the notebook with his final affirmation. He didn't want to risk losing sight of his goal, and he had nothing better to do.
In
a sport of tough-minded grinders, Dake became a legend -- and SI's
inaugural male College Athlete of the Year -- in part because of his
unwavering focus on an annual goal. All of Cornell's wrestlers think
primarily of their sport, says senior 141-pounder Joe Stanzione, who
shares a house with Dake and 32 other teammates, but "I feel like Kyle
has a dream every night about wrestling." And in that dream? "He wins,"
Stanzione says. "Period."
Another
teammate, freshman 149-pounder Joe Rendina, sees the dream in more
detail: "He stands on top of the world, and everyone bows down to him."
Rendina and Stanzione laugh, but they are not exaggerating. One line
from the pep-talk letter Dake wrote to himself in the notebook at the
outset of his senior season reads, Make everyone know you're the
greatest and remember that you will always be the greatest.
One
cannot merely write his way to wrestling titles, though. According to
Cornell coach Rob Koll, Dake's success is due to a confluence of will
and commitment to a strict schedule of workouts, recovery, studying and
sleep -- plus good genes.
Dake's
father and high school coach, Doug, was an All-America wrestler at Kent
State and is so strong that Koll suspects he is "half bull." Kyle's
mother, Jodi, was a gymnast for the Golden Flashes, so Kyle inherited
bull strength with a tumbler's athleticism. That makes him the ideal mix
in an evolving sport that, he says, "used to be two meatheads going at
it but has now become more of a dance."
Kyle's
mental toughness comes from only one side, however. When Kyle left to
attend college just 5 1/2 miles from their Lansing, N.Y., home, Doug
said, "You could never start for Cornell, and as long as you get a
degree, it's fine." He had decided not to pressure the
kid.
But Jodi took a different tack. She bought the red notebook and left it
on her son's desk the day he moved into the dorms. Atop the first page
she wrote something she'd been telling him for years: If you believe it,
you can achieve it. Jodi encouraged him to use the notebook to write
down his goals, and she made a few suggestions:
NCAA national champion 4x
London 2012
Cornell Graduate
She
had decided to pressure the kid. Her challenge did not cripple him with
weighty expectations; rather, it was just what Kyle wanted. That note,
he says, became like a voice in his head.
It's
rare for a wrestler's fame to enter even a sliver of the consciousness
of mainstream college sports fans. Dan Gable transcended wrestling at
Iowa State in the 1960s and '70s by going 181-1 in three seasons. Pat
Smith did it at Oklahoma State in the '90s by becoming the first
four-time national champ. Cael Sanderson did it at Iowa State in the
2000s by going 159-0. Sanderson's quest for a perfect career resonated
throughout sports, and he is widely considered the greatest college
wrestler of all time.
Koll
believes Dake should be part of the G.O.A.T. discussion. "What Kyle did
is more remarkable than anybody who came before him," the coach says.
"I'm not saying he was better than Cael or better than Pat Smith. I'm
just saying I believe what he did was more remarkable, even though he
lost some matches in his career."
Dake
went 137-4 at Cornell but forced his way into the G.O.A.T. debate from
different angles. For one, he did not redshirt, as Sanderson did and
other elite recruits have. (Sanderson also lost a match while
redshirting.) And while Sanderson spent his entire career in two weight
classes, Dake set himself apart by dominating four.
Dake's
first two jumps, from 141 to 149 to 157, were due to natural growth.
The senior-year move to 165 was made for several reasons: It helped
Cornell's team, which had more options at 157 than at 165. (The Big Red
would finish fifth at nationals in 2013.) It let Dake prove that he
could bulk up, rather than starve himself, and still succeed. ("The
[weight-cutting] stigma has turned some people off wrestling," he says,
"and I wanted to show that you didn't need to do it to win.") And it
allowed him to chase history. While Dake served as a pre-Olympic
training partner for Jordan Burroughs last summer, the eventual 74-kg
gold medalist told him to make the jump in weight "for the fans."
Burroughs believed the four-titles-in-four-classes feat was even more
unlikely than going undefeated for an entire career, and he wanted to
see it done.
Dake's
move to 165 also created a wrestling mega-rivalry. For someone as
competitive as Dake, going undefeated as a junior, winning his third
straight national title and still not receiving the 2012 Hodge Trophy
(wrestling's Heisman) had to sting. The award went to Penn State
165-pounder David Taylor, who had a history with Dake: Their families
became friends at junior tournaments, and when the Dakes spent holidays
with relatives in Ohio, they would drive Kyle up to train with David
near Dayton. In a photo from the 2006 cadet nationals, Taylor, then a
much bigger star, stands atop the awards podium while a miserable Dake
is below him, holding a third-place plaque. Dake's memory of it remains
vivid: "I was pissed, to say the least."
The
three Dake-Taylor meetings in 2012-13 -- at the All-Star Classic in
Washington, D.C., in November; at the Southern Scuffle in Chattanooga in
January; and in the national finals in Des Moines -- were among the
most anticipated college wrestling matches of the decade. Dake opened
the season ranked No. 2, but he took over No. 1 and stayed there by
beating Taylor the first two times. Dake and Cornell assistant coach
Jeremy Spates worked all season on what Spates called "Taylor things" --
techniques -- that might keep the reigning Hodge winner off-guard.
Otherwise, Dake stuck to his routine. On the morning of the final, he
wrote 2013 165 lb DI National Champion in the notebook four times. Then
he went out with his family for their customary pre-title-match
breakfast of chocolate-chip pancakes. Finally, after Dake filled four
more pages at the hotel, he went before a sold-out crowd of 16,131 and
did his superstitious prematch hand slap with Spates, who said he could
tell from its sting that Dake was good and ready.
In
his letter before the season Dake had told himself, You are the best in
the country, no one can touch you! You can take anyone down, defend all
takedowns, escape at will and ride anyone! He rode Taylor relentlessly
in the final match, earning a riding-time point (for being in control of
the match at least a full minute more than Taylor) that was the
difference in a tense 5-4 victory. All of Dake's 2,978 lines had come
true, so he retired the notebook. He'll start another for the next three
world championships and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Kyle Dake is
done with college, but he has not finished writing.