Virginia Tech wrestling coach Tony Robie (left) has a special bond with former wrestler Sam Latona.
Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025 is a day Norm Latona will never forget.
While resting at home in Alabaster, Ala., his phone started to ring. The caller was Tony Robie who just wrapped up practice in Boone, N.C., ahead of Virginia Tech’s dual against Appalachian State the next day.
The news Robie delivered was life-changing: he was going to donate his kidney to Latona. Following months of testing, the Tech head coach had just received word that he met the criteria for donation and immediately informed Latona.
“It was a pretty thrilling phone call,” Latona said. “It was kind of surreal.”
An emotional conversation for the pair of longtime friends, Latona made sure to ask Robie if he had time to process the decision. But he never needed time — he always knew.
“He said, ‘Norm, I’ve known for two years that I was going to be your donor,” Latona recalled. “He said, “Before I even did the first test, I just knew it was going to be the one. I decided this two years ago.’”
The call was a poignant moment between two men who have built their lives around helping others. This time, a life was saved.
Latona’s first wrestling memory is being pulled out of the hallway in high school by coach Joe Sicola. Wrestling at 98-pounds as a freshman, he fell in love with the sport and appreciated the lessons that came with it.
His passion for the sport stayed with him through adulthood and motivated him to help create the Warrior Wrestling Club, a nonprofit youth wrestling club in Alabaster, Ala.
That’s where Latona met Robie, when he and then-Virginia Tech head coach Kevin Dresser hosted a clinic with the club.
Latona and Robie bonded over their love for sports and competition, from wrestling to Alabama football.
When Latona’s two eldest sons, Dominic and Sam, committed to wrestle for Virginia Tech, their friendship grew even stronger. Sam was Robie’s first commitment after being elevated to head coach in 2017.
“We just kind of developed a friendship and it was a lot more than just being the coach of two of his kids and him being the parent of kids that I coach, so we really kind of hit it off,” Robie recalled. “We really developed a personal relationship and talked a lot on the phone about a lot of things that weren’t related to wrestling, and just things that friends talk about.”
Latona recognized that Division I wrestling is a competitive environment and requires business-like decisions to be made frequently — but he never experienced that friction when his sons wrestled in Blacksburg.
“That coach-dad relationship is a little tough at the highly competitive, Division I level,” Latona said. “But it just never got to that point with me and Tony. We never had any tension about the kids. I always trusted him with both Dom and Sam. He’s an amazing person. He never did anything that he didn’t tell me he was going to do, and he always did everything he said he would do with the boys and with everything. He’s built an amazing family community there [in Blacksburg].”
“That stuff doesn’t happen by accident, it just doesn’t … I haven’t heard about any program [in the country] that even comes close to Virginia Tech. It’s a special place and that’s a function of Tony. He’s a great leader and just a remarkable person.”
The familial culture in the Virginia Tech wrestling room was evident in the response to Latona’s sudden diagnosis with a severe, advanced kidney disease. Following his diagnosis, many current and former Tech wrestlers offered support, checking in on the Latona family and assisting in donor recruitment efforts. Several Tech wrestlers and coaches gave personal testimonies for Rudis’ project to help expand Latona’s search, including Robie and his three sons. The program rallied around him, working tirelessly to help him find a donor.
“Virginia Tech is home — and it’s not home because it’s a cool place and it’s beautiful — it’s home because there’s people there that you love and who love you very much and would do anything on Earth to help you out,” Dominic said.
The support from Virginia Tech and the greater wrestling community helped the Latona family during the unsure times following the diagnosis.
“There were a lot of emotions involved,” Sam said. “There were times when me, Dom, my little brother [James], and my mom would be on the phone almost in tears, not knowing exactly what’s going to happen.”
Within a short period of time, Latona was in complete renal failure and required dialysis treatments. The treatments were effective and helped stabilize his condition, but the only long-term solution was a kidney transplant, a process in which finding an eligible donor can often feel impossible due to the criteria and nature of testing.
That didn’t end up being the case for Latona. Once the word got out that he was in need of a donor, an unprecedented number of people registered for testing.
“The doctor came in one time and said that there were so many people that applied to be a kidney donor that they had to turn people away and tell them, ‘Let’s hold off for a second,’ which is pretty remarkable,” Sam said.
“I think we became a little notorious within the transplant team at [the University of Alabama-Birmingham] for how many folks they were having to look through and evaluate as potential donors,” Dominic recalled.
The wrestling community responded in droves to help Latona, who has helped give so much to others through the sport.
“It was very humbling, and touching just to see how much people cared,” Latona said while holding back tears.
Throughout the rounds of extensive testing, one potential donor kept meeting the criteria: Robie. He had a feeling from the beginning that he would be Latona’s eventual donor.
“I had a very strong calling that I was going to be able to donate and that was part of the plan for me,” Robie said. “That’s the way I approached it. I was very open to it and once I made the decision to do it, I never wavered or turned back or thought twice about it.”
When Robie called Latona with the good news, it was an euphoric moment. Two longtime friends realizing the uniqueness of what happened.
“The odds of everything happening that way are so crazy, you can’t even get your mind wrapped around it,” Latona said.
Speechless in the life-changing moment, he couldn’t find the appropriate words to convey his gratitude to Robie.
“‘Norm, the kind of person you are, makes it easy to do it,’” Latona recalled Robie saying.
“Tony, I appreciate that, but what you’re doing I think has a hell of a lot more to do with the kind of person you are than the kind of person I am,” Latona replied.
Four months later, the pair underwent successful surgery at the University of Alabama Birmingham and are going through recovery day by day.
Throughout the journey, both men continued to lead others in their life, offering lessons and support to those close to them.
A cornerstone of Hokies wrestling over the past six years will remain in
Blacksburg after an illustrious career donning the maroon and orange, but this time in a
different capacity. Virginia Tech wrestling head coach Tony Robie announced the
addition of ACC champion and two-time All-American Sam Latona as the program’s
recruiting coordinator.
Virginia Tech Athletics
