Aden Valencia of the Stanford Cardinal celebrates after defeating Shayne Van Ness of the Penn State Nittany Lions during the Division I Men’s Wrestling Championship held at Rocket Arena on March 21, 2026, in Cleveland.

Stanford just had its best men’s wrestling finish in school history. But according to its head coach, Chris Ayres, that success has put the program on the brink of being torn apart — and he’s now pleading with Cardinal alumni and fans to increase their financial support to the program.

Ayres recently won national coach of the year after he led the Cardinal to a sixth-place finish in the 2026 Division I wrestling championships. This included the school’s third-ever individual national title winner in redshirt freshman Aden Valencia and a program-high four All-American finishes — Valencia, redshirt sophomore Tyler Knox, redshirt junior Nico Provo and freshman Angelo Posada. 

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But in a lengthy Facebook post on Saturday, Ayres accused other schools of floating major name, image and likeness (NIL) offers in back channels to try to entice Cardinal wrestlers into the transfer portal. And it appears to have worked: According to Ayres, Knox and Provo and two-time All-American junior Hunter Garvin........

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