The Sanderson Secret: Just Have Fun

Three little brothers from Utah, just having fun, enter their first Kids Regional tournament, in Wyoming.

Still having fun, each is crowned a champion.

“You better enjoy this,” a bystander tells their mom. “It’ll never happen again.”

Think again, fella. Not only did they duplicate that feat for several more years, the threesome went on to win 11 high school state championships; capture six Cadet and/or Junior Greco-Roman or freestyle national titles; and make at least two world Greco and/or freestyle teams each.

One, an undefeated four-time NCAA champion, claimed a 2004 Olympic gold medal in Athens.

The trio’s younger brother, already a finalist at Fargo, will follow his brothers this fall to alma mater Iowa State University, as a three-time state champion.

And if those plaudits aren’t enough, the three oldest were named Academic All-Americans, their youngest sibling graduated with honors and each has gained respect for his conduct on and off the mat.

Their name: Sanderson. Their game: Having fun.

Fun? What’s fun got to do with the success of Cody, 29, who majored in psychology and is starting the wrestling program at Utah Valley State College in Provo; Cole, 27, a dietician at a center for eating disorders in Orem; Cael, 26, an art and graphic design major who now serves as an assistant coach at ISU; and Cyler?

Mom Debbie Sanderson remembers one of her kids crying one time he lost a kids’ match.

“Are you having fun?” their coach and dad Steve, asked.

“Yeah (sniff, sniff),” the son responded.

“Well,” Steve said, “that’s all that matters then.”

“Steve never got into the ego thing a lot of dads have,” Debbie explained. “A lot of dads, it’s their own pride out there on the mat.”

The boys began wrestling at about age six in their hometown of Heber City, in competitions where everyone goes home a winner — “a roll around and get a lollypop kind of thing,” Debbie said. “I remember they’d kind of tackle each other and grin.”

“They just liked to play games — baseball, soccer — so we let them,” Steve said. “They had fun.

“I didn’t ever try to make it a win-lose thing,” said Steve, now a vice principal at a Heber City middle school and a volunteer coach. “It was ‘we’re going to have fun, and we’ll stop for an ice cream on the way home.’ We went as a family, to be together as a family. I was a high school coach, so I was going anyway,” Steve Sanderson continued.

“The parents who allowed their kids to have fun were the ones (whose kids) had the most success, the ones who developed into a love for wrestling,” he said.

Certainly her sons were and are competitive, Debbie said, but they didn’t deal with the stress of having to win. “The pressure is more to do your best, do what you’ve learned in practice,” she said.

“The secret was to make it fun. Cael liked to wrestle the whole match.

“Expectations can drive you out of the game,” Debbie said. “Kids can read you if you’re nervous when they come up against a ‘name.’ I’ve seen parents go, ‘Oh, look who he drew.’ I’m like, ‘So — go wrestle him!'”

Steve credits Debbie, who teaches in an early intervention preschool program, for much of the boys’ intensity. “But the only time she really got upset was when she thought (our sons) weren’t being treated fairly. In the finals of the Junior Nationals with Cody, for example, the referee asked me, ‘Do you really wrestle in Utah?'”

No one was asking that question by the time Cael was going for his fourth undefeated collegiate season, but the outside pressure on her son was immense, Debbie said.

“I still don’t know how he did it,” she said. “I have to give more credit to his brothers because Steve and I were so far away. Cody was there, even blocking phone calls for Cael. The press would ask, ‘Are you worried about what happened to Dan Gable (defeated in the final match of his college career)?'”

As Cael transitioned to the senior international level, Steve said, his only advice was, “Do what you always have done. Have fun and find the fun in what you’re doing.”

“The people who care about you will give you the time to develop at this new game,” said Steve.

“Looking back at the Olympic Games, you can see that he was doing that — he was enjoying himself,” Steve said. “I think it’s the first time I’d seen that since after his sophomore year.”

Cael’s parents saw him win the gold in Athens. “We went because we were his parents, not because we expected him to win, just because he had a chance to play in the greatest game of all,” Steve said.

“Whatever they’re doing, you’ve got to be there, be in their corner. I chose to have kids, and I’ve got to be there for them.”

When the boys were younger, Debbie said, sometimes she was the only mom at a meet. “I don’t care if they’re out there digging a ditch in competition,” she said. “I want to be there.”

Having his parents’ support has been critical, Cael said. “Win or lose, I knew they’d be there. I used the same approach my father taught me growing up: You go out there and compete and fight. You keep things real simple. If you focus on doing your best, regardless of the pressure or circumstances, that’s always something you can do.

“He’d say, ‘We didn’t come here to win. We came here to fight.’ I had to go back to that approach many times, even last year. That’s how you wrestle your best — You go out there swinging.

“You can’t just show up at tournaments without doing your best training, eating properly, getting enough sleep,” Cael said. “Those are the things you can control.

“There’s a lot of honor in that. You put in your best effort all the way around.”

His older brothers also provided a good lesson. “Cole never reached (NCAA) All-American, but he worked as hard as he could,” Cael said. “That’s where I learned to work hard. Every day my brothers were the first ones to wrestle and the last ones to leave.”

“He wouldn’t have been so tough if he hadn’t had his older brother to pound on him,” added Debbie.

“Our house was pretty beat up — lamps, light fixtures broken,” Cael said, “and that’s with the fear of a mother, too.”

Although the expectations of Steve and Debbie, married 31 years in August, might not include win-loss records, they’ve maintained high standards of behavior for their sons.

“We reminded them as they got successful how it feels to lose,” Debbie said, “and to always treat your opponent with respect. They were never allowed to throw a fit or blame officials. They were expected to be gentlemen on the mat.”

She still has a paper on which Cael — as a first-grader — listed his goals: 1. to be a good person; 2. to get good grade; and 3. to be an Olympic champion.

“You don’t have to be crazy to win,” Steve said. “You don’t have to be fanatical to win. You don’t have to beat them up to be successful.

He also told his sons, ‘You don’t need to pat yourself on the back. If you’re good enough, everybody else will.”

Steve said he has treated Cyler, who is also a talented soccer player, just like his brothers: “You’re playing this game because you want to play.” And after some in the crowd cheered Cyler’s loss in the state finals his sophomore year, “he decided he was going to do (wrestle) for him, not because of his name or others’ expectations of him,” Steve said.

Still, Debbie said, she’s been troubled by some fans’ reactions as Cyler competed. “If he won, he was supposed to because he was Cael’s brother,” she said. “If he didn’t, he was ‘Cael’s brother but not as good.’ People cheered against him, and if he lost, it was like they beat Cael.”

“Cyler didn’t just show up and be good because Cael was a national champion.

“He knows he’s not Cael, and he doesn’t want to be Cael,” Steve said. “We’ll see how he does.

“As long as he gets his education out of it, the other is just icing on the cake.”