PSU was good before Cael. But, it wasn’t a dominant program; hadn’t won an NCAA championship; wasn’t thought of in the same breath as Iowa or Oklahoma State. In fact, in the Big 10 pecking order, it would have been behind not only Iowa, but Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan in the pecking order.
Cael changed that in one season. More accurately, Cael and a couple of very rich alumni changed it overnight. The alumni pay most of Cael’s Salary and contributed enough for him to hire top assistants. Equally or more importantly, they contributed enough to the wrestling club (which is not part of the university) for it to hire the best stable of post-graduate wrestlers in the country. Most of them, like David Taylor, are pursuing world and Olympic titles. Think of the Foxcatcher wrestling club, 10 times as big, without the creepy owner, and located on a college campus.
The wrestling room is where championships are won. Where guys practice not only against teammates in their weight classes, but against teammmates one or two weight classes bigger and lighter than them. Now add world caliber practice partners into the mix. That attracts top high school wrestlers. It, along with Cael, is why they can get a 4 time Iowa state champion to forego Iowa and come to PSU on a .25 scholarship. It’s why they have a 3 time Colorado state champion who came as a walk-on hoping to win a scholarship. They have 15 out of state wrestlers on the team this year who were state champions in High School; 14 were multiple year champions. The one single year champion, Anthony Cassar, just won the NCAAs at 285 lbs.
Their wrestling club’s budget, which the NCAA has no say over, is, I believe, bigger than the combined budgets of the next five biggest programs. Add to that Cael’s ability to judge and coach talent and you have a dynasty.
