Is This for Real? Hendrickson Coming to Oklahoma State?
STILLWATER – This picture that was released on Instagram and Twitter/X accounts for two-time Big 12 Champion, two-time NCAA runner-up, and former Air Force heavyweight collegiate wrestler Wyatt Hendrickson and it is extremely exciting to Oklahoma State Cowboy wrestling fans. Hendrickson, who is looking to extend his collegiate career and has arranged to delay his service in the United States Air Force following graduation from the Air Force Academy.
We know that Hendrickson was in Stillwater and was visiting Oklahoma State this weekend when he took the picture in the studio in the West End Zone of Boone Pickens Stadium. We have also seen reports that Oklahoma State and Missouri are in contention for Hendrickson. We understand that he is visiting other schools including Missouri. Oklahoma State was his first official visit.
The Newton, Kan. product has finished his four-years at the Air Force Academy and that means moving on from graduation at the AFA to a position and officer’s rank in the United States Air Force. His Air Force Academy major was Management and he is hoping to become a pilot in the Air Force. However, the talented wrestler that has represented tthe USA in competition has a COVID year and was hoping to use it and make another run at an NCAA Championship. He is a two-time NCAA All-American.
He is in the portal and has been cleared by the Academy and the United State Air Force to keep wrestling.
In order to make that happen, our sources told us that Hendrickson had to get the United States Air Force to agree to defer his active duty in the Air Force. The AFA does not have a graduate school, but we have learned that Oklahoma State introduced the idea that Hendrickson could take graduate courses in Stillwater, wrestle his final season as an Oklahoma State Cowboys, and still participate in military activities, training and instruction through the OSU Air Force ROTC.
Hendrickson would stay in the BIg 12 Conference where he is familiar with the competition and he would be relatively close his childhood home of Newton, Kan. The OSU Air Force ROTC has an outstanding reputation with the Air Force community.
Hendrickson has gone into the portal but there is a notation on his entry of “do not contact.” That would mean the school or schools he is considering have already been in contact and a decision is either made or close to being made.
The knowledge that he would be a tremendous addition to the Cowboys wrestling program is definite. He won 84-of-his-final-90 matches at Air Force, including 53 by fall. He placed third the past two years at the NCAA Championships. As mentioned he has participated in the USA Wrestling, and won a U23 World title.
He has a further option to continue in the sport after this year. Like athletes in the military, he can come back to the Air Force as part of the World Class Athlete Program wrestling again for the United States Air Force.