Cael Sanderson to coach Penn State wrestling

I would hope not. Guy's leaving the state (and conference) to make good money, especially for a wrestling coach.

If he was leaving to coach Iowa, that'd be one thing. But unless Iowa State and Penn State have some running feud of which I am unaware, the folks in Ames should thank him for his service and hope PSU wipes the floor with Iowa every time they meet.

 

Hell, at $1M, he ought to recruit Central Dauphin's entire dual-meet team and win the Big Ten.

 

I see your point, but you're applying logic, which has no place in the world of sports.
He is a legend around there and they fired a pretty successful coach to bring him in. He left them for a school to which he has no ties for money?
I have no dog in this hunt, but I'll bet he's not well-liked today.

 

They probably could do it, too. At least get Peppelman.

 

Demo, this is a big deal. For one, it was the timing of it. Two, it was how fast this thing went down. Make no mistake, everyone here is either pissed at Sanderson for leaving, or are fucking pissed at Pollard, because of who he is, and how he runs the athletic department.

Part of Cael's contract was that if any school wants to interview him, he was to tell AD Jamie Pollard that someone wants to talk to him. Sanderson told Pollard. In fact, after the initial interview, from what's being said in Iowa wrestling circles, Penn State offered him the gig and started working out the details in the second meeting.

There is no feud between ISU and Penn St., but there is something wrong in Ames. Prior to PSU calling, Sanderson and Pollard were having discussions and evaluating this past season. Either Pollard said something to un-nerve Sanderson, or Sanderson felt that he wasn't going to be assured that he was going to be safe. Clearly, it wasn't the money, as Sanderson told reporters at the Jacobson Athletic Building when he told them he was leaving.

He was getting in the area of $115,000 a year.

Some are alluded to the re-emergence of Iowa under Tommy Brands and that the fan tide had shifted back to Iowa. I doubt that because having Brands and Sanderson was the best thing that could have happened for the rivalry. But I do have a feeling that all of the high school kids here in Iowa would rather suit up to be Hawkeyes than Cyclones, out of state and local loyalty ("I always wanted to be a Hawk"). Sanderson, just like Douglas, had to settle going out of state or getting those in-state kids that Iowa wouldn't take.

It's not a shock that ISU is near the bottom of the Big 12 as far as upgrade of facilities and cash inflow to athletics. Football is being taken care of with the upgrades to Jack Trice Stadium being done right now and basketball is getting a new practice facility. Nevertheless, Iowa State will always be second fiddle to Iowa. There's no getting around that.

I was at a function for Shawn Johnson on Friday and Dan Gable was there. He was interviewed prior to the dinner and Gable said "it makes no sense to leave a tradition-laden championship program like Iowa State to go to Penn State, who hasn't won a national title in little over 50 years."

Sanderson left because Penn St. isn't afraid to spend money to get their wrestling program into the top five (with Iowa, ISU, Okie St., Nebraska, Cornell, etc). If they wanted him that badly and is willing to give him everything, so be it. It's about business.

Jamie Pollard's looking for his second coach in as many months. That's troubling, given the fact that Pollard is the scorn of many Cyclones fans for his decisions. Whacking Bobby Douglas as a way to "hang" on to Cael; running Dan McCarney out for Gene Chizik; then Chizik bolts and heads back to Auburn. Pollard brings in Paul Rhoades, who has no choice but to win now in order to keep the faithful from bailing out. Greg McDermott is supposedly on the hot seat because the baskeball team is just not talented or good enough to compete in the Big 12.

Bill Fennelly (women's BB) is the only "safe" coach in that department. Fennelly has to be saying to himself this afternoon, "I can win 25-28 games a year, get to the Sweet Sixteen, and still lose my job?"

I expect either Chris Bono, Koll from Cornell (dad's a Northern Iowa wrestling legend), or my college's wrestling coach, Jim Miller, to get a call from Pollard. Knowing Pollard, he'll pull a fucking rabbit out of his ass and find someone no one has a clue about.

 

Koll was being considered for the PSU job but said he was content at Cornell. Who can blame him with the talent they're getting and the brand new wrestling-only facility they have.

 

Frankly, I expected Penn State to go to maybe Tim Flynn, the former PSU All-American coaching Edinboro. Or maybe Rocky Bonomo at Lock Haven. Any number of smaller Pennsylvania schools are wrestling D-I, and that's a great coaching challenge which should prepare someone for a big program.

Sanderson, though, was more than anyone could have imagined.

 

Wasn't Clarion a decent wrestling school?

I thought Central PA was a wrestling hotbed? Of course not like Iowa or Oklamhoma, but he isn't going to Alaska or Hawaii, right?

 

Yeah.

Wade Schalles and Kurt Angle, among others, wrestled at Clarion.

 

And yes, central PA is a wrestling hotbed. PSU's just been losing far too many of them in recent years. Most notably, NCAA finalist Ryan Williams (Old Dominion), Walt Peppelman (Harvard).

As far as the schools go, it's not quite like the '70s and '80s, when the Pennsylvania Conference schools made up a majority of the Eastern powers. But a few of them are still D-I factors. Edinboro is a top-25 program; Lock Haven and Bloomsburg both have top-25 individuals.

 

Maybe the most interesting thing about all of this is how a, somewhat, notoriously cheap athletic department is paying a very young coach $500,000 a year to coach a non-revenue sport.

Meanwhile, Paterno makes rougly the same from the university (though I know he gets more from Nike, camps, et al.) and the head men's basketball coach makes about the same.

I'm a Penn State fanboi through and through, but this just makes no sense to me. I didn't grow up in Pennsylvania, so I acknowledge I don't understand the affinity for wrestling. But even during my time on that campus, there was never any great buzz amongst the student population for wrestling and I don't recall Rec Hall being filled to the brim with spectators.

I suppose it's a great hire in terms of Sanderson's past successess...and I know about the four unbeaten seasons. But still, it seems strange to me that Penn State would pay a coach in a niche sport as much as the two coaches in its lone two revenue producing sports.

 

It's hard to establish a definitive link between Penn State sports popularity and fannies in the seats, with the exception of football. The reason, of course, is that it's so damn hard for most of the state to get to, especially in the winter months.

It's the same reason Ed DeChellis' boys don't sell out the BJC. Going to a PSU game is simply not an easy option for even the nearest "big" city, Harrisburg, when it's two hours away over a mountain.

If it was easier to get to, the crowds would be there not only for wrestling and basketball, but soccer, baseball (gorgeous new stadium) and more. And they are not.

I will say that our Fan Line gets a healthy amount of PSU wrestling talk throughout the year, so there are some people out there who are fans.