When can their glory fade

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honor the charge they made,

Honor the Light Brigade, …

Or, in this case, the Penn State lightweights.

I have a healthy fear of lightweight wrestlers because of my years as an upper weight on the Penn State team. At that time they were known as "munchkins." They wore green singlets in practice, as coach Koll would color-code wrestlers by weight so he could match people up quicker.

The "munchkins" would, at times, hold a kangaroo court, pronouncing some upper weight guilty of some fake infraction before descending upon the “guilty” party like a pack of coyotes on an open trashcan. They were tenacious, mean and had something to prove. And if you weighed more than 167 pounds, you had best stay out of their way. The fact that one of them, Rich Puleo, is one of my closest friends is a testimony to my ability to let bygones be bygones.

Wednesday was usually the day that they would attack, and I would exit the room as fast as possible on that day.

When it comes to our lightweights, I don’t talk much to them or look them in the eye when they walk by, because of scars that shall never heal. But I will brag about them here:

• At 125 pounds we have freshman Frank Martellotti, who remains unbeaten. (Martellotti is wrestling because senior Brad Pataky is out with an injury.)

• At 133 pounds, there’s Bryan Pearsall—arguably the most improved starter so far this year.

• At 141 pounds, there’s unbeaten freshman Andrew Alton, who had to beat out senior and national qualifier Adam Lynch.

• At 149 pounds, Frank Molinaro is back in the lineup.

• The other 149-pounder—James English—beat two top-10 wrestlers while Frank was out. One can argue that James is also most improved.

The combined record here is 50 and 8!

That this is occurring is no accident given the coach of the lightweights: the elder Sanderson boy, Cody. (Steve, the patriarch of the family, wrestled for Brigham Young.)

One has to understand this. The coaches take direct responsibility for the actions of those they coach.  I guess I never thought about that too much, but my observation of the coaches is that if they are coaching a weight, it’s like they are wrestling the weight. Given the coaches we have here, there is not much room for anything beyond coming out on top. And the lightweights are taking on the kind of aura that Cody had in his career at Iowa State University, as the firebrand of an ISU team that was constantly challenging for the top. 

The staff is structured so that the first five weights are Cody territory; the top five weights are coached by Casey Cunningham; Troy Letters morphs in the middle; and overseeing the whole operation is the head coach, Cael Sanderson. Additional help comes from the rest of the staff.

That is a heck of a line-up of coaching firepower.

Like a perfect storm needs the lower and upper levels to develop perfectly, the charge of the light brigade seems to occur because of the synergy developing between the coach and his wrestlers.

It also helps that, despite his complaints to me that he is washed up and can’t wrestle anymore, Cody is a hammer on the mat. He can still roll with his protégés, and whey they try to measure up to their coach, it can only mean improvement.

One of the most impressive things about Cody Sanderson, and all the coaches for that matter, is humility. A few months ago, we were reflecting on the 1999 nationals here and he was asking about this match and that match. I said I was only focused hard on one: Casey Cunningham and Clint Musser. In the off-season, Musser, who was a training fanatic, and I would discuss a lot of workout ideas. His opponent—now someone I train with every day in the weight room—was Casey Cunningham, who was also a training fanatic.

The match I wanted to see between them would have been a high-scoring affair. I had envisioned Clint going after him. (Casey was the "longer" wrestler, as I have explained, in the genre of Andy Matter, and Clint more compact.) In my world I wanted to see what happened when the short, explosive guy and the longer wrestler—both trained to  go like there is no tomorrow—shot it out  till someone broke. Not knowing Casey yet, I assumed our guy would win. Instead Casey won a low-scoring match.

In any case, when I was explaining all this to Cody, there wasn’t a word about his match in the nationals or that one. Instead, he said, "You mean you don't remember Cael’s match?"

Still thinking about his little brother. That impressed me to no end.

And the Penn State Light Brigade is also turning into an impressive bunch, because the general in charge (Cody) is impressive himself. (And it’s better that they are pounding on their opponents, rather than ambushing a poor suspecting heavier weight for a perceived slight.)

When Penn State wins a national title, it certainly will not be without a charge from its Light Brigade.