Penn State Wrestling Among Most Vocal Opponents To NCAA Decision Against Extra Year Of Eligibility
Penn State wrestling is known for a few things: scoring lots of points, winning trophies, playing dodgeball during practice, and rarely saying anything controversial or too opinionated. Those first three pillars are fairly consistent from year to year, but when the Nittany Lions do sway from that fourth one, you know it must be about something for which they have very strong feelings.
The NCAA announced it would grant additional years of eligibility spring sport athletes due to the coronavirus pandemic on Monday — much to the chagrin of those involved in winter sports, which didn’t receive the same relief. Few have been more adamant in their opposition to this decision than the normally reserved members of Penn State wrestling’s team.
Roman Bravo-Young, who had been contending for an NCAA title at 133 lbs. before this year’s tournament was canceled, immediately tweeted out his disapproval on Monday night, calling this past season a “free year of labor.”
Bravo-Young’s teammates Aaron Brooks and Shakur Rasheed, one a true freshman and the other a sixth-year senior, shared similar messages in the coming days with long, passionate Instagram posts.
All three shared the link to a petition with more than 3,200 signatures at the time of writing, requesting winter sport athletes be given their semester back in order to have another chance at a title and comparing the times to World War II when college sports were also suspended and athletes were later welcomed back.
In addition to the wrestlers’ efforts to rally a change, head coach Cael Sanderson broke a Twitter silence that had lasted more than 18 months to share his own disapproval. Sanderson directed the NCAA to do “the right thing” and then even got into exchanges with followers in his mentions — at one point, calling one a dummy (That tweet has since been deleted).
His argument seemed to focus on instituting a blanket waiver across sports and giving each school both the responsibility and flexibility to make it work.
To no one’s surprise, once Sanderson remembered Clash of Clans isn’t the only app on his phone and opened Twitter for the first time since David Taylor’s World title, the college wrestling world took notice and sat in awe, as it was Ames, Iowa in the early 2000s.
@caelsanderson @PennStWrestling Cael is now 160-0
— Tom Kellgren (@turkeytomk) April 2, 2020
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