Penn State looking to add long-sought second national wrestling title

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Since no Penn State wrestling team - or, for that matter, any other Eastern team - has captured one since, you'd think the Nittany Lions' 1953 national championship trophy would be a sacred relic here.

You'd be wrong.

"I'd have to check . . . but I'm assuming it's in our all-sports museum," said a sports information official when asked its whereabouts.

"I don't know if I've even seen the trophy," said wrestling coach Cael Sanderson.

"Trophy? We won the championship in 1953?" asked wrestler Frank Molinaro. "Wow, I didn't even know that."

That collective unawareness is understandable when you consider how hard Penn State has been working to add that long-sought second national title. Ranked from 2 to 4 in the national polls, the Nittany Lions will get their chance starting Thursday, when the 2011 NCAA wrestling championships begin in Philadelphia.

"Ultimately," Sanderson said, "these guys want to win a championship badly."

There's been something of a wrestling renaissance here in Happy Valley, where two of the last three dual meets - against Iowa and Wisconsin - attracted frenzied, standing-room-only crowds to Rec Hall.

Briefly ranked No. 1, Big Ten champ for a first time, coached by perhaps the greatest collegiate wrestler ever, able to lure top recruits from its talent-rich home state, Penn State figures to seriously challenge Cornell, Iowa, and Oklahoma State next week at the Wells Fargo Center.

And with a roster loaded with underclassmen stars, they'll likely be a contender for the foreseeable future.

"The cool thing about Penn State is they've always been in the top five in terms of attendance," said Sanderson, the Iowa State legend who is finishing his second season as the highest-profile coach in program history. "So as we start to have more and more success, it's just going to continue to grow. The level of wrestling here [in Pennsylvania], the culture of wrestling here, and the support Penn State fans in general have for their teams has been tremendous."

His young Nittany Lions followed a 17-1-1 regular season by winning the school's first Big Ten title last weekend at Northwestern, edging three-time defending national champ Iowa by a single point. It was Iowa that on Jan. 30 handed them their lone loss.

Five Penn State wrestlers - sophomore Andrew Long (133), junior Frank Molinaro (149), redshirt freshman David Taylor (157), freshman Ed Ruth (176), and sophomore Quentin Wright (184) - won individual Big Ten titles.