How Cael Sanderson Built, and Then Expanded, the Penn State Wrestling Dynasty

Penn State’s Carter Starocci had a bad first day at the 2024 NCAA Wrestling Championships. The leg injury he sustained during the regular-season finale was bothering him, and Starocci sat alone in the locker room thinking, “This is not fun at all.” That’s when coach Cael Sanderson found him.

The Penn State wrestling coach, who makes gratitude a core principle of his program, told Starocci that he still was the “baddest dude” at the tournament. And then he made Starocci think.

“You can win this thing on one leg, but it’s going to be hard to do that on one leg and [with] a bad attitude,” Sanderson said. Starocci woke up the next day with a mental reset and went on to win his fourth straight NCAA title despite the injury.

“That’s what makes coach Cael the best of all time,” Starocci said this week in State College. “It’s not just his wrestling ability, because there’s a lot of great wrestlers. But he’s coached Olympic champs, he’s coached four-time national champs, so he’s coached everything he’s done. When you’re able to do that, that’s legendary status.”

Sanderson leads Penn State higher into rare air this weekend at the 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships, where the Nittany Lions are poised for another showcase. Penn State, the three-time defending champ, has qualified all 10 starters for nationals, with eight being seeded among the top 3 at their weight classes. The Nittany Lions can win a fourth straight team title, and 12th under Sanderson, potentially breaking the NCAA scoring record they set last season in the process.

Since arriving at Penn State in 2010, Sanderson has transformed the program into one of the great dynasties in American sports. Penn State has won 11 of the last 13 NCAA team titles. And it has won 71 consecutive dual matches dating to the 2019-20 season. Penn State can break Oklahoma State’s major college win streak of 76 next season.

This week in Philadelphia, Penn State can become the first team in NCAA Division I history to place all 10 wrestlers on the podium as All-Americans and win at least one individual national championship. And Sanderson can win his 12th NCAA team title as a coach, which would place him second all-time to Iowa’s Dan Gable (15).

“I think we all have to understand what we are watching,” Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft said. “It is the greatest — it’s not even a dynasty. It’s better than what anyone has done in college sports, and maybe in all sports. … He’s just one of those people who thinks at a different level, in all the right ways.”

Sanderson, 45, has won at elite levels throughout his wrestling career. He was an unbeaten, four-time NCAA champion at Iowa State, compiling a 159-0 career record. Sanderson, who won his first NCAA title in State College in 1999, remains the only college wrestler to win four Outstanding Wrestler awards at nationals. He then won Olympic gold at 84 kg in Athens in 2004.

Sanderson was an immediate success in coaching, leading Iowa State to three Big 12 team titles from 2007-10 and qualifying his entire lineup to NCAAs three times. Penn State made the power move in 2010, hiring Sanderson away from his alma mater to coach the program in the heart of Pennsylvania high school wrestling.

Sanderson soon turned Penn State into a juggernaut. The Nittany Lions won the NCAA team title in 2011, Sanderson’s second year at the helm, beginning a remarkable run in the sport. Penn State ranks third all-time with 12 team national championships, 11 of which it has won under Sanderson. The Nittany Lions are an absurd -6000 betting favorite, according to DraftKings, to win again this year. That’s an implied win probability of 98.4 percent.

Further, Sanderson’s teams have claimed 38 of Penn State’s 59 individual NCAA titles, winning at least two in every tournament since 2016. That resonates with his wrestlers as much as the team titles.

“He’s one of the best wrestlers to ever live … and that has helped him as a coach, just knowing what to do and learning through the coaching experiences, too,” said Penn State freshman Luke Lilledahl, the No. 1 seed at 125 pounds. “Obviously he’s done a pretty good job at [coaching], too. He wants to get better as a coach every day, just like we want to get better as wrestlers every day. I think that’s one of the things that separates him.”

The flip side to Sanderson’s reverence for gratitude is his quest for perfection. Penn State twice has tied the NCAA record for most individual champions in a tournament with five. No team has done that three times, and no team has won six individual gold medals at NCAAs.

“Even when we have like five champs, I feel like that look in his eye, he’s still a little pissed off,” Starocci said. “… So I think until he gets 10 national champs, he’s not going to be satisfied.”

Added teammate Tyler Kasak, the No. 1 seed at 157 pounds, “He wants to. He just wants to more than anybody else, really. He never stops evolving in what he does. There’s always a better way. It’s never being satisfied with what the situation is. It can always be better. Honestly, until we have 10 national champions, I don’t think it will be enough.”

The 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships begin Thursday at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.