IOWA CITY, Iowa — When Spencer Lee peels off his warmups and approaches the center of a wrestling mat, the energy resembles a shooting star in a clear night sky. It’s palpable, brilliant and short-lived.
In a sport that thrives on toughness, endurance and swagger, Lee exudes all of those virtues. He’s the defending recipient of the Hodge Trophy, which is given annually to the top collegiate wrestler. He shared the 2020 Sullivan Award as the nation’s best amateur athlete. Entering this weekend’s NCAA wrestling championships in St. Louis, Iowa’s two-time national champion has won his last 30 matches by a combined score of 373-34.
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“If they’re starting the dual meet at 125 pounds, you want to make sure you have your ice cream bought, your popcorn bought and you’re sitting in your seat ready to go before that first whistle is blown,” said two-time Iowa national champion and radio analyst Mark Ironside, “because you do not want to miss one second of Spencer Lee.”
Lee, 22, became the first Iowa true freshman since 1993 to win a national title when he toppled a previously unbeaten wrestler in the 2018 finals. He followed that up with another NCAA championship in 2019, outscoring his opponents 55-7 at the national event. Last year, Lee was 18-0, scored team bonus points in 16 matches and rolled up a 234-18 scoring advantage. With only four matches lasting the distance, Lee was a near certainty to claim a third national title until COVID-19 canceled the NCAA meet.
In just seven matches this year because of a delayed start and a COVID-19 program pause, he has taken his dominance to another level. He pinned five of his seven opponents in the first period. Over the other two foes, Lee scored two technical falls (a 15-point advantage). None of the matches lasted the distance, and five of those wrestlers are seeded in the top 15 at the national meet.
Even among the nation’s greatest wrestlers, Lee stands out.
“It’s just the way he thinks, the way he talks about what’s next. It’s like an elite-minded athlete. It’s like Michael Jordan,” said Iowa coach Tom Brands, a three-time national champion and 1996 gold medalist. “It’s not about what movie am I going to make in the offseason. Or what about this name, image likeness that’s coming down the pipe. How can I make X amount of dollars? He’s very grounded. All that comes with consistent, great performances every time out.”
Within that dominance comes a multi-layered, committed and complex wrestling superstar with lofty goals. This weekend, Lee seeks to become a three-time NCAA champion, tying the Iowa career record. In two weeks, Lee will compete in the U.S. Olympic Trials in freestyle at 67 kilograms. In 2019, he won the U.S. senior national freestyle title to claim an automatic berth into the Olympic qualifying event. It is possible Lee could represent the United States in Tokyo this summer. With an extra season of eligibility on the horizon because of COVID-19, Lee could become only the fifth four-time NCAA champion.
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But as serious and determined as Lee is on the mat, he’s friendly, eccentric and conscientious off it. He has won the league’s sportsmanship award, is an academic All-Big Ten performer and an accomplished archer. He enjoys all types of video games and especially Pokémon. He visited an Iowa City elementary school and, in his honor, all of the kindergarten students wore Pokémon hats.
At times he’s a loner by preference and, according to top-ranked 174-pound teammate Michael Kemerer, Lee is “kind of a nerd.” He comes from a judo family and his twin sister, Gabrielle, regularly tells their father, “He was born first because there’s always a rough draft before a final copy.”
Lee’s teammates both respect and adore him, giving him a nickname that reflects his mat prowess and jabs him for his 5-foot-3 height. In Iowa City, it became a meme.
“I don’t want to give him a big, big head,” said Alex Marinelli, a three-time Big Ten champion at 165 pounds. “Spencer’s one of a kind. He’s very unique. We call him Yoda because he can do things with his opponent that is kind of, it’s just unhuman or however you call it. He can just kind of use the Force and turn guys and pin them and tech them within the first period.”
Lee’s teammates affectionately call him “Yoda.” (Courtesy of Spencer Lee)“I’m really short,” Lee said. “(Yoda is) really short. You know? So, it all kind of makes sense to them. They all found it pretty funny. I mean, it’s a compliment to me so not I’m upset about it. Pretty cool being called Yoda.”
Larry Lee grew up in a military household regularly bouncing from locations in the United States and abroad. When his family relocated from Fort Rucker, Ala., to Anchorage, Alaska, his junior year of high school, he took up wrestling to help further his judo skills. He enjoyed the sport so much he wrestled for a year in college before focusing strictly on judo.
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While training in Japan, Larry was invited by a friend to train with his father in France. A year later at his first practice, he met a fellow judoka named Cathy at his first practice. She was a member of the French junior team and asked him to work out. They soon fell in love. To pay for his judo training, Larry worked on commercial fishing boats in Alaska during the summer. Cathy stayed in France and later she joined him in the United States. They were married in Alabama and recently celebrated their 33rd anniversary.
Larry switched to coaching and Cathy continued to compete. She established citizenship and qualified for the United States national team. In 1991, she took the silver medal in the flyweight division at the Pan-Am Games. Despite weighing 45 kilograms, Cathy competed in the 48-kilogram division at the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials. She lost a heartbreaker to Valerie Hernandez, who was unable to make weight for the Summer Games. It was the only weight class in judo of which the United States didn’t compete in Barcelona.
“My mom was awesome,” Spencer said. “She’s too humble. She was a lot better than she thinks she was.”
“When she left France, she left her entire family,” Larry said. “She left all relatives. I mean, when you think about it, she gave up her family, her culture, her language, her country, everything to move to the United States.”
Cathy retired from judo in the mid-1990s but enjoyed more success in winning an Olympic festival 45-kilogram competition in 1993. Five years later, she gave birth to Spencer and Gabrielle on Oct. 14, 1998, in Denver. Larry continued to coach judo and helped two Paralympic athletes win gold medals. He was inducted into the United States Association of Blind Athletes Hall of Fame in 1997.
Family called Larry to Pennsylvania when his father was terminally ill. He left the University of Denver for Allegheny College in 2002, where he worked as vice president for finance and administration for 11 years. He developed a strong relationship with the school president, Dr. David McInally, who later accepted the presidency at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. McInally asked Larry to join him, but he declined at the time when Spencer and Gaby were about to enter high school. However, with Spencer’s burgeoning wrestling career, they relocated to Pittsburgh, where Larry became an associate dean with Carnegie Mellon. That’s where he stayed for about three years when McInally asked him once again to join the Coe administration.
From L-R: Gaby, Spencer, Cathy and Larry (Courtesy of the Lee family)By then, Spencer had accepted a scholarship to wrestle at Iowa, and Gaby’s collegiate future was still uncertain. She agreed to tour the Iowa campus, but Gaby was not interested. Because of the family’s relationship with McInally, they decided to visit nearby Coe College as well. Gaby loved the small-college environment in the middle of a medium-sized city.
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“She got in our car and she literally said, ‘I don’t have to look any further if we can make it work. This is where I want to go to school,’” Larry recalled. “It’s kind of funny how it all turned out. About a week later, I sat both down and said, ‘Well, guys, what would both of you think about us moving to Iowa, because I have a job offer at Coe College.’ And Gaby said, ‘Dad, that’d be awesome.’ And Spencer said, ‘That’d be really cool. You’d be close. I was worried about picking Iowa because I was thinking about you driving 10 hours to come to a dual meet, right?’ And I said, ‘Well, now it’s going to be about 30 minutes.’”
Cathy, Spencer and Gaby stayed in the Pittsburgh area when Larry moved to Cedar Rapids during the twins’ senior year. Little did he know that year away would be the most difficult of his life.
As a longtime coach, Larry Lee wanted his children to compete in a variety of sports before they specialized to avoid burnout. For Spencer that included football, soccer, baseball and wrestling.
He developed into one of the best wrestlers in his age group. When he was 8 years old, his father took him to the Tulsa Nationals. After Spencer won a couple of matches, Larry noticed his son’s next opponent was more technically proficient, more experienced and “flat-out better” than Spencer. So, Larry called his wife and told her their son’s matchup against Mario Guillen (currently an NCAA qualifier at 133 pounds for Ohio) was a probable loss.
Then, Larry saw Spencer perform at a level he had not witnessed previously. He fought and battled Guillen through difficult positions. Spencer won with a late takedown against a more skilled opponent. That prompted another phone call.
“It was the first time he raised his level,” Larry said. “I remember calling my wife saying, ‘Cathy, he’s going to be really good.’ She goes, ‘How can you say that? He’s so young.’ I said, ‘Cathy, you didn’t see what I just saw. It’s not that he won the match. I could not care less about that. It’s the fact he raised his level. That just doesn’t happen.’”
Spencer eventually lost in the finals to recently retired Iowa State wrestler Austin Gomez. But his life changed that day. With tears in his eyes, Spencer turned to his father and pleaded with him to return the following year.
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“His eyes just bore through me,” Larry said.
Spencer competed in other sports alongside wrestling through middle school, but they were activities, not his passion. As he approached high school, Spencer rode with his father in a car one day and told him he wanted to become a three-sport athlete. When Larry asked which ones, Spencer replied, “Folkstyle, Greco and freestyle.”
For more than three years, Spencer Lee rolled through opponents like a freight train down a mountain. He never trailed in a match, was taken down only three times and won three Pennsylvania state titles. In freestyle competitions, Spencer was a two-time junior international champion and won the Cadet World Championships. He was the nation’s top wrestling recruit and he trimmed his choice to national powers Iowa and Penn State.
Living in Pennsylvania during Penn State’s reign of dominance made the choice difficult for Spencer. At Pittsburgh’s renowned Young Guns Wrestling Club, which is coached by former Iowa wrestler Jody Strittmatter, Lee’s wrestling style, tenacity and constant pressure was based on Iowa tactics.
“They always want us to wrestle like Tom or Terry Brands, or Ironside or (Lincoln) McIlravey,” Spencer said. “I was always watching videos of those guys. And when I got older, eventually I started getting recruited by them, and I fell in love with their coaching staff, and their program and everything about the University of Iowa. At the end of the day, it was a pretty easy decision when you really think about it.”
It’s convenient for Spencer to reflect four years later and call it an easy decision. In the moment, it was excruciating. Both states are wrestling hotbeds, and the schools’ rivalry currently is the most passionate in the sport. Penn State coach Cael Sanderson was an undefeated, four-time national champion at Iowa State and later became the Cyclones’ coach. Iowa’s wrestling bravado incites intense devotion from its supporters and outright hate from detractors, something that was fostered by Dan Gable with 15 national titles in 21 years and continues daily with Brands.
Spencer Lee with Iowa head coach Tom Brands. (Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)But more than the reputations, fan bases or proximity, Spencer’s attachment to Iowa assistant coach Terry Brands — Tom’s twin brother — won him over.
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“The hardest part about the Penn State-Iowa thing was Terry,” Larry said. “He wanted to wrestle for Terry. He was under a lot of pressure to pick Penn State. Cael did a good job of saying, ‘You are Pennsylvania wrestling. How could you go anywhere else? You are Pennsylvania wrestling.’ He used to tell him that all the time. ‘Don’t you want to represent your state at the highest level? You’ve done it at every other level. What are you doing going out to Iowa?’ He really did a good job of selling that to him. But it just kept coming back to, ‘I want to wrestle with Terry Brands.’ He just loves that guy.”
Any spurned fan base loves the opportunity to face down a recruit who leaves home to compete for a rival. In Spencer’s case, it came at his most vulnerable stage. In December 2016, Spencer injured his right knee. Larry drove from Iowa to Pittsburgh to have Steelers’ orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Bradley examine Spencer. Bradley confirmed Spencer had ruptured the ACL in his right knee.
For athletes in most sports, it’s a season-ending automatic surgery. But for a wrestler, it’s not always the case. When Spencer asked if he could continue to compete, Bradley said it was “a family decision” but added, “There is nothing you can do to that knee that I can’t fix.”
For Larry, who was living 700 miles away, it was a nerve-wracking decision. Spencer wanted to compete but his knee wasn’t strong enough to continue throughout the regular season. So Spencer shut it down for more than two months and did nothing but ride a bike.
Interest in Lee’s pursuit of a fourth state title grew. A documentary film crew followed him as he sought to become the fifth four-time undefeated state champion in Pennsylvania history. The family kept the windows covered and cameras out during training room visits to avoid any word about Spencer’s ACL tear.
Before a regional tournament match, Spencer’s knee gave out during warmups and began to swell. Trainers covered the knee in ice and in almost a blink, the Franklin Regional coaching staff alerted him he had 10 minutes before his next match. Larry wanted Spencer to step down, but the wrestler refused. He taped up his knee, used his upper-body strength to throw his opponent and score a quick pin.
Then it happened again, and the knee continued to get worse. Larry told his son, “There’s courage and stupidity. And this is stupid.”
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Spencer shot right back: “You think this is about winning four state titles.”
“Well, yeah. What else is this about?’” Larry asked his son. “He goes, ‘You don’t know me, dad.’ I mean, when your kid looks at you in the face and says, ‘You don’t know me,’ it kind of punches you. And I said, ‘What do you mean?’
“And he goes, ‘This isn’t about winning four state titles. It’s about living the rest of my life not knowing whether I could have pulled it off.’”
With one match left in Spencer’s high school career, Larry stressed that his decision impacted more than just himself. With a full gymnasium in Hershey, Pa., Spencer sat in a hallway with his right knee elevated and cased in ice. Larry wanted to call Iowa coach Tom Brands. Spencer conceded.
“He said, ‘Well, Larry, this is really a medical decision between your doctors and your family,’” Larry said. “‘I’m not there. I can’t tell you what to do. But you tell me as a father, what’s your biggest concern?’ And I said, ‘Well, coach, what about his scholarship?’ He goes, ‘What about his scholarship?” I said, ‘What happens if he tears everything up in that knee and he never wrestles for you a day?’
“I will never forget what he told me. And this is what’s important. He said, ‘Larry, when your son committed to the Hawkeyes and we committed to him, that commitment’s good. If he never puts on a Hawkeye singlet because of what happens today, his scholarship is good. I stand by it. You make the right decision for your son, and you don’t worry about that scholarship.’”
Four years later, the emotional memory of that exchange forces Larry to pause as his voice trembles.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘Holy shit. That’s commitment.’ I said, ‘Spencer, it’s your call.’”
Spencer didn’t hesitate. He wanted to wrestle and met longtime rival Austin DeSanto for the state championship. Lee beat DeSanto decisively in their previous matches, but DeSanto was no pushover. He was skilled and tenacious. Battling on one leg and with no lateral movement in his right knee, Lee built a 3-0 lead, but DeSanto kept attacking.
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The noise was deafening as DeSanto scored a pair of takedowns followed by two escapes. With Spencer barely holding on and unable to repel DeSanto’s charges, the dreams of a fourth straight state title ended when DeSanto scored a takedown in the match’s final second.
“That place went crazy,” Larry said. “It was like a feeding frenzy. And because he had picked Iowa over Penn State, people started chanting ‘We Are … Penn State. We Are … Penn State.’ It became an Iowa versus Pennsylvania thing. That atmosphere was insane.
“I told my wife, ‘I’ve got to get to Spencer.’ So, I started walking and the first person that made eye contact with me said, ‘Take that to Iowa with you.’”
For Spencer, there were no regrets. As they approached the podium, Spencer told DeSanto that he should join him at Iowa. A few weeks later, Spencer sat in DeSanto’s corner at an all-star meet, and the family had him over for dinner. DeSanto earned a scholarship to Drexel but after one season, he transferred to Iowa. This weekend, DeSanto is the NCAA’s fourth-seeded wrestler at 133 pounds for the Hawkeyes.
What is it about Spencer Lee that makes him unique? It’s his ability to compartmentalize, stack his goals and slay his challenges.
When he arrived at Iowa in fall 2017, Lee was set to redshirt as he rehabbed his knee. But he healed more quickly than anticipated. By January 2018, Brands had a decision to make, whether he should let Lee wrestle unattached all season and beat the daylights out of lesser competition or bring him up to the varsity. When it became a decision, it was no decision.
At a news conference in the Iowa wrestling room on Jan. 3, 2018, Brands announced, “Spencer Lee is free.” He was elevated to the starting lineup, and Brands announced, “He would have whipped my tail when I was his age.”
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It was a jarring statement, even for the bombastic Brands. As a freshman, Brands finished fourth nationally with a 32-4-1 record. Then he closed out his career with three consecutive national titles and totaled 158 wins to rank second in victories at Iowa.
Lee won’t touch Brands’ cumulative marks; he won’t wrestle as many matches. In four years, Lee has totaled a 70-5 record. Yet his dominance is stunning. In his first match at Iowa, he pinned Michigan State’s Rayvon Foley in 46 seconds. In the Big Ten semifinals this month, Lee pinned Foley in 24 seconds. Foley is seeded eighth in the national tournament.
“He has so many different weapons in his arsenal that he can score from,” said Ironside, the 1998 Hodge Trophy winner. “Obviously on his feet but also on the top and he can score from pretty much any position. You just never know what Spencer is going to do in this particular situation. That’s what makes it exciting and fun to watch.”
“I think whenever Spencer steps on the mat, you try to see what he does that makes him so great,” said Marinelli, the nation’s No. 1 seed at 165 pounds. “It’s that attention to detail and how he hits his moves and his tilts. I mean, I was working on arm-bar tilts and trying to see how Spencer does it and just going through it in my mind, like maybe his grips are just a lot stronger, and then the way he drives his hips. Just little things like that you try to pick apart.”
Beyond the national tournament stands the Olympic trials on April 2-3. The competition will be fierce in his weight class, but Lee has no interest in looking past this weekend. Not even with perhaps his top competitor, Oklahoma State’s 133-pounder Daton Fix, in the same tournament.
“I’m going to be focused on myself. That’s it,” he said. “If I happen to have to wrestle him at the trials, I’ll be ready for him when his name is in front of mine. That’s all that matters.
“I say big-time wrestlers show for big-time matches. So, the bigger the stage, the better I wrestle.”
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There’s no stage too big for Lee, whether it’s on Saturday night at the NCAA finals or in Tokyo this summer. Even if he never wrestled another match the rest of his life, Lee’s shadow dwarfs his taller competitors. From his mat entrance to the Pokémon theme to front-row photos with former Iowa classmate and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers tackle Tristan Wirfs, Lee’s easygoing charisma belies the raw brutality he delivers on the mat.
“He’s already one of the elites,” Ironside said, “whether he wins another national title or two or not.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Justin K. Aller, Hunter Martin, Rich Graessle / Getty Images)
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