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Floor Speech
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Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. President, Pennsylvania is wrestling country. The sport fits the character of our Commonwealth. From smalltown school gymnasiums to the biggest stage in college athletics, generations of Pennsylvanians have learned on the mat that nothing is given and everything is earned.
Our proud tradition is embodied by a team that has once again set the standard for intercollegiate wrestling and is here with us in the Gallery today. So I rise to honor the 2026 NCAA national championship Penn State Nittany Lions and submit a resolution congratulating them on their fifth consecutive national championship and their 13th title in the last 15 NCAA championships. This recognizes the dedication, the teamwork, and the perseverance that made this historic achievement possible.
When I watch wrestling, I see the best of Pennsylvania and the best of America: hard work, courage, resilience, humility, and respect. In this remarkable group of young men, those virtues are on full display.
I grew up wrestling across Pennsylvania--from Shikellamy to Shickshinny, from Selinsgrove to Schuylkill Haven--and years later, I had the privilege of serving as the cocaptain of the Army wrestling team at West Point. Last year, I sat in the front row in Philadelphia at the NCAA national championships, alongside President Trump, as Penn State defended its title.
I have spent much of my life around wrestling mats, and what I learned there is simple: Wrestling reveals character. For 7 minutes, there is nowhere to hide. No teammate can take your place. No excuse can score a takedown. The work you did or didn't do when nobody was watching shows up under the lights. That is why wrestling is more than a sport. It teaches the virtues that have always sustained America, and no program--no program--in the country embodies those virtues more consistently than Penn State wrestling.
This season, the Nittany Lions went 15 to 0. They completed their sixth straight undefeated season and extended dual-meet winning track record to 86. Then they went to the national championships in Cleveland and raised that standard again. The team scored 181.5 points, breaking the NCAA record that Penn State had set just the year before.
This is not just a good weekend; this is sustained excellence. Six Nittany Lions reached the national finals, tying the school record. Luke Lilledahl, Josh Barr, Levi Haines, and Mitchell Mesenbrink returned as champions, and Mitchell delivered one of the tournament's most defining performances, winning in the finals by a technical fault and earning the second straight national title for him and the tournament's ``Outstanding Wrestler.''
But the most compelling statistic is that every one of Penn State's 10 NCAA qualifiers scored points toward the record total, and 8 became All-Americans. That is teamwork. That is excellence.
There is so much discussion these days about how boys become good men, and Penn State wrestling has found a winning formula: Demand excellence, teach discipline and humility, and bind individual ambition to a purpose larger than oneself.
That is why Coach Cael Sanderson's legacy is bigger than 13 national titles. He has built more than a championship program; he has built a culture that forms young men into the kinds of leaders our communities and our country needs.
Cael often points to the Old Testament story of Nehemiah, who was rebuilding Jerusalem's wall when the enemies repeatedly tried to lure him away. Nehemiah's response was simple:
I am doing a great work, so I cannot come down.
Coach Cael and his fellow coaches and the Penn State wrestling team are doing great work. As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, we in this body are striving to do great work too: preserving the liberty we inherited, renewing the character that sustains it, and proving that a free people can accomplish hard things together. But to be a champion, as this group knows, each of us needs to renew that great work every single day. The Penn State wrestling team understands that, and America sometimes needs to be reminded of it.
I ask my colleagues in this body to join me in this resolution recognizing what this remarkable team has accomplished.
To the Penn State Nittany Lions, congratulations on another historic championship. Pennsylvania is proud of you. The Senate honors you.
We are Penn State.
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