By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

When it comes to Jordan Leen and Cornell University wrestling, the word “luck” has hardly been among the vocabulary used by the Big Red in the past few years.

            Instead, most people in Ithaca, N.Y. and the Friedman Wrestling Center on the campus of Cornell have had to spend more time talking about how injuries have affected the Big Red, especially this year when two-time All-American Troy Nickerson was forced to miss this season because of an injury.

            Nearly the same thing happened to Leen, who had wrestled just 25 matches this season entering the NCAAs in St. Louis.

            “I’ve had various knee injuries,” said Leen, a native of Soddy Daisy, Tenn., who moved up to 157 pounds after competing at 149 last year. “I had surgery over the summer. I injured the MCL and LCL and had some ankle problems, too. It’s kind of a chain reaction of getting injured and being impatient or coming back too early and injuring something else on myself.

            “That’s been the first time that I’ve dealt with it in college. It was difficult for me and it was difficult for our coaches to sit back and not have me wrestle. I like to train almost as much as I like competing. I like being in a mix. I like scrapping.  That was tough. It really tried my patience and tried my character a lot. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot through it.

            “But sometimes at Nationals, you can get lucky after not having the best year you planned on.”

            Guess who had the winning lottery number when it comes to fate picking a winner?

            Leen, who was seeded eighth with a 22-3 mark, won all five of his bouts in the Scottrade Center, including an 8-6 quarterfinal victory over Edinboro’s Gregor Gillespie, the weight’s No. 1 seed who won an NCAA title at 149 pounds in 2007, and a 5-4 triumph over No. 2 Mike Poeta of Illinois in the championship match.

            By jumping out to a 4-1 lead and holding off the Illini in the title bout, Leen became just the ninth NCAA champion in Cornell history, the first since Travis Lee won his second at 133 pounds in 2005. Leen also joined former Oklahoma State wrestler Bill Harlow as the only natives of Tennessee to win national titles. Harlow won the 191-pound title for OSU in 1966.

            Leen, who earned a “Face in the Crowd” honor in Sports Illustrated when he became the state of Tennessee’s all-time winningest high school wrestler in winning four state titles for Baylor School, said he wasn’t much of a historian when it came to talking about past great performances.

            He just knew it was time for him.

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