Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1439730
J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 2 4 3 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M staff no good to worry about whether the portal is good or bad. "I think there's definitely some pos- itives to it," he said. "I still think the whole point of college athletics is to teach kids how to be successful in their lives. It's the teaching responsibility … those factors that are going to make them successful once they leave college athletics. "I think there are times when you know you should transfer and it makes sense to transfer, and times maybe that it doesn't make sense. I think there are some positives but there are always go- ing to be concerns at the same time." Philosophically, Sanderson said his approach is to figure out how the Nit- tany Lions can use the portal to their advantage while making sure they do the best they can for the wrestlers who are already on campus. "You just have to take care of the kids in your program and help them reach their goals, and just do the best you can along those lines," he said. "And if you do that, things for the most part are just going to take care of themselves. We lose a few kids, too. You just don't want this constant merry-go-round … where kids are just going to transfer or what- ever. We'll just keep doing the best we can with the circumstances that we've had." J u s t l i k e D e a n , t h e L i o n s ' 197-pound starter. He's back in the academic groove after time off at Cornell, and he's an economics ma- jor. He likes the mountains of Happy Valley and various places to dine in State College. He says he's a "goer" and likes to get out there, wrestle hard and get after it. And he's bought into Sand- erson's point-scoring philosophy, hav- ing already recorded a fall, two technical falls and two major decisions in the first five dual meets. A successful transfer story is being written, it seems. "I'm excited and looking forward," he said, "not just to scoring points on my feet, but also working a lot on top and hopefully getting some falls and being exciting for the fans here and stuff like that." ■