Blue White Illustrated

MUTUAL ADMIRATION Sanderson, Franklin work together to help build their programs C ael Sanderson watched on television as Penn State's football team rallied past Wisconsin in the Big Ten Cham- pionship Game. Although his team had an important match of its own the following day, this was a game, coached by a friend, that Sanderson didn't want to miss. But when the selection committee an- nounced the next day that the Nittany Lions had been left out of the College Football Playoff, Sanderson was focused entirely on his own team, which was en- gaged in a dual meet against Lehigh at the Bryce Jordan Center. A former high school football player who still is a fan of the sport, Sanderson found out afterward that the football team's sterling second-half effort against the Badgers hadn't been enough to earn it a spot in the playoff. The Rose Bowl wasn't a bad consolation prize, of course, but that feeling – the sense that a third party will decide your fate even after you've done all you can against your op- ponent – is one that a wrestler can relate to. Sometimes, no matter how well you perform, no matter how hard you work or how much you try, outcomes are left in the hands of others. Sanderson has seen it. Maybe it's a stall warning – one of the more frustratingly subjective calls in wrestling – that helps decide a match. At the international level, Sanderson has seen his own proteges fall short of an Olympic medal, as recently as this past summer, due mostly to a judge's decision. So when the Penn State football team was left out of the four-team CFP field, Sanderson could relate to its disappoint- ment. "You just have to do the best you can with what you can control," he said. "You're going to have bad calls. That's part of sports. That's part of life, and you just battle and you do the best you can in the system you have, whether that's as an individual or as a team. Ob- viously, Penn State football made a re- ally great argument [about] why they should be there. It's in someone else's hands. We have the same experiences. Maybe there's a bad call. All you can do is the best you can and continue to build your reputation as a competitor and as a team. There's not much more that you can do." Franklin takes a similar approach. It's one of the reasons why he and Sanderson get along so well. Although they don't see each other reg- ularly, especially during their seasons, they often text back and forth and main- tain a working relationship. If Sanderson needs a heavyweight, Franklin lends him a backup linebacker. If a couple of wrestlers want to take a shot at the NFL, they get permission to use the football fa- cilities. They both help each other with recruits. Franklin often hosts visitors with wrestling pedigrees, and sometimes those prospects get to meet one of the greatest wrestlers of all time while they're on campus. Likewise, the top wrestling recruit in the country a year ago, Mark Hall, was spotted near the Lasch Building shortly before he announced his commit- ment to Sanderson. "Coach Franklin has been great with our program," Sanderson said. "With re- cruits, anything that you ask him to do, he's willing to do it. He's very good at what he does, obviously, but he's a great recruiter. He's a great guy to get in front of our recruits. We try not to bother him too much because he's so busy… [but] we text back and forth. We don't see each other a lot. He's on the other side of cam- pus, but he's definitely a guy I have a lot of respect for, just the way he does things. We're just trying to learn. He's very or- ganized. He's on the top of his game re- cruitingwise, so any time I can pick his brain, they've been very open to that. We're appreciative of that." The feeling is mutual. While Sanderson lauds Franklin's organizational style, Franklin admires what Sanderson has ac- complished not only as a national cham- pion head coach but also as one of the best competitors his sport has ever seen. Every once in a while, Sanderson is asked to stop by the Lasch Building to give a midweek pep talk as a guest speaker. He is happy to oblige, and he even has a little fun with it. In Franklin's first season, he invited Sanderson to give a speech to the football team during a bye week. "I've always felt like college coaches don't take advantage of all the unbeliev- able resources that we have on campus, all the experts in their fields of study," Franklin said. "Cael came and spoke to the team. Before he spoke, I talked about him about being 159-0 and [winning] four national championships and three Heismans in wrestling and then four na- tional championships as a coach." | W R E S T L I N G SANDERSON FRANKLIN

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