Levi Haines didn’t care; he just wanted an opportunity.
When coach Cael Sanderson and company were recruiting him to join the Penn State wrestling program, Sanderson couldn’t guarantee that Haines– an in-state guy from Biglerville High School in Arendtsville– could get a full scholarship.
As Sanderson remembered last month, the sides “agreed on maybe half a scholarship at the time.”
Fast forward to March of Haines’ senior season, and the 174-pounder is days away from putting a stamp on one of the best careers in Penn State history.
In an era of college sports where an athlete spending exactly four school years at the same school is about as common as a snowstorm in Florida, Haines has taken the “traditional” path and has earned a plethora of accolades.https://nittanysportsnow.com/2026/02/hes-everybodys-friend-cael-sanderson-hoping-to-keep-levi-haines-around-penn-state-wrestling-after-graduation/
He’s one of four Penn State wrestlers to win four Big Ten championships. Of those four (Ed Ruth, David Taylor and Haines’ former teammate, Aaron Brooks being the other three), Haines is the only one to do so in four consecutive years, wth Ruth and Taylor redshirting and Brooks needing five years to do it.
Haines has made it to the national championship match twice in his three seasons —both at 157 —and won it all in 2024.
Advancing two weight classes last season, he made it to the semifinals at 174 before losing to eventual national champ Dean Hamiti of Oklahoma State, then bouncing back to take third and end his third straight All-American campaign.
Overall, Haines is 94-4, with three of the losses coming against national champions (Hamiti, Keegan O’Toole, Austin O’Connor).
Haines has also become a force on the freestyle circuit. Competing at 79 KG, Haines won a U23 World Championship in Serbia this past October and took silver at Senior Worlds in Croatia the previous month.
He didn’t have much time to rest.
“I was up always getting ready for another tournament,” Haines told reporters at a pre-National Championships presser in Cleveland Wednesday– and through that, I was able to just keep getting better wrestling. Each match I treated as practice for my next one, and I think I made a lot of big gains throughout the summer, and I got to see some cool places, meet some cool people. So I think I’ve been ready since the senior worlds, and just getting better through every little piece of data collected through competing.”
So what keeps Haines enjoying wrestling despite its many demands?
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.“I just like throwing people down,” he said.
Haines is the favorite to win it all at 174, coming into the tournament with a 22-0 record and 77.27% bonus rate.
With Hamiti and O’Toole– last year’s finalists– out of the picture, Haines is thought to be the top dog at his weight class.
Haines still must take care of business to make it back to the national championship match after a one-year hiatus, and if he does, he’ll have to think about a lot of things.
The most important, of course, is an entrance song.
Fans at Rec Hall and the Bryce Jordan Center have discovered Haines’s love of country music.
For his first two seasons, Haines entered his bouts to Hank Williams Jr’s “A Country Boy Can Survive.”
He switched to Toby Keith for his junior season but returned to Williams this year, only this time coming out to “Dinosaur.”
Haines said he hasn’t decided which Hank Jr. song he’ll use this weekend.
Whatever happens in Cleveland, Haines will be the only one of Penn State’s 10 starters who doesn’t have the option of returning to college wrestling next season.
But Haines has no plans to leave Penn State, and seemed to confirm that he’ll be staying on with the Nittany Lion Wrestling club beyond graduation.
“Hopefully I can repay (Cael) a little bit, what he’s given to me, along with our other coaches,” he said. “Just look forward to hopefully being able to give back to him in some way in the future. I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.”
