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Discussion Topic: Where are they now?: Catching up with Dan Gable and Larry Owings
Casey Talbott added to this discussion on July 11, 2014

http://www.si.com/more-sports/2014/07/10/dan-gable-larry-owings



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Discussion Topic: Where are they now?: Catching up with Dan Gable and Larry Owings
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on July 11, 2014

Brilliant.



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Discussion Topic: Where are they now?: Catching up with Dan Gable and Larry Owings
Steve Durose added to this discussion on July 30, 2014

This was a very interesting read. Thanks for posting. I couldn't remember ever seeing the video of the match before. Fascinating stuff.



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Discussion Topic: Where are they now?: Catching up with Dan Gable and Larry Owings
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on July 31, 2014

i reprint text from Nov 2013 issue of AmWrNews, skilled writer Jim Kalin's piece captures some other aspects of this drama. Kalin spoke with Lary Owings among others for this piece.

Kalin -now a bar owner in LA- wrestled for Strongsville, and his Dad was head coach at Normandy hs here.

LARRY OWINGS VS DAN GABLE
It seemed appropriate to feature the most famous American wrestling match ever since this month marks the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination. Like the unimaginable event in Dallas, Owings-Gable took everyone by surprise. The bout is still considered more ambush than achievement, Achilles skewered through the heel with a dash of Little Big Horn tossed in.

The setup is common knowledge within the wrestling world, a script older than The Odyssey. Shakespeare couldn’t have made it juicier. Gable, a senior wrestling for Iowa State, had never been defeated through high school and college. The 1970 NCAAs at Northwestern University would be his final tournament as a college wrestler. He pinned his way to the finals, then waited, armed with a 181-match winning streak.

Things couldn’t have been worse for Gable.
Larry Owings also pinned his way to the finals, and by the time it was just the two of them, they had filled nine body bags. The Washington sophomore had been seeded #2, and his cradle was deadly. Gable had the extra fall when he decked Central Michigan’s Larry Hulburt in a pigtail bout.

The Owings-Gable match has been written about more than any other in NCAA history, so there’s no need to rehash its period-by-period progression. The Cyclones’ star, already a legend, just couldn’t seem to get much traction that March afternoon, and Owings was clearly having the best day of his life, which was an unfortunate mix, at least for Gable. Owings scored a big takedown with back points late in the match, and gunned Gable down 13-11 for the National Championship, making this wrestling’s most famous hit-and-run.

It’s interesting that one bout can mean two completely different things. Gable’s defeat refers to classic tragedy, to heart-rending failure and an alliance with Hamlet. Owings’ Victory signifies an ultimate achievement, the penthouse of Maslow’s Triangle.

“It showed a lot of people that anyone can be beat,” said Owings. “I think it gave some inspiration and hope to the underdogs who have had to come up against someone like Gable.”

But was Larry Owings really an underdog, or at least to the extent that the match is now assessed after forty-three years? The previous season, he won three matches at 130 lbs. in the NCAA tournament at Brigham Young before losing to Minnesota’s Reid Lamphere. Two were by fall. Lamphere lost in the semis to eventual champ David McGuire from Oklahoma, and Owings was eliminated. Freshmen weren’t allowed to compete during the season, but new rules made them eligible to enter the NCAA tournament. After his freshman season, he won both freestyle and Greco national USWF titles. Add his 32-2 record at 150 lbs. the season that he met Gable in the NCAA finals, and the term ‘underdog’ suddenly seems amplified. Gable was favored; Owings was a dark horse, something ominous on the rise.

Gable’s opponents that final season simply tried to avoid getting pinned. A few attempted to mount some sort of offense, but none thought they could pin Gable. Owings did. There were several times during their bout when he locked in a cradle. He scored back points too, something that was unheard of against the Cyclone. Owings’ audacity floored the spectators that afternoon.

How fortunate that Owings did not pin Gable, for this would have been dismissed as a fluke, and wrestling would be cheated from its greatest bout ever. Experts would have debated and doubted Owings’ ability to sustain his dominance for the full eight minutes. Gable was considered invincible. It brings to mind Brent Metcalf’s loss to Darrion Caldwell in the 2009 NCAA finals, and how the TV announcers were certain even during the third period that the Hawkeye would come back and win. Look at David Taylor’s loss by fall to Bubba Jenkins in 2011. Hardly anyone considers that a classic bout, and even fewer believe that Jenkins could have defeated Taylor if the match had gone the distance. Like Owings-Gable, the Caldwell-Metcalf bout is a classic; Jenkins-Taylor is ignored.

People talk about moments and opportunities, and in this match there were several. But all bouts possess them. A clash of this significance is itself A Moment. There were brilliant moves made by both, and also mistakes, instances each winced about later.

“I got over-anxious is what happened,” said Owings. “I was a little too aggressive and too wild and I got careless and made some real bad mistakes.”

Owings’ aggression may have caused mistakes that helped run the score high, but it also decided the outcome. In the second period, he committed deep to a fireman’s carry, and nowhere else in the match was his determination, his aggressiveness, so apparent. Gable sprawled, which blocked the move, or would have on any other wrestler, but instead of working his way back out and to his feet, Owings stubbornly pressed on, went to his side, then amazingly, tilted past that dangerous 90 degree angle which exposed his back. His feet drove forward, step after step, plowing both wrestlers across the mat. Gable thrashed high across Owings’ shoulders, fending him off. Then Owings rose to his knees. It seemed improbable, not with his position and Gable’s full weight draped over him. Owings dumped Gable hard for the takedown. Gable moved off the mat, and it was the first time he looked weary. Overcome.

Mortal.
This was The Moment.

“Celebrity,” said Owings. “It was instant. The thing that I struggled with more than anything else probably was that instant celebrity atmosphere. I thought I would win this big match and it would be great, and then I found that people wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to be the hero, but I wanted to be left alone. It was something I wasn’t used to.”

Owings lost only twice more during his collegiate career, and both were in NCAA finals. He won an NCAA title and was a rare three-time finalist, yet so many feel he fell far below his potential.

The next year, his finals opponent was Darrell Keller from Oklahoma State. Keller had won the NCAAs at 134 lbs. the previous year.
“I shouldn’t have lost to Keller,” said Owings, “He came out and his shoulder was all taped up. I started wrestling and stayed away from his shoulder because I didn’t want to hurt him. Then the score got out of hand, and that’s when I started using his shoulder and coming back, but it was too little too late.”

Owings lost to Michigan State’s Tom Milkovich at the NCAAs his senior year. Milkovich was a three-time Ohio high school state champion, and never lost a match in Big Ten competition. He was the first wrestler ever to accomplish that.
“When I wrestled Milkovich, his particular style was a style I struggled with. Almost 100% defensive, riding the ankle on top, and that type of style frustrated me throughout my wrestling career. Not a lot of people knew that, but the people who figured it out gave me fits.”
After the loss to Milkovich, Owings headed to the locker room to shower. His collegiate career was over, and had not ended the way he hoped it would.
“My incentive for winning was gone after I defeated Gable,” said Owings. “It was like ‘where do I go from here?’”

In a strange twist, Navy’s Lloyd Keaser gave Owings one final dose of incentive. Keaser, who had lost in the semifinals to Milkovich 3-2, approached Owings in the locker room.
“He pointed his finger at me and said ‘you know what, if I’d have been in your side of the bracket I would have kicked your ass.’”
Keaser got his opportunity later that year at the U.S. Olympic team trials, but his threat fell far short when Owings whipped him 18-6.
“That was the incentive I needed,” said Owings, who lost later to Gable 7-1.

Larry Owings is not in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He had ten career falls in NCAA tournament history. Gable has thirteen. Owings’ place in wrestling history is handcuffed to Dan Gable, and his fate is similar to that of Roger Maris. Maris played baseball for the Yankees and topped Babe Ruth’s homerun record, though it doesn’t seem to be enough to ever get him into the MLB Hall of Fame.

“I think about that match with Gable once in awhile,” said Owings. “But not every day.”

On the night Owings wrestled Gable, Tom Milkovich was in the stands with his family and friends. Tom was feeling low, and so were the others who had hoped he could win an NCAA title as a freshman. He wanted to be the first wrestler to win it four times. Milkovich had been seeded #1 at 134 lbs., but finished fourth, losing to Darrell Keller in the semis 5-4. Midway through the Owings-Gable match, Tom’s mother spoke to those around her, hoping to lighten their hearts. Gable was on the ropes at this point.

“And Tom thinks he has problems,” Mrs. Milkovich said.
People sometimes misspell Larry Owings’ last name. They leave off the ‘s’ or call him Owens.
It doesn’t happen to Dan Gable.
Larry Owings is humble. He runs a Monday night youth wrestling clinic for local high school wrestlers in a Portland suburb. The fathers know who he is.

In 1980, after his wrestling career was finished, Owings began dating his future wife Diane. He mentioned nothing to her about his background in wrestling, though he did ask if she liked athletics. Diane replied yes, except for boxing and wrestling. Owings kept quiet. A week later, they attended a John Denver concert together at Portland Civic Auditorium. Two young men approached and asked if he was Larry Owings. Diane was puzzled. The two then requested autographs, and Owings signed their concert programs. After they left, Diane insisted Larry tell her what was going on. He did, and it was then that she knew he was someone she wanted to get to know better.

"There’s just something about Larry,” she said.
Indeed.



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