatting a little off kilter for some of you, but I hope you enjoy the reading anyway. Our printers did an outstanding job with the hard copy!

—18—

A Young Wrestler’s Inconsistency:

My Sophomore Year at Iowa State

For me to reach my wrestling goals, I knew that I needed a lot of patience and needed to do a lot of hard work with a steady focus on my goal to be a contributing member of a national championship team.

       

Preparing to Wrestle

During the spring of my freshman year, Freestyle practice in the Iowa State practice room was on our own. No coach was permitted to guide or motivate us. Tom Peckham and our team captain, Dan Gable, led the way. I soon realized that it was only the hungry few who kept alive the 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. practices in the spring.

        The U.S. National Freestyle Tournament that spring was held in Waterloo, Iowa about 100 miles from Ames. This was close enough for me to get a ride from an upperclassman. I did not place in the tournament, but I competed well enough to receive some compliments and get encouragement from upperclassmen who knew something about Olympic Freestyle wrestling.

        That summer, Dad found a roofing job for John and me back home in Wisconsin. John and I had plenty of time to talk as we worked together in the hot summer sun. Often we talked about wrestling. In the evening, we would lift weights and run for conditioning. Again, as we trained, our conversation was often about wrestling. Of course, we wrestled some too. We used an old horsehair mat borrowed from our high school for our wrestling sessions, with a birch tree nearby for shade.

        That summer was not just vacation time for John or me. I was working hard to earn a spot in the Iowa State wrestling lineup, and John was preparing for his junior year of wrestling at UW Stout. Our brother Dan was still a Cumberland High School wrestler and football player. So we trained hard together, pushing each other on every weight that we lifted, every step that we ran, and every wrestling move or drill that we practiced. Each of us wanted to get better as we prepared to meet our expectations for the next season.

       

Summer Motto

Early that summer, Phil talked with me about making the Iowa State team and actually wrestling for the Cyclones. Checking my self-confidence, he asked me about making the team at 177 pounds. I told him that it was most unlikely because Chuck Jean was at that weight for Iowa State, and he would be the returning national champion whom I was not prepared to beat.

        “Well, Ben, what about going down to 167 pounds?” Phil asked me. I reminded him that Jason Smith was at that weight and would be a returning national champion too, and I could not beat him either!

        Then Phil asked me, “What about going down to 158 pounds?” I replied that no way could I do that unless I cut off one of my legs, and even if I did that, Iowa State already had Dave Martin, a returning second place finisher in the nationals. I couldn’t beat him either.

        Finally, Phil asked me, “Well, then, Ben, what about 190 pounds? Who are the possibilities for Iowa State at that weight class?”

        I told him that All-American Jim Duschen, who had wrestled at 191 pounds, had now graduated. Between my freshman and sophomore years in college, the NCAA changed the weight classes for college wrestling. So beginning with the 1969-1970 wrestling season, the 190-pound weight class replaced the 191-pound weight class.

I told Phil that it seemed Don Gillespie was likely the top returning prospect for us at 190 pounds, and that I would need to beat him in tryout matches if I were to wrestle that weight the next season.

        The next day, I found a new message written in big bold letters at the top of the blackboard in our basement weight room. It read, “Beat the Great Gadsby.” Phil had written it there.

        John kidded me about working to beat the Great Gadsby. But when I tried to get Phil to change the name to “Gillespie” to be accurate, he just blankly looked at me, ignoring my request. So the slogan “Beat the Great Gadsby” stayed on our blackboard all that summer. I knew exactly who it referred to every time I lifted. I was training to beat Don Gillespie in our Iowa State tryouts in the fall.

        Some time later, Dan Gable overheard John and me talking about the “Beat the Great Gadsby” slogan. Dan asked me if I knew what Don Gillespie had done all that summer. I said, “I have no idea.” Dan then told me that Don was so confident of making the team at 190 pounds in the fall that when school was out for the summer, he flew to Hawaii and drove a taxicab and had a “good time” all summer.

        Meanwhile, all summer long, I was at home in Comstock training hard each evening to “Beat the Great Gadsby.”

        Some wonder why Phil chose the name the “Great Gadsby” for our weight-room blackboard. Of course, a similarly (but not identically) spelled name, the “Great Gatsby,” appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book entitled The Great Gatsby. But to me that summer, “Beat the Great Gadsby” meant much more than just a character’s name in a classic work of fiction!

        When Phil wrote “Beat the Great Gadsby,” it was probably just a play on words, which Phil always seemed to enjoy doing. But it also may have been done to focus my attention, not only on my likely opponent Don Gillespie, but also on anyone else I might have to wrestle to make the team.

        Regardless of the real explanation, I know that this off-season motivation worked for me. I had a summer motto that gave me a focus for my summer training. It got me ready to work hard and ready to compete at my best as a wrestler in the fall.

       

Winning a Spot on the Iowa State Team

Returning to Iowa State in September, I resumed daily workouts with my university teammates. I was bigger, stronger, and better conditioned than I had been the year before. Now, I was really ready to compete for a spot on our varsity team. I was still not picturing myself winning a national championship like some of my teammates had. I was mostly focused on earning a spot on the team and contributing. The higher focus would come later.

        The Iowa State wrestling tryouts at 190 pounds came down to either Gillespie or me. We had four or five tryout matches between us — one every two or three weeks from the beginning of the season. I won each of them, some by a close score.

        In late January or early February, Coach Nichols announced that we would have another tryout match between us. But before we were to wrestle, Don came to me in the locker room and told me that he was not challenging me anymore — the starting spot at 190 pounds was mine. And so I began my sophomore season wrestling on the top-ranked college team in America.

        But two questions still remained to be answered: (1) Could I keep the 190-pound spot in any future tryouts? and (2) Could I contribute something to Iowa State winning as a team?

       

Wrestling for Iowa State

At the first annual Iowa State University Invitational Wrestling Tournament, which opened up our competitive season, I won all three of my matches. As a young wrestler, this was a huge boost to my self-confidence. Then, on an early season trip to New Mexico and Arizona, I got several dual-meet wins.

        But then it was back to reality for me. In my next competition, I lost badly in the annual Midlands Tournament in suburban Chicago. I found out that no one would “roll over” just because I wore the Iowa State wrestling uniform. In the Midlands, I wrestled Russ Hellickson, who was a senior at the University of Wisconsin. Russ beat me soundly 6 to 2 in the second round. But more than just beating me, he really out-muscled, out-conditioned, and just plain out-wrestled me. He left me exhausted.

        Assistant Coach Anderson later recalled my words as I walked off the mat after losing so badly to Russ, and he also described his thoughts about me. Coach Anderson said, “When Ben came off the mat, he said, ‘I'm sorry that I embarrassed you. That will never happen again.’ That's when I knew he had the heart of a champion, because champions don't like to be embarrassed.”

       

Wrestling Low Point in College

A week later, Bob Underwood of Southern Illinois University pinned me at home, in front of an Iowa State crowd in Ames. While I was on top riding Underwood with a leg ride, I got too high, and I did not arch my back. So he pulled me over, and pinned me.

        Beyond any doubt, this was the lowest point in my college wrestling career. It was a sellout crowd that night, many there to watch Dan Gable in his final college season. Most of my teammates won big that night. My loss by a pin hit me like a ton of bricks. Thoughts of being the weakest link on our team went through my mind. After all, I knew that all five wrestlers in the Iowa State lineup who were immediately below me in weight could all beat me in practice. So this was the low point in college wrestling for me. If I could have, I would have crawled under the mat to hide.

        A teammate saw me struggling to even finish my shower after the meet. So he went to Coach Anderson and asked him to come back into the locker room and help me deal with my disappointing loss. I will never forget what Coach Anderson said to me that night. In his gentle but deep voice, he did not talk to me at all about my mistakes that night. Rather he talked to me about my strengths as a wrestler. He assured me that I could take people down and that I had proven I could score points against good competition. He urged me to wrestle more aggressively. I learned an important lesson that night from Coach Anderson — measure yourself by how high you have climbed, not by how low you have fallen.

        Knowing college wrestling as I do now, I am sure Coach Nichols and Coach Anderson must have discussed my future on the team. But both still encouraged me!

And while for most dual meets, I still wrestled for our team at 190 pounds, I was kept out of the lineup when our lower weight wrestlers were moved up a weight class either to match up better with an opposing team or to give some of our lighter wrestlers a break from having to make weight for every meet.

       

Two Big Dual Meets Against Oklahoma State

For our dual meet against Oklahoma State in Stillwater, Oklahoma our coaches decided to move much of our team up one weight class, so I was out of the lineup and did not make the trip. The advantage to our team was that the Iowa State wrestlers who were moved up a weight class would not need to make their normal weight, and our coaches thought that we would match up better against Oklahoma State that way.

        To be honest, I was a bit relieved not to make that trip to Oklahoma. I needed to put the intensity of our wrestling schedule and the demands of my academic studies into better balance. A two-day trip to Oklahoma would have added more stress for me that I would really have struggled to handle at the time.

        Our team members packed their bags and left for Oklahoma State. Flying into Tulsa, they arrived in the midst of an ice storm that left the roads covered with solid ice. Traveling in several rental cars, Coach Nichols, Coach Anderson, and our team began creeping along the 65 miles from Tulsa to Stillwater. What is normally an hour’s drive turned into several hours of stress and into a late arrival for the team to weigh in. Nothing at all was normal for our team on this trip to Oklahoma.

        The next day I heard nothing about our team’s goal to win the national championship. Instead, I heard that our team had lost to Oklahoma State 13 to 22. I heard rumors of bad officiating. I heard about weigh-ins that went unsupervised. And I learned that we had been greatly embarrassed in Oklahoma.

        By practice time the next day, our team had returned to Ames. No one said a word at practice about our meet with Oklahoma State. No coach commented about it. No wrestler tried to explain it. And there were no questions about it from those of us who had stayed at home.

        There was a stern, determined look in everyone’s eyes that day at practice. It was a look that seemed to say to everyone: “We’ve made some mistakes. We weren’t ready. We’ve been embarrassed. Now let’s get to work, and never let it happen again.” And so we all went back to work at practice that day, more determined than ever before. As a young wrestler learning how to compete at the highest level of college wrestling, all this was a huge lesson for me. The resolve of our team upon its return completely overwhelmed the natural tendency to back off and recuperate after such a stressful experience.

        Hard work cannot change the past after a disappointing performance, but it sure does seem to do a good job of changing the future!

        Perhaps our most important dual meet that year came in mid February at home in Ames. It too was against Oklahoma State. For that meet, everyone on our team was at his normal weight. At 190 pounds, I was matched up against Geoff Baum, who was undefeated and ranked number one in the nation. Geoff beat me that night 3 to 2, and our team lost 17 to 16.

       I was part of college wrestling at its best, but I still failed to score any points for our team in a tight dual meet. On the one hand, I was disappointed with my loss. However, I also knew that I was getting better after going toe to toe with the top-ranked wrestler in my weight class. I had even more reason than ever to keep working hard day after day.

       

Big Eight Conference Tournament

The Big Eight Conference Wrestling Tournament that year is a day for me to remember. I won my first two matches, moving on to meet Geoff Baum again. Geoff and I were wrestling in the finals for the conference championship. Geoff was still undefeated and ranked number one at 190 pounds in the national college rankings.

        My match with Geoff began with no scoring in the first period. That was a mistake by Geoff. In the second period, I started on top, riding hard, controlling him, and looking for nearfall points. To control him, I used a cross-body leg ride, a near-wrist ride, and an arm-bar ride. Those three rides had become my preferred way to control, wear down, and occasionally turn an opponent. But would they work now against the best wrestler in the nation in my weight class?

        For three minutes (the entire second period), I rode Geoff without scoring. I would be in the down position to start the third period, and was still fresh while Geoff was worn out from me riding him so long and aggressively. With quick wrist control and an extension roll, I put him on his back for a two-point reversal and a two-point near fall. Then I worked for still more riding time which, with some pinning attempts, gave me 5½ minutes of total riding time in the match and, thus, two more points. So I beat Geoff that day by a final score of 6 to 0!

I had not lost, and I had not just barely won either. I had dominated in the Big Eight finals against the undefeated and number-one wrestler in my weight class. My teammates went crazy! My confidence grew greatly, but still needed more proving.

       

College Wrestling Nationals

The NCAA championships were held two weeks later at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

        At 190 pounds, the question was who would be seeded number one? At the seeding meeting held before the tournament, the coaches discussed this question for some time. Some argued that since Geoff Baum had just lost in the Big Eight Conference Tournament, he should not be seeded number one. They argued that others should be considered for the number one seed. Harold Nichols just listened to the other coaches at first, but then he argued that I should be seeded number one, because just two weeks earlier I was the one who had beaten Geoff so soundly. After still more discussion, the coaches voted: I was seeded number one, and Geoff was seeded number two at 190 pounds.

Pleased that he had learned these seeding details, an Iowa State teammate of mine informed me about all this later.

But at the time I was stunned by my number one seed!

I did not think of myself yet as a number one seed at the nationals. Rather I thought that if a top seed were ever to come my way, it would come only after I had wrestled some more and won the right to that top seed out on the mat in actual competition. So I remember feeling enormous pressure because I still could not forget my early season losses. How could just one victory so late in the wrestling season erase my early season losses?

        In the first round of the nationals that year, I beat unseeded Scott Christie of Lehigh University 5 to 0. In the second round, I faced 8th seeded Bob Rust of Syracuse University. Rust beat me, just like Russ Hellickson had beaten me earlier in the season at the Midlands Tournament. Rust took me down and rode me hard, wearing me out, and leaving me exhausted. I lost to Rust by a score of 6 to 2. But the question still remained for me — could I, in spite of my second-round loss, still help my team win the team championship?

        To do that, I would have to go through the long wrestle-back challenge. I remember being told to “take a deep breath and then go to work.” Wrestling my way back from a second-round loss took four rounds of wrestle-back wrestling. I won the first three wrestle-back matches (10 to 0, 4 to 0, and by a forfeit). But I lost my final wrestle-back match to third seeded Jack Zindel of Michigan State. The final score in our match was 0 to 0, but I lost in overtime on a referee’s decision.

So as a sophomore, our Cyclone team won the national championship again, and I finished 4th at 190 pounds. I was glad to have played a noteworthy role in our team’s success.

Phil Parker placed 3^rd at 134, and four of our teammates made it to the finals. Dan Gable was 2^nd and Dave Martin won the Championship at 158 pounds, Jason Smith at 167 pounds, and Chuck Jean at 177 pounds. This was a second consecutive national championship for Jason and Chuck.

Through the years, some wrestling fans have said that this 1970 Iowa State team may have been among the best college wrestling teams of all time. There have been some great teams, of course, so for anyone to say that we were among the best is a huge compliment.

        A tough part of the national tournament that year was watching Geoff Baum so easily win the national championship at 190 pounds. In the finals, Geoff beat Bob Rust, who had beaten me in the second round. Geoff beat Rust 9 to 1. But, despite that disappointment, after wrestling in the Nationals that year, I knew more than ever what it would take for me to win the Nationals the next year.

I knew that 12 more months of hard training could put me on top.

Looking back on my sophomore season, my confidence and motivation as a wrestler greatly increased from the beginning to the end of the season. After the season ended, I thought, “I’ve soundly beaten Geoff Baum, who then easily wins it all! Next year, I can win an individual national championship for my team!” I concluded that another year of hard work would make me more consistent and ready to win for our team.

The next chapter in the book covers the completely unexpected loss Dan Gable suffered in his final college match. But more importantly, it covers the way in which Dan refocused and continued on a road that led him - and John, me and others - to Olympic Gold and continued on to see him become possibly the most legendary coach in wrestling history. But for that story, you have to grab the book!
Order it here