!Please Note!

You are using an outdated browser that may impact your experience on FCA.org.
Please upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer here or download another browser like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.
Once you upgrade, this notice will no longer appear.

FCA In Action > Captain America

Captain America

Published on December 18, 2025

Joshua Cooley

This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of the FCA Donor Publication. The FCA publication is a gift from our FCA staff to all donors giving $50 or more annually. For more information about giving, visit here.

Did you see it?

Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Wrestling, after all, isn’t one of America’s marquee athletic draws. The sport has always struggled for a spot in our collective consciousness.

But make no mistake: It happened. Wyatt Hendrickson beat Gable Steveson.

Many in the sport are calling it the biggest upset in NCAA wrestling history. And even if terms like Greco-Roman style, double-leg take down and cauliflower ear aren’t in your everyday lexicon, reliving online what transpired on March 22, 2025 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia will give you chills.

Before a near-capacity crowd of 18,826, Oklahoma State University’s Hendrickson defeated Minnesota’s top-seeded Steveson—one of college wrestling’s all-time greats—for the 2025 NCAA heavyweight championship. Hendrickson, seeded second, certainly wasn’t an unknown. But Steveson was that good, considered nearly unbeatable and having not lost a college match since 2019.

Hendrickson’s win rocketed him into immediate wrestling stardom. Suddenly, an already-busy life went into hyper-speed. “My life,” he mused shortly after the championship, “was so much simpler before I won the NCAAs.”

Hendrickson is now eyeing the 2028 Olympics, which comes with intense training cycles. He’s learning how to juggle that with a new marriage, his military commitment, his pursuit of an MBA degree and new financial opportunities that his college title has afforded him.

He said he’s trying to find “a good little balance so I can still have a personal life. But I’m also trying to inspire the next generation of wrestlers and really just speak my mind about my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all the good He has done in my life.”

This is the story of one man—an elite wrestler—who is grappling with something every Christian faces: Pursuing dreams for a glory greater than his own.

Gentle Giant

You could fit the entire population of Newton, Kan., Hendrickson’s hometown, in the arena where he just made history. Newton is a quaint city nestled just north of Wichita in the heartland—a former railroad town with churches everywhere you look, a Mennonite museum and a Main Street dotted with windowfront shops. It’s Americana.

Hendrickson grew up as the third of four children to Christian parents, Todd and Lynnette, who own a local chiropractic business. Wyatt was a rambunctious boy, loving anything in the great outdoors, including sports, hunting, jet skis, dirt bikes, four-wheelers and occasionally shooting toy arrows onto a neighbor’s roof. (By all accounts, one of those activities was inadvertent.)

“Wyatt was always full of life—all boy, getting into all the things,” Lynnette said.

Yet Wyatt has always had a softness to him that belies his size, athleticism and drive to win.

“Since he was very young, even two years old, he’s always been servant-hearted,” Lynnette recalled. “If you dropped something, he would come pick it up. If you spilled something, he would go get paper towels and help you clean it up.”

At first, Wyatt’s mild nature didn’t exactly mesh with wrestling. He didn’t win a single match during his first year of competition, at age five, because he didn’t understand he was supposed to throw other kids to the mat and try to hold them down. “Then somebody did that to him,” Lynnette said, “and he was like, ‘Okay, I see how this goes.’”

Eventually, Hendrickson became a beast in a singlet. As a two-time state champion at Newton High School and a four-time prep All-American, he was a highly coveted college recruit, receiving significant attention from power house programs such as Nebraska, Oklahoma State and Penn State. He also received an acceptance letter from the U.S. Air Force Academy, which he casually threw away. But when Todd, whose father served in the U.S. Navy, found out, he promptly retrieved the letter and encouraged his son to consider the military.

Hendrickson excelled at Air Force, earning NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler honors in his second season (2021-22) and becoming the first All-American at the academy since 2003 the next year. In his final season in Colorado Springs, he went 27-2 and finished third at the NCAA championships for the second straight year.

The academy was also where his childhood faith in Christ truly began to blossom. He got involved in an FCA Huddle as a junior and benefited from the consistent reminders that his true identity isn’t in wrestling.

“The real meaning of life is not athletics,” he said. “It’s accepting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most. That’s why I like being involved with FCA.”

Thanks to the NCAA’s decision to grant an extra year of eligibility to student-athletes who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hendrickson was granted a fifth year of wrestling eligibility. But because military academies only allow four years of NCAA competition to their athletes, Hendrickson, an active-duty Airman, enrolled at Oklahoma State through the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program (WCAP), which allows him to compete and train for the Olympics while fulfilling military service time.

Under highly decorated coach David Taylor, Hendrickson went 27-0 for the Cowboys, including wins over nine All-Americans, while earning the Dan Hodge Trophy, an honor given annually to the top NCAA Division I wrestler. He also won Big 12 Conference Wrestler of the Year and NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler honors. Including his four seasons at Air Force, he finished his college career with three All-America awards and a 127-11 record, including 72 pins and 60 wins over ranked opponents.

No victory was bigger, though, than last spring’s NCAA heavy weight championship. The match was a clash of titans, with both competitors weighing at least 280 pounds. Steveson entered the event with a 73-match winning streak. That stretch of dominance included two NCAA titles, two Hodge Trophies and a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. After brief stints in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the Buffalo Bills training camp, Steveson rejoined the Gophers wrestling program last fall and breezed through his competition to an 18-0 record.

With Steveson awaiting him on the elevated center-stage mat, Hendrickson entered the arena wearing a black T-shirt that read “Jesus: More Than a Conqueror” (given to him by Pete De La Rosa, FCA’s Greater Seattle Representative) and draped in an American flag. Some gamesmanship ensued when Steveson approached Hendrickson and began jawing at him, which is far more common prior to WWE cage matches than NCAA wrestling bouts. Hendrickson, however, walked silently to his corner. Steveson took a 4-2 lead into the final period, but with 31 seconds left, Hendrickson lunged at Stevenson’s legs and scored the biggest takedown of his career, earning three points to take a 5-4 lead and smothering his rival for the final 21 seconds.

When the referee’s whistle blew, Steveson stared blankly into the roaring crowd on his knees. Hendrickson, meanwhile, collapsed on his back in exhausted triumph as his coaches mobbed him and his parents, then-fiancé and best friend went berserk in their front-row seats. Then Captain America, as he is nicknamed, rose to his feet, draped himself again in the Stars and Stripes, and ran into the tunnel. 

Many in the wrestling world are calling it the biggest upset in NCAA history—or at least since 1970, when the University of Washington’s Larry Owings surprised previously undefeated and heavily favored Dan Gable of Iowa State in the 142-pound title match. Hendrickson and his camp, however, say this had been the mission from the moment he stepped foot in Stillwater.

“Obviously it was exciting and it’s super-awesome to reach your goals, but I wouldn’t say that we were surprised really,” Hendrickson said. “We were excited that it all worked out, but we knew from the very beginning that we set out to be national champions. It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

Grappling with Fame

While an NCAA champion wrestler will never have to deal with the attention and public scrutiny that, say, Steph Curry, Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Judge deal with, the last six months have been a lot for Hendrickson.

In the wake of his big win, his Instagram account blew up to 107,000 followers (as of late September), and at one point last spring, he had a few thousand unanswered direct messages on social media. Requests poured into speak at this camp, appear at that event, do these interviews and sponsor those products. For elite wrestlers, these opportunities represent a brief window of time in which they can capitalize on (and monetize) their success.

Eight days after beating Steveson, Hendrickson launched an apparel line called “America’s Heavyweight.” In late April, he returned to Newton High School, where he participated in an FCA gathering to share his testimony, discuss his title match and sign autographs. The following day, the city feted their hometown hero with a parade down Main Street and a celebration at Newton High, where he also hosted an FCA Camp.

“We didn’t want to be a burden on him because how much he’s doing,” said Chad Parks, an FCA Representative in Topeka, Kan., who helped coordinate Hendrickson’s FCA appearance in Newton. “But he was as cool as a cucumber, just so comfortable talking with everybody, and it felt like he really wanted to be there and speak to the kids and give back to the kids.”

Over the next several months, Hendrickson made featured guest appearances at nearly 20 one-day camps across the country—mostly in Kansas, but also in California, Kentucky, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia. Life was getting tough to pin down, and at one point, he and his new wife, Emily, whom he married in May, hopped on a phone call while he was on the road to recalibrate priorities and expectations in the midst of his suddenly-insane schedule.

“Family is most important,” Hendrickson said. “And that’s what God is showing me—that maybe it’s okay to turn down some jobs and just go see a movie with my wife and hang out with her. That’s something we’ve been working on recently. I’m grateful that whenever I need some help, God steps in and isn’t afraid to show me the way.”

Next Stop: L.A.?

In April, Hendrickson decisively won the U.S. Open heavyweight title in Las Vegas, combining for a 45-7 aggregate margin of victory over four opponents. In June, he finished atop the heavyweight division at USA Wrestling’s Final X tournament in New Jersey, securing a spot on the U.S. senior national team to compete in the World Championships in Croatia in September, where he failed to medal.

Now, Hendrickson is turning his focus to the City of Angels. For the next three years, thanks to the Air Force’s WCAP, Hendrickson will be seeking to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team and the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. He is currently training at Cowboy RTC, an official Olympic Regional Training Center at Oklahoma State.

“To do that, I know I’ve got to put in the work, so it’s really just a matter of time,” he said. “But I’ll put my heart and soul into wrestling.”

He’s also an active-duty second lieutenant in the Air Force, an MBA student at Oklahoma State (scheduled to graduate in 2026) and in his first year of married life. What’s easier? Beating Gable Steveson or juggling life? Hmmm ...

“I think he understands that wrestling is a significant part of his life, but you can make it the lord of your life, and it’s a really terrible god,” Parks said. “At some point, he realized, ‘I let wrestling be my identity and it can’t be. Jesus has got to be where my identity comes from.’ He’s allowing God to infiltrate every single part of his life.

“What he’s done in school academically, what he’s done with the military, what he’s done with wrestling—it’s all integrated together, understanding that God has given him some awesome physical abilities and a mindset to be able to be a great wrestler. He knows that that’s not of himself, that God’s given that. He wants to utilize those abilities to the best he can so he can continue to build a bigger platform and shine the light on Jesus.”

Wyatt Hendrickson, 2025 NCAA champion and 2028 Olympic hopeful, is seeking the lasting glory of God’s Kingdom, not his own. He’s learning to use the gifts and talents God has given to him to point to something far greater than himself.

“One of my favorite quotes is: ‘What we are is God’s gift to us, but what we become is our gift to God,’” Hendrickson said. “Along the way, I want to spread the word of Jesus as much as I can. But I think over everything, I’m doing this to glorify God. I’m not afraid to be bold in my faith and share the awesome things that our Lord and Savior has done for me in my life.”

 

-FCA-

 

Photos courtesy of Oklahoma State Athletics and Air Force Athletics/Justin Hoch

 

FCA In Action > Captain America

Captain America

Published on December 18, 2025

Joshua Cooley

This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of the FCA Donor Publication. The FCA publication is a gift from our FCA staff to all donors giving $50 or more annually. For more information about giving, visit here.

Did you see it?

Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Wrestling, after all, isn’t one of America’s marquee athletic draws. The sport has always struggled for a spot in our collective consciousness.

But make no mistake: It happened. Wyatt Hendrickson beat Gable Steveson.

Many in the sport are calling it the biggest upset in NCAA wrestling history. And even if terms like Greco-Roman style, double-leg take down and cauliflower ear aren’t in your everyday lexicon, reliving online what transpired on March 22, 2025 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia will give you chills.

Before a near-capacity crowd of 18,826, Oklahoma State University’s Hendrickson defeated Minnesota’s top-seeded Steveson—one of college wrestling’s all-time greats—for the 2025 NCAA heavyweight championship. Hendrickson, seeded second, certainly wasn’t an unknown. But Steveson was that good, considered nearly unbeatable and having not lost a college match since 2019.

Hendrickson’s win rocketed him into immediate wrestling stardom. Suddenly, an already-busy life went into hyper-speed. “My life,” he mused shortly after the championship, “was so much simpler before I won the NCAAs.”

Hendrickson is now eyeing the 2028 Olympics, which comes with intense training cycles. He’s learning how to juggle that with a new marriage, his military commitment, his pursuit of an MBA degree and new financial opportunities that his college title has afforded him.

He said he’s trying to find “a good little balance so I can still have a personal life. But I’m also trying to inspire the next generation of wrestlers and really just speak my mind about my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all the good He has done in my life.”

This is the story of one man—an elite wrestler—who is grappling with something every Christian faces: Pursuing dreams for a glory greater than his own.

Gentle Giant

You could fit the entire population of Newton, Kan., Hendrickson’s hometown, in the arena where he just made history. Newton is a quaint city nestled just north of Wichita in the heartland—a former railroad town with churches everywhere you look, a Mennonite museum and a Main Street dotted with windowfront shops. It’s Americana.

Hendrickson grew up as the third of four children to Christian parents, Todd and Lynnette, who own a local chiropractic business. Wyatt was a rambunctious boy, loving anything in the great outdoors, including sports, hunting, jet skis, dirt bikes, four-wheelers and occasionally shooting toy arrows onto a neighbor’s roof. (By all accounts, one of those activities was inadvertent.)

“Wyatt was always full of life—all boy, getting into all the things,” Lynnette said.

Yet Wyatt has always had a softness to him that belies his size, athleticism and drive to win.

“Since he was very young, even two years old, he’s always been servant-hearted,” Lynnette recalled. “If you dropped something, he would come pick it up. If you spilled something, he would go get paper towels and help you clean it up.”

At first, Wyatt’s mild nature didn’t exactly mesh with wrestling. He didn’t win a single match during his first year of competition, at age five, because he didn’t understand he was supposed to throw other kids to the mat and try to hold them down. “Then somebody did that to him,” Lynnette said, “and he was like, ‘Okay, I see how this goes.’”

Eventually, Hendrickson became a beast in a singlet. As a two-time state champion at Newton High School and a four-time prep All-American, he was a highly coveted college recruit, receiving significant attention from power house programs such as Nebraska, Oklahoma State and Penn State. He also received an acceptance letter from the U.S. Air Force Academy, which he casually threw away. But when Todd, whose father served in the U.S. Navy, found out, he promptly retrieved the letter and encouraged his son to consider the military.

Hendrickson excelled at Air Force, earning NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler honors in his second season (2021-22) and becoming the first All-American at the academy since 2003 the next year. In his final season in Colorado Springs, he went 27-2 and finished third at the NCAA championships for the second straight year.

The academy was also where his childhood faith in Christ truly began to blossom. He got involved in an FCA Huddle as a junior and benefited from the consistent reminders that his true identity isn’t in wrestling.

“The real meaning of life is not athletics,” he said. “It’s accepting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most. That’s why I like being involved with FCA.”

Thanks to the NCAA’s decision to grant an extra year of eligibility to student-athletes who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hendrickson was granted a fifth year of wrestling eligibility. But because military academies only allow four years of NCAA competition to their athletes, Hendrickson, an active-duty Airman, enrolled at Oklahoma State through the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program (WCAP), which allows him to compete and train for the Olympics while fulfilling military service time.

Under highly decorated coach David Taylor, Hendrickson went 27-0 for the Cowboys, including wins over nine All-Americans, while earning the Dan Hodge Trophy, an honor given annually to the top NCAA Division I wrestler. He also won Big 12 Conference Wrestler of the Year and NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler honors. Including his four seasons at Air Force, he finished his college career with three All-America awards and a 127-11 record, including 72 pins and 60 wins over ranked opponents.

No victory was bigger, though, than last spring’s NCAA heavy weight championship. The match was a clash of titans, with both competitors weighing at least 280 pounds. Steveson entered the event with a 73-match winning streak. That stretch of dominance included two NCAA titles, two Hodge Trophies and a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. After brief stints in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the Buffalo Bills training camp, Steveson rejoined the Gophers wrestling program last fall and breezed through his competition to an 18-0 record.

With Steveson awaiting him on the elevated center-stage mat, Hendrickson entered the arena wearing a black T-shirt that read “Jesus: More Than a Conqueror” (given to him by Pete De La Rosa, FCA’s Greater Seattle Representative) and draped in an American flag. Some gamesmanship ensued when Steveson approached Hendrickson and began jawing at him, which is far more common prior to WWE cage matches than NCAA wrestling bouts. Hendrickson, however, walked silently to his corner. Steveson took a 4-2 lead into the final period, but with 31 seconds left, Hendrickson lunged at Stevenson’s legs and scored the biggest takedown of his career, earning three points to take a 5-4 lead and smothering his rival for the final 21 seconds.

When the referee’s whistle blew, Steveson stared blankly into the roaring crowd on his knees. Hendrickson, meanwhile, collapsed on his back in exhausted triumph as his coaches mobbed him and his parents, then-fiancé and best friend went berserk in their front-row seats. Then Captain America, as he is nicknamed, rose to his feet, draped himself again in the Stars and Stripes, and ran into the tunnel. 

Many in the wrestling world are calling it the biggest upset in NCAA history—or at least since 1970, when the University of Washington’s Larry Owings surprised previously undefeated and heavily favored Dan Gable of Iowa State in the 142-pound title match. Hendrickson and his camp, however, say this had been the mission from the moment he stepped foot in Stillwater.

“Obviously it was exciting and it’s super-awesome to reach your goals, but I wouldn’t say that we were surprised really,” Hendrickson said. “We were excited that it all worked out, but we knew from the very beginning that we set out to be national champions. It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

Grappling with Fame

While an NCAA champion wrestler will never have to deal with the attention and public scrutiny that, say, Steph Curry, Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Judge deal with, the last six months have been a lot for Hendrickson.

In the wake of his big win, his Instagram account blew up to 107,000 followers (as of late September), and at one point last spring, he had a few thousand unanswered direct messages on social media. Requests poured into speak at this camp, appear at that event, do these interviews and sponsor those products. For elite wrestlers, these opportunities represent a brief window of time in which they can capitalize on (and monetize) their success.

Eight days after beating Steveson, Hendrickson launched an apparel line called “America’s Heavyweight.” In late April, he returned to Newton High School, where he participated in an FCA gathering to share his testimony, discuss his title match and sign autographs. The following day, the city feted their hometown hero with a parade down Main Street and a celebration at Newton High, where he also hosted an FCA Camp.

“We didn’t want to be a burden on him because how much he’s doing,” said Chad Parks, an FCA Representative in Topeka, Kan., who helped coordinate Hendrickson’s FCA appearance in Newton. “But he was as cool as a cucumber, just so comfortable talking with everybody, and it felt like he really wanted to be there and speak to the kids and give back to the kids.”

Over the next several months, Hendrickson made featured guest appearances at nearly 20 one-day camps across the country—mostly in Kansas, but also in California, Kentucky, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia. Life was getting tough to pin down, and at one point, he and his new wife, Emily, whom he married in May, hopped on a phone call while he was on the road to recalibrate priorities and expectations in the midst of his suddenly-insane schedule.

“Family is most important,” Hendrickson said. “And that’s what God is showing me—that maybe it’s okay to turn down some jobs and just go see a movie with my wife and hang out with her. That’s something we’ve been working on recently. I’m grateful that whenever I need some help, God steps in and isn’t afraid to show me the way.”

Next Stop: L.A.?

In April, Hendrickson decisively won the U.S. Open heavyweight title in Las Vegas, combining for a 45-7 aggregate margin of victory over four opponents. In June, he finished atop the heavyweight division at USA Wrestling’s Final X tournament in New Jersey, securing a spot on the U.S. senior national team to compete in the World Championships in Croatia in September, where he failed to medal.

Now, Hendrickson is turning his focus to the City of Angels. For the next three years, thanks to the Air Force’s WCAP, Hendrickson will be seeking to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team and the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. He is currently training at Cowboy RTC, an official Olympic Regional Training Center at Oklahoma State.

“To do that, I know I’ve got to put in the work, so it’s really just a matter of time,” he said. “But I’ll put my heart and soul into wrestling.”

He’s also an active-duty second lieutenant in the Air Force, an MBA student at Oklahoma State (scheduled to graduate in 2026) and in his first year of married life. What’s easier? Beating Gable Steveson or juggling life? Hmmm ...

“I think he understands that wrestling is a significant part of his life, but you can make it the lord of your life, and it’s a really terrible god,” Parks said. “At some point, he realized, ‘I let wrestling be my identity and it can’t be. Jesus has got to be where my identity comes from.’ He’s allowing God to infiltrate every single part of his life.

“What he’s done in school academically, what he’s done with the military, what he’s done with wrestling—it’s all integrated together, understanding that God has given him some awesome physical abilities and a mindset to be able to be a great wrestler. He knows that that’s not of himself, that God’s given that. He wants to utilize those abilities to the best he can so he can continue to build a bigger platform and shine the light on Jesus.”

Wyatt Hendrickson, 2025 NCAA champion and 2028 Olympic hopeful, is seeking the lasting glory of God’s Kingdom, not his own. He’s learning to use the gifts and talents God has given to him to point to something far greater than himself.

“One of my favorite quotes is: ‘What we are is God’s gift to us, but what we become is our gift to God,’” Hendrickson said. “Along the way, I want to spread the word of Jesus as much as I can. But I think over everything, I’m doing this to glorify God. I’m not afraid to be bold in my faith and share the awesome things that our Lord and Savior has done for me in my life.”

 

-FCA-

 

Photos courtesy of Oklahoma State Athletics and Air Force Athletics/Justin Hoch

 

BACK TO TOP