When Mauricio Wright got off the plane, there was nothing waiting for him. The best wrestler in SF State history had just captured the 184-pound NCAA Division II crown and yet -- no parade, no banner, no student fans.

"There's just no love for wrestling out here," he told the [X]press after winning his national title, addressing the lack of appreciation the sport receives here at SF State compared against schools in the Midwest.

But the excuses for why none of SF State's sports garner the attention they deserve remain the same: this is a commuter school, there's both no football team and a lack of school spirit, etc.

But before we start lowering the sports program 6-feet under, let's look at the books.

While some teams are having respectable seasons, wrestling remains the only sport in which SF State has won a national title. SF State will also send five of its 10 wrestlers to compete at the NCAA Division II Championships this weekend in Houston, Texas. Yet, the myth that our sports programs suck still remains. And if there was ever a sport for students to get excited about, it's wrestling.

And to keep in step with the glorious tradition that was bestowed upon these gray pages of the sports section, here is a list of reasons why wrestling deserves some love. A list, I'm afraid, that will only make it to our most sensible readers -- the sports fans.

1: The freshmen. When assigned to cover my first wrestling meet earlier this season, I knew as much about wrestling as I did about 12th century British art. But even a clueless art non-expert can sometimes get lucky and realize that what he is seeing is special. I was fortunate enough to witness from a safe distance freshman Naveed Bagheri tune the hell out of Chadron State's Ryan Zavala. But as he impressively dismantled Zavala, the kid overcommitted in his next match later that day and was pinned. Since then, he's gone 6-0 and is now heading to the Nationals as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference 133-pound champion. Working as a used car salesman on his spare time, Bagheri sports a 24-10 record and captured the conference Freshman of the Year award. The long list of losers, I'm sure, will not disagree. And speaking of losers...

2: Losers. It may seem odd to list a few from this grumpy group as a reason why we should show this team some love. The truth is, these guys either A) went down fighting, B) got unlucky, or (everyone's favorite) C) the one-two combination of A and B. Joaquin Carlos was the unlucky recipient of "C" at the conference finals. After a hard-fought win in his first match, Carlos lost to Ryan Etherton of University of Nebraska Kearney. It must have been hard for the charismatic senior to lose and not make it to the Nationals. But, Carlos can take comfort in the fact that he lost to the number-one seed and second place finisher of the tournament. All season long, this 23-year-old stuck to the basics, never ventured into anything too fancy and posted an 8-6 record. He was good enough to get the nod in representing his team at 149-pounds at the Conference Finals, but was unlucky in facing the worthy Etherton. He lost, but deserves recognition for what he accomplished. He rode a five-match winning streak into the tourney and still owns the best hairstyle among anyone on the team...including coach Jensen.

3: Coaching. There is a reason why wrestling remains the only sport in which the school has garnered a national title. In the spirit of Yogi Berra, that reason can be summed up in one word -- Lars Jensen. At first, he looks like a crotchety old grizzly who hibernates in his office while living off coffee. But the man is a hell of a coach and his wrestlers will agree. A recent inductee to the California Wrestling Hall of Fame, Jensen has been answering the bell for over a quarter of a century as head coach at SF State -- and he's nowhere near saying "no mas." But there is more to the man than just records and All-American plaques. He remembers that his athletes are students first. But while he does focus on molding the best athletes possible, his goal is to help his wrestlers develop as men. The calls he gets from former wrestlers telling him he was both an S.O.B. and an influential person in their lives alone deserve some love. Plus, anybody with an identical twin brother named Thor is more than alright.

4: The seniors. There are fewer feel-good stories this season than those of seniors Curtis Schurkamp and Marques Gales. If there was ever a time to smack wrestling on the front page this semester, it was when my colleague Ernie Morales wrote a splendid profile on the Type-1 diabetic Schurkamp. He is the number-one ranked Division II 125-pounder in the nation and posted a 13-8 record while wrestling with a dislocated knee. Schurkamp succeeded on the mat while Gales struggled mightily the entire season, posting a 16-16 record before entering the conference finals. Gales reversed the years of misfortune placing third and earning his ticket to Houston. As a senior with his clock ticking, Gales' story of finally making it to Nationals after years of failure echoes for the entire wrestling team. This squad fights, works hard, and succeeds.

Only to the most cognizant wrestling degenerates would these reasons make any kind of sense. Unfortunately, these magnificent souls are probably the only ones appreciating what they're seeing. My only hope is that the rest of the student population will take a look at how I reacted to Bagheri (see Reason 1), and see that what the wrestling team has accomplished really is special.