ABBOTT BLOG: Add Adams, Schultz books to holiday list
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by Gary Abbott USA Wrestling
For those looking for a good read or a good gift, consider these two wrestling-related books now on the market:
• Think It. Believe It. Do It. by Carl Adams
• Foxcatcher by Mark Schultz with David Thomas
I am not calling this a book review, because I can’t be completely objective about both of these projects. I lived some of the stories told in the books, which makes them more personal to me. Carl Adams was my college wrestling coach, a business partner, and a long-time friend and mentor. Mark Schultz’ book gets into the whole Foxcatcher situation, at a time when I was working at USA Wrestling and very involved in the sport at that level.
Regardless, if you have some extra time to do some reading, or you are looking for something to give to someone who is into wrestling, both of these would fit the bill well.
Carl Adams’ book is more than a wrestling book. It is more accurately a book about success, with a wealth of business advice and motivational inspiration included. Wrestling is a central theme, but the topics of this story go much deeper than just our sport.
Mark Schultz’ book is more than just his version of the Foxcatcher story. It is a wrestling book, telling his life story within the sport, about his youth in wrestling, his amazing college career and his relationship with his brother Dave and others. The book also gives some additional information about how Mark thinks and feels, something many of us really don’t know much about.
Let’s start with the Adams book. You may know about his wrestling career, a high school champion from Long Island, N.Y., who went on to win two NCAA titles for Iowa State, compete on a World Team and at the Pan American Games for Team USA. You may know he was a head coach for a short time at the University of Rhode Island and a long time at Boston University. You may also know about some of his inventions, including the ADAM machine. You may have attended his wrestling camps or viewed some of his wrestling videos.
This book goes well beyond the resume. It starts off with his personal story, as the son of a migrant worker on Long Island, N.Y. You learn more about his family and how his character and work ethic was formed as a youth. He explains the influence of his parents on his life, and takes you to his development into a star wrestler for Brentwood High School, the launching pad to a lifetime in wrestling.
A chapter that I enjoyed was his discussion of his mentors, the people who had a major impact on him personally. There is his high school coach Joe Campo, a legend known as “The Gov” who helped shape his wrestling and his approach to life. There is Iowa State head coach Harold Nichols, another legend who brought Adams to the Midwest and put him on the path to two national titles. There’s Bobby Douglas, another legendary athlete and coach who invested time and effort in helping Carl chase his dreams. And there’s his college teammate Dan Gable, perhaps the biggest legend in American wrestling, who pushed Carl to the limit and set an example that made a big difference.
A large portion of this book goes through the various inventions and businesses which Carl Adams developed outside of his role as a wrestling coach. Any wrestler who has ever trained on an ADAM machine when there is nobody to work out with, or during injury recovery, can thank him for this. He talks about his wrestling equipment inventions, his videos and books, his summer camps and other ventures.
It shows his amazing business creativity, as well as his rock-solid determination to make his vision become a reality. Carl has a small business development philosophy, which includes low up-front investment and partnering with others to move a new venture into profitability. This book itself is an example of this, as a self-published product in which he is taking on the role of both production and marketing.
There is also a compelling chapter about the final season of Boston University wrestling, which had one last year after the college dropped the program. It shows how the athletes, coaches and supporters of wrestling stood up together to handle this difficult situation with dignity, class and a unified purpose.
The Mark Schultz book is an entirely different read, but something which will interest anyone who enjoys wrestling. The timing of the book corresponded with the release of the major motion picture “Foxcatcher,” which is opening to rave reviews around the nation. The subtitle of this book is “The True Story of My Brother’s Murder, John du Pont’s Madness and the Quest for Olympic Gold.”
With that title, you might think of this book as just an insider’s view of the Foxcatcher story, from the real-life person who is the major focus of the movie. You would be wrong if you thought that. In fact, the first half of the book has nothing to do with Foxcatcher at all. It tells Mark’s wrestling story, of how he grew up with Dave and the different paths which they took to become wrestling legends. Mark is very direct and frank in the way he tells his story, which is consistent with what I know about Mark and his approach to life.
You may not know that Mark Schultz was actually a gymnast, who ended up in wrestling much later than his brother Dave. You also may not know that Mark Schultz was an average, mostly-unsuccessful wrestler as late as his junior year in high school, and in just one year, became a California state high school champion and a top Div. I college recruit as a prep senior.
Mark shares his college journey, which began at UCLA, where his brother Dave transferred from Oklahoma State. The program at UCLA was dropped after Mark’s first year there, and both of the Schultz boys transferred to Oklahoma to wrestle for Stan Abel. Mark gives you an inside look at what it took for him to win three NCAA titles, including his legendary championship match against Ed Banach of Iowa, one of the best finals bouts in college wrestling history.
Mark also takes us to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where he and Dave won Olympic gold medals side-by-side, including the story of how the referees kept close tabs on the Schultz brothers after they were accused of brutality in their matches.
Certainly, Mark devotes a considerable amount of time about his years in Pennsylvania, as a coach with John du Pont at Villanova University, and then as an athlete training full-time with Team Foxcatcher at du Pont’s Newtown Square estate. Mark tells his story in an emotional way, giving his reasons why his decision to put his wrestling career in the hands of du Pont ended up being a disaster which changed his life forever.
His description of the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, where Mark finished out of the medals, was perhaps the most jarring for me. I was there in person at my first Olympics. Mark’s perspective about the event and his performance helped me understand something which made no sense to me at the time.
If you read the book, you understand that Mark left Foxcatcher Farms after the 1988 Olympics. So much of the du Pont story, including his downward spiral that eventually led to the murder of Dave Schultz, happened after Mark retired as a wrestler and left Pennsylvania to pursue his life as a coach elsewhere. Many of the du Pont stories after Mark left the farm are told in second-person, as Mark heard the different reports from Dave and his other friends who were still with Foxcatcher.
Mark devotes a full chapter to his victory in a UFC fight, which was a huge step forward for him after the disappointing end of his wrestling career. Throughout the book, you get a true sense of how much Mark respected and loved his older brother Dave, and just how devastating Dave’s death was to him, not only at the time of the murder but also every day since.
The last line of the book may be the most telling. It is:
“I miss you Dave.”
There are a number of ways you can get these books. The Carl Adams book is available online on Amazon in a Kindle edition. You can also order it at CarlAdams.com.
The Mark Schultz book is published by Dutton, a major publishing company. You can order it online through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and IndieBound. You can get more information at MarkSchultz.com.
• Think It. Believe It. Do It. by Carl Adams
• Foxcatcher by Mark Schultz with David Thomas
I am not calling this a book review, because I can’t be completely objective about both of these projects. I lived some of the stories told in the books, which makes them more personal to me. Carl Adams was my college wrestling coach, a business partner, and a long-time friend and mentor. Mark Schultz’ book gets into the whole Foxcatcher situation, at a time when I was working at USA Wrestling and very involved in the sport at that level.
Regardless, if you have some extra time to do some reading, or you are looking for something to give to someone who is into wrestling, both of these would fit the bill well.
Carl Adams’ book is more than a wrestling book. It is more accurately a book about success, with a wealth of business advice and motivational inspiration included. Wrestling is a central theme, but the topics of this story go much deeper than just our sport.
Mark Schultz’ book is more than just his version of the Foxcatcher story. It is a wrestling book, telling his life story within the sport, about his youth in wrestling, his amazing college career and his relationship with his brother Dave and others. The book also gives some additional information about how Mark thinks and feels, something many of us really don’t know much about.
Let’s start with the Adams book. You may know about his wrestling career, a high school champion from Long Island, N.Y., who went on to win two NCAA titles for Iowa State, compete on a World Team and at the Pan American Games for Team USA. You may know he was a head coach for a short time at the University of Rhode Island and a long time at Boston University. You may also know about some of his inventions, including the ADAM machine. You may have attended his wrestling camps or viewed some of his wrestling videos.
This book goes well beyond the resume. It starts off with his personal story, as the son of a migrant worker on Long Island, N.Y. You learn more about his family and how his character and work ethic was formed as a youth. He explains the influence of his parents on his life, and takes you to his development into a star wrestler for Brentwood High School, the launching pad to a lifetime in wrestling.
A chapter that I enjoyed was his discussion of his mentors, the people who had a major impact on him personally. There is his high school coach Joe Campo, a legend known as “The Gov” who helped shape his wrestling and his approach to life. There is Iowa State head coach Harold Nichols, another legend who brought Adams to the Midwest and put him on the path to two national titles. There’s Bobby Douglas, another legendary athlete and coach who invested time and effort in helping Carl chase his dreams. And there’s his college teammate Dan Gable, perhaps the biggest legend in American wrestling, who pushed Carl to the limit and set an example that made a big difference.
A large portion of this book goes through the various inventions and businesses which Carl Adams developed outside of his role as a wrestling coach. Any wrestler who has ever trained on an ADAM machine when there is nobody to work out with, or during injury recovery, can thank him for this. He talks about his wrestling equipment inventions, his videos and books, his summer camps and other ventures.
It shows his amazing business creativity, as well as his rock-solid determination to make his vision become a reality. Carl has a small business development philosophy, which includes low up-front investment and partnering with others to move a new venture into profitability. This book itself is an example of this, as a self-published product in which he is taking on the role of both production and marketing.
There is also a compelling chapter about the final season of Boston University wrestling, which had one last year after the college dropped the program. It shows how the athletes, coaches and supporters of wrestling stood up together to handle this difficult situation with dignity, class and a unified purpose.
The Mark Schultz book is an entirely different read, but something which will interest anyone who enjoys wrestling. The timing of the book corresponded with the release of the major motion picture “Foxcatcher,” which is opening to rave reviews around the nation. The subtitle of this book is “The True Story of My Brother’s Murder, John du Pont’s Madness and the Quest for Olympic Gold.”
With that title, you might think of this book as just an insider’s view of the Foxcatcher story, from the real-life person who is the major focus of the movie. You would be wrong if you thought that. In fact, the first half of the book has nothing to do with Foxcatcher at all. It tells Mark’s wrestling story, of how he grew up with Dave and the different paths which they took to become wrestling legends. Mark is very direct and frank in the way he tells his story, which is consistent with what I know about Mark and his approach to life.
You may not know that Mark Schultz was actually a gymnast, who ended up in wrestling much later than his brother Dave. You also may not know that Mark Schultz was an average, mostly-unsuccessful wrestler as late as his junior year in high school, and in just one year, became a California state high school champion and a top Div. I college recruit as a prep senior.
Mark shares his college journey, which began at UCLA, where his brother Dave transferred from Oklahoma State. The program at UCLA was dropped after Mark’s first year there, and both of the Schultz boys transferred to Oklahoma to wrestle for Stan Abel. Mark gives you an inside look at what it took for him to win three NCAA titles, including his legendary championship match against Ed Banach of Iowa, one of the best finals bouts in college wrestling history.
Mark also takes us to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where he and Dave won Olympic gold medals side-by-side, including the story of how the referees kept close tabs on the Schultz brothers after they were accused of brutality in their matches.
Certainly, Mark devotes a considerable amount of time about his years in Pennsylvania, as a coach with John du Pont at Villanova University, and then as an athlete training full-time with Team Foxcatcher at du Pont’s Newtown Square estate. Mark tells his story in an emotional way, giving his reasons why his decision to put his wrestling career in the hands of du Pont ended up being a disaster which changed his life forever.
His description of the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, where Mark finished out of the medals, was perhaps the most jarring for me. I was there in person at my first Olympics. Mark’s perspective about the event and his performance helped me understand something which made no sense to me at the time.
If you read the book, you understand that Mark left Foxcatcher Farms after the 1988 Olympics. So much of the du Pont story, including his downward spiral that eventually led to the murder of Dave Schultz, happened after Mark retired as a wrestler and left Pennsylvania to pursue his life as a coach elsewhere. Many of the du Pont stories after Mark left the farm are told in second-person, as Mark heard the different reports from Dave and his other friends who were still with Foxcatcher.
Mark devotes a full chapter to his victory in a UFC fight, which was a huge step forward for him after the disappointing end of his wrestling career. Throughout the book, you get a true sense of how much Mark respected and loved his older brother Dave, and just how devastating Dave’s death was to him, not only at the time of the murder but also every day since.
The last line of the book may be the most telling. It is:
“I miss you Dave.”
There are a number of ways you can get these books. The Carl Adams book is available online on Amazon in a Kindle edition. You can also order it at CarlAdams.com.
The Mark Schultz book is published by Dutton, a major publishing company. You can order it online through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and IndieBound. You can get more information at MarkSchultz.com.
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