If You Build It, They Will Come

 It looks like I made exactly two additions to my Olympian collection this past year.  One Dan Gable card and one Kent Ferguson.  I need to decide if wrestling needs to be its own category.  I have wrestling as a category, but that is for pro wrestling, so I'll just need to notate them separately.   The other adjustments of note are the growth in the number of cards for some of the Olympians, including Caitlyn Jenner, Dan Gable and Terry Brands.  Those changes came in three varieties: New variations on old cards (Jenner, Gable) Old sets added (Brands) New sets (Gabby Douglas) I made sure to mark them as wants on TCDB.  As with other sports like these, I don't have as much in the trade department so I require someone who a) has a Gabby Douglas card b) is looking to trade it, and c) for baseball, football or basketball. So, definitely need to spruce up the trade options and consider using more eBay for these collections.   Name ICDB Have T...

        Profile Conor Dwyer was an Olympic swimmer that spent his first couple of years at the University of Iowa before transferring to Florida to complete his college career.  Conor won 2 gold medals and 1 bronze medal combined at the 2012* and 2016 Olympics.   * Other 2012 Iowa Olympic Competitors: Gabby Douglas (Des Moines) Gold Medals All-Around/Team Gymnastics ** Other 2016 Iowa Olympic Competitors: Matt Stutzman(Fairfield) Silver Medal Paralympics Archery Personal Notes So....he attended Iowa for two years and left for greener pastures and you still collect him?   Well, yes.  I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time; that Iowa is a great state, and sometimes to succeed you need to leave Iowa.  I live in Ohio now due to my job, and I assume Conor left Iowa to attend a college that had a better program to help him achieve his dreams.  You can't fault that.   But...did you read his wikipedia page?  He g...

        Profile Jon Koncak was born in Cedar Rapids and chose to play his college ball at Southern Methodist University.  He was drafted in 1985* (6th overall) and played 12 years for the Atlanta Hawks, won a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics**, and has an IMDB page (for his time in the movie Eddie). * Other Iowa connections: Greg Stokes (2nd UofI) and Barry Stevens (2nd ISU), Michael Payne (3rd UofI), Daryl Lloyd (6th Drake) ** Everyone remembers the 1984 team because of Koncak, future Iowa head coach Steve Alford and some guy named Michael Jordan Personal Notes Koncak chose to play outside of Iowa for his college career, a choice that many players made before all three Iowa schools built their reps. Some other notables who chose to play outside Iowa include: Raef LaFrentz (Kansas), Nick Collison (Kansas), Kirk Hinrich (Kansas), Harrison Barnes (North Carolina), Doug McDermott (Creighton), and Patrick O'Bryant (Bradley). Collection Notes I have 24/80 (30%...

       Profile Matt Stutzman was a Olympian* for the 2012 and 2016 Paralympic teams and was a Silver Medal winner in 2012.  He resides in Fairfield**, Iowa and continues a proud tradition of Iowans that have represented our country. * Matt is not the only Olympian from Fairfield, John Jackson was a sharp shooter in the 1912 Olympics and came home with a Gold and Bronze  ** Other famous people from Fairfield: Walter Day (Twin Galaxies owner), Milo Hamilton (Sportscaster), Buddy Biancalana(MLB), and Ben Foster (actor)  Personal Notes While not exactly true, when I was growing up we basically had baseball/football/basketball/hockey cards to choose from.  There are generations of athletes who missed out on cards not because they weren't awesome, but because there was no one producing cards about their sports.  That's why I love these Topps Olympic cards, because they spotlight these superior athletes who might never cards otherwise.   (...

     Profile Gayle Hopkins was a track athlete from Davenport who went on to have a successful career at Arizona and competed in the 1964 Olympics*.  Gayle broke Jesse Owens' long jump record at the Drake Relays**. * Olympics were held in Tokyo, and introduced Judo and Volleyball as medal events.  ** I mean any time you get to mention "broke Jesse Owens' ... record", that means you're pretty good Personal Notes When building my personal database, I've used a bunch of resources, starting with Wikipedia, BaseballReference, Football Reference, etc.  The additions I enjoy the most are the random ones I find reading an article about someone else.  I was researching James Jones for a previous post, and they were mentioning other famous athletes from Davenport, including Gayle Hopkins.  I bring up his wikipedia page and find it having very little info, so I had to dig to find he was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, raised in Iowa, and attended college in Colora...