Cael Sanderson doesn’t really want to talk to you.

Because, chances are, you’re wondering about Saturday’s meet. And Saturday’s meet against the 197-pound Justin Ruiz from Nebraska will make him – if Cael wins it – Iowa State’s all-time leader in career wins with 151, passing a four-time All-American named Mike Land.

Cael doesn’t want to talk about that, because Cael doesn’t care about that.

He cares about wrestling well. Scoring points. Getting better.

He doesn’t care about records.

After he tied the record Sunday at Arizona State he said absolutely zero words to his parents about it.

But he will talk about it when asked, because that’s the kind of guy Cael is.

His coach, Bobby Douglas, says he will model his future wrestlers after Cael.

Cael signs autographs after meets, sometimes for a half an hour, while the rest of the team is starving to eat, and Cael is too.

Cael helps out in the community.

Cael is 150-0 in collegiate wrestling.

“He’s a gentleman in all respects,” Douglas says.

So if you want to ask him about Saturday, sure he’ll answer you.

You could probably even call him during dinner.

When you do, set aside some time.

Cael doesn’t talk a lot, but when he does he weighs his words, like he’s grappling with them, trying to find the best one before speaking it.

His voice is soft and his eyes are piercing when he talks, and he struggles doing it in front of those recording his words.

Still, it comes out well for Cael when he struggles because you find yourself pulling for him and his demeanor, hoping the next sentence turns out better than the last.

This has been a struggle, dealing with the press. His dad, Steve, says it may be a bigger one than actually winning.

And Cael says after he broke the record of 100 consecutive wins last year, set by legendary ISU wrestler Dan Gable, it was “relief” he felt. Now people would quit talking about him.

“I just try to stay focused with the wrestling,” he says.

He takes his wrestling match to match. Keeps the pressure off – it’s harder to worry about records when all you see is one match.

But he also, from time to time, looks beyond his next opponent, crouched and waiting for the upset of a career.

Cael qualified for the USA National team last year, but the World Championship was rescheduled into deep winter after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cael decided to skip it, and wrestle for Iowa State.

He would have missed the Iowa meet had he not.

He’ll try to qualify again after the season and when he thinks about that, it motivates him to train harder now.

Not that he’d need to.

“No one works harder than us,” Douglas says of his training regiment. “We want to get them in the best physical shape we can.”

So Cael runs up to three miles a day at the beginning of the season and two at the end. And he lifts weights. And does push-ups. And sit-ups. And pull-ups.

And he wrestles in practice.

“You want to make it as close to a real match as you can. You want to be hurting,” Cael says.

It’s hard to tell he is because in practice Tuesday Cael dominates.

Douglas says Cael’s favorite move is to lunge for the legs, but Cael doesn’t lunge for the legs so much as attack them.

Cael’s opponent is Zach Thompson, the strength and conditioning coach and former two-time All-American when he wrestled for the Cyclones from 1996-2001.

It’s not that Thompson’s lost his form, it’s just that Cael is, well, Cael.

Thompson is making Cael work hard – he’s sweating profusely.

But, in the slightly-hotter-than-it-should-be wrestling room, Cael is slightly quicker than he maybe should be, and winning easier too.

He escapes Thompson’s various locks and holds. He throws Thompson to the mat. Sometimes, Cael pins him there.

Steve Sanderson says his third son, (both Cody and Cole wrestled at Iowa State) though always fundamentally sound, has experimented with technique, and at one point Thompson, perhaps disgusted with his own performance says to Cael, “I don’t know how you do that shit.”

A lot of people don’t.

Cael defeated a ninth-grader back in Utah – he grew up in Heber City – to take the junior high state title.

Cael was in fourth grade at the time.

Steve was Cael’s wrestling coach. That helped.

Cael started wrestling when he was four. That helped too.

His older brothers started young as well. That helped the most.

Cody and Cole used to beat the crap out of Cael on the wrestling mat.

“He had to come up with a funky technique to survive,” his mother, Debbie, says.

He did.

By 15, Cael was going to the national wrestling tournaments. Steve took his boys only if he felt they were prepared for it.

When they were, they probably talked about fishing on the way.

Cael loves to fish.

He’s more likely to talk about that after a meet, Steve says.

Or maybe his artwork. He’s quite good, Douglas says. “He embarrasses me.”

Just like he does his opponents.

And to think, Douglas believes he’s still physically maturing.

“He’s starting to become a man,” Cael’s coach says. “Once he fully develops, we’re going to see a wrestler like we’ve never seen before.”