News

Wrestling great Gable to hold clinic

By Wes Nakama 12/28/04
Advertiser Staff Writer

Think of Michael Jordan coming to Hawai'i to do a basketball clinic. Or Tiger Woods giving golf instructions in Honolulu.

That is what Thursday will be like for wrestling fans, who will have a rare opportunity to listen and learn from Dan Gable at a clinic at Iolani School gym.

DAN GABLE CLINIC
WHEN: Thursday, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

WHERE: Iolani School gym

COST: $40, open to all ages (children and adults)

"Dan Gable is THE name in wrestling," said Iolani coach Carl Schroers, who coached 10 state championship teams.

In some ways, Gable is bigger than Jordan and Woods because he built his legendary status as an athlete and a coach.

After going undefeated in his high school career, Gable also went unbeaten at Iowa State University until his final match — for the NCAA championship.

His seven-year record in that span was 182-1. Gable also won the gold medal at the 1972 Olympics without allowing a single point. He later went on to become head coach at Iowa, winning 15 NCAA titles.

Gable retired from coaching in 1997 after hip replacement surgery and now works as an assistant athletic director at Iowa. He is in Hawai'i this week mostly for a family vacation, but also to do the clinic at the request of one of his former Hawkeyes, Hilo High alumnus Pablo Ubasa.

"My main objective is to have people leaving motivated and fired up about life," Gable told The Advertiser in a phone conversation last week. "There also are some wrestling essentials, some basic skills that can be learned through drills that I have found to be effective."

Gable said he hears "good things" about Hawai'i wrestling, citing 2003 NCAA champion Travis Lee (a Saint Louis School graduate attending Cornell) and the popularity of girls wrestling.

Reach Wes Nakama at wnakama@honoluluadvertiser

--------------------------------------------------------

Rumble Roses Reader Review - Where Is This Going?

Author: gamaya December 28, 2004 -

Let me begin by saying that I have worked in the wrestling industry, and specifically the women's wrestling industry, for over 3 years now. I am very familiar with the genre, and of the many companies that produce videos, magazines, websites, and games marketed towards it.
When I initially heard of this game's upcoming release, my first reaction was one of mild suprise. While there have been women's wrestling games in the past, I was suprised to see Konami pushing it to the forefront with a major release. Nonetheless, I was interested to see if Konami would present a truely complete and solid game based on wrestling, or if it would simply turn out to be a weakly engineered flop focused soley on T&A. What I found both suprised me and dissapointed me.

Women's wrestling has, for the most part, always been presented with a "wink wink nudge nudge" air, to say that while women are completely capable of being true sportspersons in an event such as wrestling, the mere fact that they are women has somehow superceded that fact. Instead of fostering and supporting our daughters and sisters in the ernest participation of one of the oldest sports known to man, we grapple with those who are either shocked or titilated by the "two girls going at it", a mindset only worsened by the distorted promotion of women in wrestling as sexual objects and not legitimate combatants. Legitimate highschool and college women's wrestling programs struggle with these same stereotypes every day, and many will never see the light of day because of this.

So now we come to Konami's much hyped and much anticipated release. How has Konami's game presented women in wrestling to the public? Have they created a game where women compete on an equal playing field with men, as capable of being athletic within the sport? Has Konami given us a game focused on wrestling as a sport of entertainment?

Sadly, the answer is no. While the game dynamics are obviously well designed, the heart of the game is lost in the very same type of stereotypical sideshow presentation of women as objects that has plagued women's sports in general for too long.

The fact that Konami would so obviously and so readily present a game where women are presented as sexual objects and oh by the way a wrestling game makes me wonder where the men's wrestling in speedos and jock straps game is? Why don't we have nearly naked men's basketball or oiled up hunks playing baseball? Have we so objectified women that a major software maker can so easily present such a game to a target audience made up of many young and impressionalbe minds without a thought given to the consequences in society?

The video game industry is constantly under pressure, due in large part to the types of games they create. Young people are able to play the role of assasins, criminals, hit men, and the like. Now we have a game where women could be presented as athletes, but are instead present as nothing more than objects. As fans of video games we must realise that this constant reinforcement of stereotypes only damages the industry, not to mention the damage that is brought into our society by a generation of young males that will learn to see women not as caring, loving, and vital parts of our lives, but as sexual objects meant only for our entertainment.

We as a group must speak out ourselves against these types of games, not only for the continued survival of our recreation, but for the very health of the society in which we live. We must speak out for our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters, for they are the providers of life, whom without we have nothing.