President attends NCAA finals in Philadelphia

President Donald Trump attended the finals of the 2024 NCAA Division I wrestling championships Saturday night in Philadelphia. (Photo courtesy Sam Jacnicki / SJanickiPhoto.com)

Many professional and collegiate teams visit the White House and the president after winning championships.

President Donald Trump came to the championship on Saturday night.

Trump was on the floor at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia as the Penn State wrestling team won their 12th NCAA championship in 14 years. It was his second visit to the NCAA championships in three years. In March 2023, he visited the national championship meet in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a former president.

He received a warm welcome when he was introduced to the capacity crowd after the first championship match of the evening with chants of USA, USA raining down from the crowd of more than 18,800 fans.

Several wrestlers came over to speak and take photos with the president after their championship victories including Penn State’s Carter Starocci, who won a record fifth NCAA Division I championship and Oklahoma State’s Wyatt Hendricksen, the former Air Force wrestler, who stunned Olympic champion Gable Stevenson with a takedown in the final 25 seconds of the match to win his first NCAA championship at 285 pounds.

President Donald Trump, right, meets with Wyatt Henricksen of Oklahoma State at the NCAA Division I nationals in Philadelphia on Saturday. (Photo courtesy The White House)

Sitting with Trump on the floor included U.S. Senator David McCormick (R-Pennsylvania), U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon from Connecticut and billionaire advisor Elon Musk. Jordan won two NCAA championships at Wisconsin.

Penn State’s Mitchell Mesenbrink, who won his first NCAA championship with a victory at 165 pounds, was looking forward to the visit.

“I think that’s cool,” Mesenbrink said on Friday. “I think if it was a conservative or liberal it would be really, really cool. Democrat or Republican. Whoever it is, it’s the President of the United States, the leader of the free world at our wrestling event. That’s really cool when you think about it that way.

Mesenbrink thought Trump’s visit helped the visibility of the sport.

“If you put politics aside, no matter if you’re conservative or liberal or whatever, to have the President of the United States be at something that we want to get people to watch, right?,” Mesenbrink said. “We want people to watch wrestling. We want people to be able to funnel not just money but people’s time, and their attention, and that is money.

Wyatt Hendricksen, who wrestled four years at the Air Force Academy before transferring to Oklahoma State, was thrilled to see Trump in the audience.

“That’s my Commander-in-Chief right there, baby. I was really excited to have him here,” he said. After his upset win over Stevenson, Henricksen stood at the edge of the mat and saluted the president.

Nearly two months into his second term as president, Trump has attended high profile sporting events such as the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Daytona 500 auto race.