Reusse: Olympic wrestler Duane Koslowski’s death leaves twin brother missing a best friend

Marceline Koslowski had five children with husband Henry in a four-year period starting in the late 1950s. Janice was first, followed by Jim, the twins Dennis and Duane, and then Marlys.

“Jim’s birthday comes three days on the calendar before ours,” Dennis said this week. “Meaning, our mom had three children in 368 days. They called us three boys the ‘Polish Triplets.’”

Calamity soon struck this young family living near Watertown, S.D. Marceline was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died in a short time.

“Duane and I were 2½ when our mother died,” Dennis said. “I’ve seen a cloudy outline of her in a dress working in the kitchen in my mind, but that has to be just imagination.”

Henry had a drinking habit that worsened after his wife’s death. It reached a point that the five kids were dispersed to relatives. Janice, Jim and Marlys wound up individually with aunts and uncles from Marceline’s side of the family.

“Duane and I were 8 and kept together; we went to live with Aunt Mary and Uncle Tony from the Koslowski side of the family,” Dennis said. “They were an older couple, not looking to have a pair of 8-year-olds in their house. They were kind of forced into taking us by family pressure, I think.”

This was on a farm near Webster, S.D. “Brock Lesnar would come from there; it was a great little wrestling town,” Dennis said. “As sixth-graders, they tried to sign us up for wrestling, but Aunt Mary said, ‘No, they have chores.’”

Being away from their siblings, getting up at 5:30 a.m. for chores, having the feeling of not being fully wanted — a couple of energetic young boys can become united even beyond the norm for twins.

“We weren’t identical, but we were a mirror image of one another,” Dennis said. “Our personalities were similar. When we were real young, Duane would get hurt and I would cry.

“We had our scuffles, but we always have been best friends.”

There was a catch in Dennis’ voice, for earlier this month, Dennis received a call that Duane, his younger brother by 26 minutes, had died at 65. He had been in a hospital, received a stent in his heart, and seemed to be doing well, but then passed away at home during the night.

Duane lived near Charlottesville, Va. “He loved his wife, Mary Pat, loved his kids,” Dennis said. “ … He lost daughter Christina to a disease at 35 and that was very hard on him."

For the past few years, Duane had organized a weekly Zoom call between the five siblings.

“We’d talk for a half-hour, 45 minutes,” Dennis said. “He’d always tell us, ‘I have a couple in the chamber before we’re done here.’

“That meant he had a couple of jokes.”

Dennis Koslowski became the first U.S. wrestler to win a Greco-Roman medal in a non-boycotted Olympics with a bronze at 220 pounds in Seoul in 1988. Duane was the heavyweight on that team.

“The weight limit was 286,” Dennis said. “Duane did all he could to get up to 255 pounds. He was matched against these giants who were cutting weight to get down to 286.”

Four years later, Dennis became the first U.S. wrestler to win a Greco-Roman silver in Barcelona. He battled magnificently there, upsetting Poland’s Andrzej Wronski (‘88 gold medalist) to reach a title match with Cuba’s renowned Hector Milan.

Dennis lost 2-1 in overtime and then retired, as he had done once earlier.

And how did Dennis first find his way to the mat, while in the seventh grade in Webster, and Aunt Mary still demanding that chores were required after school?

“Duane dislocated an elbow,” Dennis said. “So he went home after school and did all the chores one-armed, while I was able to join the wrestling program in Webster.”

After the eighth grade, a man named Jim Weems gave father Henry a job and a small farm house in which to house the family.

The Koslowskis were reunited and went to high school in Doland, S.D. There’s a monument outside town honoring Dennis and Duane for their wrestling exploits and also one for another Doland High graduate: Hubert Horatio Humphrey (Class of 1927).

Dennis and Duane went to college at Minnesota-Morris, playing next to one another (center, guard) on the offensive line and holding down the two highest weights on the wrestling team.

Dennis discovered Greco-Roman through Dan Chandler and Brad Rheingans. Duane came out of retirement in ’85, mostly to give Dennis a training partner, and they both made the ’88 Olympic team.

Dennis became a national coach briefly, quit that to compete again, won the silver medal — and then settled into a chiropractor business in northeast Minneapolis and family life with wife Sylvie.

Always there were two or three weekly phone calls with Duane, family dramas to share, and stories to be told, such as this one:

“We were at the World Championships in Budapest in 1986,” Dennis said. “Our coach was Pavel Kasten … from Latvia, and not a fan of the Russians. Duane was in a match and Pavel wanted Duane to make a move.

“He was shouting, ‘Duane, you must break him. He’s a Communist.‘”

A laugh to go with the tears that Dennis Koslowski has encountered since losing his best friend Duane this month.