I’ve had this thought throughout Penn State wrestling’s season that’s been rattling around. It’s been constantly nagging, nearly souring how special this season has been.
What if this isn’t forever?
And maybe that’s the wrong question to be asking. Maybe the correct question to be asking is what if this is forever? What if, this way of Penn State wrestling, just never stops?
It’s arrogant. It’s brash. It’s cocky. It’s borderline ungrateful.
But if you don’t stop to become aware of the reality to all of this – the last 13 years, the double-digit national champions and the 11 team titles – then I’m not sure you can fully appreciate it.
After Penn State wrestling clinched its 11th team title in 13 seasons on the backs of four individual national champions, the deliriousness a statement like that brings makes you question the reality of it while heightening the importance of appreciation of it in the now.
There was a point on the telecast on Friday night where one of ESPN’s announcers brought up the average margin of victory at the NCAA championship for Penn State in the team title races over the last 11 wins. The cavalierness to the factoid was passed off with the energy of any stat you’d hear in the depths of summer from a voice like Vin Scully’s. It was presented as something to pass the time, waiting for the inevitable, bridging you along until the show was over.
But that’s the mere absurdity of all of this.
This moment – or reality – is not one of those stats. Penn State had just clinched a team title on Friday night. There were two whole sessions to go. Six national finalists wearing blue and white left to wrestle, two of who were going for their fourth title at the collegiate level – one of the sport’s most desired accomplishments. This 13-year journey that hit a new high this week in Kansas City is not just an offering to keep a viewer entertained.
However, this is Penn State wrestling under Cael Sanderson. This is not normal yet it has become normal.
And sure, “Cael Sanderson” won’t be a nationally known name the way Lombardi, Belichick or Torre are.
In fact, I’m doubtful the average American sports fan knows who he is. After all, wrestling is a niche sport at best with a cult-like following that will likely always be trapped behind North America’s Big Four, plus soccer, lacrosse and maybe even a few others. Wrestling, as tough as it is to hear for Penn State or Iowa fans, won’t garner the money from advertisers the way the NFL does and won’t make the highlight shows the way the NBA does. It’s broadcasted essentially once per year on the Worldwide Leader, and while growing steadily on the Big Ten Network, it nowhere rivals the attention that SEC Football – or even Big Ten Football – brings.
But Penn State’s 11 team titles in 13 years puts Sanderson in the conversation with UCLA’s Wooden, the Bulls’ Jackson and the Steelers’ Noll.
In his time at Penn State, there have been 91 All-Americans and 38 national championships won by individuals. He’s now become the first coach to produce two four-time champions. Hell, this is the third time Penn State has separately three-peated.
He is without a doubt one of the greatest coaches in American sport, not just wrestling but any sport, ever.
Having said all that, at times this year, it’s been a bit hard to process that — for that to resonate in your brain. It’s almost easy to forget just how lucky this fanbase has become. Because at some point over the last 13 years – maybe 10 once we all figured out things might be different around these parts – it’s just become expected.
Of course, Penn State will win the team title. That was essentially decided in October. Of course, Penn State will have some national champions. It was just a question of how many of course.
And of course, one day this will end.
Iowa’s reign over this sport once went on for much of the 70s, 80s and 90s but the Hawkeyes have won just once since Penn State’s run started. Oklahoma State’s 34 titles – the most in the country – haven’t been added to in almost 20 years.
Eventually the momentum will stop. But that statement and “of course, one day this will end” is hard to write without the word “maybe” added in there and likely harder to read, too, even subconsciously, right now thanks to the last 13 years.
What’s different about this run is that now more than ever college athletics is an arms race. The science and the attention to performance has never been more heightened. Sanderson is so good at pulling the right strings that he just beat the rest of the competition by 100 points. And he’s consistently creating champions.
This run has become so unstoppable that it can make you question the reality of it to almost miss the greatness of it — certainly take even some of it for granted.
In a way, that consciousness has been magnified this season. It was capped by eight All-Americans and four individual national titles, two becoming four-time champs on the same night. The team put up 172.5 points, the most ever at the NCAA Championships. This was, without a doubt, his best team, and you must stop for a moment and embrace it or otherwise you’ll miss it.
Wrestling today, fueled by those inspired and enamored by the nicheness to it, isn’t what it once was which intensifies this standard. And in many ways, with NIL in particular, it’s harder to win a high level. In many ways, it’s gone from blue-collar sport to, well, blue-collar sport with white collar funding, and Penn State, thanks to the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club, hasn’t just become the crown jewel of the nation’s wrestling rooms, it’s the throne, vault and castle all in one.
And that’s why when its ruler Sanderson spoke this season about the lack of noise at Rec Hall, it came as a bit of shock. Sanderson shouldn’t have to ask for anything because he has earned everything.
But he may have been on to something. Penn State fans weren’t as boisterous because they’ve become expectant. Expectant that, for the most part, at least half of their wrestlers will go out, win a bout in the regular season while fans’ eyes focused toward moments like the ones we got on Saturday night. The regular season can at times feel like it doesn’t matter.
We’ve collectively become so programmed by this program’s achievements that it can pull from the gratitude you can, or should, give for what this truly is.
We’ve been so absorbed by it that you can almost forget at times what it is.
That’s why stopping for just one second to realize the near-insanity of this greatness may one day end is OK. If you don’t pause to reflect on how truly incredible this run has been, you only long it even more should it end.
Or maybe it won’t end – which I’m sure you won’t complain about – unless you’re an Iowa fan reading this.
And that’s just it though. There’s no reason to believe that Penn State won’t compete for a national title next year or the year after that or the year after that – as long as Sanderson is around. Top talent is likely always going to come with prospects of growing more and more. Why? Because that’s what this program has done every year for the last 13 years. It’s built champions. It’s built the best.
That belief, or maybe expectation at this point, has only magnified the need to celebrate just how incredible this run is and how, if one day it does end, appreciative those who do care about the sport – particularly those who pack Rec Hall – should be for it.
It doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful now. It doesn’t mean you can’t question the dream-like state it creates. It just means you have to stop and reflect to realize its scope because nothing may be forever.
Right now, though, this certainly feels like forever.
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