Latest / The Full Tilt Podcast / Royce Alger - Gable Time, Foxcatcher, and the Heisman House :: Ep 1 The Full Tilt Podcast

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Royce Alger - Gable Time, Foxcatcher, and the Heisman House :: Ep 1 The Full Tilt Podcast · The Full Tilt Podcast

0:00
Unknown: That run was 4.2 miles. It doesn't matter. Sometimes,
0:03
sometimes, sometimes the match might go longer. I said, Yeah,
0:07
but 4.2 miles is an eternity. That was the first time. That
0:11
was my second year at I was like crazy, but I'm crazy, so you
0:17
gotta match your crazies up and see if it's gonna work for you,
0:20
but that was the first time I thought that I might have been
0:23
in trouble like over my head.
0:31
This is the Full Tilt podcast with hatch. Welcome everyone to
0:41
our initial episode. Really super excited to have elite
0:46
storytellers, the elite legends of the sport of wrestling on
0:49
this podcast today is no exception. We have the one, the
0:55
only the fall guy and legend. Voice, Alger, hey, hey, voice,
1:02
what's happening?
1:03
Oh, not too much. I decided
1:07
Mike's been trying to get me out here to do some work at his club
1:13
for quite a quite a while, the young guns. So I finally
1:18
relented. I have a opening. So I came out and enjoyed Nashville,
1:24
and we saw some sites, and we put down some about two hours of
1:28
curriculum for these kids, and trying to get them to man up.
1:32
And we're I was excited to see your setup here at what was the
1:38
name of that school we're at?
1:39
Oh, Montgomery, Bell Academy.
1:42
Patrick Simpson and his crew. I've
1:44
never seen a school more innate and ornate than that high
1:49
school. I mean, I don't even want to know what the tuition is
1:52
there, but they had an indoor training like in their football
1:57
field. Oh, it's just in this tempered weather the you had
2:00
that
2:03
it's like, Iowa guys, yeah, I was said, Right,
2:06
no, it was pretty impressed. And plus, we went to what was the
2:10
name of that wrestling event that I went here a couple years
2:12
ago,
2:12
National Collegiate duels. Yeah? Our boy, Frank, popolicio, best
2:17
events of the country.
2:18
Yeah, we went out there. And in my son, he was trying to make it
2:22
like ever, like 50,000 other people in Nashville, trying to
2:26
make it in country music. He played in the halftime, yeah,
2:30
you know. So it was a good, good way to segue, to go come out
2:33
here and and I kind of fell in love with Nashville, except for
2:38
your traffic. Your traffic sucks out.
2:41
Yes, it does. It keeps getting worse. Just little intro with
2:45
Royce. I've known Royce forever, and anybody, honestly, anybody
2:48
that's listening this podcast probably not only has heard of
2:51
Royce Alger, but knows really what he's about, what he's been
2:55
about, and as a competitor and coach and everything. But
2:58
obviously, former coach at the University of Iowa, three time
3:01
state champ in Iowa, three time big 10 champ, two time NCAA
3:04
champ, two time World Cup gold medalist 1990 world silver,
3:09
three time US Open champ and a two time Pan American Gold
3:12
Medalist, now the current head coach of the Titan Mercury
3:14
wrestling club. Man Royce, really, really appreciate your
3:19
time here and where I tell you what of all the athletic
3:23
accomplishments that Royce has back in the day, all the
3:26
coaching accomplishments that he's still accruing. Royce is
3:30
probably well known as one of the greatest, not only
3:34
personalities but storytellers in the whole history of sport,
3:37
of wrestling, and that's what we got him on here for. So I'm
3:39
going to get right. We're getting right to it. We're
3:41
coming in hot. Royce, I want one of your funniest Iowa wrestling
3:47
stories from back in the day. What do you got for us? Oh, team
3:52
it up. Team it up right now.
3:53
Royce, wow, wow. Well, I tell you what, I know we got. Randy
4:00
Lewis is going to be on here eventually, and he's stolen a
4:04
couple of my stories and asked me to never tell them, because
4:07
it's his favorite stories. And I accused him of story steal. And
4:12
I think there is a bylaw somewhere that you can't steal a
4:15
story and but I'm gonna, I'm gonna start out with the gate,
4:21
just to show you how incredulous this story is. People won't
4:25
believe it, but I was lucky enough, just like Matt. Matt
4:29
grew up in the same we were born in the same hospital. I don't
4:31
know if people know that, but we were from Iowa, and the main
4:37
name in in the state of Iowa, and probably every state in the
4:42
union is Gable. Everybody knows Dan Gable, and he's the man.
4:49
Everyone knows that he went undefeated for two years and for
4:55
two, not two years for like all high school and all. College any
5:01
route. I just got done winning two national titles for them, I
5:04
went to my first international tournament. Was the sun kissed
5:06
open. And I wrestled guys like Schultz and and Melvin Douglas
5:11
and, you know, world class guys right out of the gate. That was
5:14
the qualifier back in the day. If you wanted to go to Tbilisi,
5:19
that was the toughest tournament in the world. You had to go win
5:22
that tournament, and then you got to go to Russia, you know,
5:26
to represent our country. So I went there. I went undefeated
5:30
for two years, and I went to Sunkiss, and I took second. I
5:33
got beat three to two in the finals by Melvin Douglas. And
5:37
I'm coming into the room. This is a great story, because it's
5:41
gonna involve Gable. I was coming into the room to sit down
5:44
in Gable was given the the the wrestlers a bunch of grief about
5:51
not coming into practice early and being ready to go at three
5:54
o'clock. He goes. And we're tired of this, you know, we we
5:57
gotta, we gotta start coming in and punching the clock. We got
6:01
to be here at three people coming in late. People not ready
6:04
to go, not tying those shoes up. We got to be ready to go. We got
6:07
to go represent and blah, blah, blah. And I just walked in in
6:11
the whole crowd that we all we have these bleachers in our room
6:17
before practice, and Gable is talking to us. They all turned
6:19
to me, and Gable thought it was an opportune time to basically
6:24
throw me under the bus. And he goes, isn't that right? Melvin?
6:30
So he Melvin Douglas is the guy beat me I unlocked in two years.
6:33
And I was like, it was like somebody threw a cold glass of
6:37
water on me and I I looked at him real quickly, and like I
6:44
always do with a quick thinking on my feet, and I said, What's
6:49
that, Larry? So, you know, Mike's laughing right now, but
6:55
Larry, owing is the guy that the only guy to beat Gable in high
6:59
school and college, and Gable thought he'd throw me under the
7:03
bus. And I looked at him, and when I said, What's that, Larry,
7:10
he ran into the other room. He could not believe I said that
7:14
just how brazen and crazy he thinks I am. It's kind of like
7:19
bad medicine. You know, the Indians, they just, and I
7:22
generally live by the adage, if you can't find anything nice to
7:26
say, at least have the decency to be vague. So so I, I threw
7:34
that back at him, but that story gets told to me by all of those
7:38
guys that were on the bench because they were like, quiet.
7:41
They were like third graders watching their mom and dad get
7:44
in the fight. No one's gonna say anything, you know, especially
7:47
if mom's really fighting. So it's like, okay, Eldridge just
7:52
called Dan Gable Larry, the only loss he had in college and in
7:57
high school. In How's Gable gonna respond? And Gable could
8:01
not believe I said it. To this day, I talked to gable 30
8:03
minutes today. He's down in Florida right now. We've talked
8:06
about sauna and stuff, but to this day, he still can't believe
8:12
I called him Larry in front of everybody, because you're you're
8:14
either crazy or the toughest guy I've ever seen.
8:18
Well, I mean, both could be very true. But speaking of Gable, I
8:23
mean obviously that, you know, he's and I love my five years
8:28
that I was there and he was just, he's been in such a huge
8:31
impact on my life and impact on yours, and everybody else that
8:34
he's come in contact with. But what was the I know, I know that
8:39
I did it quite often, but there had to be a time when, I know
8:43
you're probably excited and going to wrestle at University
8:46
of Iowa for Dan Gable, but coming out very successful high
8:48
school wrestler. Well, there had to be a slap in the face at one
8:51
point in time, maybe as a gable workout. Maybe it was some time,
8:54
some type of adversity right off the jump at Iowa that made you
8:58
think, man, I don't know. I'm not sure here
9:02
we don't know. There's one time that I knew that he we were
9:06
always suspected that he might be crazy. And I remember one
9:10
time we were doing the long loop. You remember the long loop
9:12
around the golf course and around the it was a 4.2 mile
9:16
loop, oh yeah. And I was going out, and this was the day I was
9:20
going to beat Barry Davis. Barry Davis is a story in itself. We
9:24
could do five podcasts on him. He lived in the dorms all the
9:29
years of his career in the dorms, and he took a silver in
9:34
the Olympics in 84 and he was our starter in 85 so he he
9:39
would, he would keep his metal on his wall, and I'd ride my
9:44
bicycle down on Hillcrest. It was too far to walk, so I'd ride
9:47
my bicycle in the halls, down to his room to look at that silver
9:51
medal every day. So he he inspired me, unbelievable. But
9:57
Cedar Rapids prairie guy, Cedar Rapids prairie but, uh. Yeah, I
10:00
remember one time I said, All right, I'm tired of that damn
10:03
Davis winning all these long rows. His his wife, Nan, she won
10:08
the 10,000 meter division one title. So he was getting outside
10:12
workouts that we weren't, we weren't a party to
10:16
so I showed up there and
10:20
ready to go, and we're we're ready to we're ready to start.
10:26
We start out. He boom, he takes off like a bat out of hell. And
10:29
we're running, it's 4.2 miles. So we're coming down the
10:32
stretch. And I was a sprinter. I actually had, I was a rusher,
10:36
and you had my rushing record for 43 years at my high school.
10:40
So I'm a sprinter. I was just waiting that last 70 yards, and
10:44
I was getting up there just ready to pass, and we had about
10:47
20 yards left to go, and he was going a million mile an hour,
10:50
but I was just, I timed the kick. I kind of played in this,
10:55
in the in the sand a little bit, you know, kind of sand banging a
10:59
little bit, and then turned it on, and I was just ready to pass
11:04
him that last 10 years, and Gable, Gable Gable saw it, and
11:07
he's he's got big and he goes, All right, one more. And I'm
11:12
like, both Barry and I stopped, and I was more pissed than
11:18
Barry, because I was gonna win my first time, and he goes, that
11:22
effing gable effingness, and Evan that, and they were
11:25
throwing the Jesus Chrysler's out there, and Johnny Regan was
11:29
passed that effing Jesus, Chrysler, blah, blah, blah,
11:32
blah, blah, and Johnny Regan passed us both, because I just
11:35
started walking, Barry and I just started walking because we
11:38
just ran the whole thing. We beat everybody about 110 yards.
11:42
Are we gonna run another? Run another one more? I remember
11:46
Johnny Regan running by. He's a good man. He's a good man. Jesus
11:49
Christ, the good so we ended up running again, but I didn't
11:55
matter. I mean, we were, we were so mad at Gable for saying one
11:58
more, because cable got caught up into it all the time. It was,
12:02
why would you say that it was 4.2 miles? That run was 4.2
12:07
miles? It doesn't matter. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes
12:09
the match might go longer than you think you got to be ready
12:12
for it. I said, Yeah, but 4.2 miles is an eternity if you're
12:16
running, you know, 530 miles. So that was a time I had a really
12:24
question, that maybe he was like, he would didn't have our
12:28
best interests at hand. You know, died out there. It was
12:32
about 85 degrees. It was early, was early September. So that was
12:39
the first time. That was my second year at Iowa. I was like,
12:42
Gabel, might be crazy, but I'm crazy, so you gotta match your
12:47
crazies up and see if it's gonna work for you. But that was the
12:50
first time I thought that I might have been in trouble, like
12:53
over my head. I can make it analogous to somebody swimming
12:56
out and getting caught in a riptide or something. You're
12:59
like, oh shit. Oh tired, right? I'm not gonna make you back to
13:06
shore, and I got a crazy man out there with a whip. So that's the
13:12
answer your question. That's the long answer,
13:14
yeah. Well, I mean, everybody's got those stories.
13:18
It's, he's, well, they call it Gable time. There was never,
13:21
yeah, remember, still to this day, it's Gable time. Kurt Angle
13:25
wrote about his book, yeah, Gable time. Would we have people
13:29
that come that are not indigenous to the state of Iowa?
13:33
They come out and they go in there 30 seconds in. You know,
13:38
you're timing in your head. You're almost, you know, one,
13:40
Mississippi, two Mississippi. I said, Dude, I wouldn't try to be
13:44
pulled into 30 seconds. I mean, it might, he might see two or
13:49
three different goes and get involved in them another minute,
13:53
then you're the 30 seconds, 10 more seconds, and then just
13:56
screw around with the time, like time is linear. It doesn't have
13:59
any value in that room. I said, cable. Why do you even say that?
14:03
It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You don't know what's
14:06
gonna happen. You don't know what's gonna happen. So those
14:09
mind games, and there's some people that are very pragmatic,
14:12
like my buddy, Eric Pearson. He's from Missouri, and they
14:15
sell cattle down there, and they got land, and if you're on their
14:18
land illegally, they're gonna shoot you. You know, just,
14:22
that's just the way things work down there. Very pragmatic. And
14:26
you say, your mind is your word and this and that and, and, you
14:31
know, there's sale barns, they just shake hands on it while I
14:34
saw a shook on it. And, and he it frustrated him so much, he
14:39
about had to leave the program. I can't trust him. I can't trust
14:44
him. He said, 30 seconds and three minutes later, I can't
14:48
trust a guy like that.
14:51
But it's funny though that like hearing it from, like, your
14:53
perspective, who's, you know, obviously accomplished elite. I
14:56
mean, I was when I was there, I was there for four and a half
14:59
years, and I. Probably wrestled coach cable more than anybody on
15:02
the team. He would literally grab me, whether it be mid
15:04
practice, end of practice, whatever, for the last four and
15:07
a half years of my career there. And it was not only like one
15:10
more 30 seconds, 30 more seconds. Blah, blah, blah, blah,
15:13
blah, he would leave it doing this to me while he's on top of
15:15
me with my arm behind my back and something you're thinking,
15:17
30 more seconds, I just gotta hold on. And three minutes
15:20
later, he's still got my arm behind my back, and he he's
15:23
still coaching practice. You guys, actually, yes, I had to do
15:25
it while you're wrestling.
15:26
Somebody else. Yeah, he had people that he grabbed. Oh yeah,
15:30
I was, yeah, you were Ellen Miller, just, yeah, some guys
15:36
got their stories, because that's how he got a sweat in and
15:40
that worked out, and he would just grab plus he beat he was
15:43
phenomenal on top. So just do that. He just stayed on top. And
15:47
that was,
15:48
that, was that where you got a lot of your top work. I mean,
15:51
you were mostly on top too. I mean, that was
15:53
yeah, no, no, no. In the guys that are above me, I'm fourth on
15:57
the pin list. But the guys that are above hence the name fall
16:01
guy, yeah, but all the guys, the guys above me were, the three
16:04
guys above me were, were Andy Lewis, who's a pinning machine,
16:08
and a freak, but the other guys were heavier, you know, bed
16:11
banning those guys, you know, you get those pins. You know,
16:13
just that weight gets over and they get close, but not your
16:17
athletes. You know, if you look at your Beth, and I'm not
16:19
bragging, but I don't care if it sounds like
16:21
it anyway, you said one time, I hate to stop you there, but you
16:24
told you used to have the saying. And you said it often
16:27
enough, but it holds very true. It's not bragging if you've done
16:32
it.
16:32
Yeah, no, it's not bragging if you've done it. I'm 60 years
16:36
old, so I always said it's just harder, because if you look at
16:42
all your professional sports, your best athletes are right
16:46
there, about 185 181 85 now that used to be smaller back in the
16:50
day, but right now it's closer to 200 you know, those are your
16:54
athletes, guys that can dunk a ball. I'd like to know how much
16:57
Michael Jordan weighs, you know, or Carl Lewis ways, but you get
17:02
up heavier, you don't have the athleticism, and you get
17:04
lighter. It's just not, you know, they're just not there,
17:09
not that those guys can't wrestle, you know, because I was
17:11
on world teams with John Smith, who was phenomenal. But you're
17:16
athletes. You're seeing the athletic that wins 100 yard
17:20
dashes and stuff. They're all about Buck 80, you know. So I
17:25
always said I had to pin a lot of real good athletes. You get,
17:28
you know, those bigger heavyweights, they get a little
17:31
tippy. We're just
17:32
talking about, like the guys that you wrestled yesterday at
17:35
the clinic. And, I mean, you're, I mean, I asked you point blank,
17:38
in front of all the kids, is there any other I don't you said
17:42
that. You told that story yesterday about your last US
17:45
Open, and you beat two Olympic champions at the same US Open.
17:48
And I don't know if there is anybody that's ever that else
17:51
has ever done that.
17:52
Well, they did an article. No, they did an article about that.
17:55
It might have been done internationally, but not in the
17:57
United States. That were a guy beat two Olympic gold medals,
18:00
and it just happened to be in the US Open. So that's, that's
18:03
not a little Cavalier tournament, you know, you show
18:05
up a Podunk tournament, but that was, that was a tough tournament
18:09
that you're and that's what you're trained to do, and you're
18:12
expected to do when you reach a certain level. So, you know, I
18:16
was, I always said I was among the sharks, too. My hit list is
18:20
unbelievable with with the guys that I had to make that Olympic
18:24
team in 92 I had to wrestle through Dave Schultz, Melvin
18:29
Douglas and Kevin Jackson, that three World Champs right there.
18:32
So they talk about parity now about, oh, you got dake and
18:37
Burroughs. Then, wait, we had, we had that four of us. You
18:42
know, the only one that could be close would be Burroughs, dake
18:47
and Taylor, when they were trying to make that that team
18:50
for Rio. But it's good to have that parody, because that's what
18:54
we need, and that's what we need in our in Iowa right now. You
18:59
know, I'm always a Hawkeye. I talked to Tom brands half hour
19:03
this morning. We need where your backups can go to another school
19:08
and and win it. And that's, that's what we're getting back
19:13
to. And certainly, the tables have changed for a lot of this
19:21
NL, money. You know, it's crazy. Can you believe being as a
19:25
junior high school being offered $5 million to come to come to
19:29
Iowa, unbelievable. I'm not gonna mention any names, but you
19:32
guys kind of know, yeah, yeah. It is. My ex father in law
19:39
called me about two weeks ago. And he goes, Man, did you see
19:44
that he turned down that money for 5 million? I said, Where the
19:47
hell was that 5 million back when you went? And I said, Yeah,
19:51
I know I missed the boat. And he goes, we all did
19:54
this talking about that today. Like, man, just like what you
19:58
and LuBu and Enrico would have been. Lord, back in the day, my
20:01
goodness,
20:02
well, I would have shoot. I was I would have spent a third on
20:07
alcohol, another third on on women, and I probably just blown
20:11
the rest.
20:14
Yeah, cuz it wasn't, it was It wasn't all work back in the day.
20:18
It was work and play. You guys, you guys. You guys worked hard
20:21
and played hard back in the day, didn't you? I mean, it's, I
20:23
mean, this is, like, legendary stuff. I mean, I literally tell
20:25
people about how you guys, I couldn't even imagine, like,
20:28
what, what transpired back in you, your day with, with that
20:32
crew you were
20:33
in well, and I want to preface what I just said, that was an
20:35
old babe, Ruth, you said, third on alcohol, third on debauchery,
20:42
and the other third I just blew. So I'm not gonna try to take
20:46
credit for that, and I don't want to get in trouble for that.
20:50
But I always said that I came along during the perfect time
20:55
for me, though, I tell people I had a PhD when I left the farm
21:01
and they go PhD, I said, Yeah, poor, hungry and driven, and
21:07
that's what you want. You want just a little bit of angst to
21:10
you. And I was a recruiter for Dan Gable for about nine years.
21:13
I always looked at their their socio economics, and if the guys
21:19
had a little bit of money, and they had a nice car and maybe an
21:22
ancillary vehicle that they took on trips. And I would shy away
21:26
from them a little bit. I would go more towards the guys that
21:29
had nothing, because you're going to fight a lot more. Now
21:32
this money's changed the whole dynamic, the paradigm of money
21:37
and wrestling in this and that, you know, when you got money.
21:41
Everything seems okay, you know. But when you're not, and you got
21:44
to go win that US Open, maybe you're four months behind in
21:48
rent. You know, that's why I went over. And that'll be a
21:52
whole nother podcast going to the fox catcher. You know, I was
21:55
the first Hawkeye to come over there. So I'm, I've seen a lot
22:01
at 60, I can really look back. I'm in the process of collecting
22:05
stories for my own book, you know. And it's going to be more
22:09
along the level of this podcast, more Cavalier and not takes
22:14
ourselves too serious, but draw drives home. Some point,
22:18
everybody's got a serious you know, no matter what happens
22:21
somewhere, somebody out there will take something too serious,
22:25
and that's not my stuff. It's not my style. Well, you
22:27
mentioned,
22:28
you mentioned Fox cashier, and you mentioned competing against
22:30
Dave Schultz back in the day, but you also, you were also
22:33
very, very tight with him. You had a great relationship
22:35
with, yeah, yeah. We wrestled a couple times. Yeah. What was it
22:39
like wrestling that guy? I mean, it was phenomenal. You know
22:42
what? You asked about stories. I'll give you a story. So I was
22:47
one of the first ones to go to Fox catcher, the one of the to
22:50
go out there. Rico chiparelli lived out there, so I don't
22:54
really put him in that that encapsulate him there. But he
22:58
was the fox catcher too, but I was the one that left the
23:01
Hawkeyes, and I said, I'm not leaving you guys. I'm just
23:05
coming out there because they got great partners out there. So
23:08
I went out there, and I showed up for workout, and there was a
23:13
limousine to pick me up at the Philadelphia Airport,
23:17
an nil. No, it wasn't. Yeah, right.
23:20
Well, he was an IL before n i l was so, so I got, I got in. They
23:25
had big sign. First time anybody's ever had a sign that
23:28
said Roy salger. I was like, wow, this is a whole different
23:33
world. You ever had that when you got off a plane and they, I
23:37
mean, think about it. Guy dressed up like a guy, like out
23:40
of the movies, so I went in there, and they drove me
23:43
straight to practice. I came and put my bags down, and I was
23:46
going to get a sauna, but the workout was in the middle. The
23:49
Workout started at three, so it was about 420 so I was watching
23:53
workout, and I went to the sauna afterwards. But in the middle of
23:56
the workout game, Schultz, who I'd never met before, came up
23:59
and asked me if I go tomorrow, the next day? And I said, Okay.
24:03
And he said, Good, one o'clock. Okay. Then I was like, I looked
24:07
up on the list, thinking they changed workout, and it wasn't,
24:10
was it three o'clock tomorrow? He wants to go at one, so I go
24:14
in there. Have you ever watched the movie Apocalypse Now? Kind
24:18
of an austere, kind of ominous feeling when you get there. I
24:23
walked in there in the room, it was a long wrestling room, and
24:26
there's four mats, and it was dark and sullen. It was just
24:30
like somebody's gonna die in here. And I was hoping it wasn't
24:36
me. So I go over there, and he's putting his shoes on against the
24:40
wall. So I came over there, and I slid down. I'm gonna put my
24:43
shoes on with him. And that's kind of a right of, you know,
24:47
how you say, How you doing, you know, I'm gonna put my shoes on.
24:50
We're both putting our shoes on. And he got up, we went to the
24:52
other side of the room. I'm like, Okay, this guy's playing
24:56
head games with me. He's He's a legend. He's our. Radio, four
25:00
time, four or five time. World medals. Let me go. Medals. I
25:04
said, Okay, I hadn't lost workout in two years. So I'm
25:07
like, okay, he wants this. We're gonna go. So there was a huge
25:12
swimmer clock up on the wall, and it clicked. You know, you
25:17
can see what time it was. Just clean this day. It was probably
25:20
three foot wide, three foot deep, you know, whatever. And,
25:27
and exactly at one o'clock he got took the center, and he
25:31
dropped down to one knee. So I'm, I mean, I'm not gonna let
25:34
that some bitch get more than me. So I dropped down. He goes
25:37
go, and he jumps over, and he front headlocks me, and I post
25:41
my hand on my knee, and he's caught just enough of my my
25:44
shoulders driving into my jugular vein. But I'm posted out
25:49
like and he's not gonna but his grip was so strong and so
25:53
tenacious, I never felt felt like the gears of the machine,
25:56
but it felt like, Have you ever stuck your hand in the cell
25:59
that's gone, that's moving? You know what I'm talking about,
26:02
like a garage door. You just feel it coming, you know? And
26:06
and after about, I'd say, about four minutes, he didn't leave
26:11
that position. It was just kind of like a snake around you. And
26:16
I don't remember anything after that. And I woke up, and I
26:19
looked at the clock, and it was 12 after one, and I was out, and
26:24
he was splashing. He made two trips to the locker room, to the
26:30
room where the medicine is, and the ice and all that stuff. And
26:33
he he gave was putting rags on me and ice on me woke me up, and
26:39
I had a bad, bad headache, and I just got up and I said, I'm
26:42
never wrestling you in a unless there's somebody around, because
26:46
he probably could have killed me, but that was kind of his way
26:49
of peeing on the trees around the bushes. I never thought ill
26:53
of him for it. I just knew that. I just knew there were guys out
26:56
there like that. I just never felt one before. So, I mean, you
27:00
have a certain responsibility of safety when you're wrestling
27:05
somebody and you're out of position and stuff, but that was
27:09
no, there's no, there's no written agreement between lions
27:14
and lambs. You're going into battle, and you better be
27:18
vigilant, because there's guys out there that will take you
27:21
out. And he it was the first time I ever felt for my the fear
27:26
of my life. And what's crazy about that story is, I told it
27:29
to Randy Lewis one time, and he was bawling. I'll let him tell
27:33
his story, but he was balling. He did it to me too. And then
27:39
Tom brands, who's driving the car goes, he did it to me too.
27:43
So we all have that first experience of death, of like,
27:48
okay, this guy almost killed us. But that was, that was a great
27:53
learning lesson to be vigilant, because there's times it gets a
27:58
little heady, you know, you start swatting and it's just you
28:01
two working out. I mean, you can choke a guy to death and you
28:07
feel it in that was the first time I ever felt anything like
28:10
that. And I got a lot of respect for him too. You know, I just
28:14
love the guy.
28:16
Yeah, because you guys obviously your relationship.
28:19
At his funeral,
28:22
I sang in his soon acapella, they asked me if I could pull
28:25
off a song. I said, Of course I can. Back in those days, of
28:29
course I can. That's spoken like true voice. Alger, come on. I
28:33
sing. Ask a question. I sang the song heroes and friends by Randy
28:37
Travis. Oh, that's a great song. I ain't lived forever, but I've
28:42
lived enough. Still.
28:44
Do it, yeah, so do it. Step aside. Eli, step aside. Old
28:46
Dad's coming in, right? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, so
28:50
Schultz. I mean, obviously you wrestle him in competition a
28:53
couple times, but would you consider him? I mean, he would
28:57
probably, you know, he said, anybody your weight class had
29:00
been one of your nemesis, but you had a lot of them back in
29:03
the day. A lot of nemesis, a lot of
29:05
well, the first time I saw Dave Schultz wrestle, live, live. He
29:11
had TechEd Kevin Jackson 1989 at that same sun kissed tournament.
29:15
I was in WoW, and I deferred not to talk to about my matches with
29:20
him. He was a 63 pounder moving up to 180 so I don't you know
29:26
that guy's done so much for wrestling. I was just, let's
29:30
just put this way, I was. It was a wonderful thing to have him
29:33
around my career and and also, I'm one of those guys that got
29:39
to say I got to wrestle Chris Campbell. I trained with. What
29:43
was that? Like, Chris Campbell was phenomenal. That's the best
29:47
I've ever put my hands on, really, that's, I was just gonna
29:49
ask you, no, no, he was the best I've ever put my hands on.
29:53
He. I mean, that's like all international guys, all
29:56
American, no one's
29:57
no one's not from what I was. Felt Wow. Now I wrestled with
30:01
John Smith, and that's not the same, but the best guy at my
30:04
weight, contemporary Chris Campbell, was 30, I think maybe
30:10
37 or 38 when he took that bronze, yeah, and he lost the
30:14
kadarse in the semifinals by one point. So, I mean, he was right
30:19
there. So be able to do that. He's one of my one of my guys I
30:26
live look up to, so and I've wrestled some, you know, I was
30:31
telling you on the ride over here, 30 years ago, no, 40 years
30:37
ago. This weekend, I I started my trek to become a legend. And
30:44
they said, What do you mean by legend? I said, in order to
30:46
become a legend, you got to beat a legend. And I wrestled Andre
30:50
Metzger in the finals of the Midlands in 1985 and beat him
30:55
nine to eight. Wow. So that was the first step, when I could
31:01
beat guys that have literally moves named after them, the
31:07
Metzger, if anybody knows anything about wrestling on this
31:09
podcast, a Metzger is, is, is a formative just a great, great
31:15
move. It's a very, very strong defensively and offensive move,
31:21
you know, it's done, you know, with position and leverage. And
31:26
he actually met scared me right at the end. I stepped out of it
31:30
and metzgered him, really. And Gable goes, shot him with your
31:33
own gun. And I love Metzger to this day, he came to my house
31:37
and slept on my couch. Wow. And Randy Lewis lives with me. Randy
31:43
Lewis, unfortunately, he's a double stroke victim. We don't
31:45
make any in he's been living with me now for about six years.
31:49
So it's kind of like the Brotherhood we call ourselves.
31:52
We have the Heisman house.
31:54
Yeah, so we're gonna get the Heisman house, and that's gonna
31:57
be, I'm not
31:57
gonna mention his stories, but Andre Metzger came to my house
32:01
about two years ago, and I get a knock on my door, and I open up
32:06
and and it's, I'm, like, it was snowing out. And he goes, who
32:10
the hell it's Andre Metzger, yeah, come on in. So he comes on
32:17
in, and he sits down, and I'm, I'm turning the TV down because
32:21
Randy likes to use listen to it at the highest level. And I
32:25
said, rain, we're gonna visit here. So I was talking, and I
32:28
go, Andre, can I get you anything you use? Yeah, if you,
32:30
I wouldn't mind if you, you make me a ham sandwich and blah,
32:34
blah, blah, blah, and maybe a glass of milk and some chips. So
32:39
I went in there, whipped him up. He ate everything. I'm like, I
32:43
did ask him. He just showed up. He showed it. Randy Lewis
32:47
invited. He was going through town or something, so he slept
32:52
on my couch. But 40 years ago, and I'll never forget, because I
32:58
was succeed in the Midlands. I wasn't Roy selju yet. I was just
33:01
an aspiring Roy Seljuk, if you can do that. And they kept on
33:08
there and Andre Metzger ring because he had lost to vidsive
33:12
in the world at 149 I was at 158 but VIV moved up. So he became
33:18
ranked number one ranked in the world. Wow, of course, he was
33:21
doing number two in the world. Yeah, rank number one in the
33:25
world. Andre Metzger, you know, the girl that does that, not the
33:28
guy, but Sally, right? And, and, like everybody else, is shaking
33:37
like a dog passing hammer handles. And I'm sitting back
33:41
there with with Dan Gable. I'm back there with Dan Gable, and
33:45
I'm like, I'm with Dan Gable. I don't worry about that guy.
33:48
Yeah, I got legends back here. You know, that's the that's the
33:52
big thing. That's the big thing about really becoming a legend
33:58
is you gotta, you gotta, you're around other people,
34:01
contemporaries that have those goals and have those it takes
34:05
that, that shininess off them, like, Oh, shit. I just had lunch
34:10
with him the other day. He's in two time. Now I can do that.
34:12
Yeah, he eats the same way I do. He's working in the same room I
34:16
am. So I always said a lot of those national titles were won
34:20
right there in that sauna, just listen to stories. I just wanted
34:23
to have a story to shut somebody else up in there. Then I, you
34:27
know, then you win one national title. Then you got to win How
34:30
many did you win? While you got to at least win two, I'm just
34:32
gonna be a one. Then you got us opens. And then you got world
34:36
medals. How many world medals you got? Because that's the true
34:39
mark. You know, I tell everybody, I got went off to my
34:43
very first World Championships. I took silver. I was so proud of
34:47
that I took it home and had it bronzed.
34:55
Of course, he did, yeah, Terry, Terry brands, once, he always.
34:59
He always had this little figure speech. Said, if the sauna Walls
35:03
Could Talk, oh, what's I mean, you got to have one story that
35:07
sticks out. Royce in the sauna. Give us an Iowa, Iowa wrestling
35:10
story from back in the day in this in the sauna. Hold on
35:13
there. I don't
35:19
know. I'm so damn popular, this phone keeps coming off. I was
35:23
thinking about getting rid of my cell coverage. Is just start
35:26
hanging out with everyone that I know
35:29
that's busy too.
35:33
Oh, you know what? Let me tell you something, some of the
35:35
craziest things in the sauna weren't really applicable to
35:39
wrestling. A lot of it was just, a lot of it was just hearsay and
35:46
stories from the night you know, that you got, I
35:49
remember, I remember the first time that I, like, saw you and
35:52
Tom and Terry, like, with a little rubber gym, with the
35:55
bands, like doing curls and presses and bungee stuff. And so
35:58
I'm like, What are these guys doing? What in the world? Pretty
36:00
soon later, I was doing, what am I doing? This is crazy.
36:03
No, that little those, I started those little bungees, yeah,
36:09
yeah. Those are back in 83 so there's a myriad of stories
36:15
about the sauna. I tell the stories when I first went to,
36:18
like, I went to a place called Yakutsk. If you look that up,
36:23
it's Yakutsk. I don't know if that's in Siberia. I believe it
36:27
is the farthest east part, almost to where the Bering Sea
36:30
is. You know, that's how east of Russia it is. I don't know if
36:33
people realize that Russian United States, as per Alaska,
36:38
were once connected. And dasanas, there are like, eight
36:45
or nine tiers. I heard they're crazy, yeah. And you couldn't
36:48
set up at the top two unless you're a world, a world, world
36:53
medals on the second highest and only Olympic gold medals got to
36:57
sit at the top really, yeah. And I loved it, because I was like,
37:00
I'm gonna freaking sit there someday. I got, you know, I
37:04
tried as hard as I could. I took a silver in the world. I went 23
37:07
and one the year I did. And I just thought I was gonna win the
37:10
Olympics. I was gonna win the worlds in 91 and the Olympics 92
37:14
and then coach Iowa afterwards. But that's not how it went. So a
37:20
guy that I'd beat five in a row and 10 to four in the national
37:24
finals end up beating me to make that team. Kevin Jackson, so,
37:28
well, that's, that's a whole nother,
37:30
which is, you said it was like the greatest American rivalry in
37:35
now, flow wrestling, that's right, I think. Well, Flo
37:40
wrestling said, out of all the guy, the superb world medalists
37:43
and guys that met in the national finals, man, you don't
37:46
have Larry owing going out and winning world titles, and then
37:49
come back, I wrestled get Chris. I wrestled Kevin Jackson 18
37:55
times. I'm 10 and eight against him, and I won the I was seven
37:58
and two going into that team in 92 so if we had these other
38:04
rules right now, and I hope he's listening, if he had these rules
38:07
where you had to hold the mat, he would have never beat me
38:10
ever, because he wouldn't hold the mat ever. But they can say
38:14
what they want about that.
38:16
I'm still Roy salger, and I'll talk like
38:20
so I kind of like these rules, but, well, I missed the NL. I
38:24
missed the whole Matt rules so, but you know what? At the end of
38:29
the day, it's just a bunch of freaking excuses. You know what
38:31
I say to people out there? I'm the guy that has to listen to
38:35
all the guys that almost won a state title and almost won a
38:39
national or became an American. You know what I say to him? Now
38:42
I said, I'm gonna stop you right there. And I This might hurt
38:46
your feelings when you say it, but it was just, it'll just been
38:50
a lot easier just to win that damn match, because everybody's
38:56
sick and everybody's hurt, and everybody this, and everybody
38:59
beat that guy, and I love you, and this sport is gets the pain
39:04
out of you. It's a painful, painful, it's some similar to a
39:08
contemporary marriage. I can say,
39:14
Yeah, that's good. That's good. Well, I mean, like I said, I
39:19
mean, obviously,
39:19
which is why I'm trying to save my divorce.
39:27
Oh, man, but no, I remember watching you and Jackson go at
39:31
it. I mean, what I mean? And obviously, you know, I mean when
39:34
you guys were competing against each other, I was state, but
39:37
just more internationally than when I when I got to Iowa, you
39:40
know, obviously you were, you know, still Hawkey club stuff,
39:42
and then watching you guys on the senior level is just, yeah,
39:45
it was, what was the difference between, when you made that skip
39:50
from the from the college level to the international level? What
39:55
was that like, that whole transition to being one of the
39:57
very, very best in in our country? Yeah. And then having
40:00
to go and go out and,
40:03
well, I'll tell you what, um, here's the deal. Here's just how
40:07
I I'm taking my shirt off here. Things are getting sweaty. We're
40:12
talking about Kevin Jackson holding the mat, and it's
40:15
getting crazy. I'm gonna put my hat on. It's good thing. I'm not
40:20
wearing any underwear?
40:25
Oh, there's sticky in here.
40:30
No, here's the deal. I always, I always everybody that's ever
40:35
known me, I've always willed myself to win anyway. I just
40:38
those progressions. I knew I was going to be in my fourth grade
40:42
book, I wrote to myself about winning a world title and a
40:47
national title, so those goals were very early. In fact, it's
40:51
funny story. I bumped into the to the press citizen guy when I
40:56
got inducted in the Hall of Fame in 2012 and he was laughing
41:00
before I even got to talk to him, I said, What are you
41:02
laughing at? He goes, you had the funniest saying or quote
41:07
I've ever heard when you got inducted in the 12. And I said,
41:11
What did I say? And you said, I asked you, you know what you
41:14
you're from Lisbon, that's 20 miles from here, and you went to
41:18
Iowa. You didn't take any recruiting trips. You didn't go
41:21
to any other school you never thought about do you have any
41:23
regrets? And I said, Well, this, there is one. And he was like,
41:29
you know, okay, what is it? And I said, Well, the only grit I
41:33
ever had that is never in the Iowa crowd to cheer for myself.
41:41
And he goes, he goes, I wanted to put that so bad, but I didn't
41:46
think you were serious. I said, you should have put that down.
41:49
That's exactly how I felt. He goes, have fun. You know, I had
41:54
another reporter one time. We were out in Colorado Springs,
41:57
and he goes, Well, you train for two cycles, and not a lot of
42:00
people do, you know that's a long time to train. That's hard
42:02
on your body. You took a silver medal in the world right away.
42:07
You know, you're ranked number one in the world. Did you ever
42:09
think about not training? I said, you know, it's funny. I
42:12
had a lot of friends that told me, you know, be happy with that
42:15
silver medal and you're beating your body up. You need to go
42:17
maybe smell the roses and maybe retire. He goes, what did that
42:22
do? And I said, Well, I listened to him, and it kind of motivated
42:25
me a little bit. I remember that I got up real early one morning
42:30
and I went out and I got a whole new set of friends.
42:42
That's that. Did that happen? I kind of stopped talking to those
42:47
guys. Listen that shit. I gotta get up at six in the morning.
42:50
Yeah, you need to quit doing that. You're beating your body
42:53
up above. Well, okay, well, I didn't pick up their phone
42:57
calls. The greatest thing to do. Here's the one thing about I
43:01
want to give to all you young people out there, whatever as
43:04
hard as your life might be when you think it is, or your
43:09
interactions with other people, people are going to do what
43:11
people are going to do, and there's no way you can make
43:14
somebody pick up the phone or you make no way you're going to
43:17
get somebody to get up and answer that Call at five in the
43:21
morning and go run. It's got to come internally, and it's got to
43:25
be intrinsic to who you are. So I talked about that, that that
43:29
PhD is not just something of a, you know, it's not an acronym.
43:34
It's it's something, you know, you can't fake being poor and
43:39
you can't fake being hungry, and you can't fake being driven. And
43:43
as silly as I am on the other side of the equation, on the
43:47
polar opposite of that, I'm as serious as you can be. In fact,
43:51
the representative of each other, the crazier I am over
43:54
here shows you how serious I was over here. And you need those
43:58
duality, kind of like that dichotomy of emotions and
44:01
energies to offset it, because if you're just one side, you're
44:05
going to be go crazy. So you got to make sure that you're doing
44:09
it for the right reasons. But I've seen, I've seen one state
44:16
title. I'll give you another story here one time, Tom, Tom
44:20
brands, Terry brands, and myself were going out to Colorado
44:23
Springs. And we, we, we had rented this shitty Saturn from
44:28
Carl, Chevrolet and Cedar Rapids or whatever, and we were driving
44:33
it out there. And course, Terry and Tom were just beating the
44:35
hell out of it. So on the way back, tire blue, you know,
44:38
because we took it up to Pikes Peak, and we were just doing
44:41
crazy sitting. I wasn't, I don't, I know, never drive when
44:45
those two are in the car. So we get, we're coming up, we get to
44:49
a place called Sterling. It's on the way back from Denver to
44:53
before you hit Nebraska. I think that's the name of the town.
44:56
Tire goes flat, so we're in there. And. We go, we pull it
45:01
in, we go to the gas station, and it's, it's, it's tubbies,
45:05
tubbies tires and and gas whatever. Says, Hey, we want, we
45:09
need a new tire. And he goes, Well, you know, we don't have
45:12
these tires here. We looked in here. We're gonna have to send
45:14
somebody from down to Denver. It's gonna be a couple hours.
45:17
You guys can go eat. So, okay, yeah, by the way, Tubby, he owns
45:23
this place. He's state champ. He won the state title in 1972 or
45:29
whatever, and blah, blah, blah, it's about gables age a little
45:32
bit younger. So he said, Okay, we went over the restaurant. We
45:36
ordered food and this and that. And the lady goes, well, you
45:38
know Tubby, he's he wanted to state title across the street.
45:41
He's already, he's got born and bred here, and certainly, oh,
45:44
wow, that's good. That's great. Yeah, we heard that. Blah, blah,
45:46
blah. Then we go over to grocery store to get up some waters and
45:49
this and that and just same thing again. Cashiers that we so
45:53
we go back to the gas station here, waddles in this five foot
45:57
two bat balded. Hey, I won a state title. So I would tell
46:05
everybody that one state title can raise the station of a whole
46:09
town. It can raise the spirits of it. You know, remember back
46:14
in Liz, back in at the state tournament, guy from Stanwood,
46:18
Lincoln, Stanwood went first guy that ever go to state, their
46:21
school closed down, yeah, and they put three school busses up
46:25
there. It's crazy. And anytime you have three busses from
46:29
Stanwood, Des Moines, Iowa, they are a long ways from home. Stan
46:34
was just another Mechanicsville without the glitter.
46:39
So it's Stanwood Mechanicsville up there.
46:42
You have to be from Iowa to understand this company,
46:46
Mechanicsville in Des Moines,
46:48
like the low Royce Alger jabs of all small town Iowa, because,
46:52
because he's because Lisbon's the supremacy.
46:55
Well, they say in Stanwood that town hasn't grown in 50 years,
46:59
because every time a girl gets pregnant, the guy leaves town.
47:02
Well, speaking
47:07
of being on, we're gonna, we're gonna go into a special segment
47:10
right now, just real quick, and we'll get back the hell just
47:12
well, this is gonna be, this is gonna be, this is gonna be the
47:15
time of the episode right here that everybody's gonna want to
47:18
tune into. But every week we are, we are going to do a nobody
47:21
knows section. Yes, nobody knows that this, this, this episode is
47:26
nobody knows. Section is sponsored by my boy, Josh
47:29
sturgell, at consolidated medical. And we want to know,
47:34
and let's keep this rated R below. Joyce, we can't be good.
47:37
We can't be getting we can't be we can, we can't, I know. We
47:39
can't be getting kicked off YouTube. You know, first, first
47:41
episode out the joke. No, it's been good. It's been good. We're
47:46
just gonna ease it into it. But, uh, give us a story, no, that
47:50
nobody knows. Well, I mean, you know you're closest, whatever
47:54
you're close, but the masses, nobody knows.
47:57
Royce, this is one of my austere stories. It has to do a little
48:02
bit with it has to do the last trip I went on with Dave Schultz
48:09
in we were roommates, and he he would hang out clothes and show
48:18
me how to make spaghetti and coffee pots and and he spoke
48:24
fluent Russian. I don't know if people know that. And then we
48:27
would, at the end of the tournament, we would go down to
48:30
a place called arbot Street in Moscow in he had dark chocolate
48:35
and cognac, and we would go out and drink and eat dark chocolate
48:38
and play chess against the locals, and it was unbelievable.
48:43
But that whole time was like a 28 day camp. We had a training
48:46
camp in Minsk, and so I was rooming with him, and he showed
48:52
me all the tricks in the trades and and and smiles a lot and in
48:58
the at every workout, he had this little black book that he'd
49:02
write in it, and he'd write Daniel Schultz would never leave
49:10
with the team. He always stayed over in Russia. He said, I'm
49:13
gonna go to Stockholm. I'm gonna go here. I'm gonna make my way
49:17
back through Denmark. I'm gonna go here. I'm gonna go there. So
49:21
he never, he never was congruous to rules in things. And I
49:29
remember one time he left out two days early and I was
49:33
cleaning up our room. And I don't I never even told his
49:38
brother. I never told anybody, and I have never opened that
49:42
book up, but I found that book, but I always felt like I
49:45
shouldn't have read that book, so I didn't,
49:50
and no one knows that,
49:53
so that's kind of an austere because you asked, no one knows
49:57
but, but all the great wrestling. Users that I know,
50:01
they have kept some kind of log or some kind of thing, they were
50:04
very circumspect, especially competitors. I would I write
50:09
about twice a week. I there's there's no reason there's no
50:14
fall there's no reason why I don't have a lot of material,
50:18
because I read and I Muse and I write, and I just know that
50:23
there's certain enigmatic minds out there, all of them, Gable
50:28
Schultz Tom brands, very well written, very cerebral, very
50:34
circumspect, and if they have something that resonates with
50:37
them, they're going to write now people would give money for that
50:41
black book.
50:42
Did you take anything out of that until they and apply it
50:45
moving forward?
50:46
No, no, I didn't look in the black. Oh, you didn't. I thought
50:48
you looked at it. No, no, I Well, I will say something.
50:53
There was other scribblings. And if there's anything like that,
50:56
it was like break, you know, break them on break their will,
51:01
blah, blah, blah, something more along the lines, not technical
51:04
so much, but I never opened it up, because he died, that, that,
51:08
that, that about five months later. So I didn't mean to turn
51:15
this into a morbid whatever, but you said, no one knows. I know,
51:22
and it's at the farm in the basement. So where I keep a lot
51:26
of other secrets in all the other dead bodies.
51:31
Speaking of dead bodies, who is the who is the toughest teammate
51:35
that you had back in your day?
51:36
Chris Campbell, yeah. Well, here's the deal. Chris Campbell,
51:40
is 10 years my junior. He our senior, senior. He won it in 78
51:47
I won it in 88 we're both undefeated two years. We're both
51:50
two time national champs. We both took a silver in the world
51:54
together. But I got a call from him going, Hey, I'm thinking
51:57
about training. I'm like, you know you.
52:03
And he said, Don't worry about that.
52:06
He didn't try out for 84 or 88 and he came back. He wanted make
52:13
the team navy.
52:15
So I would go through workouts
52:20
like I said, pushing me because he was, he was the, he was voted
52:23
the most technical wrestler in the world in 81 and, I mean, he
52:27
won. That's a big deal for an American.
52:30
Especially, felt it. I felt I brought my boy. Well, what made
52:33
him
52:33
so good technically? I'm just curious
52:35
about that. You couldn't get, you just couldn't get him out of
52:37
position, really club him. I mean, with these rules, that's
52:40
how I would have tried to beat somebody like that. You can't
52:42
take them down like gotchas. Gotchas was almost impossible to
52:45
take down. You beat them up and push them out. Which I agree.
52:49
And I digress a little bit. I am so glad we're getting rid of
52:53
that grounding rule. It's such a chicken shit rule, and anybody
52:57
ever came up with that. And another thing too, we need to
53:00
get rid of the weight limitations. These kids are so
53:03
much bigger now. You know Chris Taylor, we'd never have a story
53:07
about Chris Taylor.
53:09
Like I said, I digress. My mind moves quick, but
53:13
Chris Campbell was phenomenal. The only guy that would have
53:17
gave him, I would imagine I never got to wrestle. Mark
53:20
Schultz, but with the part here, if you put people down, but you
53:24
ain't taking Chris Campbell down, you're gonna have to get
53:27
him down on a partier or a technicality. I watched him win
53:31
crosniarsk into Blissey. We went to the first year they had
53:34
crossed the arch the last year that Tbilisi. I watched him win
53:38
12 matches without giving up a point. He gave up one chicken
53:42
push out point, and that wasn't that wasn't fair. He didn't get
53:46
taken down 1212. Matches didn't get scored against all the best
53:50
Russians, all the best Russians, and you got shitty revs. The
53:54
hardest thing about winning tblissey is not just because
53:56
it's a tough tournament and you got to blow through five or six
53:59
Russians. It's because the publicity refs. It's a bunch of
54:03
people from Tbilisi. They ain't gonna, they don't give that up.
54:07
So I've had some unbelievable, unbelievable times over there.
54:12
Well, I bet
54:14
what's been your most unique, I guess, international experience
54:19
just, I mean, like a weird thing you ate, or just something
54:24
internationally that this comes to mind right away.
54:27
Oh, by far. First time I went over with the brands brothers
54:30
before and I was traveling on an old passport. I didn't know that
54:35
you had to use your the new one you got. I loved my old one, and
54:40
it wasn't clipped or anything. I didn't know why I couldn't do
54:43
it. I just lost it. And I was going to Istanbul with Gable. He
54:46
was head wrestling coach in 2094 so I went and got another
54:53
passport. And then when the Russian trip, I won sun kissed.
54:57
So I get to go to Russia. And. And all of a sudden, I took my
55:03
old passport. Well, this is 19, well not and this is like 91
55:07
this is before they won the world. So this was 91 right when
55:11
the wall came down to 90 in Russia. You know, remember the
55:16
Wall came down, and I get over there and they pulled my card
55:25
right away, and then they handcuffed me to a guy from like
55:30
Azerbaijan. They did the handcuffed me to him in the
55:35
chair where back to back. And you guys with experience with
55:38
handcuffs out there, you do not pull on them, because they get
55:42
tighter, any tighter in the harder you pull. So I'm trying
55:46
to talk to this guy in broken language, and he's yelling at me
55:51
in Arabic or whatever the hell they got. So they finally on the
55:57
here's the great thing about this story, it can be validated.
56:00
Terry brands fought his way when they handcuffed me to the floor,
56:05
I might have been I was still handcuffed to that guy from
56:08
Azerbaijan. Terry wanted to come and make sure they weren't
56:11
killing me because he'd watched that Midnight Ride, that
56:15
midnight whatever, that movie about guy in Turkey that gets
56:19
what's the name of that movie? Midnight? Something? Midnight
56:24
Run? No, it's not Midnight Run. It's something else. Midnight,
56:27
something what Midnight Express, it might have been. Yeah. So
56:33
good job. Good Catch over there, and he knew that they could have
56:39
tortured and killed me, and we had the President of the United
56:44
States get involved to get me an emergency passport. So I waited
56:49
there 28 hours. I was handcuffed to a chair that was cemented in
56:54
the ground. So that was better than sitting down so at least I
56:57
could sleep. I was in my fast catcher long jacket, and Terry
57:03
comes in fights his way, because I just want to look at him. I
57:06
want to see his eyes. I look up there. My eyes are like so they
57:12
go down and they left. I had to go catch. I had to go catch the
57:16
later thing. I actually caught up to him later, because it was
57:19
a four hour, four day train ride out to cross the arcs. Wow,
57:23
yeah, so and I was sucked and weighed it sucked in in this
57:30
big, heavy, portly guy comes up with a tripod camera, and I'm
57:36
sitting up there taking my passport picture. We got to
57:38
issue a new passport. Cost 2600 bucks, and this is 91 so that in
57:43
today's economy, that's got to be like four grand, maybe more.
57:47
And I'm sitting there, that's 30 some years, 35 years ago. Wow.
57:53
So put that your hat and smoke it. So I'm sitting there, I'm
57:59
sitting there in this portly guy goes, you know, he talked real
58:04
slow, it's like, and he goes, You know, this is only the
58:09
second time we've ever had to do this. And he had kind of like a
58:13
Humphrey Bogart kind of draw to him or something. I was just
58:16
like, Oh, really. Who's the first? He goes, Well, 1974 Bobby
58:22
Fisher,
58:25
this is Casey. JJ,
58:29
so I was, I was like, okay, he just gave me the greatest story
58:35
topping story I could ever have in my life. And anybody starts
58:38
running their cake hole at a party saying I got this story.
58:44
Shut your hole and sit down. I'm about ready to hold court over
58:49
here, I got handcuffed to a dissident in Moscow. I'm the
58:54
second passport that's ever been issued behind enemy lines. So
59:00
shut your hole and sit down.
59:02
If it wasn't for body Fisher, you'd be the first that's,
59:06
that's, that's a pretty, that's a pretty big deal to follow.
59:09
Yeah, no, I'm glad I followed it. I get my who gets in the
59:12
middle, and then I was down in Cuba one time. He was a big hero
59:18
down there. I guess he went down. Yeah, Bobby Fisher went to
59:20
Cuba. I didn't know that. Wow, they got pictures of him and
59:24
this and that pictures with Hemingway and I mean, if you
59:27
ever get a chance to go to Cuba, what now? Trump screwed that up
59:31
for all of us. Probably gonna get Secret Service at my house,
59:39
I heard kiwi is amazing.
59:40
Speaking of secret service this year, so my son's a singer, and
59:45
he sang the Star Spangled Banner at the nationals down in Tulsa
59:50
two years ago. Okay, so he was with Trump, so he gets to hang
59:55
out and hobnob with Trump yada yada. And he's my son, so that's
59:59
where he's. Elder son, that gives you a little step. You
1:00:02
know, you know how that goes. Just us wrestling is very
1:00:05
esoteric. You know, they were close. So I'm in Philadelphia,
1:00:10
and Eli goes, Dad, I got to get down to Trump. I go, Are you
1:00:13
crazy people tried to kill that guy about four months ago. You
1:00:16
ain't getting no clue, Dad, I gotta, I gotta try. I gotta try.
1:00:20
I said, All right, here's my band. Of course, it was a 2018
1:00:24
NCA plan shed. Try to get down on the floor. Take this
1:00:31
envelope, write a letter to him. Tell him you want to get because
1:00:34
he was trying to do a raise money for the town of Spencer.
1:00:39
So Eli says, okay, so he goes down there. Of course, he gets
1:00:43
handcuffed, and he gets thrown in a little. So he's on his
1:00:46
phone. He sends off one. They're handcuffing me right now. I'm
1:00:50
over in an adjacent bar, about 600 yards away, enjoying the
1:00:55
bar. Yeah, ready to enjoy the finals that I'm like, All right,
1:00:59
I gotta go in. So I was like, I was like, double Oh, seven. So I
1:01:03
go up there, I walk in the front door, and all the kid here on
1:01:08
the radio is, so I go in there and and I said, Listen, I'm
1:01:17
Roy's household. They handcuffed me with them, little white zip
1:01:22
ties. I can't break them. Don't try to break them, though.
1:01:25
They'll cut your hands. But they picked me in a back room and
1:01:30
Eli, they just let Eli and absconded him from the building.
1:01:35
So they're going through just they've got everything that I've
1:01:38
ever done in my life in these four pieces of paper. That's why
1:01:42
I tell people I want to run for I want to run for public office
1:01:45
in my 60s, to piece together my 20s. So I'm sitting there, I'm
1:01:53
sitting there, and I'm going Listen the guy lives in a
1:01:55
Winnebago, a motor home down in Nashville, if you want to go in
1:01:59
there and try to scapulate A fine out of him. Good luck. So
1:02:06
so they put me through the ringer, kicked us both out, so
1:02:09
we will back, and we're hanging out, and I'm like, Eli, that's a
1:02:13
bad move. Blah, blah, blah, I don't know you told me to give
1:02:15
him an envelope, and I wasn't thinking about the ricin and
1:02:18
people trying to kill you know what I'm saying. You can't do
1:02:20
that. So I get home. I don't know how we got in the story,
1:02:24
but it was police, I guess hand kills. I get home to my house, I
1:02:28
walk in there. There's four cop cars at my house at nine in the
1:02:32
morning, and two guys from Kansas City Secret Service. And
1:02:36
they walk, we need to talk to you. I said, What? What's this
1:02:39
about? And he goes, You know what this is about. This about
1:02:41
Philadelphia. You had you gave your son a fraudulent
1:02:45
identification. And I said, Yes. And he goes, so what do you want
1:02:51
from me? And he goes, well, we'd like to do a psychological eval.
1:02:53
And I said, Well, all right, I'll let you crawl up in here,
1:02:56
but if you can't get out, it's your fault. So they sat down for
1:03:02
about 20 minutes with me. Go. Let's get the hell out of here.
1:03:06
This guy is okay, but it would have been interesting
1:03:09
psychological.
1:03:10
I told him, you can come up here, but you might not get out.
1:03:15
Well, let's, let's bring it home with this on this, this note. So
1:03:19
two things with this, with this right here in this, right here,
1:03:21
that in this, this will probably bring up a couple stories, but
1:03:24
so good buddy, good buddy of mine, Josh dull, obviously, the
1:03:26
one that sponsored the nobody knows section. He was at the
1:03:29
Iowa camps a couple years ago, and he asked me to ask you about
1:03:32
this, but there's a sign up above the penalty box, I think
1:03:37
that you put up there. Said, the older I get, the better I was,
1:03:40
yeah, I guess we couldn't really, yeah, we could. We
1:03:45
couldn't really end on a better story than that. I mean, is
1:03:48
that, is that the way these these stories get better the
1:03:51
older
1:03:52
you get? Royce, first of all, there was an old WC Fields. A
1:03:57
cigar is just a cigar, but a woman's no woman's just a woman,
1:04:01
but a cigar is a smoke, you know. So he was him, him or
1:04:08
Fatty Arbuckle. I'm a big proponent of the old guys. So
1:04:13
that's where I got the better, you know, more time goes by, the
1:04:17
better I am, or whatever. But I put the penalty box up there
1:04:21
because all the little sallies that we get come in, you know,
1:04:25
get multiple Stallings, or was just wasn't carrying their shit
1:04:30
Gable would abscond them to the penalty box. Of course, I was
1:04:34
never in the penalty box, but for any of that stuff, I mean,
1:04:39
I've my penalty box was a real penalty box. I was sitting PD,
1:04:44
but
1:04:44
which is gonna be a whole other podcast,
1:04:47
any route I, I would, I would, and I finally put up there,
1:04:53
because somebody Sally's up there, you know, the way you
1:04:55
penalized people at Iowa. This is a paradox. Is You didn't let
1:05:01
them work out. They had to sit up there and watch other people
1:05:05
work out. Put the signers up there sometime. Tell them they
1:05:08
can't wrestle. It's crazy. The mentality and what was built in
1:05:14
hewn from that mind of Gable. It's all started and stopped
1:05:19
with Gable, but I just finally had to put up there. Roy salger
1:05:22
was never here, you little Sally. I think they still have
1:05:27
that up there. Design still up there. I think so, but I think
1:05:31
they might have taken it down to the other room. Now, I don't
1:05:33
know I'm, I'm, I'd have to look into that. But, yeah, I've had a
1:05:39
lot of fun with everybody. So I kind of tried to be that common
1:05:45
denominator that that unites, yeah, yeah. I talked to gable
1:05:51
for a half hour today. You know, he talks about, there's when
1:05:55
people take their breaks when, when I won my first Midland
1:05:58
title, he gave me two days off, and everybody was pissed off at
1:06:02
me and him, but he goes, You don't know, he just beat Andre
1:06:05
Metzger. He knew this guy needs to run for a little bit, so he
1:06:08
got a good read on me my junior senior year, no one had any more
1:06:12
fun and kicked more butt than I did. You know, and that's what
1:06:16
we need to get back to realize that this sport is here to make
1:06:20
us better and enhance our lives, not control them with losses,
1:06:24
you know. And that's where a lot of people fell short, at Iowa,
1:06:28
you know, here I am, 30 some years later from my career.
1:06:32
It'll be 40 years since I won a national title at Iowa. Here in
1:06:37
2007 you know,
1:06:42
or 9787 8787
1:06:47
it'll be 40 years next year. Wow. But in to be still be
1:06:51
relevant, and still be a guy that you want on podcasts, and
1:06:56
still be I can't. I told everybody, I kind of made it to
1:07:00
the Willie Nelson phase of my career. You know, the older, you
1:07:04
know, those old guys are like, Oh, just leave Willie alone. He
1:07:07
wants to smoke a little dough. Who's he gonna hurt? You know, I
1:07:12
kind of reach that legendary status of being the old school
1:07:16
the coaches. Coach when I go out to Colorado Springs, I coach
1:07:19
both Steiner and zadick. They're the coaches Tom and Terry brands
1:07:23
both. I coached them. I was a senior when they were true
1:07:27
freshmen. Think of the impact I had on their lives and their
1:07:31
trajectory of their training. You remember how much I used to
1:07:33
torture those guys? Oh yeah, that's why I walk on water back
1:07:37
there. Yeah, I have four seats behind the team anytime I want
1:07:41
it.
1:07:43
So, yeah, well, we're gonna end with that, Royce, and this will
1:07:47
not be last time. We've already got it booked me, you and LuBu
1:07:50
look, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, to tell
1:07:54
you what that is, something that definitely look forward to. I'm
1:07:59
going to have in one room here in the future, the legendary
1:08:03
Heisman house on one podcast, when I go visit Iowa, and I
1:08:07
cannot wait and but this was a great one to start out with. The
1:08:10
Great One himself, the fall guy, friend of mine
1:08:14
probably back. Here's another thing I'm gonna do this shout,
1:08:16
I'm gonna take the floor from you. Come on in. I'll be back
1:08:20
this summer. I want to do a workshop with you. So I'll bring
1:08:23
Randy out, and we'll put him up, get feed him, yeah, give him a
1:08:27
place to run around, of course.
1:08:32
Place legends workshop. We're gonna call it right now, legends
1:08:35
workshop.
1:08:35
Well, we'll do a three day thing. Let me finish up on what
1:08:38
I want to do with short offense. And I really am serious about my
1:08:43
hand fighting. Gable just told me today that it's one of the
1:08:47
most needed things out there in wrestling right now that people
1:08:51
are out showing hand fighting. Everybody wants to think it's
1:08:54
all down. So I'm here to I'm
1:09:02
here to help out, and we'll have you push it a little bit more.
1:09:07
Have a nice summer.
1:09:08
Royce, appreciate you, brother. All right now, okay, until the
1:09:12
next time. Thanks so much for tuning in. People. You