10 to watch: Kyle Dake's obsession with wrestling started with high school team his grandpa coached

ITHACA, N.Y. — Kyle Dake has a memory with his grandfather from years ago. He was 6, maybe 7, and his grandfather, Bob, was a wrestling coach at Lansing High School. Kyle always tagged along for practice, so Bob decided to put him to work.

Bob Dake sometimes brought oranges to give his wrestlers after their workouts. Kyle was charged with peeling them. When practice ended, he watched the high-schoolers swarm to the oranges.

“It was such a small reward, but the guys thought they were the best oranges in the world,” Kyle Dake says now. “I did, too. I was like, ‘Grandpa, you find the best oranges.’

“I’d ask him where he got them, but he never told me. He’d say, ‘It’s a secret. Maybe when you’re older, I’ll tell you.’”

NEVER MISS A MEDAL: Sign up for our Olympic newsletter now

WANT BEHIND-THE-SCENES ACCESS IN TOKYO? Sign up for Olympic texts to get exclusive access to the Games

Bob Dake was the founding father of Lansing wrestling. He started the high school program in 1963 and coached on and off for nearly four decades. His son, Doug, also coached after becoming a collegiate All-American. Together, they instilled a passion in Kyle, who used those lessons to author his own sensational wrestling career.

The next chapter will be written over the next few days in Tokyo, at the Olympic Games. Kyle Dake is a member of the U.S. men’s freestyle team, and is considered a gold-medal contender at 74 kilograms (163 pounds). He'll open the Olympic tournament Thursday. 

48-match winning streak

The 30-year-old enters the Games as one of wrestling’s best pound-for-pound talents. He’s won his last 48 Senior-level matches, during which he’s won two world titles, in 2018 and 2019 at 79 kilos (174), a non-Olympic weight, and has collectively outscored his opponents 397-38. He boasts an all-time Senior-level record of 100-16.

“We’re hopeful for Kyle,” says Bill Zadick, USA Wrestling’s men’s freestyle coach. “He had an amazing performance (at the U.S. Olympic Trials in April), but I know he’s looking to do some special things this summer.”

Over the last four years, Dake has showcased his wrestling ability all over the world. He’s been to Hungary, where he won his first world title without surrendering a point. He’s been to Kazakhstan, where he won another. He’s won tournaments in Turkey, Spain, Rome, France and, most recently, Guatemala.

But Dake’s entire wrestling life began and has unfolded in the same 15 square miles in upstate New York.

Lansing High School, where he won two state titles between 2005-09, is just 10 miles from Cornell’s Friedman Wrestling Center, where he trained to win four NCAA titles from 2009-13. His parents, Doug and Jodi, still live in his childhood home, just 5.5 miles from campus.

Dake and his wife, Megan, live less than a mile from Doug and Jodi and 20 minutes from her parents. They met in high school (he wooed her over math homework) and she played soccer at nearby Ithaca College. In 2016, they were married at Cornell’s Sage Chapel, a 10-minute walk from Friedman, where they held the reception.

“We rolled up all the mats, set up tables, had a buffet,” Kyle Dake says. “It was a ton of fun.”

Being in control on the wrestling mat

The Cornell roots run deep. His great-grandfather, Merrills Luther Dake, was a captain of the men's basketball team during the 1924-25 season and first-team all-Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League selection in 1924. Doug, his father, was an assistant wrestling coach at Cornell under Jack Spates in the 1990s.

The wrestling obsession started with Merrills’ son, Robert, who went by Bob — or “Pop Pop,” according to Kyle. Bob Dake coached Lansing for seven years, with a 79-13 overall dual record. He later moved to Westlake, Ohio, near Cleveland, and started a youth program at a local YMCA.

“He loved the toughness and all the great things that come out of wrestling,” Kyle Dake says of his grandpa, “and he wanted to provide that opportunity for as many people as possible. He inspired so many people, and he got everybody to wrestle.

“When he retired, he couldn’t leave the school, so he helped with detention, and the kids that came in, he’d say, ‘You’re going to wrestling practice, that’s your punishment.’ And guys would love it. He helped a lot of people turn the page and grow up.”

Doug later won an Ohio state title for Westlake in 1980. He went to Kent State, where he  became an All-American in 1985. While there, he met a gymnast named Jodi. They married and moved back to Lansing. Doug became Lansing’s head wrestling coach in 1996. Pop Pop stuck around to help.

Under their guidance, Kyle came to love wrestling.

“He’s always been competitive,” Jodi Dake says. “He played football and baseball, but in team sports, he didn’t have control over everything. In wrestling, it’s all on you, win or lose. He likes being in control and deciding how he’s going to win.

“We told him when he was younger to never have just one coach. You want tons of coaches because they all have something different to teach you.”

Bob Dake died in November 2010, but Kyle continued to use the lessons he learned throughout his career. Doug and Jodi helped foster that love with accountability. He is one of just four Division I wrestlers to win four national titles, but the only to do so at four different weight classes.

The years between that accomplishment and his latest triumph at the Olympic trials featured a vicious cycle of injury and recovery: a broken hand; a torn ligament in his left foot; a broken shoulder so severe that one doctor told him they only see those injuries from car wrecks.

Once healthy, with the help of Naudi Aguilar’s Functional Patterns, Dake has produced some of the best wrestling of his career. During his 48-match win streak, he’s recorded 27 wins by technical fall, 28 by shutout, and has registered wins over 13 world and Olympic medalists.

In the finals of the Olympic trials, Dake defeated Jordan Burroughs, a five-time world and Olympic champ, to make the team. Burroughs had made every U.S. world and Olympic team since 2011. Of Dake’s 16 career Senior-level losses, seven were to Burroughs, including twice each in the finals of the ’13, ’15, and ’17 world team trials.

Dake finally scaled that mountain, winning by scores of 3-0 and 3-2. That match one victory was the first time Burroughs had been shut out in his Senior-level career. After the match two win, Dake knelt to a despondent Burroughs and tapped him on the chest. Dake later said that he thanked him.

“I had never gotten an opportunity to wrestle at the world championships or the Olympics,” Dake says. “He was definitely a driver. I always felt like I was good enough to beat him, but it just didn’t happen. I had to put in the work and figure it out.

“He wasn’t the only guy I was training for. There’s incredible athletes all over the world, and different styles you have to match up against. I knew the top 5-10 guys in the world, and Jordan was always the first task at hand.”

Now Dake will get a long-awaited opportunity to represent the United States at the Olympics, a dream that started as a young child and picked up steam after his successful career at Cornell. He’s made his expectations clear: gold medal or bust. He feels he owes it to himself, to his country, and, most importantly, to his family.

And don’t be surprised, if he does win in Tokyo, if he eats an orange to celebrate.