The Dumbest Kid in Gifted Class

by Dan Ryckert

  “PULLING THE PLUG!”

  He made the motion again. I stopped being confused by the whole situation for a moment, and tried to hold back laughter at this sweaty-faced German man standing up and yelling about plugs while repeatedly jerking his arm in case I didn’t understand what he was saying. I held out for a second, but a small laugh escaped my lips as he glared at me.

  “Do you think this is funny?” he asked.

  “No, Principal Weber. I’m sorry.”

  I laughed again.

  “He’ll pull the plug, Danny!” Sister Mary Ann chimed in behind me.

  “Yes, I understand. I don’t think that’s funny.”

  I promised the two of them that I’d never again do the thing in the bathroom that I had never done in my life, and walked out of Principal Weber’s office. No plugs were ever pulled.

  Thankfully, my experience in gifted class continued throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school even after I left Holy Trinity. With each passing year, it became more evident that I wasn’t of the same ilk as the other students in gifted class. They all studied vigorously and grades were of the utmost importance to them. I opted to stay the course with the things I had always cared about—basically, video games and professional wrestling.

  In sixth grade, I was the only student in gifted class who wasn’t allowed to go to a “Treasures of the Czars” exhibit that came through town. Teachers had warned me about my mediocre grades and general apathy toward academics before, and they thought they’d reinforce their concern by forcing me to stay behind. My studious classmates walked around and stared at Fabergé eggs as I stayed back and ignored social studies lectures with the standard class.

  Once I moved on to junior high, the structure and focus of gifted class—known as “Quest” in the Olathe School District—became even more open-ended. Want to learn about video editing? Sure, here’s the equipment. Wanna have a structured debate with a fellow student about Crash Bandicoot versus Super Mario 64? No problem. Just be sure to bring your incredibly ill-informed ideas about processing power and how artificial intelligence works.

  With each year that passed, it became more and more clear that I was the dumbest kid in Quest. These other students had a road map for their academic goals and eventual careers. They knew which college they wanted to go to, how to get a scholarship, what their major would be, and how they’d maintain a 4.0 GPA throughout.

  During one roundtable discussion with the entire class, our teacher, Mrs. Hill, asked us to state which college we wanted to go to and why. Each student gave an impassioned argument for their school of choice. They’d be going to the University of Whatever because it ran in their family, because its charitable giving programs led the nation, or because they knew they’d excel in its football program while simultaneously earning a master’s degree.

  As the circle came around to me, I realized that I didn’t know a single thing about any of these colleges. I had heard of the University of Kansas and Kansas State since they were local, and I had heard Harvard and Yale jokes on The Simpsons, but I knew zero details about any of them. When Mrs. Hill came around to me, I gave an answer that I genuinely meant.

  “I want to go to DeVry.”

  Everyone in the class laughed.

  “That’s very funny, Dan,” Mrs. Hill said. “What’s your real choice of school?”

  “Uh, DeVry?” I repeated.

  The class realized that I was serious, and the laughter awkwardly subsided as Mrs. Hill moved on to the next student. I had no idea why my choice was met with unanimous laughter. All I knew was that I had seen commercials for DeVry on a regular basis, and it looked like the school had some kind of focus on technology. I wanted to work in the video game industry, so I figured that this was as good a choice as any.

  To this day, I’m still not really sure what DeVry is and why that was so funny. At no point did I ever research any colleges whatsoever. I have to assume that DeVry is some kind of piddly online program or scam, and that’s why it sounded like a joke in a class of kids with Ivy League aspirations. I also have zero idea as to what an Ivy League school is—I just know that the richest/smartest kids in my class always talked about going to one.

  It was clear that my priorities were vastly different from everyone else’s in Quest. I didn’t take the laughter at my DeVry answer as a kick in the ass to look into colleges because I still didn’t care (nor would I ever). It didn’t interest me, and I had no intention of forcing myself to learn about colleges just because that’s what everyone else was doing.

  Moving into high school, the chasm between me and the other students only grew. Plenty of resources were available to us when it came to college prep. Representatives from universities visited Olathe East to talk to prospective students, campus tours were offered, and special classes were available that counted toward college credit. I always heard my classmates talking about this stuff, but I would immediately lose interest and tune out. I had zero plan for college and just assumed that everything would work out fine. College loans were a thing, right? I’d just go to the closest school, take out a ton of loans, and then get a job afterward and pay them off. I didn’t see why the process warranted any further thought.

  While everyone else was applying for schools and scholarships, I funneled all of my energy into learning more about professional wrestling. Later years would see me angling my independent study selections toward video production, but I spent a couple of years focused on the pro wrestling industry in Quest class.

  “Studying” is perhaps too strong a word for what I did early on. It mostly consisted of me spending my Quest hour browsing sites with names like WrestleZone and Rajah’s WWF News & Rumors. It didn’t take long to realize that I had no real plan as to how I’d spend my time. We were encouraged to write papers or make presentations based on our independent study choice, but this was far from enforced.

  Sitting around and reading wrestling websites started to feel like a waste of time if I didn’t have some kind of goal. My early attempts at remedying this sense of aimlessness didn’t help matters. I maintained a spiral notebook where I listed every single wrestling move I could identify. If I took a bathroom break during class and there was no one else in the hallway, I’d take a drink from the drinking fountain and try to spit it into the air like Triple H. Even more embarrassingly, I recorded a video with the intention of giving it to Vince McMahon—chairman and CEO of the WWE—when I grew up. In it, I spoke earnestly to the camera about how “even though I’m only fifteen years old, I already know so much about the wrestling industry.” I proceeded to list a bunch of “insider” terms that were already well-known to any wrestling fan with an internet connection.

  These were before the days when I could spend the time going down YouTube rabbit holes, so my options were limited. I’d realize a new avenue thanks to a great coincidence during a shift at the movie theater. My early years at AMC were filled with box office, usher, and concession shifts. I was bumped up to guest services a couple of years into my tenure. This was the front desk area, and I’d be the guy manning the station in case customers needed help with anything.

  During these shifts, my only company would be whoever was tasked with tearing ticket stubs. This was frequently a girl from my high school named Gabby. We didn’t have much in common, and I probably wouldn’t have known even if we did because I was a teenager and she was a girl.

  My buddy Chris would always come up to the desk when he had downtime during his usher shifts. One evening, we started chatting about whether our theater would be featuring Beyond the Mat, a wrestling documentary set for release later that year.

  “You guys like pro wrestling?” Gabby asked.

  She clearly hadn’t overheard any previous conversation between Chris and me, because we were always talking about wrestling. We told her that yes, we loved wrestling.

  “Cool,” she said. “I don’t watch it, but my grandpa used to be a big deal.”

  My head spun, won
dering who he could possibly be. I assumed he had to be some low-rent nobody who talked up his days of being a famous wrestler like a former high school quarterback who can’t stop talking about the glory days.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “Harley Race.”

  WHAT.

  The Harley Race. The eight-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion. The man who went to war time after time with “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes and “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. The man who spilled blood and sweat across the nation, earning a reputation as one of the most legitimate “tough guys” in the professional wrestling industry.

  I couldn’t believe it, but I had no reason to doubt her. Why would Gabby lie about this if she had no interest in wrestling? She told me that Harley was running his own small promotion out of Eldon, Missouri. It was a rural town of less than 5,000 people, and it was about two-and-a-half hours east of where we were currently standing.

  “You should go to one of the shows!” she said. “I’ll tell him you’re coming and you can meet him if you want to.”

  If I wanted to? I had never met a professional wrestler in my life, and I had desperately wanted to pick the brain of one for years. Not only was I getting the opportunity to meet a wrestler, I’d be meeting a genuine legend who had worked in the business for over three decades. His fame came primarily from his time as an active competitor, but he also had years of experience as a manager and promoter. If I had my choice of picking anyone’s brain about the business, it’d be hard to find someone more ideal than Harley Race.

  I told Gabby that I’d be going to the very next show in Eldon. Since I refused to drive on the highway until my mid-20s, I made sure Chris was willing to drive. A couple of weeks later, we hopped in his car and made the drive through the deeply depressing area of the country that is rural Missouri.

  We arrived in Eldon, and it was everything I could have hoped for. Harley greeted me at the community center with the firmest handshake I’d ever felt. He didn’t have much time to talk before the show, but he assured me that we’d get a chance later. Chris and I sat in the bleachers during the show, and I kept pulling out my spiral notebook to jot down more questions that I wanted to ask Harley.

  Once the main event concluded, I approached Harley and asked if he had some time to chat. He asked if I wanted to hop in the ring for a photo op with him first. We entered the ring, snapped a picture, and then sat down in the bleachers to talk at length about professional wrestling. Various fans stuck around after the show and would approach him for autographs and pictures, but they eventually filtered out until it was just Harley, Chris, me, and the crew members and wrestlers who were tearing down the ring.

  For the better part of an hour, I asked Harley every question I could think of about professional wrestling. He was soft-spoken and somewhat intimidating, but he never seemed annoyed by the questions. I got the sense that even after all of those years, he still loved chatting about the business. When it was time to go, he gave me his phone number and told me to call if I ever had more questions.

  Chris and I were ecstatic during our drive back to Kansas. We had just sat down with an icon who was more than generous with his time and knowledge. When I got back to school, I would have bragged to everyone about my amazing weekend if I had felt like anyone would have known about Harley’s legacy. My classmates were familiar with Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and D-Generation X, but few of them had wrestling knowledge that predated the current “Attitude Era” boom period.

  I was still thinking about my weekend when I arrived at my Quest hour after lunch. As I always did, I sat down at a computer station and started clicking around to wrestling news sites and message boards. After a couple of minutes, I realized something. I had been wanting to find a real focus for my independent study class, and now I had the phone number for an amazing resource.

  I called Harley and told him that I wanted to do a more formal interview for a school project. He agreed, and told me to get some questions together and call him on Sunday. It seemed to take forever, but Sunday eventually rolled around and I was ready for the call. My stepfather’s office phone had a speaker on it, so I placed it on the ground next to my boombox, which had a built-in microphone. I pressed record, called Harley, and once again picked his brain about a variety of wrestling topics. That week, I presented my Quest teacher with a transcription and analysis of my interview with Harley Race.

  My teacher seemed impressed with my newfound focus and said she’d love to see more of it coming from me. I suddenly realized that asking “Can I speak to you for a school project?” would sound a lot better than “HEY I LIKE WRESTLING, CAN I TALK TO YOU?” if I wanted to continue to learn about the business from those within it.

  With a legitimate reason to request interviews, I started scanning the internet for any wrestling-based appearances around the Kansas City area. Wrestling legend Mick Foley was supposedly retired from the business and focusing on his new career as a New York Times best-selling author. As a result, he was scheduled for a book signing during a car show downtown. Interviewing him would be a dream, but there were no obvious contact listings for him online. Instead, I contacted the convention center that would be hosting the car show. They put me in touch with the guy who handled press requests for the show, and in turn, he got me in touch with Foley’s agent. I explained that I was a high school student who wanted to speak to Foley for a class project, and the agent told me that he’d ask Foley about it. A few days later, I was told that Foley had given the thumbs-up—I’d have a half-hour to speak with him after the book signing.

  I was blown away by how easy this all was. By calling a few people and saying the right things, I was granted a half-hour chat with one of my favorite wrestlers. People waited in line for hours just to get a book signed by the guy, but I’d be getting a full sit-down interview just because I asked. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the advice that my AMC manager had given me just a year or two earlier: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

  When the day of the car show arrived, I stuck around the stage while Foley worked his way through the winding line of autograph seekers. I grabbed anyone who seemed to be there in an official capacity, telling them that I had an interview scheduled with Foley after the signing. After annoying several security guys who had no idea what I was talking about, I eventually found the agent that I had spoken with on the phone, and he confirmed that the interview was good to go.

  My breathing became rapid and my heart almost beat through my chest when the signing ended. I needed to keep my cool while introducing myself to Foley and maintain calm for at least thirty minutes past that. As he stood up from behind the signing table and started walking toward me and his agent, I took a deep breath and tried my best to look like I wasn’t nervous.

  “Hey Mick,” the agent said. “This is Dan. He’s the student that’s gonna interview you.”

  Foley shook my trembling hand and said “Nice to meet you.” We headed to an administrative room in the convention center and sat down on the same style of metal folding chair that had slammed into his skull on hundreds of occasions. My nerves were at their peak as the interview began, but my anxiety quickly subsided as Foley proved tremendously easy to talk to. At one point, I congratulated him on the recent birth of his third child. He thanked me and said that he didn’t want to talk about that much, because he preferred to keep his family life private. He must’ve had a change of heart between that interview and 2016, since he and his entire family later starred in a reality show.

  Many years later, Foley made another transition from author to stand-up comedian. One of his shows in 2012 coincided with WWE’s SummerSlam event in Los Angeles. I was downstairs at the Hollywood Improv before the show, and figured I should probably pee before Foley took the stage. Searching around the lower level of the club didn’t yield any obvious restrooms, so I took the stairs up and entered a doorway. In that room was one person. It was Mick Foley, sitting on a couch and looking over his not
es for the night.

  “Oh!” I said. “I was trying to find the restroom, and I accidentally found Mick Foley.”

  He looked up and laughed. I could tell he was worried that I was a fan who was about to pester him before he went onstage. Before I excused myself, I had to say one thing.

  “I know you’re getting ready, so I won’t bug you long. I just wanted to say that when I was 17 years old, you were nice enough to give me a half-hour of your time for a school project. That meant a lot to me and I just wanted to thank you.”

  “I did?” he asked. “Boy, I must have been a lot nicer back then. Now I’m just gonna yell at you to get the hell out of my green room!”

  His mock anger turned to a smile as he waved goodbye and told me to enjoy the show.

  My idea of utilizing the “school project” excuse instantly netted me an interview with one of the most famous wrestlers of all time. The ball kept rolling when I learned that Jerry “The King” Lawler would be signing autographs at a baseball card convention in Overland Park, Kansas. I used the same technique I did with Foley to secure a similar interview.

  This one was huge for me on two levels. One was as a wrestling fan, and another was due to my fascination with Andy Kaufman. Lawler engaged in a brilliant feud with Kaufman that involved an infamous confrontation on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982. Not only was I able to ask Lawler a ton of questions about his wrestling history, I also heard firsthand about the process of planning an elaborate hoax with a comedy icon. I kept asking question after question long after my allotted thirty minutes were up, prompting his then-wife Stacy “The Kat” Carter (a former WWE performer) to yell at him for taking too long. He told her to be patient, she stormed off, and we kept the conversation going.

  Like I did with Foley, I reminded Lawler of this years later. We were both at a bar in Dallas during WrestleMania weekend in 2016, and I approached him to say thanks for being so kind to the teenage version of me. When I showed him a picture of us from the interview on my phone, he grabbed it, showed it to his new fiancée, and said “Look—I wasn’t as fat back then!”