In the dressing rooms during his days, the Olympics and his Olympic experiences never came up much. We never talked about it. He went on to explain the stigma that wrestling put on successful amateurs. He might make a living, but he'll never be a top pro. In most cases, that's true.
Guys already have a persona that's grounded in a lot of sweat and toil to get to the Olympic level.
It's hard to shove that aside and really pretend well to be someone else. Roop believes that the late Dale Lewis, who was a U.S. Olympian in 1956 and in 1960, was the ultimate example of that stigma. Dale had to be a pro that was just so-so. He didn't know how to make me look good, and I didn't know to do that myself. Sometimes the NCAA years were discussed, but not much.