Education
Considering what Dana has done with the UFC and how he deals with contracts,
fighters, managers, lawyers, politicians, boxing commissions, television deals, cable
and on and on, you would think that he did extremely well in school. That was not the
case. Dana was bright, but trying to get him to apply himself was another thing. I
believe that the education you receive in the early years, well before college, is the
most important (not that Dana ever went to college — more of the myth). Early
education is the foundation for everything else; if you cannot read or write then your
future will not be very bright. I tried very hard to stay on top of what was going on
with Dana in school. When we went out to eat, I would always ask Dana to figure out
the tip for me. You cannot believe how difficult that was for him well into his high
school years. I would tell him, “Take the billed amount, move the decimal point over
one place, and then just double the amount. So if the bill is $20.00, move the decimal
point over one place, which would be $2.00, and then just double that. So $2.00 plus
$2.00 is $4.00, and that will be the tip.” It was something that seemed so simple, but
he just could not wrap his head around it. Half the time he would get frustrated and
just start guessing at what he thought the tip should be. I am sure Dana has no
problems figuring out math, especially with money, these days, just using much
bigger numbers.
Dana started school while we were living in Ware, Massachusetts. In 1974, he was
in kindergarten, and his report card shows he did very well, especially in recitation.
His teacher’s comments for his first semester were, “Dana has adjusted quite well to
school, both socially and academically. He’s a good pupil and works hard at whatever
he does.” His teachers were always stating how Dana worked hard at everything he
tried to do.
In second grade, Dana began having problems in the classroom. On February 11,
1977, I had a meeting with the school psychologist, classroom teacher, special
services teacher, and the speech pathologist. Dana went through a battery of tests,
and now that we had the results, we needed to decide what actions, if any, needed to