Penn State football had the man who runs Penn State wrestling as a special guess during practice.
In an annual tradition, football coach James Franklin invited wrestling coach Cael Sanderson to speak with his players after practice.
Sanderson is one of the most successful individuals in the history of college sports.
As an athlete, he went 159-0 and won four national titles wrestling at Iowa State. As a coach, he’s turned Penn State wrestling into an empire, leading the team to 11 national titles in the past 13 seasons (and not slowing down any time soon).
There’s an argument to be made that Sanderson is the best college wrestler ever and the best college coach ever, so it’s frankly common sense for Franklin to have him speak to his players.
Midseason Motivation 🗣️🐐@PennStateFball x @CaelSanderson pic.twitter.com/giHnDnxtEP
— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) October 20, 2024
THE MESSAGE
Photo by Penn State Athletics: Cael Sanderson
Sanderson speaking to Penn State football isn’t an unusual occurrence.
“We do it every year,” Franklin told reporters at his weekly Monday presser. “He’s come and spoke almost every year. We’ll have different people from the campus and from the university come and speak during training camp and then sometimes during the bye week. Obviously, Cael has done a phenomenal job and is universally respected, not only across campus and in the community, but I know on our team specifically and in our locker room.”
Franklin remembered Sanderson speaking to his program over the summer.
“I thought his message really resonated with our guys, so we brought him back to kind of double down on it,” Franklin said. “It was good, but typically we have coaches, ADs, administrators, all these people come during the summer, and Cael was one of those guys this summer and did a nice job, like I mentioned, and I wanted to bring him back during the bye week and double down on it.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.So what was the message?
“Really his message is really very consistent with the messages that we give our guys all the time. It’s just a different voice delivering that, which is powerful. So it’s not the same message that we’re delivering from the same people. It’s a similar message.”
“I think a lot of it is about being present, being appreciate, have appreciation, and then the other one is controlling the things that you can control and not inhaling or reading or listening to outside voices or words, was really the message.”
‘I WANT TO KEEP HIM ON MY GOOD SIDE’
Photo by Penn State Wrestling: Cael Sanderson and Carter Starocci
Franklin’s admiration for Sanderson dates back to before he had even coached a game at Penn State. At that time, Sanderson hadn’t yet made Penn State wrestling an empire but he was well on his way. Penn State had won four straight national titles and would win a lot more in the years ahead, so Franklin saying that Sanderson had “built an impressive program” was an understatement.
“I want to become good friends with him,” Franklin said in March 2014, “and I think he’d be a really good colleague.”
“And probably more than anything, I want to keep him on my good side because I think he might pick me up and slam me. He’s an impressive guy.”
Penn State football has had an impressive season so far, and the No. 3 team in the country is right in the thick of the national title race for the moment.
