Penn State’s wrestling dynasty rolls to a historic win in front of President Trump in South Philly

The final night of the NCAA wrestling championships began and ended with historic victories, one the fans will likely never see again, the other the greatest upset in a half-century.

And a sitting U.S. president and the world’s wealthiest man took in most of the action from the floor.

The only certainty during the three-day event at the Wells Fargo Center was the continuation of the Penn State dynasty, arguably the greatest in sports. The No. 1-ranked Nittany Lions locked up the national championship — their 12th in 14 years — during Saturday morning’s consolation round, hours before the finals began, and finished the night with a record-breaking 177 team points. Penn State beat its own record of 172.5, set last year in Kansas City, Mo.

Penn State saw all 10 of its wrestlers become All-Americans over the weekend — a rare feat — with Erie’s Carter Starocci, who was granted an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, becoming the only five-time national champion. Starocci’s final match was the first of the evening and he finished with a 4-3 win over returning national champion Parker Keckeisen of Northern Iowa at 184 pounds.

“For me, ending it in Philadelphia in front of family and friends means a lot,” Starocci said after the match. “I’ve wrestled my whole life in Pennsylvania.”

Starocci’s teammate, 165-pounder Mitchell Mesenbrink capped off a dominant 27-0 sophomore season with a title too, beating Iowa’s Michael Caliendo for the sixth straight time in two years. Penn State freshman Josh Barr lost in the final of the 197-pound match and the Nittany Lions had five third-place finishers, including Doylestown’s Tyler Kasak at 157 pounds.

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Even though his historic season was officially over, Penn State coach Cael Sanderson, a legendary wrestler who never lost a match in college, remained stoic about accolades and congratulations. Sanderson, 45, doesn’t use the word “dynasty.”

“We don’t talk about that stuff, but kids live on their phones so they’re seeing it and hearing it all the time, so it’s hard being expected to do something and to do it is probably the toughest thing to do in sport,” Sanderson said in the bowels of the Wells Fargo Center after Barr’s match. “But you know, great team here, and we’re excited for next year and getting better.”

As Sanderson spoke about expectations, the final match, the heavyweight bout, was underway in the arena. Suddenly, the night’s loudest roar reverberated through the interview room and everyone, including Sanderson, glanced at the television to see something wholly unexpected.

Gable Steveson, the No. 1 seed from the University of Minnesota, was arguably the weekend’s biggest “lock.” A two-time national champion who’s already won an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling, Steveson had not been taken down in years and has rarely been in danger in his storied career. In the final 30 seconds of his match against No. 2 seed Wyatt “Captain America” Hendrickson of Oklahoma State, Steveson was up, 4-2, and poised to win his third title. Hendrickson pushed the pace, however, taking a shot and getting in on Steveson’s legs, driving him into the Golden Gopher in desperation as the crowd rose to its feet. Hendrickson ultimately secured the three-point takedown and held Steveson down for a 5-4 victory as the nearly 19,000 fans, and commentators erupted into pandemonium.

“The biggest upset in the history of the NCAA,” South Jersey’s Jordan Burroughs, an Olympic gold medalist, said on the ESPN broadcast. “Could this be it? Yes. He. Has. Done. It.”

Burroughs’ claim will certainly be up for debate. Ironically, the reigning greatest upset in college wrestling history involves the man Gable Steveson is named after: Dan Gable. The legendary former coach of Iowa was 118-0 heading into his final collegiate match on March 28, 1970. A two-time national champion for the Iowa State Cyclones, Gable, who later won an Olympic medal, lost his final collegiate match, 13-11, to Larry Owens of the University of Washington.

Hendrickson, a former Air Force Academy wrestler, saluted President Donald J. Trump, who was seated on the floor with senior adviser Elon Musk, after his victory.

“He said he was very proud of me,” Hendrickson, 24, said of Trump in a postmatch interview with ESPN. “He came here to support his troops, I put on a show for him, I wanted that national title.”

While many U.S. presidents have competed in the sport, including wrestling Hall of Famer Abraham Lincoln, only one — Trump — has attended the championships. Saturday’s visit was Trump’s second time at the NCAA wrestling championships. He attended the 2023 event in Tulsa, Okla., when he was a candidate. Penn State won the title that year, too.

“I’ve always supported the wrestlers,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Friday evening. “These are the great college wrestlers from the various schools.”

Trump’s visit was announced just days before the event began on Thursday and caused some minor logistical challenges for visitors because of extra security measures. While a few hundred protesters greeted Trump outside the Wells Fargo Center, most fans and wrestlers said the visit was a positive for the niche sport, a way to get wrestling in front of a national audience. One fan in the parking lot thought the move was “selfish,” an inconvenience to fans who paid big money for tickets.

“You can be a conservative and still hate Trump,” Penn State fan Karl Goring, of Stockton, N.J., said in the parking lot after the consolation round.

When Trump arrived around 7:20 p.m. with Musk, the reception was overwhelmingly positive with “U-S-A” chants breaking out. Random boos echoed out, too. Trump arrived after Starocci’s historic win but watched the remaining nine matches, shaking hands and posing for photos with many of the All-Americans.

The weekend also appeared to be a victory for Philadelphia and the Wells Fargo Center, which last hosted the NCAA wrestling championships in 2011, when Penn State won its first title under Sanderson. The wrestling championships are broken down by sessions, which forces fans to leave the building for hours at a time. Some tailgated in the blustery wind, but thousands filed into Xfinity Live! and Live! Casino and Hotel.

All told, the attendance was 109,995 for the six sessions.

Tracy Siebrecht, of Iowa, flew into Philly to see her son, Cobe, wrestle for South Dakota State. She said the Wells Fargo Center was one of the best venues she’s been to, though she felt a bit out of place at her short-term rental in Fishtown.

“It’s a bit of a hipster area,” she said of the neighborhood.

One of the biggest surprises from the weekend was Nebraska’s performance. Many expected the race for second place to be Oklahoma State against Iowa, but the Cornhuskers, who came into the championships as the fifth-ranked team in the country, began surging ahead of the two former dynasties on Friday and never looked back. Nebraska finished with 117 points, while Oklahoma State and Iowa finished third and fourth with 102.5 and 81, respectively. The team had two national champions and eight All-Americans and coach Mark Manning was named coach of the year.

» READ MORE: Protesters greet Trump as he attends the NCAA wrestling championship in Philly

“I mean, we’re not surprised. We should have been ranked higher,” said assistant coach James Green, a South Jersey native and four-time All-American at Nebraska.

While Trump’s visit to the NCAAs gave the tournament some international attention, some grumbled about the order of matches, believing wrestling shot itself in the foot Saturday. Wrestling matches traditionally progress from the lightest weight to the heaviest, but that’s subject to change, and Saturday’s broadcast began with Starocci’s historic match at 184 pounds.

Starocci felt his match was the main event and wasn’t pleased with the order.

“It kind of makes me laugh and giggle,” he said. “Things like that are some of the reasons why wrestling isn’t as mainstream.”

Sanderson declined to comment on the match order, but Burroughs, a two-time national champion at Nebraska, defended the move on X and felt vindicated after Hendrickson’s wild upset capped off the night.

“You’re welcome,” Burroughs wrote on X after the upset.

Wrestling, one of the fastest-growing high school and college sports in the country, particularly among women, will be in Cleveland next year for the NCAAs, and St. Louis, a longtime host, in 2027. It’s unclear whether Philadelphia has bid to host another, but if there’s proof that wrestling is getting more mainstream, it’s the 2028 NCAA venue: U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, where the Eagles won Super Bowl LII in front of 67,612 fans.