"Wrestlers are a little more dedicated than, and are different from, the other people, which may be strange."

"A clean, hard-fought wrestling match is the most honest of athletic contests. There is no technological interventions, no teammates to blame, no panel of judges to bias the score. In wrestling, you compete or you quit. No alibis. I like that"

"When I lifted weights, I didn't lift just to maintain my muscle tone. I lifted to increase what I already had, to push to a new limit. Every time I worked, I was getting a little better. I kept moving that limit back and back. Every time I walked out of the gym, I was a little better than when I walked in."

"If you want to train and work hard 3 months out of the year, well, then, UNI is a great place to go. If you want to bust your tail 6 months out of the year, you should be very happy at ISU. But if you want to train and develop into a champion 12 months out of the year, then Iowa is the place for you."

"You can't ever work too much because there's no such thing as being in too good condition. You can't ever lift too many weights because you can't ever get too strong. You can't ever wrestle too much because you can always do better."

"The obvious goals were there- State Champion, NCAA Champion, Olympic Champion. To get there I had to set an everyday goal which was to push myself to exhaustion or, in other words, to work so hard in practice that someone would have to carry me off the mat."

"Wrestling is the only sport I've ever competed in that puts you totally in a situation of constant motion without breaks. I could play football or baseball, swim -- but there's always some kind of situation that would break my thoughts, break my concentration."

"Wrestling has been a way of life with me day in and day out. I won't get too far away from it. I might walk through the wrestling room once a week. I could go every day if I wanted. But just walk through, make sure it's still there."