On Feb. 24, 2019, Spencer Lee found himself at a fork in the road. 

Both paths led to uncertainty, but on one side he was alone and on the other he had his teammates.

Knowing the Hawkeye wrestling culture, they wouldn’t have let him travel alone even if he wanted to. So, he joined his teammates on the path that would lead him to Pittsburgh, a second-straight NCAA title and beyond. 

Lee hadn’t been pinned before — or at least, according to him, since he was 9 years old. He’s quick on his feet and scrappy on bottom and was coming off of three straight wins by fall himself. 

But, on Feb. 24, 2019, Nick Piccininni of Oklahoma State flipped the script in 4:55. 

Watch the entirety of the Piccininni-Lee match from last year:

“It was hard for me to be able to get over that,” Lee said at the 2019 NCAA Championships. “I mean, the coaches were — they were trying to get me through it, but they knew that I hadn’t felt that in a long time.

“I couldn’t dwell on what happened. I just had to learn from it and be better for it.”

Now, looking forward to this season’s Oklahoma State dual meet just one day shy of a year in which a reigning NCAA champion fell, Piccininni will be facing a very different Lee, and not just the one that’s ranked No. 1 in the country. 

“He’s progressed a lot and in a lot of different ways too, ways that you might not see as a fan because you don’t see him on the mat very long a lot of times,” head coach Tom Brands said. “But you do see it in the practice room and you see it in his life, too. This guy has got a different mind, this Spencer Lee guy. He’s very focused and selfish the right way, but also a very good coaching mind, very good mentorship mind.”

Last Sunday, according to Brands, Lee was sparring with the No. 2 in Iowa’s 1-2 punch at the top of its lineup, Austin DeSanto. But to Lee, it doesn’t matter who he’s wrestling or what the situation is, it’s not just physical. It’s about mentoring the other person and both becoming better at the same time. 

“When he’s working with someone, it’s not all about him, and then he gets off the mat and does his thing,” Brands said. “He takes time out to review with whoever it is.”

That mentality, the comradery and the accountability factor that Brands and his entire coaching staff look to instill in their wrestlers, can be found in Lee no matter what the situation. Following a win, he can be seen putting his forehead against DeSanto’s and speaking as the two trade places. Later in the meet, he can be seen jumping and screaming at his teammates in pajama pants and a stocking cap. 

Lee embodies what, in Brands’ mind, it means to be a Hawkeye. There’s a reason Iowa wants him to be the first to come out of the tunnel for matches, but the way he lives his life beyond the mat is why he’s a face of a nationally respected program. 

“I know that as far as us relying on him to carry the message he’s an extension of us,” Brands said. “We want him in front of our recruit’s parents, we want him in front of our recruits, we want him in every aspect of the program.

“He carries a big stick and he clears a wide path in the positive that he does and the type of ambassador that he is for our program.”

And on the mat, what emerged from what was arguably the lowest point in his career was a more dominant 125-pounder. He scores points upon points and never gave up. Lee is 21-1 since being pinned by Piccininni, his only loss coming just three matches after at the hands of Northwestern’s Sebastian Rivera in SV1 of the 2019 Big Ten 125-pound championship. 

One of those wins was for a bid to the NCAA finals in 2019, an 11-4 decision against Piccininni in which Lee demonstrated what he truly was capable of. 

“You look back on the path he took, and he’s a warrior,” Brands said following Lee’s second-consecutive NCAA title win. “He needs to give himself a lot of credit.”

Relive the moments right after Lee was the national title last year:

Since closing out NCAAs on top, Lee has been even better. He’s more lethal. He’s not going to ride out the time. He’s going to try to get opponents’ shoulders to the mat until the whistle is blown.

“I’d hope you’d improve after a year,” Lee said. “So, yeah, I think I’ve gotten a lot better and I hope that I’ve proven that this year a little bit and that I continue to improve in that.”

He has four first-period technical falls and three first-period pins this year. He’s only seen the third period twice in 13 matches this season. He had nine pins during his freshman year and seven as a sophomore, but his three this season is a testament to his points-scoring mentality — as was his championship from Senior Nationals in December, where he outscored opponents 52-6. 

“Wrestling is wrestling, in my opinion,” Lee said. “I just go out and focus on becoming a better wrestler and a better person that I can be, just wrestling my hardest.”

Anna attended the University of Iowa, where she covered multiple sports from volleyball to football to wrestling. She went to Pittsburgh in March 2019 for the NCAA DI Wrestling Championships and did live coverage of the entire event and Spencer Lee’s second-straight NCAA title. Follow her on Twitter.