Ex-Crusader Lee wins wrestling title

By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer

LEE: Draws attention of Olympic coaches

Lee, 18, became the first athlete from Hawai'i to win a USA Wrest-ling Junior National Championship. He won the Greco-Roman style 123-pound gold medal in a field of 82 wrestlers from more than two dozen states in the Asics Junior Nationals in Fargo, N.D.

Being invited to the Olympic Training Center July 1-8 "was a tremendous help to my success," Lee said last night. "The camp helped me learn a lot, working out with a bunch of good wrestlers and coaches."

Lee dominated at the nationals, winning all 12 of his matches over three days by falls (a pin or a difference of 10 or more points) and shut out 10 opponents, including the championship match.

In the championship match Tuesday night, Lee defeated A.J. Lavender of Illinois, 10-0. He took a 6-0 lead in the first period, including 3 points for a throw. In the final minute of the match he scored a takedown and another 3-point throw.

This is Lee's second year of Greco-Roman, an Olympic style in which wrestlers may not touch each other below the waist. Last year he finished fourth at the junior nationals, which are for wrestlers under 19 years.

There is one lift-and-throw in Greco-Roman that earns five points. "You lift their whole body off the ground, sometimes 4 to 6 feet, and throw them," Lee said. He did that to almost every opponent, said his coach, Todd Los Banos.

"I worked on that at Colorado Springs," site of the Training Center, Lee said.

"He was the talk of the town in Colorado Springs, outdoing everything asked of him and more, and he pounded everyone in his weight class here," Los Banos said. "Olympic coaches have been giving me their cards."

"This is the pinnacle of high school wrestling," Los Banos said, and "he is at his best — so focused."

Lee was selected to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in May in recognition of his career record, which is now 218 victories, 19 defeats, and his three Hawai'i state high school championships.

He is the first wrestler from Hawai'i to be an All-American in both Greco-Roman and freestyle. In high school, which uses folk-style, he was beaten only once, as a freshman, and won his last 112 matches.

After a rest-day yesterday, Lee begins competition in the national freestyle tournament today at North Dakota State. He placed sixth in freestyle in 2000.

Lee also finished his high school career in an academic blaze of glory. He compiled a 4.25 grade point average in his senior year at St. Louis, taking advanced placement courses, for an overall GPA of 3.85, and was rewarded with a grant to attend Cornell.

"It's taken a while for it all to sink in," Lee said.

Correction: A previous version of this story contained an incorrect photo.