Imagine seeing decades of hard and diligent work go spiraling down a huge drain.  That’s what happened to me the second week of June during the Great Flood of 2008. It hit the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa, like a runaway freight train – a freight train full of water!

“Devastating!” is what my son, Jason, said as he arrived at the museum to help clean up the debris.  “Oh, my gosh!” said his wife Mindy, placing her hands over her mouth in shock as she surveyed the carnage. “I can’t believe this!”
“I’ve never seen anything this bad, ever!” said Dave Axtell, a longtime friend who came to help.
“Let’s get busy cleaning it up,” said my wife, Bev, one of the toughest and most resilient persons I know.

The rains came to Iowa in a biblical-style torrent that week, and wouldn’t let up. Storm after storm pounded the area, spewing out a record number of tornadoes and violent weather. All nine major rivers in Iowa went over flood stage, one breaking the previous flood mark by 19 feet!  Iowans from border to border were in shock. Iowa had just started to recover from one of the toughest winters in recent memory and was ill prepared to face the worst spring in over a century.
Over a century? One report said the flooding in this area was the worst in 2000 years. That would mean since the time that Jesus walked the earth.  I’m not sure how they would measure such a thing, but it sure sounds ominous.

The Great Flood of 2008 has greatly impacted the sport of wrestling. It destroyed lots of valuable material and nearly wiped out the Gable Museum, a depository of wrestling information and data unmatched around the world.
The museum is located in the heart of Waterloo, about three blocks from the Cedar River. It was a beautiful facility that has drawn rave reviews from every corner of the country, and even from overseas. We have greeted nearly 10,000 visitors since opening the doors in January of 2007.

Those of us who work at the museum take our mission very seriously. We feel we are the caretakers of the history of the sport, going back to the first story ever recorded on paper (“The Epic of Gilgamesh”). The museum houses so many historic treasures, such as the oldest known film of wrestling (1905). It owns thousands of books, magazines and miscellaneous material that tell the story of wrestling in the ancient world, the beginnings of wrestling in America, the evolution of pro wrestling from a pure sport to pure entertainment, the background of the Olympic Games and the history of the amateur side of the sport.

The Dean Rockwell Library and Research Center is a treasure trove of information that has been used for research by a wide variety of scholars, writers and fans.

We have exhibits on the walls that show Jacob wrestling the angel of the Lord, Abe Lincoln wrestling in 1832 at the age of 23 and some of the Hollywood movies that depict wrestling. The museum has wrestling cards from the early 1900s on display, and posters from every Olympics of the Modern Era, going back to 1896.

MUSEUM STAFFERS Kyle Klingman and Ken Sesker were the first to notice the rising waters around the building. They went down in the basement to assess the situation and found that several inches of water had accumulated. They moved a considerable amount of historical material and gift shop inventory to the higher level.  After hearing a request from Mayor Tim Hurley that everyone leave the downtown area as soon as possible, Kyle and Kent departed to prepare for their trip to Las Vega and the Olympic trials. I arrived about 3 p.m., went into the building to look around, saw the precautions they had taken, then went to my office to do some work.

Two hours later, I looked out my office window and saw water was coming to the front of the building. I was shocked and went off immediately in search of the city’s sandbagging warehouse. Soon, four others and I began sandbagging for three hours, then I left about 8 p.m. The water was creeping slowly through the parking lot, but I felt we had blocked the water from getting inside the building.

At midnight, a police officer was at the door of my house, telling me that I was needed at the museum because the security alarm was going off. I was stunned as I tried to maneuver through the city in the dark. It was like a scene from a science fiction movie – deserted streets, barricades across intersections, security checkpoints, police cars on the prowl.
I talked my way past two policemen and drove to the museum – where I was greeted by another shock. The water had flanked the building on three sides and was about two feet deep in front. A friend had shown up with his truck and had a spotlight on the building; it was a very eerie sight.

We decided we had to get inside the building to make sure the most valuable items were up high enough to withstand the water. We fashioned a little sandbag pocket by a back door, threw in a big hose to suck out the water in the pocket, then opened the door and ran in, water rushing in with us.

Five of us moved quickly through hip-high water, grabbing the most valuable items and placing them as high as possible. Among my top priorities were the oak, roll-top desk owned by Frank Gotch when he was heavyweight champion of the world in 1911, and his favorite lounge chair. They were nearly a century old and full of the rich history of the sport. I had to save them, no matter what!

We moved other precious, one-of-a-kind material, including items sent to us by the trainer of Alexander Karelin, and finally had to leave the building when the water was reaching the light fixtures. It was 3 a.m.

I returned several hours later to see that the water had risen another foot outside the building. I stared at the partially submerged building, and knew wrestling history was being demolished before my eyes.

THE NET RESULT of the water is mind-numbing. It filled the basement to the top of the 10-foot ceiling. I had stored all of my personal memorabilia chronicling the early history of American pro and amateur wrestling down there. It is now a soggy mess, ruined forever.

We lost hundreds of prints signed by artists and wrestling luminaries. Over 200 posters from both the pro and amateur world are gone, along with thousands of books, posters, prints, postcards, trading cards and other items that were inventory for the gift shop.
On the main floor, the water rose to the 3-foot mark!

There was nothing we could do now but wait for the water to recede. Two days later, we hired a restoration/cleanup crew and the walls were cut all around the building and taken down. The remaining walls (above 3 feet) had to be sanitized and cleaned. All the carpet was ripped out and disposed of, along with desks, furniture, display cases, chairs, sofas and tables.
Most of the really prize items – such as Cael Sanderson’s Iowa State singlet and warm-ups, various John Smith awards, a Dave Schultz display, the Hodge Trophy and display, and Dan Gable’s 1972 Olympic warm-ups and wrestling shoes – were saved. But, sadly, many other precious mementoes were lost.

The biggest setback may involve the wonderful books that we had in the museum. Our wrestling library was as good as any in the world, with a book of techniques from 1727 as the highlight of the collection. We are not yet sure how many of the books we managed to save.

The disaster struck just two weeks prior to one of our biggest events of the year – the Celebrity Golf Tournament and Inductions into the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. We only induct pros who could really wrestle, stars like Verne Gagne, Dan Hodge, Jim Raschke and Brad Rheingans, to name a few. It is an event that attracts world-wide attention and is tremendous fun for fans and wrestlers alike.

The museum will be out of commission for at least several months while we attempt to re-group and plan for the future. But we have decided to go ahead with the golf tournament and pro inductions, taking the inductions to a nearby building.
Also, we had just announced plans for the first-ever inductions into the Alan and Gloria Rice Greco-Roman Hall of Champions, on July 19, and we were really excited about this opportunity to recognize some of the toughest wrestlers in the world. The first class consisted of Olympic champions Steve Fraser and Jeff Blatnick, and world champions Mike Houck, Dennis Hall and Joe Warren. We were also giving the “Sport of Lincoln Award”, for meritorious service to the sport, to Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House of the United States Congress.

The big event was to include a free Greco-Roman clinic by Hall and Warren, and the first public showing of a 1905 Greco-Roman match featuring world professional heavyweight champion Ernest Roeber.
That historic event will have to be postponed to a later date, when the museum is open again.

THE MUSEUM did not have flood insurance, but Jay Roberts, a board member from Waterloo and an attorney, is looking into the situation. Mayor Hurley has gone on record numerous times as saying the levees did not break and that the failure of the storm sewer system was the main problem. We think the museum’s water problems came from the sewer backup more than the flood.

We can apply to FEMA and various other organizations for financial assistance, but the bottom line is we need the wrestling community to step up and help us rebuild this structure. The Dan Gable museum is NOT a shrine to one person or one state; Gable allowed us to use his name to attract attention and financial support to the museum, but it is full of the history of the sport at every level. Only one small area is dedicated to Gable’s career.

Many fans are writing and calling to ask what they can do to help bring the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum back to life. Of course, any donations will be greatly appreciated. We estimate it could take as much as $300,000 to replace the walls, the carpeting, the furnishings, the phone system, and to build display units all around the building.

We are convinced that the history of Mankind’s Oldest Sport needs to be protected and showcased in order to help insure its future. If you share that belief and want to get involved, please write to us at Gable Museum, 303 Jefferson St., Waterloo, Iowa 50701, or contact Kent Sesker marketing director and/or Josh Harding, office manager, at 319-233-0745. We would love to hear from you as we continue our mission to tell wrestling’s grand story to the public at large.