NRCC News

NRCC Student Battles to Become Next American Ninja Warrior

Jul 29 2019

This is an archived article!

This article was published on Jul 29 2019 and was archived on Jul 01 2020. The information below may be outdated or inaccurate.

Born three weeks premature, less than five pounds, and with a condition called omphalocele, it seemed unlikely that Jody Freeman would grow up to be a remarkable athlete.  But today Jody, who is a student at New River Community College, is enjoying nationwide attention for being just that.

Omphalocele is a rare birth defect where the infant's intestine or other abdominal organs are outside of the body because of a hole in the navel area.  In Jody’s case, his liver was on the outside his body when he was born. After undergoing surgery to correct the condition, Jody went on to lead a relatively normal life.  He was admittedly “always the small kid,” but according to him, it didn’t bother him, and he clearly didn’t see it as an obstacle or an excuse.   He went to school and played soccer like many other kids his age, with the surgery scar as a faint reminder that he had overcome quite the physical challenge.

Several years ago, Jody, then a Blacksburg Middle School student, happened to be flipping through the channels when the NBC show “American Ninja Warrior” caught his attention.

“Once I started to watch it, I was instantly hooked and knew I wanted to be on it someday. I didn’t realize at the time how much of an impact it would have on my life,” Jody recalled.

About a year after seeing the show for the first time, Jody started rock climbing.  Once again, he was immediately taken with the sport.  

When he started climbing, it began as summer camps through Crimper’s Climbing Gym in Christiansburg.  When he was 13, the gym’s trainer suggested that Jody train at the gym, and he did until he was 18.  He credits his trainer, Danielle Lehsten, with his success and growth in the sport of climbing. He also believes the sport of climbing gave him confidence in himself and provided him opportunities to become more social.
                               
“When I first started getting serious about climbing, it was because I thought and still think that climbers are best suited for the show, and so I decided I was going to use climbing to prepare,” Jody said.

 But he had to wait until he was at least 21 to apply for the show.  As fate would have it, American Ninja Warrior, now in Season 11, changed the minimum contestant age to 19 for this season’s competition.

“When I heard that I could get on two years earlier than I was expecting, I was super excited!” said Jody. 

So he filled out the lengthy online application that included questions about his athletic background and his personal story.  He also had to submit a three minute video that a friend helped him make.  And then he waited.

Two months later, he received a call from a producer welcoming him to the competition.  One month after that, he was off to his first American Ninja Warrior competition in Atlanta.   In that competition, which was filmed in March but just recently aired on NBC in July, Jody found himself to be both the youngest and smallest competitor on the course.  At just 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighing in at 115 pounds, it may seem to an outsider like he would be a weak competitor and unlikely winner.

Jody, who admitted on the show that he considers himself “a bit of an underdog” didn’t see his size as a disadvantage.  In fact, the show’s announcers noted that his smaller stature may have given him an advantage on some obstacles.  He credits his rock climbing training as well.   

“I felt like my climbing background gave me an advantage in the City Finals portion of the course,” he said. 

While his climbing gym experience has been a launching pad for his physical and social growth, his family has also fully embraced what some may think was an improbable goal. 
               
“My dad has also been a big supporter, especially considering how he helped me build some of the obstacles at our house.”
 
The obstacles that Jody and his father built were featured during the Jody’s contestant introduction segment.

The competition course in Atlanta was lined with cameras, bright lights, and a live audience—things that are difficult to replicate in training.  While those watching the show at home could hear the audience chanting “Jody! Jody! Jody!” and see his parents and two sisters on the sidelines cheering him on with their homemade signs, Jody remained focused. He didn’t notice or hear the crowd during his run. Jody simply adjusted his wire frame glasses and gracefully moved from one obstacle to the next with ease.

“All I saw was what was directly in front of me—I had tunnel vision,” he recalled.

Viewers at home also couldn’t tell that all the contestants had one additional obstacle beyond the course.  While the show’s viewers can clearly see the show is filmed at night, it actually took place from sunset until sunrise.  Jody found himself running the qualifying course at 4 a.m. and the finals course the next day at 4:05 a.m.

After the preliminary competition aired in July, Jody has experienced an outpouring of support from his local community.

“The support has been enormous! So many people in person or online have congratulated me on my performance,” Jody said. “I wasn’t expecting the response to be as big as it has been.”

He noted that people do sometimes recognize him in public now, and the small-framed, blonde haired teenager is taking it all in stride.

“It’s fun. It still hasn’t quite hit me that my run was aired all over the country, and that people outside of Blacksburg saw it,” he said.

Back home in the New River Valley, Jody is currently a machine technology student at New River Community College who juggles school work with training.  When asked about how he balanced the training for the show with his college career, he said it wasn’t too much of a change because he had already devoted so much of his time to training and rock climbing anyway.

His machine technology program, a program he chose because he enjoys working with his hands, requires in-class lab hours, which are typically during the day.  That daytime class schedule provides him with his evenings and nights free for training.

“It can cause some late nights because training is so important to me that it isn’t something I’m willing to skip.”

That dedication and commitment to his training are exactly the fuel that projected him to succeed during the American Ninja Warriors preliminary rounds.

Although he wasn’t able to hit buzzer on the last obstacle in the July episode, he did make it far enough in the course to qualify for the finals show in Las Vegas. That show, which was filmed in June, will not air for at least another month, and he can’t give anything away.  So Jody Freeman fans will just have to wait. Regardless of the outcome, it’s apparent that Jody will continue training in the sport that he is so passionate about.