Hiring Cael Sanderson as an assistant coach for the ISU wrestling team is a smart (if obvious) move. ISU athletic director Bruce Van De Velde and wrestling coach Bobby Douglas deserve credit for making this choice.

It’s a sweet payoff for their foresight 2 1/2 years ago.

After Sanderson, the best college wrestler ever, exhausted his eligibility, Iowa State almost immediately locked up his employment by making him an “administrative assistant” to Van De Velde — a code name for “let’s keep him around here and let him win an Olympic gold medal while still keeping him associated most heavily with Iowa State.”

Mission accomplished. It’s been said many times what “a great ambassador for Iowa State University” Sanderson is (those being Douglas’ exact words in a press release announcing the staff move).

The nice thing is that it’s all true. You don’t win as much as Sanderson has without oozing talent, of course, but something talked about just as much has been Sanderson’s unassuming humility. National and international commentators brought it up repeatedly during August’s Olympic run. Forgive us for stating the obvious, but Cael is a quality guy. He’ll make a fine wrestling coach, particularly on a staff with Douglas and former Cyclone Chris Bono, with both of whom he’s spent so much time training and working already. It should be a close-knit veteran staff.

Clamping down Sanderson at Iowa State for years to come is a victory in itself. But the real reason his hirings in May 2002 and last week reflect great intelligence in the athletic department is that they soften the blow of losing the previous all-time greatest in ISU mat history some 30 years ago.

Dan Gable went 118-1 at Iowa State and went from there to Olympic gold in 1972 in Munich, where he didn’t even surrender a point. Then, he went to Iowa, where the Hawkeyes won the Big 10 each of his 21 years as head coach and took national titles in 15 seasons. He won 94 percent of his dual meets as coach. It took four tries to beat Iowa State, but he went on to topple the Cyclones 35 times in duals as Iowa coach and finish ahead of Iowa State 18 times at the NCAA finals, cementing every win with a “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” status among Cyclone fans.

And that’s too bad, because it’s not as though having success at both the major state universities is an inherently bad thing — ISU athletics have been the benefactor of Iowa City-trained folk many times before; Ed Banach, Pete Taylor and Dan McCarney spring immediately to mind.

But it won’t happen that way with Cael. He’s a Cyclone then and he’s a Cyclone now and he’s a Cyclone for the foreseeable future. Happy to have you with us.