True story: Oliver Luck cares about all the sports at WVU.

He might give more attention, to say nothing of more money, to football. He might not have a stern statement about the state of affairs inside the men’s basketball program. He’s earmarked money for a new indoor track and a visitor’s locker room at the soccer stadium and stood beside the plan for the new baseball stadium from the start, but seems set on waiting to touch the Coliseum.

But he does want all the sports to be winners and to be equipped for winning, which is why he was in the news in March for firing Craig Turnbull and why we were in the Coliseum Monday morning for the press conference naming Sammie Henson the new head coach.

Maybe wrestling isn’t a marquee sport. It’s not a money-maker. But it hasn’t been good enough of late and whether people come to matches or not, whether the sport demands a lot of financial support or not, Luck saw something he could make better with the proper hire. I’m not putting the guy on a pedestal. I just think his M.O. is some what succinct. Teams have to be successful in competition and in the classroom, and if they’re not, Luck will intervene with a firing or with financing. The resources are there to support either. Popularity, be it of the sport or of the decision to take action, doesn’t matter to him.

And wrestling is important to Luck. He believes the people of the state (and the surrounding states, for that matter) and fans of WVU have a link to the wrestlers and coaches. There are similarities that intrigue and unite and that bond has not been strong enough or highlighted enough in the past several years.

So wrestling had Luck’s attention, while rifle, the other sport Luck sees differently because of the popularity of hunting in the state as well as the meaning of the mascot’s musket to the university, keeps on keeping on with national titles.

Hiring Henson was a no-brainer, it seems, because of his success as a competitor, but also because he’s been in this long enough to know the sport and to relate to the students and their struggles on and off the mat. And that’s what Luck sought to secure when he picked a coach.

That Henson knew of WVU after a visit here five years ago only made the merger easier.

“I feel like this has been long overdue for me,” he said.

If it was a long time coming for a man the university’s press release hailed as “one of the most celebrated wrestlers in the history of the United States” and “one of the elite assistants in the country,” understand he saw it coming, too. In 2009, Danny Felix, a WVU assistant, was one of seven freestyle wrestlers to make the Team USA roster and compete in the world championships.

Henson traveled to Morgantown to be part of the group that helped Felix prepare. When he returned home, he told his wife, Stephanie, “I can go coach there. I can win there.”

“I never thought I’d actually be here, but when you go places, you want to build student-athletes and build tomorrow’s leaders. Every college wants that, but at the end of the day, you want to win,” said Henson, who also has four children and two dogs with the rap-inspired names Nelly and Biggie Smalls.

“This is college athletics. You don’t go to Oklahoma or Oklahoma State and hope to lose and have a good day. I thought flying to Pittsburgh and driving in, seeing the facilities and the whole atmosphere and how the people make the place, I felt like I connected.”