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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

March 19, 2016

Cael Sanderson

New York, New York

THE MODERATOR: Now entering the room, head coach of Penn State, Cael Sanderson. Coach, an opening comment about your team's performance this weekend.

CAEL SANDERSON: I think, when you win the national championships, you've got to be pretty happy and pumped. Obviously a great team effort -- five guys in the finals, six All-Americans. We're happy. But we leave here ready to improve and build and get some freshmen to the next level. And we're happy we won but we're excited about the future also.

Q. You probably had the biggest fan section here this weekend. Can you just talk about the atmosphere and what that was like having that support here?
CAEL SANDERSON: It was great. I think we're close to Penn State. There's hundreds of thousands of Penn State alumni within 100 mile radius of this area. So we were hoping that would be the case. And certainly was. So we felt the energy there and we wanted to wrestle well. And when we first learned that the nationals were going to be in New York City, Madison Square Garden, that's just something that -- we want to have a good tournament there and represent our school and our alumni as well as we can. And I think we did that for the most part. Left a couple of points out there. Lost some tough matches there in the finals. But it's the national tournament. That's what happens.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about your two seniors, Morgan and Nico and also about Zain, please?
CAEL SANDERSON: Yeah, couldn't be happier for Nico. He's in the finals as a true freshman, in the finals as a sophomore, took third as a junior, redshirted. He's a guy that we wanted to win in the worst possible way. And it was emotional. It was awesome. We're happy for him, a kid that works extremely hard. He's very disciplined and very consistent. Always gives his best effort. Very rare.

And it was a great moment for him and something he's going to be happy with. It's not easy to win a national championship. And just being in the finals is a great honor in itself. He wanted to win and I was real happy for him that he could.

Morgan had a great year and had a great career, three-time All-American. Obviously we were hoping he could go win that match. He ran into a tough kid. J'Den Cox is very good. And he just beat us, he beat us today. But we're real happy for Morgan and he was excited to wrestle up on the stage I know and great career, great kid. And they're all just great kids. Good individuals. People that you're going to be proud of as a parent or a brother or a coach, or a teammate. So that makes our jobs a lot more fun.

And one more guy Zain, what can you say about Zain. Zain is Zain. He's only a sophomore. But the pressure he puts on his opponents and his ability to score points. We're glad he's only a sophomore. We wish he was a freshman. Or just coming into school, I guess. But great leader for us. We hope everyone can follow his lead. He made a huge jump from his freshman year. I think Nolf and Bo can make another huge jump. They're very raw in some areas. But there's that fire that they bring when they step on the mat, doesn't come around very often. So we're excited about that.

And obviously Jordan Conaway, we're very happy for him to become All-American and (indiscernible) three All-Americans, kind of got a head-scratching seed there in the second round and plowed through and ended up being an All-American. So we're happy for him.

Q. Could you talk about your mix of emotions of winning a team title, seeing two champions and then the disappointment of the three guys?
CAEL SANDERSON: I'm still trying to figure that one out right now. Coaching wrestling is tough. Because it's a team game. We want to win as a team, obviously. But we have ten individuals and as a coach my job is to help those individual. If the individuals do well, the team does well. So it's certainly bittersweet. It's tough, it's painful. It hurts when guys don't reach their goals. And in the long run those young guys, it will make them a bit hungrier, they'll have a little more urgency to improve. They'll come back here with fire. It still stinks to lose, there's no way around it. It really stinks to lose.

Q. You seem like a really nice guy. All your guys seem to be like real nice guys, doing the right thing, being good people -- a sense of community and family and the sense of culture you have built how important is it that your guys are good people first and good wrestlers second. And the culture you've built how important is it?
CAEL SANDERSON: I think probably everyone thinks they're a good person. I don't know if we're any different than anybody else. We have a great staff. We trust each other. We do our best to do things the right way. We believe we'll be blessed by doing that. And we enjoy what we're doing. And there's a bigger picture. Yeah, we want to win, but we'd rather compete the right way. Bo Nickal threw himself on his back three times today. But I guarantee you, when people see him wrestle, they're going to stop what they're doing and they're going to watch. There's things bigger than winning. The way you compete, the kind of person you are, obviously much bigger than winning.

And the way you compete is bigger than being a four-time national champion. When it's all said and done there's going to be a lot of four-time national champions. There's not going to be a lot of Jason Nolfs or Bo Nickals, so...

Q. Obviously since you've been at Penn State you've turned this team around. You're really on a historic run. But I know you're concerned about the whole sport of wrestling as a whole. What would your advice be to other programs that would like to turn themselves around and achieve success that they had trouble achieving over the last few years?
CAEL SANDERSON: Well, it's easier said than done. And coaching is a stressful job and it's about winning. My job is to do the best that I can obviously. I keep my job by winning. So it's hard for me to say do this, do that, because everyone's in their own situation. Everyone has their own circumstances. But I would just say you have to do things the right way and you have to recruit the right kids. So easy to give a kid a nod because maybe he has a little bit more talent or maybe you think there's a chance he can win a match where the kid that might be doing everything right, that works so hard, that wrestles a little bit harder, but in the long run I think you've got to go with the right kinds of kids. There's quick fixes and this and that, don't really work in the long run. So it's just being patient, trust yourself and I could go on and on.

Q. Not to elaborate on the disappointment tonight. But couldn't help but think when David Taylor lost as a freshman. Will you be able to use that as an example for Jason and Bo to help them overcome any disappointment or doubt they have tonight?
CAEL SANDERSON: I think there are a lot of examples where people lose and it propels them forward to greater heights that maybe they wouldn't have reached had they not won. David Taylor is a great example. He's bigger than winning four national titles. The reputation he built for himself. The way he competed. It's bigger than winning. And that's what we want to do. We want to be bigger than winning. For the most part our guys are moving forward and trying to score points. And in the long run that's going to win and that's what we believe and that's what we're going to keep doing.

Q. Sticking with the good-of-the-sport comment. I saw Quentin Wright tweeted this was the most exciting finals that he's seen in years. Do you think that the new rules and some of the things that they're trying to do is encouraging more scoring and helping the sport from what we saw tonight?
CAEL SANDERSON: Well, I don't know. What rules are we talking about, a four-point nearfall or pushout rule kind of thing? I think that's a good thing. And I don't think stalling is necessarily what's going on on the edge. But we aren't seeing that as much. In the past it would get right back to the edge and kind of hang out there and wait for the opponents to make mistakes. I'm not seeing it as much anymore which is huge. There's still a lot of stalling that goes on in wrestling, but you're not going to solve that. Kids are smart. You can't penalize them for stalling; you've got to reward people for their actions by scoring points, and that was the pattern they took in freestyle.

I think freestyle has improved a great deal because of that. But I think wrestling is getting more competitive and the teams are getting better. There's good teams all over the country, good kids all over the country. And that's great. That's great for the sport. Kids can go anywhere and win right now. So I think that this sport at the collegiate level is just getting stronger and stronger.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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