Somewhere beyond the circle of money, glitz, drugs, and controversy that characterizes professional sports in America, remnants of an ideal exist. In Iowa, that ideal survives in the form of high school wrestling. Each a three-time state champion, Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere have a chance in their senior year to join the sport's most elite group: the "four-timers," wrestlers who win four consecutive state titles. For Jay, a ferocious competitor who feeds off criticism and doubt, a victory would mean vindication over the great mass of skeptics waiting for him to fail. For Dan, who carries on his back the burdens of his tiny farming community, the dreams of his hard-driving coach and father, and his own personal demons, another title is the only acceptable outcome. Four Days to Glory is the story of America as told through its small towns and their connection to sport the way it was once routinely perceived: as a means of mattering to the folks next door. Somewhere beyond the circle of money, glitz, drugs, and controversy that characterizes professional sports in America, remnants of an ideal exist. In Iowa, that ideal survives in the form of high school wrestling. Each a three-time state champion, Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere have a chance in their senior year to join the sport's most elite group: the "four-timers," wrestlers who win four consecutive state titles. For Jay, a ferocious competitor who feeds off criticism and doubt, a victory would mean vindication over the great mass of skeptics waiting for him to fail. For Dan, who carries on his back the burdens of his tiny farming community, the dreams of his hard-driving coach and father, and his own personal demons, another title is the only acceptable outcome. Four Days to Glory is the story of America as told through its small towns and their connection to sport the way it was once routinely perceived: as a means of mattering to the folks next door. Mark Kreidler is an award-winning journalist and author of the acclaimed Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland . A regular contributor to ESPN television, ESPN.com, and ESPN: The Magazine , he lives in northern California. Four Days to Glory Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland By Mark Kreidler HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright ©2008 Mark Kreidler All right reserved. ISBN: 9780060823191 Chapter One Locating the Enemy Jay doesn't plan on his headgear ricocheting across the wrestling mat and spiking against one of his teammates' legs, but he won't be racing over to do anything about it, either. You can hear the slap of plastic on skin from across the gym when it makes contact, but since the teammate caught in the crossfire is both an underclassman and a varsity wrestler in the state of Iowa, he does not so much as throw Jay a look. The boy instead sits there in his chair alongside the mat, hunkered down, the hood of his sweat top pulled around his head to shadow his face. He does not move. There is, his posture suggests, no sting from the spiked headgear, no red mark on his leg from the point of contact. Nothing has happened. And Jay need not apologize for—well, for what is essentially nothing. But Jay means it, of course—not the ricochet, but the rest of it. He wants his disgust fully visible to anyone inside the gym, which is why he yanks off the equipment and fires it downward in the first place. Let there be no question about his mood after another forfeit. He has sat with the rest of the Linn-Mar team on a yellow-and-black school bus for two solid hours while it shuddered and skidded along the icy rural roadways from Marion to Dubuque, and has done it because he desperately wants the moment that now eludes him. He wants to get out there and beat somebody to death. He wants to wrestle. He needs it. There's no sense in pretending anything else. This quest is impossible without getting in his work, and that's the thing. Jay cannot become a four-time state champion unless he is in the best shape of his life when the time comes to go for it, and now, in January of 2005, that time is barely a month away and Jay cannot get a freaking match. Opponents run from him, even when they're on the mat. Coaches try to wrestle around him. They all know about Jay Borschel. They'd sooner forfeit the weight category than waste one of their decent wrestlers in a match they figure Jay will win easily. And so they run. From his place in the bleachers above the gymnasium floor, Jay's father, Jim, sees the forfeit signal and suddenly has had all he can take. "Oh, come ON, coach!" he bellows over the heads of the other Linn-Mar parents and fans, his foghorn voice easily carrying the distance across to the Hempstead High coach, Chuck Hass. Hass never moves, never glances up; he keeps his gaze fixed upon the mat itself. He knows what he's doing. Hass has just finished ducking Jay by moving away from him a good 171-pound wrestler, a boy named Dan Chmela