He’s one of the winningest athletes and coaches in history. Here’s the secret to his success

He’s hardly noticeable in the sea of bodies. So many bodies. A few of them bop their heads to the Red Hot Chili Peppers tune blasting from the old-school megaphone-shaped speakers, but most of them are fixed in place, moving only their lips as they fill Penn State’s Rec Hall gymnasium with the chatter of anticipation. Thanks to the unseen man.
The bodies form clusters of navy and white, with few exceptions. One woman sports a construction-orange hoodie, with sprinkles of scarlet for tonight’s visitors, the Ohio State Buckeyes, but most of the crowd is Penn State faithful. Even beyond the bleachers, in the standing-room-only area atop the arena, fans jockey for space along the rusted white railing. “It’s gonna be wild,” the team’s media relations director tells me, as though that’s any different from how it usually is. He adds that tonight’s contest marks either the 69th- or 70th-consecutive sellout for Penn State wrestling. He can’t remember which.
To appreciate the scene is to understand what came before. Longtime fan Jack Raudenbusch has followed Penn State wrestling for 45 years and has held season tickets for 15. Before Cael Sanderson became the head coach in 2009, it wasn’t bad. The team was usually competitive. But it wasn’t this. “When Cael came,” he tells me, “the excitement level, the intensity of the matches — everything went up an order of magnitude.” Sanderson’s team just keeps winning, despite — or maybe because of — the fact that it’s taken on his minimalist, easy-going personality. “There’s some wrestlers that are a little on the crazy side. They’re eating broken glass, wrestling with broken bones,” Raudenbusch says. “They’ll go to other schools. Here at Penn State, with Cael, it’s a more mellow attitude.”
The mellow vibe, combined with excruciating hard work, allowed Sanderson to reach heights rivaled by few athletes or coaches in history, in any sport. In college, at Iowa State, he compiled a record of 159-0, the only person to ever go undefeated over four full years, winning four national titles along the way. This accomplishment alone earned him recognition from Sports Illustrated as the second-most-impressive achievement in the history of college sports (trailing only Jesse Owens breaking four world track records in a single day, in 1935). Sanderson followed it up by winning a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, then took up coaching — first at his alma mater, and then at Penn State, where in 14 years his team has won 11 national championships. Yet for all his accolades, Sanderson comes across as stunningly … normal.
He shuns the spotlight, trying as much as possible to shift it toward his athletes. During pre-meet introductions, for example, when the arena turns dark and fans shine their cellphone lights toward the mat, he doesn’t enter with the wrestlers. He doesn’t get a personal introduction. He remains the unseen man.
With a new collegiate wrestling season beginning this month, Sanderson’s stoic approach will once again be on view for the wrestling world, with his team favored to claim another title. Yet most casual sports fans have no idea who he is. That’s surprising since America — American sports fans, in particular — loves nothing more than a winner. Sanderson’s lack of mainstream notoriety owes itself, foremost, to the fact that college wrestling is not a glitzy, spectator sport. Even at the Olympic level, the Games’ governing body voted to drop wrestling in 2013 before reversing its decision several months later. But it could also have something to do with Sanderson’s unique philosophy. It’s a philosophy that goes back to his roots in Heber City, Utah, where he absorbed a formula that has allowed him to become one of the winningest winners in the history of winners — yet also an outlier in the world of modern competitive sports. Understanding that formula, the one that has led to unprecedented success as a wrestler, an Olympian and a coach, requires watching him closely.
At Rec Hall, when Penn State’s 125-pound freshman Braeden Davis takes the mat to begin the competition, and the lights flash back on and the crowd roars, 45-year-old Sanderson appears seemingly from nowhere on the sideline. If you didn’t recognize him, you probably wouldn’t peg him as the head coach of this national juggernaut. He scratches his well-defined chin and his bald head and his cauliflower ears, then hardly moves until the first round finishes at 0-0. Even then, he leans back in his chair, says nothing. Hardly anyone seems to notice.
Just the way he likes it.
Whatever renown he lacks nationally, Sanderson’s success has made him a household name in Central Pennsylvania. At the Happy Valley airport, I notice the man beside me at the rental car desk wears an Olympics wrestling hat. I ask if he’s here for the meet. He is. I tell him I’m here to write about Cael. “Oh, terrific,” he says. “This might be the best wrestling team ever. Ever.” The Enterprise clerk chimes in, too.
“He’s ridiculous,” the clerk adds. “A hundred fifty-nine and oh.”
“And he might be an even better coach,” Olympic hat says.
“Sheeeesh,” adds the clerk, off to retrieve our keys, not sure of the right answer himself.
At my hotel in Bellefonte, about 20 minutes from campus, I tell my server that I’m here to write about Penn State’s wrestling coach. “Oh, Cael!” she says right away. Back at Rec Hall, it’s easy to see why.
The action against Ohio State picks up with Davis opening up a lead against his Buckeyes opponent. With the final seconds ticking away, the opponent nearly secures a match-altering takedown, but Davis narrowly avoids it. When the match ends 4-3 in favor of Penn State, Ohio State’s coach is furious. He challenges the result, contending that his wrestler did secure the takedown and deserved the win — and everyone in Rec Hall hears him do it. Sanderson, meanwhile, hardly moves. Again, he says nothing. He just keeps his hands folded and looks on.
The observant, patient posture goes back to his youth, growing up in a wrestling family. His grandfather, Norman “Jiggs” Sanderson, was one of the founders of youth freestyle wrestling in Utah. “If you have fun and work hard,” Jiggs liked to say, “winning will take care of itself.” Cael’s father, Steve, used that philosophy to become a Western Athletic Conference champion at BYU, and he passed it on to his four boys, all of whom found success at the NCAA level. But none more so than Cael. He was so far ahead that in high school, he made it his goal to go undefeated — and failed. He still remembers all three of his losses. He still tells stories about them to his team today. The last one, in his junior year, came against a guy who would eventually be his roommate at Iowa State. Ironically, Sanderson arrived there having abandoned his goal of never losing.
The legend nevertheless began to grow when he went undefeated as a freshman, then exploded his junior year when he secured his third title by besting Daniel Cormier — a man who would go on to become the UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion, and is widely regarded as one of the best mixed martial artists in history (today he serves an analyst for the UFC).
As a senior, he opted for a new challenge, moving from his past weight class of 184 up to 197. Again, he dominated, and heading into his final collegiate match, ESPN2′s broadcasters had a hard time explaining just how singular his success had become. “I too have been wrestling with words for how to describe him,” one said. “Phenomenal. Unique. Unprecedented.” After he won, the broadcasters asked Sanderson whether he recognized the enormity of his accomplishment. “I just know that I’m tired and I’m getting old,” the 22-year-old said, demonstrating the wry humor he’s become known for. Then they posed the question that continues to swirl around him to this day: What makes him better than everyone else?
“Just a lot of luck, and just having support from my family, and the competitiveness we had growing up,” he explained, with typical understatement. “This is all about family. All about family.”
Tonight at Rec Hall, Ohio State loses its challenge, and Penn State wins the match. But Ohio State wins the next one. Competitive early matches are something of a rarity around here. At least since Sanderson arrived in Happy Valley after three seasons of coaching at his alma mater, where he didn’t have the resources to succeed. “I loved my time at Iowa State,” he says, “but … I didn’t really feel like I had the support of the alumni and the administration.” Penn State hired him away with promises to give the then-29-year-old all the support he needed, and the school delivered. Sanderson repaid the Nittany Lion faithful by clinching a national title in his second year — and then grabbing the next three titles, too.
Zain Retherford, a former Penn State All-American who went on to compete for the U.S. in the 2024 Paris Olympics, credits Sanderson’s unusual humanity as one key to his success. It was obvious to him from the very first time they met. “I just could tell that he had something different to offer from these other coaches,” he remembers. “He was actually the only coach, when he came to visit, to ask what my goals were. That stood out to me.” That continued when Sanderson coached him. For one, Sanderson loves to get on the mat himself and show his team a thing or two. He also loves telling stories and fables and instilling life lessons in his practices and pre-match pep talks. Before one formative match in Retherford’s freshman year, Sanderson offered some advice that, eventually, helped carry him to the Olympics. “Just go have some fun, and make some mistakes,” Sanderson told him.
Rick Kaluza, the team’s administrative liaison, admits Sanderson’s laid-back approach is something he himself could personally never embrace, even when coaching youth sports. But it just comes so naturally to Sanderson. “His words just have so much power behind them,” Kaluza says. Then he gestures toward the packed stands at Rec Hall, the championship banners in the rafters — fruits of Sanderson’s labor. “Right now,” he says, “this is the benchmark for collegiate sports — not just collegiate wrestling.”
On this particular night in February, that benchmark continues to rise. Penn State wins the second challenge, and aside from a surprising pin against the Nittany Lions in the 184-pound match, they cruise to a 28-9 victory. The win marks their 57th consecutive dual meet triumph. Sanderson, as usual, doesn’t say much as he exits the arena.
Minutes later, in a room beneath the Rec Hall bleachers, in front of reporters, he seems … disappointed? Surprised? It’s hard to say. “It’s easy to come away from the match and think we didn’t wrestle well,” Sanderson says, his eyes unreadable beneath the brim of a white Nike cap, “but when you wrestle really good opponents, sometimes that happens.”
Ohio State entered the competition ranked sixth in the nation, and Penn State won all but two matches. Talking about how his team fell short, how they didn’t wrestle well, doesn’t seem to fit the mood, but Sanderson is serious. Later, he tells me that tonight is nothing to celebrate. “We didn’t wrestle great today. Obviously, if you win eight out of 10 matches against Ohio State, that’s good,” he explains. “But I just felt like our enthusiasm level was a little low tonight. So yeah, we’re not celebrating anything.”
This is the standard Sanderson has set: thorough dismantling of opponents, every time. But here’s another part of his secret to success: Even on nights like tonight, when the team falls short of that standard and needs to make changes, he isn’t too hard on himself, or on them. He’s adamant about keeping wrestling in proper perspective. “I mean, it’s just a game, right?” he tells me. “We want to win, and people want us to win, and the kids — it’s important to everybody. But just keeping things in perspective. … We spend all year preparing them for those big moments,” he adds. “But when it’s time to go, it’s up to them.”
A devout Latter-day Saint, Sanderson leans on his faith to make sure he, as well as the athletes he supervises, can maintain that perspective. “I just really enjoy learning and applying what you learn in your faith to what you’re doing in your sport and in your career and in your family.” In other words, life — and sports — can be a lot richer than success alone. And knowing that, Sanderson tries to avoid ultimatums. “I don’t want to add any more burden to the kids,” he says. “They’ve already got enough on their plate.”
Which is why afterward, even when he isn’t pleased with the results, he can still make jokes. When one reporter asks what adjustments he needs to make, Sanderson answers with sarcasm and a chuckle. “Just, like, wrestling stuff,” he says. “Just trying to score some points.”
That wry humor is a Sanderson signature. He takes his job very seriously — but not too seriously. Wrestling is plenty intense, but it doesn’t have to be life-and-death, either. And his attitude has paid off, in past years and in this one. Following the Ohio State meet, Penn State finishes the regular season undefeated; wins the Big Ten title; and heads to the national championship meet as the heavy favorite.
Wrestlers at the NCAA finals get their own entrance music, starting with the 285-pound heavyweights. For Penn State, that’s Greg Kerkvliet. It’s late March, and Kerkvliet jogs toward the mat surrounded by green stage lights and fog machines, with his chosen tune — “Stronger Than Ever,” by Christian rapper Alex Jean — filling the arena. Once the theatrics cease, he quickly dismantles his opponent, winning Penn State’s first individual title of the day. Nine matches later, the Nittany Lions have four national champions, two runners-up, and two more in the top five. Their team score of 172.5 is more than 100 points ahead of second-place Cornell, and the highest point total of both the Sanderson era and in NCAA wrestling history. Another high bar in a career full of them.
A few months later, I ask Sanderson whether he’s ever marveled at his own success. Whether he’s ever pondered what it is that makes him different. If he has, he doesn’t want to say. Instead, he spreads the credit around to his assistant coaches, who have been with him from the beginning. “As a staff, we’re always looking ahead. We don’t inhale when we’re successful, because we’re thinking about next year or the year after that,” he says. “It’s just small steps, and just out-working people. That’s the truth. And that never, never gets old.”
Sanderson wants his two sons, a high school senior and an eighth grader, to believe they’re destined for success, too, whether in athletics or anything else. But that can be challenging. Overwhelming, even, especially in today’s high-stakes youth sports atmosphere. He often recalls his own parents, and what they taught him about the value of athletic competition. “We were very competitive. … We worked hard,” he says. “But I don’t remember (my dad) yelling at me, or being upset with me, when I didn’t win.” His dad just wanted his sons to try hard; the results, he figured, would follow naturally. Just like his father before him. “He was always positive,” Sanderson says. “And that really goes a long way.” So with his own kids — both biological and on his Penn State squad — he tries to follow that model. Because if not, he believes the result is a warped, unhealthy view of what competition should be. “You just can’t make winning more important than it really is,” says the winningest athlete and coach in the history of sports. “Because the real value that comes out of sports, and a sport like wrestling, isn’t whether you win or lose. And if your focus is on winning and losing at an early age, I think that really steals your enthusiasm.”
When those kids get to the collegiate level, he’s observed, they crumble. “Kids (who) put the most pressure on themselves usually aren’t the ones that compete the best in the big moments,” he says, “because they may have made it … more important than it really is. And the weird, strange effect is that that holds them back.” The antidote is what he told Retherford all those years ago: Train hard, work hard, compete hard — but have fun! Make mistakes! Sports are supposed to be about the act; not just the result. And inverting that formula, he believes, has far-reaching consequences. “They’re more afraid to lose,” he explains, “than they are excited to go win.”
It all sounds so simple, but the incentives of youth sports and “amateur” collegiate sports make it hard to implement on a wide scale. Even outside of sports, in any discipline requiring a high degree of expertise and experience to be successful, worrying too much about winning most often manifests as a fear of losing. As burnout. And what Sanderson tries to instill in his wrestlers is that life is a lot fuller than a fear of failure. So work hard. Train hard. Try your best. Absolutely! But try to worry less about the result, and more about what’s happening in each moment.
In March, after his team had clinched yet another championship, breaking records along the way, Sanderson sat before a room of reporters with a national championship hat perched atop his usual Nike one. Someone asked him to reflect on the team’s unprecedented, blowout victory. “Can you kind of put it into words,” the reporter said, “what it’s like?” Sanderson smirked. He paused briefly and glanced down. Results like this don’t happen quickly. They take years to develop, to build up to. And they only happen with deliberate effort. With enjoying the process more than the outcome. “It’s time,” Sanderson said, looking back up, “to get ready for next year.”
This story appears in the November 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.