Virginia Tech wrestling coach redefines ‘family’ after donating kidney to father of All-American alum.
Norm Latona, the father of two-time Hokie All-American Sam Latona, will always carry a part of Virginia Tech wrestling with him. Literally.
The Hokies sports information department announced on May 7, 2025 that Norm underwent a kidney transplant following prolonged health troubles. The donor? None other than Virginia Tech head wrestling coach Tony Robie. For Norm, this transplant marked the end of a tumultuous, emotional journey that began in January 2022 and involved multiple different forms of dialysis treatment, all of which required laborious processes and machines to serve in the place of his kidney. With the help of a selfless act from Robie, Norm is now healthy again, a reality that his son Sam can only describe as a “pretty incredible, very surreal” medical miracle.
“I didn’t want to miss anything”
Sam Latona remembers getting the call from his family that his father Norm was sick with kidney troubles. Sam was traveling back to Blacksburg after a dual meet, trying to balance competing in his rigorous ACC schedule with weight management, school, ranked opponents and now this, a critical health diagnosis for his father. Sam said he wasn’t totally clear on what the kidney diagnosis meant and leaned on his brother Dom, a Virginia Tech wrestling alum, who was in medical school, to help explain the intricacies of the situation.
Pretty quickly, though, he realized this prognosis would send him and his family on a roller coaster of a journey.
Norm’s kidney treatment started with in-home dialysis where a tube was inserted into his belly to function as his kidney. This process failed after about a year, causing Norm’s condition to decline. He was then diagnosed with pneumonia during what Sam said was one of the scariest moments for him and his family.
“I remember having conversations with my mom and my brothers just like, ” ‘What do we [have] to do?’ And kind of crying to each other,” Sam said in an interview with NCAA.com. “But at the end of the day, we had each other’s backs and we were there for each other.”
Norm was later put on hemodialysis and was required to go into a dialysis clinic several times a week for hours at a time to clean out his kidneys. This proved to be particularly rough on him as Norm was still trying to travel to watch Sam compete. Norm ended up traveling as far as Stillwater and Philadelphia to see Sam wrestle, finding treatment centers in each of those cities to balance his medical needs with his desire to see Sam wrestle.
He spent as much time as he could in Blacksburg, too, for Sam’s final few home meets.
“I didn’t want to miss anything,” Norm said in a Virginia Tech Zoom press conference. “I would come on a Thursday in Blacksburg so I could do a treatment Friday morning [before a Friday night dual]. Blacksburg is not a bad place to spend a couple of days every other week.”
The Virginia Tech community kept Sam and Norm going.
“It was kind of easy when you’re at a place like Virginia Tech, and I’ve got the family and support that I had,” Sam said.
The love for the Latonas from the wrestling community spread across state lines as well. Leaders in the sport like Jesse Leng, the CEO of Rudis, were working publicly and privately to help the family.
In fact, Leng promoted Norm’s story widely and spread the word that he needed a kidney. Someone else’s kidney is in my dad.”
Robie and Norm didn’t initially want to tell Sam about the transplant option until after NCAAs. They wanted him to be able to concentrate on wrestling.
Ultimately, though, they elected to break the news to him in January, almost exactly three years since Sam first learned about his father’s condition.
“My dad called me after my App State dual this year and told me that Robie..was going to do it,” Sam said.
He explained that Robie, who Sam describes as “not a very emotional guy,” gave Sam a hug and just told him how much he loved him after they talked through the decision.
Months passed between Robie’s decision and the procedure. The anticipation of the surgery was on everyone’s mind, but Robie told Sam to focus on wrestling.
“He was like, you know, ‘I don’t want this to change anything about the way that you compete. I don’t want you to think anything of it. I want you to just continue to wrestle the way that you are and continue to do the sport that you love,’” Sam said.
Sam went on to qualify for nationals before ending his career for the Hokies in Philadelphia and refocusing on his father and the surgery. He and Robie went down to Alabama in early May, ahead of the surgery, to prepare for the operation. Act of Love: Virginia Tech wrestling coach redefines ‘family’ after donating kidney to father of All-American alum
