ME Josh Levin Competes in American Ninja Warrior Finale

It was 4:30 a.m. and Josh Levin was exhausted. His legs “felt like Jell-​​O,” and he was con­cerned he’d spent too much time warming up and not enough time resting. But the North­eastern senior and cham­pion rock climber would not be denied.

Levin beat every obstacle in stage one of the Amer­ican Ninja War­rior Las Vegas finals, which aired on NBC a week ago. Now, on Monday night when the finale of the show airs, the North­eastern community—and mil­lions of viewers nationwide—will find out if he com­pletes stages two through four and wins the title of “Amer­ican Ninja War­rior” and the top prize of $1 million.

North­eastern is hosting a viewing party in the Curry Stu­dent Center Indoor Quad on Monday from 8–10 p.m. Levin, who will be in atten­dance, said he’s been over­whelmed by the out­pouring of sup­port from family, friends, and the entire North­eastern com­mu­nity throughout his incred­ible journey.

“It feels great to have the sup­port of campus behind me,” said Levin, who is a mechan­ical engi­neering major and co-​​founder of the North­eastern Climbing Team. At the stage one viewing party, “there were so many people I’d never met, including incoming freshmen, and they were all cheering.”

Con­tes­tants on the show, which is now in its eighth season, must over­come a series of dif­fi­cult obstacle courses. Levin pre­vi­ously advanced through the Los Angeles city qual­i­fier and city finals rounds to make it to the Las Vegas finals.

Levin fin­ished stage one with less than eight sec­onds to spare, though he sped through sev­eral of the early obsta­cles and took his time toward the end to make sure he exe­cuted his every move. Still, there were some dicey moments. One came while he ran up the so-​​called warped wall. His leg buckled and he nearly didn’t get enough momentum to leap and grab the top of the wall and climb up. He credits a new pair of sneakers, which he’d bought the day before, with res­cuing him. “That’s the only thing that saved me from eating it right into the wall,” he said.

Levin has cap­tured 19 national cham­pi­onships in climbing and attrib­utes much of his suc­cess and pas­sion to his mentor, Stacey Li Col­lver. In 2003 she was diag­nosed with an incur­able lung dis­ease and is on the wait list for a second double-​​lung trans­plant. Levin said appearing on Amer­ican Ninja War­rior has pro­vided a national plat­form to bring greater aware­ness to organ dona­tion and pro­mote Donate Life America, a non­profit com­mitted to that cause. In his appli­ca­tion video for the show, Levin said, “She’s the biggest inspi­ra­tion in my life, and I want to win this for her.”