View full sizeU.S. Olympic wrestler Tervel Dlagnev (atop Russia's Eduard Bazrov during a June match in New York City), who trains in Columbus, will arrive in London as one of the Games' more improbable stories. "[The Olympics] was not even dreamed about before," says Dlagnev's mother, Igrena. "Now it's a reality, and it's so amazing."The Dlagnev File
- —
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- He was pudgy, lazy, disrespectful and on the verge of flunking out of his Texas high school.
His parents let him make most of his own decisions, which was their way of letting him experience the freedoms they didn't have before fleeing then-communist Bulgaria.
He swore like a drunken sailor.
Teachers called home all the time to complain about his behavior.
On July 27, Tervel Dlagnev will march in the Opening Ceremonies of the XXX Olympiad in London, representing not just the United States, but also the notion that, as an immigrant, the American dream is what you make it, and the final product almost never is what you expect.
Some say wrestling saved him.
Dlagnev says God did.
Regardless of the perspective, the shared view is of a transformation that continues to amaze his friends, family and the wrestling world. Dlagnev, who lives and trains in Columbus, is among the United States' best hopes for a wrestling gold medal. He is a three-time U.S. freestyle heavyweight champion and a 2009 world bronze medalist with an impressive international wrestling resume.
He's also a caring man and doting husband who makes the cliche' "gentle giant" seem too harsh.
"Wrestling changed his life, basically," says his mother, Igrena. "It's like something unbelievable. [The Olympics] was not even dreamed about before. Now it's a reality, and it's so amazing. There are no athletes, ever, in our family. That's why it is so out of the blue."
Igrena and Tervel's sister, Kassie, a high-school physics teacher, will join Tervel's wife, Kirsten, in London to watch him wrestle Aug. 11. His father will not. If Ivaylo Dlagnev sees Tervel compete, he will do so seated in front of a television, either at a veterans' shelter in Utah, where the family last knew of his whereabouts, or perhaps out of the country. Tervel has not spoken to his father for four years, during which Tervel graduated from college, settled in Ohio, got married and got serious about becoming an Olympic champion.
The estrangement does not weigh heavily on Tervel Dlagnev. He says he wrestles not for his father, but for his heavenly Father, as well as his mother, his wife, and his country.
"I am an American wrestler," Dlagnev says proudly.
In a sport where career paths usually seem determined long before entering high school, Dlagnev never considered wrestling an option, let alone a future, until after he started shaving. Going out for the wrestling team as a high-school sophomore living in suburban Dallas was intended to be nothing more than a way to lose weight. It turned out to be so much more.
Now 6-0 and 265 pounds, Dlagnev is powerfully built with a V-shaped upper body and tree-trunk thighs, hairy arms and a thinning scalp. He looks the part of a heavyweight wrestler born in Eastern Europe. But he also has soft eyes and a gentle, quiet tone when talking about his family and friends. Dlagnev loves nothing better than to sink into his big, brown corner couch and watch "Slumdog Millionaire" because the love story gets him every time.
"The music is amazing, and it draws from a lot of different emotional pools," he says, reclining on the couch and surrounded by his -- not Kirsten's -- stuffed animal collection, the favorite of which is a pillowy pink pig he's had since college.
Smiling at this scene as he barges in through a sliding glass door is Tervel's teammate at the Ohio Regional Training Center, J.D. Bergman, who lives with Tervel and Kirsten in a three-bedroom condo in northern Columbus.
"I'm the Dupree in this relationship," Bergman says, referring to the movie "You, Me and Dupree" about a dependent third wheel. "Except Dupree was much more responsible. Tervel and Kirsten basically adopted a 26-year-old."
A frequent sparring partner at the ORTC, Bergman has a unique perspective on Dlagnev.
"He's one of the best husbands I've seen in action, and he's going to make an incredible dad," he says.
Adds Olympic teammate Jake Herbert, "If I could pick anybody for one of my sisters to marry, it would be him. Unfortunately, he's married to a great woman already. He's a kind-hearted gentleman who loves the sport of wrestling."
One of Dlagnev's core religious beliefs is that the husband is the leader of the household. Despite being an overwhelming physical presence, that does not translate into a dominant relationship at home, where his former college sweetheart recently quit her job as a nanny to devote more time to Tervel and Bergman. She cooks healthy meals and helps them focus on training [Bergman did not make the Olympic team].
"I feel like he pays a lot of attention and he really cares about knowing, 'Am I being a good husband? Am I giving you what you need? Am I leading you spiritually? Are there any areas I'm lacking as a husband?'" Kirsten says.
"He's never like, 'This is what I am. This is what you get.' He constantly wants to get better, not only in his wrestling, but being a husband and taking care of me. It can be hard with him gone all the time, but he makes sure I feel loved and taken care of. He's pretty amazing."
Dlagnev's approach to almost everything is fueled by an insatiable desire to get better. That's why he comes home from practices so exhausted he can barely stand and says to Kirsten, "I'm excited to go back tomorrow." Like most great athletes, he has realized that it's one thing to be coached, it's another to seek coaching. He applies that on and off the mat.
"No one wants to hear what they're doing wrong, but that's an area of my life where I feel God has really humbled and softened to where I don't mind constructive criticism if it can make be better," he says. "I love learning and improving and [being a husband] is one of the most important areas of my life where I need to improve.
"It's one thing to be disciplined, it's another thing to delighting in and seeking discipline that you know will improve you. I feel like I delight in my discipline in my wrestling. I love the process. I'm not loving being in the middle of a treadmill sprint. I love the process. I seek that effort and that delight."
Bergman says he's never seen someone revel so much in the daily grind of grueling workouts.
"It's all fun to him. He has a lot more fun going to wrestling practice day in and day out than anyone. He loves it. He's just drenched in the sport," Bergman says.
In terms of work ethic, there's little doubt where Dlagnev got that. Igrena often worked two jobs to support the family, and she worked her way up from a janitor at a dialysis center to a technician to a supervisor who oversees the equipment. Tervel describes his father as being an alcoholic and manic-depressive man who jumped on get-rich-quick schemes and was obsessed with money.
"My dad especially had this vision of coming here to live the American dream, but he didn't want to put forth the effort. He thought the American dream was given to you," he says. "My mom was the exact opposite. She kept her head down and put the work in. She's at the opposite end of that spectrum."
Igrena declined to talk about Tervel's father, other than to say she thinks he may have left the country.
"It's not [tough without him]," Tervel says. "I've had some interesting things happen in my life. My wife is like, 'How are you not messed up?' I'm kind of indifferent about it. We didn't have that good a relationship growing up. By the time it boiled over, I disliked talking to him. I don't really have that urge to want to talk to him as much. I pray for him. I wish him the best. I like hearing updates. I wouldn't mind talking to him, but it's not anything I think about."
View full size"I love learning and improving and [being a husband] is one of the most important areas of my life where I need to improve," says Tervel Dlagnev, with his wife, Kristin.Dlagnev says his father was an atheist and the family didn't attend a church. Some high school teammates called him out for his constant swearing, which earned his respect, and they became friends. He started going to a Christian church. He also became a better student because he realized, after placing at the Texas state tournament as an inexperienced junior, he had a chance to wrestle in college. He brought home nearly all A's as a senior.
At the University of Nebraska-Kearney, Dlagnev says he met more teammates who were devout Christians, and his faith grew. Dlagnev and his mother both said he was fortunate to wrestle on high school and college teams with strong coaches who fostered family atmospheres.
He met Kirsten at a church in Kearney, and he was baptized.
"That's why I feel through wrestling, God revealed himself to me," he says. "That path he put me on to join the wrestling team and the wrestling community was the community that introduced me to God."
Dlagnev quickly rose through the collegiate and national ranks. He won NCAA Division II national titles in 2007 and 2008. He trained for a year at Northern Iowa and moved to Columbus in 2009 to train at the Ohio Regional Training Center with coach Lou Rosselli and world team member Tommy Rowlands. The ORTC pays an annual stipend of about $22,000. Dlagnev was third in the world in 2009, and fifth last year.
But as he improved, an issue he had with obsessive-compulsive disorder became much worse.
Dlagnev says he was never diagnosed and never sought medical treatment, but his symptoms were becoming more severe. He had tics and routines he would repeat dozens of times "until they felt right." Whether it was thrusting a hand upward every time he touched his face, or practicing a down-block wrestling maneuver, or performing an exaggerated sprawl on the bed at night, he would do those things over and over to the point of exhaustion or even injury.
A chiropractor told him the sprawling was damaging his spine. His warmups would last forever.
"My senior year, I didn't want to warm up for my national tournament. I had so many tics that I would exhaust myself. I was rational enough to know this is not helping, but I had such a discomfort if I didn't do it," he says.
He realized OCD and wrestling are counterintuitive. There's no time to dwell on a move until it "feels right." Every mistake and every successful move must quickly be forgotten as the match flows between a subtle chess match and a sudden flurry of attacks and counters. So, at a highly regarded New York Athletic Club international tournament after college, Dlagnev wrestled 2008 Olympian Steve Mocco, and Dlagnev decided to abandon all his routines and tics for one match.
His mind went into freak-out mode, but Dlagnev had the match of his life to that point and won.
"It proved you could perform without it," he says. "It's been freeing."
Dlagnev says he has rid himself of the tics through determination and prayer. Kirsten says he has virtually no symptoms now, though Bergman says he still notices them from time to time.
Dlagnev does have one new vice -- magic. On the road, he'll watch card-trick videos, then teach himself tricks. He carries a deck everywhere, and as with wrestling, practices relentlessly. He performs for teammates, turning a four into an ace, and back to a four, with an undetectable slight of hand.
Of course, tricks and no tics won't win him a gold medal in London. Great wrestling will. Dlagnev looked sharp at the U.S. team trials, winning every period. But word out of Russia recently is that 6-7, gold-medal favorite Bilyal Makhov also had a great trials.
Dlagnev is 0-1 in his career against Makhov, a result Dlagnev dismisses because it was at a dual meet in Russia. He is 2-2 against another strong contender, Belarus' Aleksey Shemarov, who beat Makhov last year. Dlagnev also has wins over Mongolian standout Chuluunbat Jargalsaikhan, two-time Olympic champion Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan, 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Marid Mutalimov of Kazakhstan and two-time world bronze medalist Ioannis Arzoumanidis of Greece.
The U.S. has won just one wrestling gold medal in each of the last two Olympics, and team leaders quietly are hoping Dlagnev will help increase that total (world champ Jordan Burroughs is favored at 163 pounds). The U.S. hasn't had a heavyweight champ since Bruce Baumgartner in 1992.
The charismatic Burroughs is the face of the U.S. wrestling team. Dlagnev is its soul, held in high regard by his coaches and teammates. Bergman thinks Dlagnev could be a break-out star at the Olympics.
"He's not looking to be that, by any means," Bergman says, "but I think his character and how he is, and what kind of man he is, makes him a perfect candidate."
On Twitter: @TimsTakePD