Craig Mattick: Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. South Dakota has had the distinction of having two sets of twins represent South Dakota in the Olympics, and they occurred at about the same time back in the 1980s. One set of twins, the Scherr Brothers, Bill and Jim from Mobridge, the other set of twins from Doland, the Koslowski's, Dennis and Duane. Today's guest never won a state wrestling title in South Dakota, but later became a national wrestling champ and wound up being an Olympic bronze medalist in the '88 Seoul Olympics, a silver medalist in the '92 Barcelona Olympics. He's Dennis Koslowski, living in the Twin Cities. Dennis, welcome to In Play.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Thank you. Great to be here.
Craig Mattick: You know you have your own chiropractic practice now up there in the Twin Cities. By the way, we probably should mention Duane, your twin brother. What's Duane doing now these days?
Dennis Koslowsk...: He lives out in Virginia, the state of Virginia. He moved out there, well, close to 15 years ago or more. And most of his career he's worked in the insurance industry.
Craig Mattick: And you're in the chiropractic business in the Twin Cities. How long have you had your own practice up there in, let's see... What town is it up there in the Twin Cities?
Dennis Koslowsk...: I'm in Rhode, near downtown Minneapolis.
Craig Mattick: Okay. And how long have you been doing your practice?
Dennis Koslowsk...: I've been a chiropractor since '86 with a one-year sabbatical as the national wrestling coach, but I've owned my own clinic since 1991.
Craig Mattick: It is crazy that neither one of you, your brother or yourself, Dennis, won a state wrestling title but, wow, what success you guys had later with college and representing the country in the Olympics. You're a graduate of Doland, but you started wrestling in Webster, right? Who was your junior high high school gym teacher at Webster?
Dennis Koslowsk...: It was Chuck Sheppey, who was also the high school wrestling coach. And I think that's where... When you go through the gym or the physical education classes, he could see who had the skill set. Webster, at that time, was still in the large class school all the way up to about, I think, '75 or so. And then they dropped down to the B class. But they always had a couple champions. They were probably a top five large school team at the time. Doug Biersbach was a two-time heavyweight champion and John Shealy.
Craig Mattick: Oh, yeah.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. So I think he was a three-time state champion, I think once in the large class and twice in the B's. And so there was a good tradition there. And, in hindsight, you look back how it all worked out and we were... So the whole backstory is our mom had passed away when we were really young and my dad had a lot of troubles with it and alcoholism and such. So for five years our family was split up and my twin brother and I stayed with an aunt and uncle, uncle being my dad's brother, on the family farm. It was in Grenville actually. And so we attended the Grenville school, which is Catholic school, for a couple years and then three years at Webster because when that closed down... And so we were on a dairy farm and doing all the work that is required.
Craig Mattick: Oh, that is tough. Oh, boy.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. You know stacking bales and cleaning barns, and it was, you know, get up at 5:30 in the morning and-
Craig Mattick: Do the milking and... Yeah.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Yeah. So they call that cross-training now. So we had the size, the strength, and I'm sure Sheppy saw that. And so I ended up getting paired with Kirby Phillips in the gym class. And his older brother, I think had been runner-up in state, and he ended up being at least a two-timer. I think two-time runner-up or something. And instead of thumping me, he taught me. You know? You can almost call it active-passive wrestling where we'd be wrestling live, but he'd stop or say, "No. Keep moving this way, keep moving that way. Put your hand here. Move this way. Put your pressure there." That kind of thing.
Craig Mattick: That's huge. That's huge.
Dennis Koslowsk...: And the funny thing was that we had an older cousin, Kathy, who, Sheppy said, "Could these guys wrestle?" And asked Kathy to ask my Aunt Mary, and she says, "Well, no. They need to do chores."
Craig Mattick: Oh, boy.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Well, seventh grade, my twin brother Duane dislocated his elbow in a wrestling practice. But once he got the cast on, he could still do the chores with one hand. So I was allowed to wrestle because of that. In my first season in 11- and 12-year-old division, I wrestled three weekends. District, region, and state. And won the state tournament.
Craig Mattick: When was the move to Doland for Doland High School?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Between our eighth grade and freshman year of high school.
Craig Mattick: Who was the wrestling coach there?
Dennis Koslowsk...: His name was Ronald Larson, initially the first two years, who didn't really know anything about wrestling. It was a community that was really into all sports. And wrestling, they just weren't that good. I think maybe they had two place winners in their whole career. Maybe a third and fourth place winners or something like that. But then our older brother, Jim, when we were split up for five years, he was in Watertown, which is obviously pretty good program. So we brought a lot of our knowledge from Webster in Watertown to Doland. But Jim was pretty good. But you talk about not winning state. Well, I was a proverbial late bloomer in every way. I didn't grow for a few years. Through high school I wrestled 105, 119, 138, 167. I said I had the trifecta. I was small, slow, and weak. You know?
Craig Mattick: Because as a freshman and a sophomore, did you even qualify for the state wrestling tournament?
Dennis Koslowsk...: I did my sophomore year, but-
Craig Mattick: Didn't place.
Dennis Koslowsk...: No, at 119, I was one and done. I think I got fourth in the sections and... But then I started to grow and just, in hindsight, again, looking at advantages. I knew I would grow eventually. My dad, most of his life was probably 285 and a big, strong man. And so I knew it would come, eventually, but when you don't have strength or speed, you really have to learn techniques and tactics. And I had some moves that were pretty good. Hip roll and stuff. And I would sometimes time the hit or the move with 15 seconds left in the period so I could reverse the guy and then time would run out, you know? And you didn't have to hold them down that long. Things like that. And of course at the lighter weights, you do a lot more single legs and low leg shots. And I think when you're big your whole life, you never really get that ability.
But being small, initially, I never even... So basically for my freshman year in high school to my senior in college where I wrestled heavy weight, I went from 105 to heavyweight, but I could still shoot a little single as a heavy weight. And Morris was a perfect fit for us.
Craig Mattick: Minnesota Morris. Yes.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah, yeah. So I really should have won my senior year. I kind of choked on that one.
Craig Mattick: You wrestled 185 that year, finished third.
Dennis Koslowsk...: 167. Yeah. Duane won at 185. He was undefeated.
Craig Mattick: Yeah, you were 167. Finished third.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. And then I was third the year before at 138. So you're dealing with a lot of changes when you're jumping 30 pounds and still growing. So the interesting thing... So Keith Hagerty became our coach our junior year, and he's originally from Browns Valley, Minnesota. And he also had never wrestled.
Craig Mattick: Oh. Oh!
Dennis Koslowsk...: But he had a friend named Don Johnson that had wrestled at South Dakota State. I think he's up in one of their top pinners in their history. And he was a farmer at that time but he would ref like Minnesota, South Dakota, maybe North Dakota in the winter time. And he came out and reffed some tournaments in Doland and he said, "Hey, if you guys want, come in on a Sunday and I'll show you everything I know."
Craig Mattick: Wow. Nice!
Dennis Koslowsk...: And so it was myself, my two brothers and Jim Lake. I mentioned him the other day. And I think Larry Herr. The handful of us. And he literally tried to show us everything he knew, and he taught us a lot. Where the pressure should be for leg ride and all that. And that was our junior year. And he came back and reffed more tournaments our senior year and he could see that we had picked up everything he taught us. And we were very coachable. Well, when he was at South Dakota State, the head coach at that time... or the grad assistant was Doug Duffy, and he was now the head coach at Morris Minnesota. And so he said, "You got to go look at these guys." Because our older brother now had been... Our senior was now resting at Huron, and Huron wanted us. But we met Doug and we were totally sold on going to wrestle at Morris. To this day, he's probably the best coach I ever had. And the only thing is he had to convince the football coach to allow us to play football. And they were-
Craig Mattick: You were offensive linemen there at Morris.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. And Morris was a football powerhouse for... They were a Division III school and Division II conference, yet they were in the midst of a four-year undefeated run in the conference. And he admits later that he knew that was the hook to get us to go there, but he thought we might get discouraged. And even the head coach, Al Boldock's like, "Well, they're pretty undersized." And he says, "Well, trust me, I met their dad and my hand disappeared when I shook hands with him. So I think they'll grow." And he thought we would get disgruntled, but we didn't. And by our second year, we had a big growth spurt and I actually ended up being all conference three years in football. So we loved it.
Craig Mattick: It's 1980, I think it's your sophomore year at Morris.
Dennis Koslowsk...: '78. We started school in the fall of '77, so it was '77, '78. And then '78, '79 I was a starter.
Craig Mattick: But when it came to wrestling, you won the Division III wrestling championship, the national championship, and then of course you did it again your senior year.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. It was kind of a one-year break in there because I had injured my knee my senior year, and my goal that year was to... In those days, if you won DIIIs, you got to wrestle in the DIs.
Craig Mattick: Yes.
Dennis Koslowsk...: So when I won the DIIIs as a junior in New London, Connecticut, Coast Guard Academy, the next weekend I wrestled in the DIs at Oregon State and I beat a guy from Ball State and then I lost a close match to the number three seed, but then he had to win two more for me to get back in the tournament. He didn't. But it was still just a great eye-opening experience, realizing that these guys are pretty good, but they're not that good. I didn't have mostly the same training partners or the competition schedule. And that started to plant the seed that I could compete at that level.
Craig Mattick: At one point, did a bigger commitment start to come to wrestling because your senior year in college was just the beginning to much bigger things. Most wrestlers call it a career after college, but not you, Dennis, or your brother Duane. So when did this Greco-Roman style of wrestling interest you?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Well, it's a lot of happenstance, if you will. Our freshman year, we were on the team but we didn't start. And then we were into wrestling season and then, over Christmas break, a guy named Brad Rheingans who's from Appleton, Minnesota, he was in the midst of his international competition career. He was on every World and Olympic and Pan Am between '75 and '80. And so this was '77. He had been fourth in the '76 Olympics. He won the Pan Am games in '75. And he had come home for Christmas and wanted to get a workout. So he came up and worked out with my brother and I and we had a heavyweight two and workout is loosely used because he threw us around. He was a 220 pounder and at the time I was 177 pounder but he was a very nice guy. Again, it was another page, chapter, a future even to know someone that competed at that level and what that was about.
He had been a two-time DII champion at North Dakota State, and I think he got fourth in the DIs, but now he had been invited by the Minnesota Club to wrestle Greco for them. So he was a full-time Greco trainer.
Craig Mattick: Sure.
Dennis Koslowsk...: And so that, again, planted the seed. And then after I won my second... Or actually between... I won my first title, then I couldn't wrestle my senior year because I blew out my medial collateral ligament our last playoff game at Ithaca, New York. And so I had to sit that year, but Duane did. Duane wrestled and won the heavyweight class that year. And then I recovered from it the spring after the season was over, I got a call from Dan Chandler was also still competing but kind of ran the Minnesota Club. Asked if I wanted to wrestle the Greco Nationals. And I said, "Sure." You know?
Craig Mattick: Then you go and you win it.
Dennis Koslowsk...: No. No, no. No, no, no.
Craig Mattick: You did win it though, five times. National Champ.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah, I won it actually seven times.
Craig Mattick: Oh!
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. But I mean there was a big, another huge learning curve there.
Craig Mattick: I lost track after five, Dennis.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wrestled eventually a guy that had been on the world team. I lost a one hole one-to-nothing caution out or something. And then I had a similar score to the guy that ended up winning it, Jeff Blatnik, who ended up winning the '84 Olympics. So I wrestled them both close, and Chandler told me, "You could be Olympic champion!" You know? I found out he said that to almost everybody, but I was drinking the Kool-Aid, huh?
Craig Mattick: But Greco-Roman wrestling was an amateur sport. You're out of college. How you're trying to make a living. But I'm assuming making the USA Olympic team was certainly a goal that maybe you had.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Oh, yes. Yeah. That was definitely a driving goal at that point. So, after recovering, I did Greco. I ended up third in the Greco trials that summer, a three-week camp. And, again, it was a great experience because I was wrestling the top guys and wrestling them tough. And so then I actually used my eligibility and won the DIIIs again at heavyweight, went one and one at the DIIs again. But then I actually blew out my ACL at the end of that camp.
Craig Mattick: Oh.
Dennis Koslowsk...: And, at that time, they weren't doing arthroscopic surgery, and I knew a few people that had the surgery and it wasn't that great. And it was one of the weirdest injury in the sense that it was the last day at camp. I was wrestling a guy that outweighed me by 50 pounds. I was 220 then and he was heavy, and he tried to do a throw and I blocked it with just my leg posted and I felt this sharp pain, maybe let out a yelp. But I got up and walked it off.
I thought I was okay. But then a trainer looked at it and he said, "I think you tore your ACL." And in those days they would just-
Craig Mattick: You'd be done.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Well that but... So I had... In orthopedic, they call it a positive drawer sign, that there's too much laxity where the ACL should hold the tibia in place. And then they also drained some fluid out of your knee and if there was blood in it, that kind of confirmed it. So I go back to Minnesota and I see the orthopedist and they want to do... He says, "Well, if we don't do surgery, you won't wrestle again." And I said, "Well, I don't want the surgery." And I semi-accepted that maybe the truth. But I moved up my admission into chiropractic school to that fall. It was supposed to be later than that, and I started chiropractic school, but I did rehab. I never really ever had much... I never needed crutches. I never had any swelling. It was a strange injury. It was just like, "You don't have an ACL anymore." You know?
And by the end of my first trimester, I'm like, "I think I can wrestle on this thing."
Craig Mattick: Oh.
Dennis Koslowsk...: So because I still had eligibility, I went back to Morris in January and used it as a step. My goal was obviously Olympics, but it was a good start to go since I had eligibility. So I went back to Morris for the next winter quarter and wrestled and took courses to be eligible. And then I won my second DIII title and I was back in beast mode. So I returned to chiropractic school, but then I also returned to training with the Minnesota Club.
Craig Mattick: Oh.
Dennis Koslowsk...: And that was pretty much the rhythm from then on, is going to school, but training with the club.
Craig Mattick: And traveling. I mean, you did a lot of traveling. I know in '83 you're in Kyiv, which of course was Russia then, now Ukraine.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Won of my first nationals in '83 and beat Greg Gibson. He was second in '84 Olympics, but also he was second in the world in freestyle. He won a World Cup in Greco. I went, 0 for 9 against him before I beat him. But that was only over a couple years because we always met in the finals.
Craig Mattick: Well, that World Championship title, that a long ways from South Dakota's high school state wrestling tournament. What was the difference maker from 1977, you're a senior, you never won a state South Dakota wrestling title. Then six years later, you're a world-class wrestler. What was the difference between those years?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Just passion, you know? Just a desire. And I always had that. There wasn't anything new. Physical capability just didn't come along. But I remember even as a freshman or sophomore in high school, we'd have a dual meet and almost every dual meet is an hour away or whatever. You know? And you'd get on the bus to go home. And guys would be joking around and in 15 minutes, most of the team was sleeping. And I was sitting bolt upright, just going over match in my head and just thinking about anything and everything that we could do differently. And that was just in my DNA. And it's the same thing that kept me awake on Sundays during sermons at church. And why would you have that? Obviously you're different in your desire to just get better. And I was just a vacuum for information. And Duane was the same way.
Craig Mattick: That's the deal. You're having success at this time, back in '83. Your twin brother Duane is with you. You guys are traveling together, you're going to Hungary and to France, and you're both placing. How special was that, having your twin brother with you and competing?
Dennis Koslowsk...: It was really special. And so he initially quit, done with college, and he was married and had a son and was living in South Dakota and watching me from afar. And then, in '83, I made the World in Pan Am teams and was sixth in the World Championships. And then I ended up first alternate on the '84 team and he and his wife at the time came out and we sat in the stands and watched the '84 Olympics together. And that's where we hatched the idea that he would come back to wrestling. And so then he moved lock, stock and barrel from South Dakota to Minnesota, and we started training together. And the first year, '85, I let him wrestle at... We were either. We could wrestle either 220 or heavy. So I wrestled at heavy to kind of protect him not having to wrestle the really big guys. And then after '85... And I won the national still at heavy, wrestled in the Worlds at heavy. I think I got sixth or something there too. And then we switched because I was simply better by then. I had more experience and more time.
Craig Mattick: Sure.
Dennis Koslowsk...: But he made a rapid elevation of his game, just like I had. So by between '86 and '88, we won every nationals, every World team trial, every Pan Am trial, everything. So we were a pretty good combo.
Craig Mattick: Still the bigger goal awaits you. And that's the Olympics. 1984 Olympics are in LA. What was it like trying to make the Olympic team and only becoming a first alternate? How tough was that?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Well, you can't imagine how tough it was. The worst part about it was, keeping the language down but I got hosed at the trials. It's a two out of three situation, and it was me and Gibson again. And I beat him soundly in the first match. I had a three-point lift and throw at some point. So I was up 3-0 mid-second period. And then I was lifting him again and he grabbed my leg, which is... He had two cautions already. So it cautioned him out. So I had a resounding win, but that was a rare scoring explosion between the two of us. Almost every match would've been one point match. And then, in the second match, we were 0-0 in regulation. And then you go into overtime and it's a referee decision. And what they're looking for is if there's no actual scoring then who's the aggressor, who's moving forward, who's getting better positioned. And I out-pummeled him for a minute and a half, minute and 45 seconds. They stopped the match and we go to the middle to shake hands.
I think I'm on the Olympic team, right? And before they raised his hand, the ref says, "Well, you guys are so close, we think you should go another match." So rather than calling it the way they should see it, they decided that they wanted him on the team because of the experience and everything.
Craig Mattick: Oh!
Dennis Koslowsk...: And then he beat me in the third match. So it was super tough to just know that I didn't get a fair shake. But I never really thought that was it for me. I knew I wanted to keep wrestling. And-
Craig Mattick: You thought you'd go another four years and try out for '88 in Seoul.
Dennis Koslowsk...: So at first I wasn't even going to go to the camp. And then I realized that there was something to be gleaned from that, to go through an Olympic camp and watch the Olympics. And so you know the term "happy camper"? I was the unhappy camper. I went through it but-
Craig Mattick: Yeah. But in '88, not only you, but your twin brother, Duane, you both make the team. You're both going to Seoul, South Korea.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yep. And actually '87, I was second in the World Championships in '87, in Clermont-Ferrand, France. And I lost it over time to a Russian for the gold medal.
Craig Mattick: The '88 summer games though, the big news during the Olympics. Ben Johnson got disqualified in 100. Carl Lewis got the gold. Florence Griffith Joyner won the gold in the 100. And it was the last time that USA men's basketball didn't use any NBA players. They won the bronze that year. They lost to the Soviet Union. And, of course, North Korea, they boycotted those Olympics. What a surprise there. But in Seoul, South Korea, did you participate in the opening ceremonies that year?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. I did it all. I had the opening ceremonies and the nice thing... Because it changes every year. I think I started wrestling... My competition started the second day after the ceremony. So then it's three days of wrestling. And so I was done by, essentially, the fourth day. So I was actually in the stadium and I saw the race when Johnson was disqualified. I was there. But obviously you wrestled to win the gold, but it was still just a phenomenal experience. And things changed a lot after that because, before then, I don't think they really had a limit on how many competitors could be there. And especially at my weight.
Craig Mattick: There was two groups. There was a group A and a group B at that time.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah, but it was kind a bloated... Some people like a guy from Cameroon or something... not necessarily wrestling countries probably shouldn't have been in there but you still... Also at our weight, we were just loaded with three or four guys, maybe more, that could win it. We had a returning Olympic champion from '84 and other guys that have won Worlds. And so everybody kind of was beating everybody. So the normal tournament for me internationally would be five matches. You have two the first day, two the second, and then if you're still in it, a placement match. And I ended up wrestling two the first day, two the second, and had to sleep on knowing I had three matches the next day.
Craig Mattick: Oh!
Dennis Koslowsk...: And that definitely affected me, lot of challenge of thought process and focus. And I ended up losing the first match to this Andrzej Wroński from Poland.
Craig Mattick: Who eventually was the gold medal winner.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah.
Craig Mattick: Yeah.
Dennis Koslowsk...: So I knew then that I'm not a gold, but I could still win the bronze. And then the interesting thing is there was somewhere in there I had a buy and I... But I always watched the other matches. We used to always say, "You never want to wrestle anyone from the home country that's hosting it," because there's a lot of manipulation on who gets the calls and warnings and all this. And then, secondly, you didn't want to ever wrestle anyone from Yugoslavia because the head of all officials was from Yugoslavia.
And so to get into the bronze medal match, I had to wrestle this guy named Yosef Terte, who I had lost to the only other time I wrestled my first World Championships in '83, 5 years earlier. He had beaten me eight to nothing. So not only was he their best wrestler of their team, he was also Yugoslavian. And, luckily, I watched him beat... He beat the '84 Olympic champion and the '87 World Champion. Two matches in a... And I saw both matches and they had completely twisted the way the rules should be interpreted. And so normally when you were pummeling and the guy went back, if he would back off the mat without trying to circle, he would be cautioned for stalling and have to go down and defend a turn. Right?
So, essentially, you get a guy near the edge of the mat. You're not really pushing him off, but you're trying to hold position to get a caution on him early in the match when you're still fresh and dry. Right? So the Romanian, who had been '84 gold, he pummeled this Yugoslav off the mat, and this Chinese official cautioned the Romanian for push... It was stalling for pushing him off, which isn't the way it's supposed to be interpreted. You know? And so then he was cautioned, had to go down, and the Yugoslav was a great lifter and turner, and he turned him and ultimately beat him and did the exact same thing to the Russians. So I go into that match thinking, "I have no chance." I'm trying to wrestle him and the refs.
Craig Mattick: Right. Right.
Dennis Koslowsk...: I hadn't necessarily made a conscious decision, but I started wrestling and I'm pummeling him and he's backing up, backing up, and we're getting near the edge. And then I realized that I can't push him off the mat. So I stopped two feet from the edge and he keeps backing off the mat and the ref so wanted to call me for pushing him off, but he couldn't because we were separated. So he had to wave, "Get back in there," you know? And as soon as he came back to me, I did a 180 around him and pummeled him all the way across the mat. And every time we got near the edge, I stopped pushing. Eventually, they had to caution him because I was definitely dominating the pummel. And I turned him and ultimately won the match. And that put me in for the bronze. But I felt like that was a great... I had beaten everybody. You know?
Craig Mattick: It was a six to nothing. Yeah. Winning the bronze. Of course, your brother Duane, he placed eighth in those Olympics. You also had Jim and Bill Scherr from Mobridge. They were at the '88 Olympics as well. South Dakota was well represented there in Seoul.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Jim and Bill. Well, I know Duane, he was in possibly for medal, but he wrestled the BMF's Russian, Aleksandr Karelin. And, in his fourth match, I believe he was 2 and 1 at the time, and he ended up tearing his labrum of his shoulder. And so that's why he had to default to eighth. He couldn't wrestle anymore.
Craig Mattick: After Seoul, you decide to retire, but you wind up coaching the USA Wrestling Greco-Roman team. But you know what? That didn't take long. I heard this story. While coaching the team, you thought you were still better than members of the team that you were coaching, so you decided to come out of retirement. Is that true?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, what had happened is, as much as I liked coaching, I already also had been a chiropractor. And I found that I really enjoyed being a chiropractor more than a coach. And so my wife and I and, at that time, our daughter, we moved back to the cities and I started practicing chiropractic again, but I was still working out. That was just my DNA, to stay fit. And they had the National Sports Festival in Minnesota in '90, and it was held at Oxford College. And we went to wrestle... or watch, I should say... my wife and I. And watched the tournament who won the tournament, and Sylvie turned to me and said, "You know you can still beat those guys?" And I said, "Yeah, I know I can."
Craig Mattick: And so you thought '92, then? You were thinking Barcelona. You're going to go back to compete. And of course you did. But, before that, at the Worlds that year, you placed seventh. You shocked the world though, in your first match at the '92 Barcelona Olympics. You take out the defending Olympic champion. What happened in that match?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Well, going back quickly about the two-year... It became a two-year plan. And the most important thing was to make that '91 World team, because you had to place in, I think, the top eight or something because, at that time, they were starting to select what countries could even send a wrestler. So I wanted to make sure that I was on that team and I placed high enough to qualify the weight class for the next Olympics, which I achieved. I won some matches, but when I placed eighth, I didn't actually lose a match. I had three double caution outs in the tournament-
Craig Mattick: Three?!
Dennis Koslowsk...: ... where neither wrestler scored any points. So they cautioned us both out. So it was a weird thing. But the guy that won the weight that year, Hector Milian from Cuba, he just destroyed everyone. He was a great lifter. I think he tech falled, everybody, lifted the... 15 point and the match was over. So I witnessed that. I saw him do that. But undeterred and I was where I had to be. Not wrestling competitively for a couple years, I at least secured that. And then won the trials and then there, at the Olympics, now they seed but they didn't seed then. And so we weighed in and then it comes out that I've got Ronsky first match
Craig Mattick: Defending Olympic Champ.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Olympic champ. But I had wrestled him once in '91, and there was this special turn I was working on, and I almost turned him in a competition. But I got myself a little out-leveraged, and I actually tore some cartilage in my ribs and I had to stop the match.
Craig Mattick: Ah! Oh.
Dennis Koslowsk...: But it healed up. But I knew in my mind that I could turn him now if I did the turn the way I had practiced it. And that's the way the match went. At some point, I had a chance to turn him and I secured a lock and turned him for two and-
Craig Mattick: It was over.
Dennis Koslowsk...: It was over. Yeah. So then, yeah, I won my next three matches and got to the finals.
Craig Mattick: And it's the Cuban waiting for you!
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Which I thought could have been over real quick because I saw what he did the year before.
Craig Mattick: But it goes to overtime.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. I end up losing in overtime. Yeah.
Craig Mattick: Ah.
Dennis Koslowsk...: So I still wake up with a cold sweat about that one every so often.
Craig Mattick: Oh.
Dennis Koslowsk...: But it was a great run. It was a great match.
Craig Mattick: Did you know, at that time, that that was going to be your last match of your career?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Craig Mattick: As is the custom, retiring wrestlers after their match take their shoes off and they place them at center mat. Did you do that?
Dennis Koslowsk...: No. I didn't. I'm not sure when that started. I don't know if it had started at that time. You know? I don't think about that too much.
Craig Mattick: Sure. Sure.
Dennis Koslowsk...: But I knew I was done, and by then I had my own practice and we had our second child, and there were a lot of balls in the air that had to be controlled. And it was a great... I mean, all my credit to my wife too. She knew it was a moment in time and enjoy the moment and get the most out of it, but it was time to move on.
Craig Mattick: Dennis, I don't remember the last time I was in Doland, but I now know I need to make a trip because I want to go see the historical marker of Dennis and Duane Koslowski right near the post office, right there in Doland. And that historical marker is right next to a historical marker of Hubert Humphrey, the former vice president and a marker of the Doland South Dakota Veterans Memorial. That's pretty high company there, Dennis.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. The Heritage Wall. Yeah. It was built in '89. It was the bicentennial year for the state of South Dakota. And the state offered matching funds for any town that would like to build some type of monument and Tip Miles, who he and his wife and family, they were the editors for the Doland Times Record paper. And he got behind it and he got everyone else behind it and built a heck of a monument. It was great.
Craig Mattick: I've seen a picture of it.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. Yeah. I've had a lot of patients and friends check it out and take photos and stuff. It's pretty special. Pretty cool. And then, well, that was built in '89, so they had a rededication after '92 because they had to carve another-
Craig Mattick: Had to put the silver medalist on there.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. So, yeah, it's pretty special to last immemorial. You know?
Craig Mattick: When's the last time you put your Olympic medals around your neck?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Oh, it's been a while. It's been a while. I have them on display at my house and stuff. Like my college coach said, it's not the award, it's the reward of what it resembles. And it's pretty neat to have them, but it really represents a lot of effort and time and the lasting legacy. So it's great.
Craig Mattick: South Dakota's had our share of Olympic wrestlers. Of course Jim and Bill Scherr, and you and Duane, Lincoln McIlravy, Randy Lewis. Boy, I don't know who the next Olympic wrestler from South Dakota will be, but certainly the Lewis, the McIlravy, the Scherrs, the Koslowskis. You guys have set an amazing mark for those to achieve. I'm trying to get to the Olympics. You're in a handful of Hall of Fames. South Dakota Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame, the Minnesota Morris Athletic Hall of Fame, but unfortunately they don't have wrestling anymore.
Dennis Koslowsk...: Yeah. The administration changed four or five years after I left there, and they kind of went ultra-academia and they moved to a much smaller level or lower level of competition. And, yeah, I know I would've never gone there the way it is now. It's still a great academic college, but I think you can still have both. But, yeah, I think I'm in about 10 hall of fames so...
Craig Mattick: The National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and of course the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame. What do those mean to you?
Dennis Koslowsk...: Well, it's great. It makes you... It's a stamp for what you believed in yourself and what you hoped to achieve. And I know I read Dan Gable's book... That was my sophomore year, when I qualified for state. The first book written about his life, called The Wrestler. And that was another, probably, seed of thought about what it would take to be at that level. And over the years, I've gotten to know him and consider him a good friend. So to be in that level, to compete at the highest level. And I had 12 matches at the Olympics. It's pretty fun.
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