Olympic hopeful Dantzler also has his eyes on business
It's 4:48 a.m. The alarm sounds, and T.C. Dantzler whacks the snooze button for 12 more minutes of sleep.
He's out the door of his Colorado Springs home within half an hour. By sunrise, he's wide awake, ready to do what he does best.
The U.S. Olympic wrestling trials are three weeks away. The Beijing Games are around the corner.
Like most mornings, Dantzler hardly cares about wrestling. Dressed in a suit, he hunches over a desk, makes phone calls, plows through e-mails - everything you wouldn't expect of an elite wrestler.
"I'm not just an athlete," he said. "I run a very successful company."
When Dantzler isn't fighting for his first Olympic berth, he calls the shots for TC logiQ Inc., a background screening business he founded 4 years ago to prevent wrestling from consuming his life.
The company has grown from three employees in a one-room office in 2004 to 23 employees in a 6,800-square-foot headquarters today. And Dantzler plans to hire six more employees this summer and take TC logiQ public in 3 years.
"It gives me a balance, otherwise I'd be just thinking about wrestling," said Dantzler, a 37-year-old Olympic Training Center resident. "That's overwhelming. I need to get away from that."
Learning the ropes
Dantzler learned how to operate a business before he learned how to wrestle.
As a child, he awoke early Saturday mornings, giving up football and baseball games to work for his parents' insurance agency in suburban Chicago.
A suit coat and dress shoes were mandatory. So was whatever his father, Thomas, wanted.
"My father has groomed me to be in business for myself," Dantzler said. "Not only being in business for myself but when you're in business for yourself, holding yourself accountable and wanting to be successful. Not just wanting to be on the team, wanting to be the franchise player."
After a decorated high school wrestling career, Dantzler earned a bachelor's degree in economics at Northern Illinois. Jobs followed with the U.S. Olympic Committee, FedEx Corp., Colorado College, General Dynamics Corp. and MCI.
In the beginnings of TC logiQ, a tiny office Dantzler called "the closet" had to suffice. Some days, Dantzler hit his head on the low ceiling. Some months, he barely paid the $375 rent.
"There were times I was making a decision," Dantzler said. "Do I pay the rent for the closet? Or do I pre-pay for these background searches? Or I need to win U.S. Nationals so I can get this bonus check so I can pick up this laser printer."
Walking the walk
Supplies are plentiful inside TC logiQ headquarters at Interstate 25 and Fillmore Street.
There's a lobby, six offices and a conference room - enough space for Dantzler and a management team that features University of Denver graduate Jarvis Wyatt, OTC wrestler R.C. Johnson, OTC gymnast Todd Thornton, Colorado at Colorado Springs graduate student Nick Bufmack and Samantha Wilson, who works from Iowa.
TC logiQ conducts more than 200,000 background searches a year for a variety of organizations, including national governing bodies of Olympic sports, the National High School Coaches Association and the state of Colorado.
The company verifies a person is not a sex offender and checks criminal records, motor vehicle reports and educational credentials. According to Dantzler, it recently discovered a presidential campaign staff member didn't have a Stanford degree.
"He's able to walk it," Johnson said of Dantzler. "The nature of being a wrestler is that we're very ambitious."
Added Thornton, "Any task, he's going to attack it. He carries that around with him. It's like, ‘It doesn't matter what they think. I'm going to get this done.'"
‘Planting this seed'
A USA Wrestling national team member, Dantzler receives a $900 monthly stipend for six months but doesn't get paid the other six months unless he wins tournaments.
Without TC logiQ, he might struggle to support his family. He has two sons, Thomas Curtis III, 8, and Tyce Cayden, 4. His wife, Tanya, is expecting their third child, a girl, in July, and they're adopting a 17-month-old girl.
"I can't go to a tournament and win $250,000 and a Mercedes and a $50,000 Rolex," Dantzler said. "I'm going to win $3,000, and I'm going to get taxed on it."
Dantzler qualified the U.S. 163-pound Greco-Roman weight class for Beijing with a third-place finish this month at a tournament in Rome. His win at nationals last month puts him in the best-of-three finals for the June 13-15 trials in Las Vegas.
At 37, Dantzler is trying to become the second-oldest American wrestler to win an Olympic medal. Chris Campbell was 53 days shy of his 38th birthday when he won a freestyle bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
"I'm thinking about winning that gold medal," Dantzler said. "I'm ready to do battle with anybody and win."
Dantzler anticipates he will wrestle through the 2012 London Games. He hopes his business lasts a lot longer.
"I've been planting this seed and cultivating it," he said. "It's up to the athletes to pave their own way for when that window closes. That window is closing every day. It could close any time."
