Dan Gable spoke at several Perry venues Thursday, but his true stories of challenge and triumph were delivered nowhere more intimately than in the Spring Valley Ballroom of the Hotel Pattee from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Gable spoke of coming to Perry almost as a rendezvous with destiny.
“I really haven’t been here before a lot,” Gable told the crowd of about 50. “I had a lot of deep feelings about this town every since I was 15 years old but, at the same time, I lived my life and did what I had to do and what I wanted to do, and I knew that someday I would come into this town, this city.”
Gable’s father, Mack Gable, was born Mack Leaming in 1925 in Unionville, Mo., the son of Charles Mac Leaming. The Leaming name came to be well known in the Woodward area and also known to Dan Gable.
“Some people might not understand that,” Gable said Thursday, “but it’s just that I have a lot of family that I didn’t know that was actually from this community and I’m really, you know, my name could have easily not been Gable, very easily, if my dad hadn’t changed his name when he was 18 and didn’t tell me till I was 15. But I didn’t let that bother me. It probably inspired me. That’s kind of the way I work.”
Mack Gable died in 1999.
At about the same age, as a high school sophomore, Gable experienced a deeper personal trauma when his elder sister, Diane, was raped and stabbed to death in the Gable family home while Dan and his parents were on vacation. The killer, a classmate of Gable, was convicted and died in prison in 2011.
Along with the tragedies, Gable has known many triumphs in his illustrious life — he will turn 69 this Wednesday, Oct. 25.
His unparalleled dominance of the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, was a prelude to a stellar career as a college wrestling coach. Gable won 15 NCAA team titles during his tenure as wrestling head coach at the University of Iowa between 1976 and 1997. Dan Gable Day was proclaimed in Iowa on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 2013.
Gable signed many autographs and books during his hour at the Hotel Pattee and before delivering a free public speech at the Perry Performing Arts Center. His Perry appearance was sponsored by the Dallas County Library Association as part of the 2017 All Dallas County Reads One Book.
