Sport Runs Deep for Jim and Lennie Zalesky

Sport runs deep for pair
By Michael Mirer/Enterprise staff writer

They wedged the worn wrestling mat, a gift from their high school coach, into the corner of their cellar, right up against the gas furnace that heated the Zalesky home in winter.

The mat went next to the weight set, which had come from a neighbor whose commitment to lifting weights never quite matched his impulse to buy them.

The boys learned their moves from a book, mimicking the techniques they saw in the pictures while finding a constructive outlet for their sibling rivalry.

Lennie, Jim and Larry Zalesky emerged from that one-room basement and climbed to the top of the heap in a wrestling-crazy state. They went on to the University of Iowa, joining the Hawkeye wrestling program as it began an ascent nearly unmatched in the annals of college sports.

Tonight at The Pavilion, Lennie’s UC Davis team wrestles a dual meet with Jim’s Hawkeyes in a family reunion doubling as, perhaps, the most anticipated match in Aggie history.

“Iowa’s the program with the history, “Lennie said.

The Zaleskys are part of that storied past, which begins with the arrival of their mentor, Dan Gable, in 1977. Under his leadership, Iowa evolved into the nation’s pre-eminent wrestling school.

Gable was already an Iowa legend. He had never lost a bout in high school and had lost only one in college at Iowa State – his last in the 1970 NCAA final. He had won a gold medal at the 1972 Olympics.

When Gable took over the Hawkeyes, they were used to playing second fiddle to the Cyclones, who had won five national titles in a decade.

Gable’s teams won the Big 10 championship all 21 seasons he coached at Iowa. They won 16 team national championships, had 45 individual champions, and boasted 152 All-Americans. The Hawkeyes won nine straight national championships between 1978 and 1986.

“He was intense in the sense that he got you going and got you to wrestling his style, which was an aggressive style, “Lennie said. “When you say intensity, you think of a coach yelling at you, but I don’t remember that. He got his idea across and he didn’t have to say things too many times.”

“He got you to perform at a level that you didn’t know you could perform at, “Jim said. “He got the best out of you.”

Lennie Zalesky came of age on the mats as Gable established himself at Iowa. He saw the crowds grow from 1,200 to 5,000. When the Hawkeyes took on Iowa State, tickets were scarcer than ocean views in Davenport.

“They would wrestle home-and-away every year and they were packed, “said Ron James, who coached the Zalesky brothers at Prairie High in Cedar Rapids. “You’d have blinding snowstorms, but there were all these people. 15,000 people for a dual meet wasn’t uncommon.”

Lennie compared Iowa wrestling to Indiana basketball, in which widespread participation and wildly successful college programs combined to make it that state’s most popular sport.

“People would pile into the gym for (Indiana’s) Midnight Madness, 12,000 people. Who in the world would want to watch the intra-squad scrimmage? “said Lennie, who was an assistant at Indiana before taking over at UCD. “Every time I travel and tell people where I’m from, people say, ‘Iowa, they’ve got great wrestling there.’ “

Lennie had picked up the sport in eighth grade and his brothers had followed his lead. In Iowa, once you get hooked on wrestling, it’s easy to find competition. They started in the Freestyle Wrestling program, a system of small tournaments around the state open to any interested grappler.

Lennie placed third at his first event. So did Jim, who was two years younger.

“Once we got hooked, that was our major sport, “Jim said.

Freestyle wrestling served as an introduction to the wrestling community.

“We never had to go more than 30 or maybe 50 miles to get to a tournament. You’d see the same people, the guys you wrestled at one place would be at the next one, “Lennie said.

Help came from all quarters in their hometown of Shueyville, as the Zaleskys turned their basement into a gym.

“It was a community of people saying, here’s a couple of kids who are interested in wrestling, “Lennie said. “That’s kind of the wrestling world. You can’t go far without running into your roots because it’s a tight community.”

Lennie, Jim and their youngest brother Larry spent three or four days a week in that basement. Sometimes they’d wrestle each other, experimenting with new moves against live competition, trying to avoid falling near the furnace and getting a face full of fuel. Other times they’d work separately, doing shadow drills and practicing rolls.

After great junior and senior years at Prairie High School, Lennie signed with Iowa, which was about 15 miles from home. He arrived on campus in 1979 and wrestled his first match for the Hawkeyes in 1980. He was a three-time All-American and twice finished second at the NCAA Tournament.

Jim followed him to Iowa where, wrestling at 158 pounds, he won three national championships. He finished his college career with an 89-match winning streak.

Larry wrestled for two seasons for the Hawkeyes as well. In one dual meet, Iowa sent out Zaleskys in three straight bouts.

Jim and Lennie stayed with wrestling after college, practicing against each other as they competed on the international stage. Lennie won the silver medal in the 1983 Pan Am Games. Jim missed qualifying for the 1988 Olympics by one match.

The two brothers served on the Iowa staff together in 1986, before Jim went to Minnesota as an assistant. In 1990, Lennie went to Alaska to coach high school and Jim replaced him on Gable’s staff. In 1997, Gable resigned and Jim succeeded him. Jim’s teams won the next three national championships and have produced 10 individual titles and 36 All Americans.

Supplanting a legend is famously difficult, but Jim Zalesky says he seldom dwells on it.

“I’ve been part of this program for a long time, “he said. “It’s tough to be at the top. You can’t worry about what the program has done. It’s about what you want to do in the future.”

Tonight’s meet won’t be the first all-Zalesky coaching match-up. The Hawkeyes beat the Aggies two years ago in Iowa City. But the brothers haven’t met on the mat since a practice session in 1986, right before Jim left for Minnesota.

“We haven’t wrestled since, “Lennie said. “I don’t know that we ever will again. Unless he gets mouthy this weekend.”

“We grew up going to tournaments and sometimes we’d get grouped in the same bracket, “Jim said. “When you step out there, you’re a competitor and you want to win. Afterward it’s the same.”