GLORY: Penn State Wrestling celebrates yet another national championship
After Bo Nickal pinned Ohio State’s Myles Martin Saturday in the 184-pound final of the 2018 NCAA Div. 1 Wrestling Championships, his celebration must have left some fans confused.
The usually cool, calm and collected junior looked crazed, some would say cocky, as he jumped into Cael Sanderson’s arms and, arms outspread as he was held aloft, looked like a scene from Titanic.
Considering his history with Martin, a man who upset him for the title in 2016, and what was on the line, only the team championship, most would forgive him the histrionics.
“I think about that match every day almost. It’s something that sticks in my mind. I feel that one of my goals was to be a four-time national champion coming to Penn State,” Nickal said in post-championship media room.
“So, not being able to accomplish that, it hurts. I think about it every day. But I think it’s just part of the plan that God has for me. It’s going to make me a better person. And, in the end, I’m really happy where I’m at and really happy be able to help my team out a little bit with the pin.”
His message is instructive, as is who the first teammate to congratulate Nkickal was after he stepped off the raised mat — Mark Hall.
Hall had just lost a tough 8-2 decision to Arizona State’s Zahid Valencia, a match in which he was dominated. He, too, had been denied a chance at becoming a four-time champion.
Almost to a man, Penn State recruits wrestlers who not only want to be NCAA champions, but four-time champions and world champions and Olympic champions. They want to pursue perfection, or as near to it as they can get, as their head coach once did.
Sanderson went 159-0 and won four titles in his career at Iowa State, the only undefeated four-time NCAA champion in the sport’s history.
“I think it’s their leader. Cael is their leader. He’s the leader of this whole crew. His demeanor, how he carries himself, how he leads this team, you just see it in our guys. The kids reflect the leader and the type of leader he is, you see it in our kids,” head assistant coach Casey Cunningham said Saturday night.
“They’re great kids who are respectful and grateful for this opportunity to go out here and compete. They come in every day and say ‘I get to wrestle. I get to do this, it’s not that I have to do this.’ That comes from the leader.”
The leader, Sanderson, fosters a culture of gratefulness and family. A lot of teams espouse that philosophy, few have it manifest itself in the tight-knit way the Nittany Lions demonstrate.
After Nickal won and he was ushered into the bowels of Quicken Loans Arena for NCAA and media responsibilities, a gang of his teammates spotted Nickal down a back hall and sprinted to congratulate him, shouting “Bo! Bo!”
They met in a scrum and shared a group hug and congratulations all around. Some of those teammates had met their championship goals, while others had not. Still, they all reveled in Nickal’s success and what his win meant to the team, the family.
That isn’t always the case. But at Penn State the whole is always emphasized over the individual parts. The individuals are important, but it’s the team that comes first.
That ability to deal with defeat in service to and celebration of the team stems in large part from Cunningham and associate head coach Cody Sanderson. They’ve both tasted defeat on the NCAA’s largest stage.
Cunningham lost in the 1998 finals before breaking through for a title in 1999. Sanderson lost 3-1 overtime decisions in both 1999 and 2000, as his brother, Cael was winning titles. Cody knows how bittersweet it can be when some teammates reach goals and others don’t.
“It’s something as athletes we’ve both experienced, come through. Your emotions are up and down. Sometimes you’re happy and sometimes you’re hurting. At the end of the day, you hope your guys reach their goal because, really, that’s what you worry about,” Cody said.
“We know what it feels like to be disappointed. We know what it feels like to not reach goals. You just hope that those guys don’t have to feel the same thing.”
That’s why Cael Sanderson talks little about winning and mostly about having fun, enjoying the process and being grateful for the opportunity he and his wrestlers have been given. Most of all, Sanderson instills a spirit of giving maximum effort, even if that effort results in a failed takedown attempt or a loss.
“I think our job as a staff is to believe in these guys and try to help them really to believe in themselves. And I’m not — as a coach I’m not afraid to lose. That’s what we talk to our team about; it’s a very important aspect. It’s a completely different mentality and focus,” Cael Sanderson said.
“But we have to be the example for our guys, and sometimes that’s hard. A lot of times I’m sitting there trying to get myself in the right frame of mind before I see the team. But these guys, they know what they want to do. They’re the national champions right there, the guys that went out there and won individual titles, earned All-American status and they did a really a great job. I’m super happy for them.”
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