BLACKSBURG - Winning international competitions often comes with a price.
For Mekhi Lewis, it was the loss of anonymity.
Lewis, a redshirt freshman on the Virginia Tech wrestling team, became the BMOC – "Big Man On Campus" – last week after winning the gold medal in the 74-kilogram weight class at the Junior World Championships held Sept. 22-23 in Trnava, Slovakia. He became the first Virginia Tech wrestler ever to win a gold medal and just the second ever to win any medal for a U.S. team at an international event (Ty Walz).
Lewis returned to campus a week ago and quickly realized that wrestling is a more popular sport at Virginia Tech than he originally realized.
"People in class recognized me and congratulated me," Lewis said in an interview Thursday. "Professors congratulated me, and my teammates, of course. They're happy for me. I've had random people come up to me.
"I had this guy come up to me in class, and he told me, 'You look like this wrestler that was on Twitter that won this championship.' I'm like, 'Yeah, that's me.' I've had people DM'ing [direct messaging] me from out of the country, telling me that they like my wrestling. It's been crazy."
Lewis, a native of Bound Brook, New Jersey, won in stunning and convincing fashion, dominating his four opponents. In his first three matches, he won twice by technical fall and once by pin, advancing to the final against Azerbaijan's Abubakar Abakarov. He took care of business against Abakarov, a 2016 Cadet world champion, rallying from a 1-0 deficit and ultimately cruising to a 5-1 victory.
Over the course of four matches, Lewis gave up just two points – one on a step out and another on passivity.
"I really think the foreigners weren't used to wrestling someone like me, just like I wasn't used to wrestling somebody like them," Lewis said. "It made it hard for both of us, but more so for them because of the way I wrestle.
"I keep attacking, keep moving, live feet. I didn't really get to a lot of my shots out there, which is surprising. That's why the coaches were like, 'They didn't get to see what you really could do, and for you to be wrestling this good should be scary for them.' [But] just wrestling hard the whole time, too … I feel like a lot of them, especially in that second period, were getting exhausted. I could feel them grabbing me, and the grab wasn't as strong as it was in the first period."
Lewis won the lone gold medal for the U.S. team, which finished a disappointing second at the event despite having three returning champions in the lineup. The Americans won five medals in all – Lewis' gold, two silvers and two bronzes.
Lewis' win was a surprise considering the 19-year-old has yet to wrestle in a collegiate match – Tech's staff elected to have him take a redshirt season because of the presence of B.C. LaPrade and Solomon Chishko at 157 pounds and David McFadden at 165. Also, the win came as a surprise because Lewis only picked up freestyle wrestling this past spring. Most Americans wrestle folkstyle, which has different rules and a different scoring system, yet the move to freestyle presented no problems for Lewis, who won his weight class at the U.S. Team Trials held this summer in Rochester, Minnesota to qualify for the Junior World Championships.
The weeklong trip to Slovakia wasn't all business for Lewis and Tech assistant coach Jared Frayer, who went with him. The two managed to visit the downtown area of Trnava, going to a mall, walking around a soccer stadium on a match day, and visiting a local park, and they also found an Italian restaurant that provided quality pasta, chicken, rice and burgers.
"The pizza was all right," Lewis said. "It wasn't like Jersey pizza, but you can't hold everybody to that standard."
Before he left to head to Slovakia, Lewis said he wanted to enjoy the experience, especially since he never had been abroad. Obviously, returning with a gold medal and the winner's belt made the experience that much more enjoyable.
Lewis' win certainly reverberated throughout the wrestling world. In fact, fellow New Jersey native, world champion and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs tweeted a response after seeing that Lewis had won.
"A lot of 74KG titles reside in the USA. Congratulations champ!" Burroughs tweeted.
That certainly caught the attention of Lewis.
"He's been to the top, and he knows how to get there, so for him to tweet at me, I feel like I can get there too, if I work hard," Lewis said. "I've got to work hard and pray."
Despite the attention, Lewis is gradually starting to turn his focus on the upcoming season and his debut as a collegiate wrestler. His parents, Keith and Charlotte Lewis, came to Blacksburg this past weekend to spend some time with their son – and they took the gold medal and the belt back to New Jersey. That figures to keep Lewis from daydreaming about his accomplishments and losing focus on the Hokies' upcoming campaign.
Not that Tech head coach Tony Robie worried about that. He told Lewis to take some time off once Lewis returned to campus last week. He took one day off before returning to the Tech weight room for some lifting.
"You can't take time off," Lewis said. "I'm trying to do big things. I want to put myself in the best position to accomplish my goals."
He accomplished a big one at the Junior World Championships. If he keeps doing things like that, he won't be just well known. He'll become a household name.