He's not your grandmother's Olympian.
Brands Made Dennis Promise to Graduate
Aug 2, 2016
It would be fair to say Daniel Dennis didn't care about much following the 2010 NCAA Championships. The 133-pound NCAA runner-up for the Iowa Hawkeyes saw his dreams slip away in the closing seconds of the NCAA finals when Minnesota's Jayson Ness took him feet-to-back for the win.
Dennis was a senior, and had to live with the reality that he would never become an NCAA champion.
He went into a dark place following that loss, and wasn't motivated to do much. As the semester progressed into spring, Iowa head coach Tom Brands sensed Dennis wasn't doing well academically. Then, he caught wind from the Associate Athletic Director that Dennis was headed down a path that did not lead to graduation.
After that, Brands called Dennis into his office to get real with his failing student-athlete. After the confrontation, Dennis gave him his word that he would graduate.
But when he left his coach's office, Dennis got a little anxious and wondered how in the world he was going to pull that. But what seemed impossible ended up happening: Dennis graduated from Iowa--though it nearly didn't happen, and certainly wasn't easy.
Of course, the rest is history. Dennis graduated from Iowa, "retired" from wrestling, moved out west, and returned to come out of retirement. Now, he will represent the United States in Rio at the 2016 Olympic Games.
Shortly after winning the Olympic Trials, Dennis gave FloWrestling access to his life and told us the complete story of the crazy path that this Wild Man took to where he is today.
Check out this deleted scene from Dan Dennis: Wild Man, where Dennis describes that time in his life and how that conversation with Brands went.
Wrestling superstars Brent Metcalf and Kyle Dake chimed in on Twitter about the series
