As his fellow passengers filed onto the plane for the flight to Portland, someone recognized the big man with the massive chest and the easy smile.
Thank you, said a stranger, extending his hand to Rulon Gardner. Thank you for representing our country the way you did.
Thank you for being such an example. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for winning the gold medal. Thank you.
It’s been five years since Gardner beat the great Alexander Karelin in that relatively obscure Olympic event called Greco-Roman wrestling.
Five years since an untested Wyoming farm boy beat the Russian heavyweight who had never lost, never so much as given up a point in international competition.
Five years have passed, but strangers won’t let the moment go. Another man might have run from the notoriety.
“I ask myself, Is what I’ve done so great? I don’t know.”
Gardner braced his back against a picnic table behind the Portland Expo and exhaled. “This feels good. Wrestlers like the heat. Wrestlers like to sweat. It’s all we know.”
He came to Maine Friday to talk to wrestlers and their families and whomever else wanted to hear how one man can realize a dream. His appearance at the Maine Games at the Portland Expo coincided with another round of the 21st Nebraska-Maine Wrestling Friendship Series.
The contingent of Nebraska teenagers rose to give Gardner a standing ovation before he reached the microphone. Soon, more than 200 people were standing and applauding.
Gardner smiled at the reception. “All I’ve wanted to do is teach. If they listen to my message, I’m teaching.”
He retold his story, briefly. He told of the failures that motivated him and the belief that he could break his opponent by outworking him from the first minute of their bout to the ninth and final minute.
He told the crowd of his desire. “I was going to commit all my energy to make America proud, “he said. Here and there a baby cried. Otherwise the arena was silent, waiting to hear more.
Afterward he signed autographs and posed for photos, sometimes putting his arms around the kids, tickling them.
“I like to touch people, “said Gardner. “I like to interact with them. Sometimes I’m asked to throw beautiful women in dresses over my shoulder. Well, why not?”
That innocent, ear-to-ear smile appeared again. He hasn’t trained, hasn’t lifted weights since the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where he won bronze.
He weighed 300 pounds when he wrestled in high school. He’s shed pounds, but not inches. “I’ve got a 58-inch chest, “he said, slapping it with a huge hand. “Haven’t lost much there.”
Giving speeches isn’t easy work. Talking casually to strangers afterward is.
He has a learning disability, he says. He was reading at a fifth-grade level when he graduated from high school.
He attended junior college and transferred to the University of Nebraska. Where he was told he could not be a teacher, that he wouldn’t be able to graduate.
“I told them I will, “said Gardner, his jaw tightening. “I told them to put me in the classes I needed and I would complete them.
“The medals are nice, but what I wanted to do most was to teach. You’ve got the power to influence everyone you reach. I can’t think of anything more important than to be a teacher.”
Yes, it is mind-boggling, he says, that people will line up to get his autograph or take his picture. He still can’t understand why people want to thank him.
“People say, you are what America is all about. I say no, I’m just like you. I’m just one of nine kids. I failed, but it didn’t stop me. It doesn’t have to stop you.”
Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:
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