Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1495456
6 2 A P R I L 2 0 2 3 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M AWAKENING THE GIANT Penn State made one of the boldest hires in school history when it brought Cael Sanderson aboard in 2009 to reinvigorate its wrestling program G eno Auriemma went 12-15 with just four Big East vic- tories in his first season as women's basketball coach at Connecticut. Mike Krzyzewski didn't post a winning ACC record until Year 5 of his tenure as men's basketball coach at Duke. Nick Saban went 7-6 in his first year as head football coach at Alabama, and the Crimson Tide later had to vacate five of those wins due to NCAA infractions. Point being, dynasties don't just happen. They aren't pre- fabricated, built out of pieces that were already on hand, needing nothing more than for the right coach to come along and snap them into place so that the winning can start. Even the best coaches typically need time to create a culture and nurture the talent required to claim championships. Such was the case at Penn State when it made one of the more fortuitous head coaching hires in NCAA history by bringing in Cael Sanderson to take charge of an underachiev- ing wrestling program. These days, Sanderson reigns over one of the great dynas- ties in college athletics. Penn State has won 10 of the past 12 NCAA Tournaments, and Sanderson is on pace to join Iowa's Dan Gable in the sport's pantheon of legendary coaches, if he isn't there already. But even after PSU shook the college wrestling world in April 2009 by hiring the four-time NCAA champion and Olympic gold medalist, there was still some wilderness to traverse before it was ready to emerge from the doldrums of the early 2000s. A Well-Kept Secret Penn State hadn't won a national championship since 1953 when it went looking for a new coach in the spring of 2009. Iowa and Oklahoma State had a lot to do with that drought, combining for 37 NCAA titles over a 55-year span starting in 1954. M A T T H E R B | M A T T. H E R B @ O N 3 . C O M Sanderson helped Vincenzo Joseph win two national championships at 165 pounds during his career at Penn State. In Sanderson's 14 seasons at PSU, the Nittany Lions have claimed 34 individual NCAA titles. PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS