This article is paywalled. You should cut and paste the relevant stuff about how Cael had to call Penn State multiple times because they thought he was looking for leverage to use at Iowa State.
How Penn State hired Cael Sanderson: Inside the origins of an NCAA wrestling dynasty
Audrey Snyder
Mar 15, 2023
Cael Sanderson tried to blend in as he arrived at the Holiday Inn conference center across the street from the airport in Des Moines, Iowa, in April 2009.
That’s not easy for one of the most distinguished and recognizable American wrestlers of all time. Wearing a trench coat with a ball cap pulled low, Sanderson knew the idea of him leaving Iowa State would stun the wrestling world.
Nobody outside his inner circle needed to know.
Penn State’s five-person search committee, hoping to fly under the radar too, met him there, 40 miles from Iowa State’s campus. The committee arrived on a plane belonging to Nittany Lions wrestling alum, booster and trustee Ira Lubert, a member of the committee.
“We were highly sensitive and highly concerned that it would get out,” said Dr. Scott Kretchmar, Penn State’s faculty representative on the search committee.
“When we met at the hotel, we made sure there was ultimate security so that hotel personnel wouldn’t happen into the room. Cael came in in a way that would make it difficult for anyone to recognize him.”
Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard knew his prized wrestling coach was taking the interview. So did Sanderson’s assistant coaches and confidants, Cody Sanderson, his brother, and Casey Cunningham. The assistants had known of Sanderson’s interest in the job since earlier that winter, when rumors of Penn State parting ways with coach Troy Sunderland intensified. Cael Sanderson, 29 years old at the time, even reached out to then-Penn State athletic director Tim Curley to express interest should the job open, he told The Athletic in an email.
“Cael wanted to be No. 1 in everything,” said Bobby Douglas, Sanderson’s coach at Iowa State and in the
Olympics. Sanderson succeeded Douglas in Ames. “You’re not going to be No. 1 without going through Pennsylvania or having some kind of connection with Pennsylvania. … Everybody wanted Cael Sanderson. He was Mr. Wrestling.”
Sanderson capped his collegiate career with a perfect 159-0 record and four NCAA titles. His face was on Wheaties boxes. Young wrestlers dreamed of one day having Olympic gold hanging around their neck like Sanderson did in Athens, Greece, in 2004.
Sanderson became head coach of the Cyclones in 2006 and spoke of bringing an NCAA team title to his alma mater. Iowa State finished second, fifth and third at NCAAs during his time as head coach, qualifying a wrestler in every weight class for the championships during each of his three years — 30 in total. They were trending upward and had a commitment from the nation’s top recruit, David Taylor.
Many assumed — even some on Penn State’s search committee — that Sanderson would stay at Iowa State forever.
“Tim Curley asked me if I thought Cael Sanderson would be a good fit for Penn State, and one of the things I said was, ‘Would Mickey Mantle have been a good fit for the New York Yankees?’” Douglas said. “It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to see what the future could look like at Penn State if they got Cael Sanderson.”
What Penn State and Iowa State administrators couldn’t have fully grasped in 2009 was the seismic shift that would unfold in college wrestling. Before the hiring was announced,
Iowa wrestling coach Tom Brands stood in front of Hawkeyes supporters and cautioned that news was coming that would shake up the sport. He wouldn’t say what exactly, but wrestling’s blue bloods were on notice.
Powerhouse programs like Oklahoma State (34 championships), Iowa (24), Iowa State (eight) and
Oklahoma (seven) would soon have company from the Nittany Lions, who have won nine NCAA championships under Sanderson and 10 overall. They’re favored to win another this weekend in Tulsa, with nine individuals qualifying — the 10th time since Sanderson’s arrival that Penn State has had nine or more wrestlers advance to NCAAs. In all, Sanderson’s Penn State wrestlers have captured 32 individual national championships entering the 2023 event.
“Our goal, my goal, is just to be in the hunt every year, to be competitive,” Sanderson said this winter. “Is it realistic to be in the championship hunt seriously every year? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s our goal. Whether we win or not, it’s an inch here, an inch there. Whether an individual wins, it’s an inch here, an inch there. … There’s no secrets, right? It’s just hard work, surround yourself with great kids, keep them moving in the right direction and stay out of their way.”
There is at least one secret: Penn State almost didn’t hire the man whose program has morphed into one of the greatest dynasties in college sports history. It took a significant push from boosters and a leap of faith.
And for at least a few hours the night before Sanderson needed to give Penn State a final answer, he was set on staying at Iowa State.
The man with the chiseled jaw line who now sits calmly at the edge of the wrestling mat saw the potential in a Penn State program that had a proud wrestling tradition but last won a championship in 1953.
“Penn State was always a diamond, it had just gotten a little dusted up over the years,” said Jim Gibbons, a three-time All-America honoree at Iowa State who also coached the Cyclones from 1985 through 1992. He won an NCAA title as a wrestler and coach. “Those guys that wrestled in the late ’80s, early ’90s that I coached against, I’m happy for those guys. I really am. They go to the national championships now, they get to see that, but they also have a pretty good idea of how difficult it was. It probably doesn’t bother them to see some of the power of wrestling move away from the state of Iowa and the state of Oklahoma.”
Now, it’s almost an annual occurrence to see Nittany Lions wrestlers dominate at NCAAs and jog off as teammates run out and do the same. Penn State has progressed from a sleeping giant to a dynasty that shows no sign of declining under the 43-year-old Sanderson.
“We had some of the biggest names in wrestling interested in the job,” said Dave Joyner, a former Penn State wrestler and football player who was on the search committee and later served as athletic director from 2011 through 2015. “The Penn State job was quite a beacon because if you think about it, we’re in the center of the greatest wrestling in the country, if not the world, geographically.”
Stanford coach Rob Koll, then at Cornell, is a State College native whose father, Bill Koll, was the head coach of the Nittany Lions from 1965 through 1978. He was a presumed favorite to replace Sunderland. When the job opened, Sanderson was not among the first handful of candidates Penn State vetted, multiple people on the committee said. Some assumed his initial inquiry was a tactic to gain leverage at Iowa State, according to Lubert.
In fact, it took Sanderson reaching out to Curley a second time for Penn State to meet with him. That conversation prompted the trip to Des Moines, where Lubert sat across the table from his top candidate and asked why he wanted the job.
theathletic.com
