Zain Retherford Wins Second Straight Hodge Trophy

Zain Retherford was named the Dan Hodge Trophy winner for the second straight year Tuesday.

Coming off a 31-0 senior season and his third consecutive NCAA title, Retherford earned 35 of 48 first-place votes to beat out teammate Bo Nickal, Arizona State’s Zahid Valencia, and South Dakota State’s Seth Gross for the award.

College wrestling’s top honor, the award is named after Dan Hodge, one of the sport’s original superstars who was undefeated in college, pinned 36 of his 46 collegiate opponents and won three national titles at Oklahoma. It is annually awarded to the nation’s most outstanding wrestler to based on various weighted criteria such as record, number of pins and sportsmanship.

The award is determined by both fan vote and a panel of voters that includes national media, representatives of national wrestling organizations retired former college coaches, and all former winners.  Two extra votes are granted to the winner of the fan vote, which was Retherford, after earning 13,008 of the 25,188 votes cast, or 52 percent.

Rather than split up the Penn State contingent, Nickal campaigned for fans to vote for Retherford, rather than himself.

If anyone needs help deciding who to vote for in the Hodge race here you go pic.twitter.com/Y6W2ZWocCh

— Bo Nickal (@NoBickal) March 19, 2018

This is the fifth time a Penn State wrestler has won the award. Retherford joins David Taylor as the program’s only two-time honorees. Taylor earned the honor in 2012 and 2014. Kerry McCoy received it in 1997.

Head coach Cael Sanderson collected three Hodge Trophies during his undefeated college career at Iowa State.

Along with being one of only two two-time Hodge Trophy winners in program history, Retherford is also just the second three-time national champion, following in the footsteps of Ed Ruth. He is also tied with Taylor and Josh Moore for the program record for most falls in a career with 53.