Sports Illustrated Vault: Tom and Terry Brands
Originally Published in March 25, 1991 issue of Sports Illustrated
By Merrell Noden
Tom Brands, a Distinguished Member inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2001, sat in the locker room at Iowa's Carver-Hawkeye Arena last Saturday night and strained to hear sounds that weren't there. "It wasn't as loud as it should have been," Brands, a 134-pound junior wrestler for Iowa, later said. Since the crowd of 13,233 that packed the arena for the 61st NCAA wrestling championships included plenty of Iowa fans, Brands knew what that meant: His twin brother, Terry, a Distinguished Member inducted in 2006, was losing his final-round match to Nebraska's Jason Kelber.
It was a good thing Tom didn't know more. The 126-pound match ended with Kelber winning decisively, 10-5. Terry refused to shake Kelber's hand; instead, he slapped at it derisively. The crowd booed Terry, and the referee subtracted a point from Iowa's team total for unsportsmanlike conduct. It was Tom's turn to try to win the Hawkeyes' first individual title of the meet.
The team championship had already been decided. By the end of Friday night's semifinals, Iowa had an insurmountable 136 points, 43.75 more than two-time defending champion Oklahoma State, which was in second place. This was Iowa's best performance in the NCAAs since 1986, when the meet was last held in Iowa City. That year's Hawkeyes may well have been the greatest collegiate wrestling team ever assembled. Five of the eight wrestlers who qualified for the tournament won titles, and the Hawkeyes amassed a meet-record 158 points, still the NCAA record. The team crown was Iowa's ninth in a row, tying the Hawkeyes with Yale in golf (1905-13) and Southern Cal in track (1935-43) for the most consecutive national championships.
But with success came complacency. "We had too much talent," says Iowa coach Dan Gable, a Distinguished Member inducted in 1980 who is also the namesake of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's Dan Gable Museum, of the '86 Hawkeyes. "Those guys didn't have to work as hard, and new people came in and picked up that [lack of] work ethic."
The Hawkeyes became so cocky that they went through the 1987 season wearing huge black X's—the Roman numeral 10—on their uniforms. Those X's became woes at the NCAA tournament, where Iowa State beat Iowa 133-108. Three more years passed without the team winning a championship.
Gable takes much of the blame for his team's slide. "There were things I needed to change," he says. "Even with the best company in the world, you have to make adjustments. I had always looked to the future. All of a sudden, I was thinking about the past."
By his own admission, Gable needed a jolt. He got one from the Brands, twin terrors from Sheldon, Iowa. "The Brands brought back my intensity," says Gable.
No wonder. These are Fire Brands. They wrestle with the single-mindedness of pit bulls, handling opponents with contempt as well as muscle. Tom got so frustrated with one rival's stalling earlier this season that he sat down in the middle of the mat and taunted him by saying, "Come on. Jump on me."
"I'm not by any means a favorite [of opponents]," said Tom with a smile, after an action-packed 33-19 win over Michigan's Joey Gilbert in the semifinals.
By Merrell Noden
Tom Brands, a Distinguished Member inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2001, sat in the locker room at Iowa's Carver-Hawkeye Arena last Saturday night and strained to hear sounds that weren't there. "It wasn't as loud as it should have been," Brands, a 134-pound junior wrestler for Iowa, later said. Since the crowd of 13,233 that packed the arena for the 61st NCAA wrestling championships included plenty of Iowa fans, Brands knew what that meant: His twin brother, Terry, a Distinguished Member inducted in 2006, was losing his final-round match to Nebraska's Jason Kelber.
It was a good thing Tom didn't know more. The 126-pound match ended with Kelber winning decisively, 10-5. Terry refused to shake Kelber's hand; instead, he slapped at it derisively. The crowd booed Terry, and the referee subtracted a point from Iowa's team total for unsportsmanlike conduct. It was Tom's turn to try to win the Hawkeyes' first individual title of the meet.
The team championship had already been decided. By the end of Friday night's semifinals, Iowa had an insurmountable 136 points, 43.75 more than two-time defending champion Oklahoma State, which was in second place. This was Iowa's best performance in the NCAAs since 1986, when the meet was last held in Iowa City. That year's Hawkeyes may well have been the greatest collegiate wrestling team ever assembled. Five of the eight wrestlers who qualified for the tournament won titles, and the Hawkeyes amassed a meet-record 158 points, still the NCAA record. The team crown was Iowa's ninth in a row, tying the Hawkeyes with Yale in golf (1905-13) and Southern Cal in track (1935-43) for the most consecutive national championships.
But with success came complacency. "We had too much talent," says Iowa coach Dan Gable, a Distinguished Member inducted in 1980 who is also the namesake of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's Dan Gable Museum, of the '86 Hawkeyes. "Those guys didn't have to work as hard, and new people came in and picked up that [lack of] work ethic."The Hawkeyes became so cocky that they went through the 1987 season wearing huge black X's—the Roman numeral 10—on their uniforms. Those X's became woes at the NCAA tournament, where Iowa State beat Iowa 133-108. Three more years passed without the team winning a championship.
Gable takes much of the blame for his team's slide. "There were things I needed to change," he says. "Even with the best company in the world, you have to make adjustments. I had always looked to the future. All of a sudden, I was thinking about the past."
By his own admission, Gable needed a jolt. He got one from the Brands, twin terrors from Sheldon, Iowa. "The Brands brought back my intensity," says Gable.
No wonder. These are Fire Brands. They wrestle with the single-mindedness of pit bulls, handling opponents with contempt as well as muscle. Tom got so frustrated with one rival's stalling earlier this season that he sat down in the middle of the mat and taunted him by saying, "Come on. Jump on me."
"I'm not by any means a favorite [of opponents]," said Tom with a smile, after an action-packed 33-19 win over Michigan's Joey Gilbert in the semifinals.
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