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it's tough, but if it's not tough, it wouldn't be fun, right?" When Smith took the mic next, just about 12 hours before Penn State clinched the team championship and just minutes a?er Sanderson =nished talking about how much fun he was having, the longtime Cowboys coach said, "It's fun when you're whipping everybody. When you're getting tech falls and pins, that's fun, and every- body is having fun! He's seen the other side of it. I've seen him where he's not having as much fun." By the time the tournament =nished, the Nittany Lions had outscored the sec- ond-place Cowboys, 123.0-97.5. But for as good a time as Sanderson was having Friday, the following night was a di>erent story. It wasn't devastation for him, like it was when Kyle Dake beat David Taylor, but anytime one of his wrestlers loses in the =nal, it's heartbreak for the seventh- year PSU head coach. And for Sanderson, it happened on three occasions this year. Megaludis proves the power of positive thinking N EW YORK – For Nico Megaludis, the signs were everywhere – quite liter- ally. They hung in his bedrooms both at school and back home in Murrysville, Pa. Another was on the mirror in his bathroom, and he even tacked one onto the steering wheel of his car. Every day for the past year – morning, noon and night – he read them, each one bearing the same words: I AM THE 2016 NA- TIONAL CHAMPION. "I get into my car every day, and on my steering wheel I see that," Penn State's senior 125-pounder said after winning an NCAA title in March, beating Iowa's Thomas Gilman, 6-3, in Madison Square Garden. "I brainwashed myself and I got it done. Got it done a year ago." It was after a redshirt year in 2015 that Megaludis took the time to write the messages to himself. He became fully im- mersed in his vision during the final sea- son of his college career, but the wheels of a national championship had been set in motion long before, back when he was winning All-America honors three years in a row to open his career. Megaludis burst onto the scene at the national tournament as a 10th-seeded | NOTE TO SELF Megaludis taped inspirational mes- sages in his car (above) and else- where. They paid off when he de- feated Iowa's Thomas Gilman in the NCAA final. Photo by Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics Nico Megaludis via Instagram

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