Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 11 No. 5 | May 2019

inside.hokiesports.com 15 Kitty Newton Photo KitKatNewt1@gmail.com “The Farmhouse... Eating Great Food here for over 30 Years.” – Coach Frank Beamer thefarmhousechristiansburg.com 285 Ridinger Street, Christiansburg, VA 24073 • (540) 251-7600 Prime Rib • Steaks • Seafood • Outdoor Courtyard • Private Dining • Weekend Brunch “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 later this month. “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 needs to get back to preparing physically and mentally for whatever he decides to do this summer. He hasn’t quite finalized his plans, but he holds the option of defending his junior world championship or attempting to make the U.S. Senior World Championships team—a multi-step process that runs through mid- June. Either way, he needs to get himself in peak condition to take on the best in the world. 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.” IHS extra