By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Terry Brands was searching Friday for words to fit the meaning of his induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame before his thoughts drifted several hundred miles and a week into the past.
The USA Wrestling freestyle resident coach and former Iowa great arrived Friday evening in Stillwater, Okla., site of Saturday’s induction ceremonies. Brands’ mind was back in Sioux City, where the World Team Trials were held last weekend.
“It’s obviously a great honor, but the trials just got over and I’m focused on the performance we had that wasn’t real good for me to look at, “he said. “I need to sit back and relax and learn to appreciate these things better.”
Think Brands will ever be able to do that?
“I’m hoping that happens to me someday, “he said. “But I also think I wouldn’t be in this thing if I was the other way. I don’t think patience is a very strong virtue in the Brands mind.”
Brands, 38, didn’t build an impressive list of credentials by waiting around. His edginess and relentless style produced two NCAA titles, a pair of World championships and Olympic bronze. Only five other American freestyle wrestlers have won more than one World title.
Brands was half of the first twin tandem to win World titles in the same year when he and his brother, Tom, accomplished the feat in 1993. Now the Brands brothers are the first twin World champions to go into the Hall of Fame after Terry joined Tom, who was inducted in 2001.
Through all of the victories, accolades and milestones, Terry Brands points to one career-changing decision as the key to his success.
“The defining moment in my career was probably when I signed at the University of Iowa to wrestle, “said Brands, who compiled a 137-7 record while wrestling for Dan Gable. “I’m not going to say I couldn’t have got it done at Wisconsin or the West Point Military Academy or wherever, but I had to be a Gable boy. After I signed it was a no-brainer to me, it was a destiny. It was probably the best wrestling decision I ever made because of the way they took care of you, the wrestling knowledge and wrestling education you received there, the way the athletic department took care of you.
“I’m not going to say I couldn’t have gotten it done anywhere else because there are great student-athletes who ultimately become Olympic champions out of other programs, too. And Iowa hasn’t exactly been banging the door down Internationally lately, either. It was just a good union between Gable, my mentality and the way he was as a coach. It was a good fit.”
Brands spent 10 seasons as an assistant at Iowa before one-year stints at Nebraska and Montana-State Northern. He received his first head coaching opportunity in 2002 at Tennessee-Chattanooga and spent three years at the school before leaving for USA Wrestling.
Even though it’s been nearly six years since his last match as a competitor, Brands said competition as an athlete is something he thinks about daily — especially his second-to-last match.
Brands lost a decision to Iran’s Ali Reza Dabir, the eventual gold medalist, in the semifinals of the 2000 Olympics.
“I think about it every day of my life, “Brands said. “It consumes me. That semifinal match in the Olympics consumes me. It’s probably an unhealthy level that I take it to. I want to make sure those type of things are not going to happen to the guys I’m coaching.”
There was speculation that Brands would someday return to Iowa in some capacity to coach alongside his brother. Tom Brands was named the Hawkeye head coach in April and he later talked Gable out of retirement to join Iowa staff as the No. 1 assistant.
Terry Brands said he doesn’t expect there will be another Brands coalition at Iowa.
“If I was going to go back to Iowa, I’d want to go back now, “he said. “I want to go back and I want to rebuild that thing, I don’t want to go back when they’re winning again. I’d want to go back now.
“The challenge to me is to build and ultimately keeping things on top and keep building. If you don’t have seven World and Olympic gold medalists coming out of your program then there’s work to be done. That’s how I approach it.
“I’m not saying it would be an easy thing after the dirty work’s been done, but I like the dirty work. I like the great challenges they have — the kids in academic trouble, I like the budget issues, I like turning the thing around and getting the community to see this is still a class-act program, this program can still win every year in any given place.
“That’s the challenge. When you’re not the head coach, I’m very, very stubborn, I’m very determined and I know what things need to be done and I feel confident in my ability to do them, so I don’t know if that would work.”
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