Millard South alumnus Isaac Trumble is going out on top after winning the heavyweight title with North Carolina State wrestling at the 2026 NCAA Wrestling Championships.
The sixth-year senior from Springfield, Neb., capped off a perfect 21-0 season by winning the heavyweight title at 285 pounds at the Rocket Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 21. Trumble beat No. 1 seed Yonger Bastida from Iowa State in the second period, pulling off an escape and takedown to win the match.
“When it’s a home match, I kind of think of a way to celebrate, and what I’m going to do when I win, or if I’m going to win, I kind of think of like what I can do to get the fans into it,” Trumble told Hurrdat Sports of his celebration after the win. “I didn’t really think of anything before the match, so it kind of was just pure emotion. The first thing I knew to do was go hug my coaches, because they were the people who got me through it all, and I honestly wouldn’t be where I am today without (head coach Pat) Popolizio and my athletic trainer after last year.”
Isaac Trumble celebrates with his coaches after winning the heavyweight national championship. Photo by Jose Lopez.
Trumble made his heavyweight debut during the 2024-25 season after competing in the 197-pound division previously. He went 22-7, including 12-1 in duals, while collecting 15 bonus-point wins.
Trumble had to forfeit out of the ACC Tournament to continue rehabbing from meniscus surgery the week prior but he received an at-large bid for the NCAAs, where he went on to earn All-American status with a fourth-place finish and a 5-2 record — despite wrestling the last four matches with a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus. He underwent surgery after the tournament, setting up a long recovery in order to compete again this season.
“It was very tough, but I would not be able to do it without my wife, and my trainer pushing me and making me healthy and getting me into the weight room and getting the strength back into that knee,” Trumble said. “My wife did a great job cooking me meals and nursing my body so I could be healed and recover well. It took a long time, and once I was finally back on the mat and I felt good, I definitely knew I could get ready for competing.”
In his final season with the Wolfpack, Trumble went 21-0, crediting his mindset for his success.
“I couldn’t think of anyone else at my weight that has gone through what I had gone through after that tournament,” Trumble said. “Being able to use that in my mind just as a little step and advantage ahead of someone, or even the workouts that I’ve been doing have been incredibly tough, and knowing that my opponents are not working nearly as hard as I am and using that in my mind that I’m maybe starting two points ahead of this guy. He’s not doing the things I’m doing. I’m starting out a step ahead, so just using those things to kind of trick myself into thinking I already have this match won.”
That mindset along with his perseverance propelled Trumble to a victory for more than just himself.
“For me, it kind of means that this whole time since I’ve started, it’s all been building up and snowballing for that one moment right there, and at that time it paid off,” Trumble said. “It’s different for my family. It could be my mom when my dad was deployed, having to take care of seven kids and still finding ways to get me to wrestling practices, or finding a family that I could go to a wrestling tournament with so that way she can stay with the kids. So it’s different for them or even my school. It was the first time an ACC program has had back-to-back national champs, and it was the fifth heavyweight national champ in North Carolina State history, so it’s different for everyone.”
The Millard South product is no stranger to competing on big stages, having won a title in the 97-kilogram weight class at the U23 World Championships in Tirana, Albania, in 2023. He became North Carolina State’s first gold medalist in any age division.
“That was my first-ever international tournament, first time leaving the country, and it was a tough weekend,” Trumble said. “I wrestled four really tough matches, great opponents, and we had a great team, and I ended up winning …
“It was just a great feeling being able to put on for Team America, and performing for something that’s a little bit bigger than myself, or Raleigh, or North Carolina, or Nebraska, but putting on for the entire country of the United States and setting a good example for the kids that are coming in the future.”
The win at the World Championships earned him an invitation to the U.S. Olympic Trials, for which he redshirted the 2023-24 season with the Wolfpack. There, he took second place, securing a spot on the USA National Team. Trumble said he used that experience to learn both for himself and his North Carolina State teammates.
“My junior year of college, I had gotten to go to the Olympic training center, I’d went to Penn State, I’d gone to a few other schools,” Trumble said. “Just seeing how other teams run their programs or how other coaches run their programs is pretty spectacular. Seeing what they’re doing for their athletes, and what their athletes are doing, and how I can bring that into NC State, and what I can do differently with myself and what our coaches can do a little differently was a big steppingstone for me and them.”
Trumble said it means a lot representing Nebraska.
Isaac Trumble fist pumps after defeating Iowa State’s Yonger Bastida in the heavyweight championship. Photo by Jose Lopez.
“I have a lot of pride in myself,” Trumble said. “They doubt us all throughout our careers. He’s just a little guy from Nebraska, he’s not really done much with his life, he hasn’t done this, he hasn’t done that. Being from Nebraska, you don’t really have the opportunity as much as other kids, and you have to kind of find that adversity, and kind of push through it.”
That state of Nebraska has produced national champions in the last two years as Trumble followed in the footsteps of high school teammate Antrell Taylor, who won a national championship with Nebraska last season.
“No matter what your upbringing looks like, you can always find a way to put it behind you or put it in the past, and continue to reach those goals that you’ve been striving for for a long time,” Trumble said. “Kids can look at Antrell and I as good mentors, or people that have gone and done it. They can use that as someone that they can look up to and build their career off of. I would love for Nebraska kids to even push past what I’ve done. One national champ, yes, it’s awesome, but I would love to go see a Nebraska kid go beat that and get two or three. There’s a lot that it shows being able to persevere through the upbringing from a state like Nebraska.”
Trumble has concluded his collegiate career at the top of the mountain, leaving North Carolina State as a true champion in the sport.
“It’s been a long 15-year journey, and I find more joy in those (steps along the way) than I do in that one moment of success,” Trumble said. “The tough practices that I made it through, the practices my coaches put me through, the track workouts, being able to succeed in those moments and the moments that are the worst propelled me into being able to succeed in the moment last week. So I look back on and I find more joy and pleasure in being able to do those things than I do actually being able to win the national title.”