Never Stop Pushing: My Life from a Wyoming Farm to the Olympic Medals Stand
Gardner won an Olympic wrestling gold medal in the 2000 games with a stunning upset of Russian legend Alexander Karelin. He proved it was not a fluke with a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics despite losing part of each foot to hypothermia in 2002. Remarkably, he was not a varsity wrestler until his senior year in high school. Gardner's high-school guidance counselors even advised against college, arguing that he was better suited to vocational school. But as is so often the case with the very successful, Gardner refused to take no for an answer and attended junior college, where he improved his grades and his wrestling enough to earn a scholarship to Nebraska. This is your basic inspirational success story, but Gardner and coauthor Schaller minimize the "look-at-me" factor with a self-deprecating tone and a stern admonition that it's the work that is admirable and the triumphs only a by-product. Nice reading for those who prefer athletes with tolerable egos.Wes LukowskyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved