The New York Times ran a very good story about Cael Sanderson.Here are some of the highlights...
Subscribe to Penn State Clips via EmailCael anderson is not just a coach; he is the greatest wrestler in NCAA history — a four-time champion and the only one with a perfect record (159-0). He also won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics. Last spring, he left his alma mater, Iowa State, where in three years as head coach he sent every one of his wrestlers — 30 in all — to the NCAA Championships.
His departure shocked the wrestling world because at first glance it looked like the equivalent of Sanderson leaving Broadway for regional theater. Sure, the Nittany Lions had captured a national title — but that was in 1953, and Penn State is still the only school east of the Mississippi to have won one.
Sanderson, however, saw it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As a wrestler and a coach, he had too often looked across the mat and seen Pennsylvania kids in the singlets of Iowa, Minnesota and Oklahoma State — the three programs that have accounted for the last 20 NCAA titles.
In fact, of the 80 collegiate wrestlers to earn all-American honors last spring, 11 were from Pennsylvania, but only one was from Penn State, according to Pennsylvania Wrestling Newsmagazine. Sanderson saw a chance to build not only a champion, but also a dynasty much like the Hawkeyes, the Gophers and the Cowboys have...
“It’s like if I was a football coach with a chance to go to Texas where all the great players are, where they have the best facilities and where the fans support you to this incredible level."Sanderson’s tenure is in its infancy here in Happy Valley, but he has not disappointed anyone. Season ticket sales have doubled to more than 2,000 since he was named coach. The Nittany Lions are 4-1 and ranked No. 15 despite the fact that Sanderson has chosen to redshirt his entire freshman class — considered the best in the nation — as well as Quentin Wright, who was an all-American last year as a freshman.
Sanderson is a low-key presence in the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex, which underwent a $4 million facelift three years ago. In fact, with his shaved head, square jaw and coat-hanger shoulders, he looks more like the Nittany Lion wrestlers of the 1960s and 1970s whose photographs hang on the complex’s walls than a connoisseur of its state-of-the-art weight room, and sound and video system.
He speaks quietly to individual wrestlers while his older brother Cody or Casey Cunningham, both of whom he brought from Iowa State, do the barking that keeps the practice moving. His younger brother, Cyler, who was an all-American for the Cyclones two years ago, has joined the Nittany Lions as a senior.
Sanderson concedes that he was surprised by Penn State’s interest — in fact, it was the first time any school had come calling. He had wrestled for and succeeded Bobby Douglas at Iowa State and continued to preach technique and family at Iowa State. It was working, too.
He insists it was not about money. He acknowledged he received a raise but he said it was nowhere close to the $400,000 or more that has been rumored. Curley will not disclose Sanderson’s salary package, but denies that it is anywhere close to those numbers.
So now the Sanderson clan is starting anew in a state that perhaps appreciates what they do more than any in the country. Newspaper beat reporters, radio broadcasters, and a booster club of more than 1,200 people travel with them to dual meets and tournaments across the country.
Sanderson insists he and his brothers want to give them something that he has never accomplished either as a competitor or a coach: a team title...
“It’s the mark of a program, and it shows that you got a group of guys together and they shared in a common goal. It’s something I have missed. I don’t only want one of them. I want a bunch of them like the University of Iowa. I believe I’m in the right place for that to happen.”
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