By Jimmy Robertson
BLACKSBURG - Athletes celebrate the winning of national championships in any number of ways, but those familiar with wrestlers know that they party in a little more unorthodox manner.
After keeping close scrutiny on their weight for the better part of a year, they immediately sprint to the nearest buffet line for post-match shenanigans.
Mekhi Lewis wasn't any different.
"I had McDonald's," he said.
He also mixed in a little Kentucky Fried Chicken, IHOP and Chinese food over a two-week span, as part of the spoils of victory. For sure, he savored every bit of his caloric indulgence.
And he should. The redshirt freshman from Bound Brook, New Jersey certainly deserved it after he won the national championship in the 165-pound weight class at the NCAA Wrestling Championships held in Pittsburgh in late March, becoming Virginia Tech's first wrestling national champion. He dominated two-time defending national champion Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State, winning 7-1.
The victory capped an overpowering three-day span for Lewis, who entered the tournament as the No. 8 seed. On his march to the crown, he beat the No. 1 seed (Iowa's Alex Marinelli), the No. 4 seed (Wisconsin's Evan Wick) and Joseph, the No. 2 seed. He wasn't taken down a single time, and he became just the fourth ACC wrestler ever to win the championship event's Most Outstanding Wrestler award.
"No, because I've been training for it," Lewis said when asked if he was surprised at his performance. "I was prepared. I felt it was just, like, me trying to figure out things in my head mentally. Physically, I thought I was there. The only thing that was going to hold me back was the mental part of it. That's what helped a lot, just people telling me that I could wrestle and be a national champ this year. I went to nationals thinking that I would be able to wrestle as good as I possibly can.
"It didn't surprise me or my coaches or my family, or just the people around me, like my teammates who watch me wrestle every day or hang out around me. I felt like it was people on the outside who don't know me or don't see me every single day. I wasn't really surprised. I feel like the people who are around me weren't really surprised. It was just the outside people who were."
During the championship match, Lewis nearly pinned Joseph in the second period, grabbing a 4-0 lead. Joseph recorded an escape and nearly took down Lewis toward the end of the period, but Lewis' incredible athleticism enabled him to avoid the takedown, as the second period ended.
Lewis escaped from Joseph to start the third period and took a 5-1 lead. At that point, he started thinking, "I might actually do this. I might actually accomplish one of my goals I had set when I came here."
In the final minute, he took down Joseph again to take a commanding 7-1 lead and all but seal the match.
"When I was on top of him after I got the final takedown, I remember shaking my head and thinking to myself, 'I actually did it. I'm actually going to do it,'" Lewis said. "It was just surreal."
As the seconds ticked down, Lewis' parents, sitting matside, started jumping up and down, realizing what was taking place. At the match's conclusion, Lewis immediately jumped into assistant coach Jared Frayer's arms – he and Frayer have developed a close bond during his time at Tech. He also hugged head coach Tony Robie and assistant Devin Carter and then went and jumped into his parents' arms.
"It was probably the best moment of the whole match and after the match," Lewis said. "That was my favorite part."
The victory not only capped a 28-2 season and made him the program's first national champion, but it also changed his life. He became a popular person on campus, in Blacksburg, and in his hometown.
A really popular person.
Not long after his return to Blacksburg, a gentleman drove by as Lewis walked toward his home on Green Street in the downtown area. The guy stopped his car in the middle of Center Street, got out, congratulated Lewis and took a selfie with him, posting the photo on both Instagram and Twitter.
"He stopped his car in the middle of the road just to say something and take a picture," Lewis said. "I didn't know who he was, but he knows [Tony] Robie, I guess."
Recently, a football player saw him on the bottom floor of the Jamerson Athletics Center, and said, "That's the national champion." People came up to him in his classes and congratulated him, or offered a nice compliment. Even his professors publicly recognized his achievement – while still making sure he knew of his homework assignments and their due dates.
"They don't care if you've won a national championship. You still have to do everything like the next person in the class," Lewis said, with a smile. "That's how I grew up, so I don't want to be treated any different from the next person."
His parents continue to reinforce that idea. Several weeks ago, Keith and Charlotte Lewis came down for the wrestling program's season-ending banquet – an event in which their son added to his burgeoning collection of awards. At the end of the weekend, they loaded up all of Lewis' hardware, including his national title trophy, his award for the Most Outstanding Wrestler, his ACC championship trophy, his belt from when he won his weight class at the Junior World Championships over the summer and everything else and loaded it into the car. They headed back to New Jersey, leaving Lewis empty-handed.
In a way, that served as a wake-up call. He needed to move on to the next phase of his career and get back to conditioning and training – and doing his part to collect on his bet. He and Frayer made a wager that, if Lewis won the title, then the 40-year-old Frayer would jump back into competition, starting with the U.S. Open held in Las Vegas in late April. It was a role reversal of sorts, as Lewis helped Frayer to prepare, and Frayer wound up seventh, qualifying for the World Team Trials.
"He's a good influence, especially being far away from home and not really having a lot of people that I am close with – like an older type of figure," Lewis said of Frayer.
Lewis also needed to get back to preparing physically and mentally. He decided to hold off on defending his junior world championship crown or attempting to make the U.S. Senior World Championships team, electing instead to train without punishing his body through competition. He now feels fit, rested and ready for the 2019-20 season.
Expectations now are extremely high for Lewis, at least those placed upon him by Tech fans and those in the wrestling world. Talk centers on another national championship and even an unprecedented run to four of them.
But the admitted introvert simply takes such talk with the proverbial grain of salt, the nonchalance of a young man who just turned 20 in late April.
"I don't even think about it," he said. "I just think about one day at a time, honestly, just having fun, working hard and just staying in the right mindset because it's a lot. You can always get lost in a whole bunch of stuff when it comes to wrestling. So just being in the right mindset all the time … I'm not really focused on the future. I saw people on Twitter and Instagram saying, 'He's going to be a four-time [champion], he's going to be this.' I don't even care about all that.
"I'm just in the moment right now, just living my best life right now."