Schwab focused but balanced in Beijing
Bryce Miller • Gannett News Service • August 18, 2008
http://hawkcentral.press-citizen.com.../80818009/1053
BEIJING — Holed up most days inside the fences at Beijing Normal University,
Doug Schwab has achieved Olympic-level focus — but apparently not fanatical isolationism.
Tom Brands said he has proof: He keeps getting Boston Red Sox updates.
Schwab will open his Olympics as the U.S. freestyle wrestling contender at 145.5 pounds Wednesday — Tuesday night, Iowa time — at China Agricultural University Gymnasium.
“I get a sense that he's real relaxed over there,” Brands said by telephone as he prepared to come to Beijing to coach Schwab mat-side. “I don't think he's a hermit, sitting there reading a book.
“He had lunch with (NBA players) Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Jason Kidd, and I'm getting text messages about the Boston Red Sox trailing Tampa Bay. So he's still living his life.”
The relaxed-is-good assessment might seem a bit off coming from Brands, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist known for his ultra-focused approach to the sport.
Brands placed Schwab on his coaching staff at Virginia Tech and lured him to the University of Iowa when hired to coach the Hawkeyes.
He knows Schwab well enough, on and off the mat, to understand that balance will be as important as brawn in Beijing.
“I feel good about him,” Brands said. “I feel like he's relaxed, feel like he's training the way he needs to train.
“It sounds all good.”
Schwab avoids answering his cell phone and has politely declines interview requests in the days leading up to his Olympic opener.
He doesn't need to talk about favorites at the Olympics. Those roles belong to 2007 world champion Ramazan Shahin of Turkey, three-time world medalists Geandry Garzon of Cuba and Otar Tushishvili of Georgia, along with two-time world medalist Irbek
Farniev of Russia.
Brands climbed to the top of the Olympic podium in Atlanta one year after finishing ninth at the world championships.
Growth and medal potential can change quickly.
“It's not a matter of sneaking up,” Brands said. “There are five or six in the world picked as could-be winners — and I think he's in that category, because of his style.
“You have to get better between the trials and the Games. It's not back up the thrusters and coast in. I know that even when he left for China, there was still gain to be gained. He hadn't peaked yet. That's a good thing.”
Schwab said last week that his wife, Allyson, convinced him to push forward in international wrestling.
When he asked one day whether he should continue, she said: “You don't want to win a world title?”
Wrestling-intense environments in his hometown of Osage, Iowa, and at the University of Iowa also shaped his road to Beijing.
“Growing up in the state of Iowa, I had two brothers wrestle before me who set the standard for me,” Schwab said. “I grew up wanting to wrestle Iowa style, and that has transferred over to my international career.
“I get to spend every day with
Tom Brands and
Dan Gable, Olympic champions.”
Brands transformed into a Red Sox fan because of Schwab.
The normally mild-mannered Schwab's blood pressure rose one night while watching a game at a bar.
“He wanted to take on the whole bar in Virginia because Yankee fans were giving him a hard time,” Brands said. “I couldn't help but root for them (Red Sox), just because of his passion.”
Brands isn't sure if he's the only person get Red Sox updates from 12 time zones away from Boston.
“I don't know,” he said. “There are a lot of Red Sox fans out there.”
Bryce Miller is the sports editor of The Des Moines Register.
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