|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPSMarch 19, 2011Cael SandersonPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Penn State head coach coach Cael Sanderson, wins his first overall team title. I belive the first since 1953 for Penn State. We'll start with an opening statement. COACH CAEL SANDERSON: It's settled in right away when we knew we had it, and now I'm kind of getting back to gotta realize what just happened, we're the National champs and that's something to be really happy about. I'm really, really proud of these guys. It's just a gutsy performance from some real tough kids. And that's what it takes, it's ups and downs. And the year was, you know, up and down with a lot of emotion. These guys, they're young, but talented and aggressive. They created a lot of expectations for themselves. Then they had to deal with it. And, man, I'm just proud of the way they -- how they just kept their heads up and kept moving along. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach. Q. What are your thoughts on sort of joining the pantheon, with John Smith and Dan Gable, by adding the team championship as a coach? COACH CAEL SANDERSON: You know, I'm not too worried about, or I haven't really thought about, I guess, trying to be a great coach. I just want to do the job that I was hired to do and do it well. And I'm -- coaching's tough. I mean, we just won the National championship, but we had some kids that didn't quite reach their goals. And so you just have to -- I'm kind of focused on -- you just gotta focus on the positives. And that's something that I have to do now, which, like right now I just kind of gotta go smack myself and come back, just because -- but, yeah, I mean, you just want to do the best you can. And every coach has the same goals, be the best you can be. And winning a National championship doesn't mean that I'm the best coach, it means that we had a great staff and just a phenomenal team effort and that these guys, I mean, they made it happen. You've got 19- to 22-year-old kids, and this is something that they're going to remember forever. It's pretty special. Q. After Frank and David had lost today, it seemed like their heads were down for a while. Then as we saw them out there getting the National championship trophy, looked like they never had bigger smiles. Does winning the whole thing for a team, does it lift everybody's spirits, and could you talk about that? COACH CAEL SANDERSON: It has to. We just kind of -- those guys want to win real bad. A team -- wrestling's kind of a strange sport in that way just because, yeah, we're a team, but we compete as individuals; and it's that collection of those individual performances. So when those individuals don't have the success, and then we can still win, it's tough on those guys. But when you just stop and think that -- when they kind of realize that what they've done was pretty phenomenal, you know, David Taylor has some pretty unbelievable high expectations for himself, but when you really look at what he did as a freshman, it's unbelievable. It's not even that he -- you win or lose. It's more the attitude that you take to the mat. And that's what he's going to be remembered for for a long, long time. Just that -- he's a guy that he's going to wrestle the whole time. Frank Molinaro made the National Finals. We had some great runs. We went 14 out of 15 matches, something like that, and then the second -- that second morning it started off kind of slow. I think we had a couple of losses. No, it was the night -- these days, they run. But there was just a time there where you were like, wow, oh. And we had injuries with Ruth and Cam Wade, and then a couple of rough losses after that. And you just -- then these guys just battled back. And Frank Molinaro goes out there and gets his big win, and then David goes out there and just does what he does. It's unbelievable what these guys did. I'm really proud of them. I need to step back and just reassess things. Everything's kind of a blur right now. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|