By Matt Krumrie “TWM Freelance Writer
A Season on the Mat is widely considered one of the greatest wrestling books in history. Author Nolan Zavoral wrote the book, which focuses on the 1996-97 Iowa Hawkeyes national championship team. That season is also Dan Gable’s last as head coach of the Hawkeyes.
Now, culminating with this year being the 10-year anniversary of that season, Zavoral has put together an Afterword chronicling the developments of many of the main characters in the ten years since that season. The book has been re-released in paperback and is available on Amazon.com, and at bookstores like Barnes and Nobles and Borders.
The cover, featuring the same intense shot of Gable, looks splashier this time around, with reviewers’ remarks sprinkled into the makeup, and with a new Afterword noted on the cover.
“The Afterword is lengthy, because I had to update readers on Gable’s life since he turned the team over to Zalesky, and then last spring, jumped back on board after Tom Brands became head coach,” says Zavoral, who lives in St. Paul and in addition to working as a writer, teaches writing courses at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. “In those nine years away from coaching, Gable considered a run for Iowa governor; lobbied national lawmakers on behalf of the sport; conducted clinics and accepted speaking engagements around the country; had more surgery done on his arthritic hips; worked as an assistant to the Iowa men’s athletic director, and kept close tabs on the Hawkeye wrestling team from his roost a floor above the wrestling room.”
Zavoral, a wrestling fan as well as an author, was excited for the opportunity to reconnect with the many who helped make the book possible
“Working on the book again was doubly delightful because my editor was a former high school wrestler (Jack Sallay) on the Eastern seaboard who appreciated both Gable and amateur wrestling,” said Zavoral.
Earlier this fall Zavoral commented on Gable.
“Few know how to peak a team like Gable,” said Zavoral. “(He) continues to fascinate me, as does wrestling.”
Here are some more thoughts from Zavoral on writing A Season on the Mat, getting up close and personal with Gable, and the possibility of the book being turned into a movie.
The Wrestling Mall (TWM): Where did you get the idea to write A Season on the Mat, and, talk about the steps you had to go through to get clearance to do this.
Nolan Zavoral (NZ): I know exactly when the idea occurred to me that Dan Gable’s life would sustain book-length nonfiction that became A Season on the Mat. I was sports editor and columnist at the Iowa City Press-Citizen, traveling with the Iowa wrestlers to a dual meet at Oklahoma State. We had a layover at the St. Louis airport. I sat near Gable and noticed his jaw setting hard as he read the front page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I asked him what he was reading. He said a story about a rapist loose in the area. We talked. It was then I learned that his sister’s brutal murder years before still roiled within him. After that, I saw him with fresh eyes. He was a highly successful coach, who had been a brilliant wrestler himself, but beyond that, he connected with people at very human levels. I left Iowa City in 1985 for a writing position at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but my goal remained to chronicle Dan Gable’s life, as reflected through his final season as Iowa coach. Every year for ten years, I touched base with him before the season began, asking, “Will this be your final season? “And then, when he finally said he was probably getting out, I began making plans to spend as much time as possible in his orbit. This meant that I took unpaid leaves of absence from the paper, that I absorbed a lot of travel expenses before I (a) got an agent, and, (b) landed an advance from a publisher. Through it all, I pursued Gable and the story of his 1996-97 team. He agreed to give me time and access, both to himself and the team. I took full advantage, because I *knew* this was a book. Plus, I was an Iowa native, and a writer. The stars were aligned.
TWM: What was Gable’s initial reaction to you wanting to follow the team? Also, what was the initial reaction from the team members, coaches, parents, family and others involved in Iowa wrestling, when they knew you were following the team around?
NZ: Gable’s initial reaction was encouraging, although, truth be told, I don’t think either of us knew how much interview time this would require. Because I’d covered the team in the 1980s, I knew administrators in the athletic department and others. Gable was generous in introducing me to his team (en masse) and parents. “He’s writing a book, “Gable would say, and I’d give details. Everyone was receptive. Wrestlers respect hard work: it’s in their DNA. I was working hard, so we got along.
TWM: How many hours would you estimate you spent with the team, and how much time did it take to write the book?
NZ:Wow, that’s a tough question. I’ll estimate that I spent hundreds of hours with the team, doing interviews, attending meets, calling on the phone. As for writing the book, I wrote “A Season on the Mat “in a monastery, because I had to get away from work and personal business and concentrate on this book. I began in early June and finished in last August, just making the deadline so the book would be published in time for the NCAAs. In that span, I took off one weekend. Otherwise, I wrote seven days a week, at least fifteen hours a day.
TWM: Now, ten years later, you wrote an Afterword that is now available for sale. Talk about what that is and where people can get it.
NZ: The Afterword is part of a paperback reprint of A Season on the Mat.available at major book chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, and at independent stores like Prairie Lights in Iowa City and elsewhere. It’s a long Afterword, basically a chapter in itself. I wanted to give a full update of Gable’s life in his years away from coaching – his flirtation with Republican politics, his speaking engagements and wrestling camp appearances, all of it – and suggest reasons he jumped back into coaching at Iowa, as Tom Brands’ assistant.
TWM: Ten years later, are you surprised Dan Gable is back coaching?
NZ: Not really. He’s a consummate competitor — and nothing buzzes him like preparing a team for a meet. In the Afterword, a guy remarked to me how Gable’s intensity showed up even in table conversation about fishing.
— Continue reading at The Wrestling Mall
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