South Jersey’s Jordan Burroughs, the greatest U.S. wrestler ever, aims for one last shot at Olympic glory

There’s a time-honored path to greatness for wrestlers, and in the winter of 2005, Jordan Burroughs wasn’t on it.

Today, at 35, Burroughs is America’s most decorated wrestler, embarking on the final run of his improbable career later this month at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center. He heads into the Olympic trials as a rare underdog, aiming for revenge against 2020 Olympic bronze medalist Kyle Dake for the 74kg (163-pound) spot on USA Wrestling’s freestyle team.

Whether it’s a loss at State College or a gold medal in Paris in August, Burroughs told The Inquirer, “This is it.“ He doesn’t think he’ll leave his shoes on the mat like other wrestlers when they retire, though. It’s not his style.

“It’s not a farewell tour,” Burroughs said before a recent practice at the Pennsylvania Regional Training Center at Penn. “I’m coming to win.”

There are certain podiums youth wrestlers need to ascend to get some buzz and big-name tournaments they need to dominate — annually — for college coaches to notice. In the crucible of Division I wrestling, the path gets narrower. Internationally, it’s a tightrope of bloody, one-point matches won or lost in seconds, a battle for medals against the best from Russia, Iran, and Japan.

Burroughs, 16 in that winter of 2005, wasn’t even the best wrestler at Winslow Township High School. His teammate, Vince Jones, won a state title in Atlantic City that year, and Burroughs surprised everyone by also reaching the final at 125 pounds. He dropped a heartbreaking double-overtime loss in front of thousands at Boardwalk Hall. Afterward, he crumpled to the mat in tears, his face a mask of agony.

“And I never looked back,” Burroughs, wrote on Instagram about that fateful match.

Even when Burroughs won a state title for Winslow as a senior, few could foresee the path he’d set for himself after that double-overtime loss. He took huge leaps forward at the University of Nebraska that surprised even his coach. Then he went on to win an improbable six world championships and a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

“It all happened really fast and you know it’s hard to explain,” Burroughs said. “I’d always been a competitor, even when I was young, but I had limited resources. At Nebraska, everyone around me was a state champ, so you either had to get better or get left behind. I realized there that hard work was a definitive factor in putting yourself in a position to win.”

Burroughs finished high school with an impressive 115-20 record in New Jersey. When he was named South Jersey’s wrestler of the year by the Courier-Post, he told the newspaper his college plans were “undecided.” As the 52nd-ranked senior that year, Burroughs was not being offered scholarships by Division I schools. They looked for wrestlers with more state titles and fewer losses — kids who medaled for a decade at events like the prestigious U.S. Marine Corps Junior & 16U Nationals tournament in Fargo, N.D.

Burroughs never wrestled at Fargo.

If Jones, his former teammate and good friend, wasn’t wrestling for Nebraska, Burroughs wouldn’t have been on coach Mark Manning’s radar. Manning did catch Burroughs’s championship run at National High School Coaches Association tournament in 2006 and was impressed, but a face-to-face meeting convinced the coach to offer the Sicklerville native a scholarship.

“What we saw in him was a guy who was really raw with a lot of heart and a lot of up upside,” Manning said. “We just gave Jordan the tools and told him, “You’ve got to step up your work ethic’ and he did that.”

Unlike many wrestlers who enter the Division I ranks with near-perfect records and four, even five, state titles, Burroughs had already faced adversity, Manning said.

“There’s rarely an easy day or easy match in Division I, so he was facing adversity every day and it didn’t break him,” Manning said. “He was 16-13 his freshman year.”

Manning remembers exactly when Burroughs’s trajectory took an unexpected turn. It was 2007, and the Cornhuskers wrestled perennial powerhouse Iowa in a dual meet. Manning chose to sit Burroughs, a freshman at the time, in favor of another wrestler on the team. Burroughs, Manning said, hadn’t been warming up, and his teammate was.

Later that week, Burroughs had the opportunity to wrestle off against that teammate for the starting job.

“And Jordan just lit him up,” Manning said. “He really never looked back after that. Me and all the other coaches were looking at each other like, ‘What has gotten into this kid?’”

While wrestling in Lincoln, Burroughs perfected his signature move, the blast double-leg takedown, and finished his collegiate career there with a record of 128-20. He won two national titles for the Huskers, the second at the 2011 NCAA championships before a hometown crowd at the Wells Fargo Center.

Today, Burroughs lives in Philly with his wife, Lauren, and their five children. He is paid to train and coach high-level wrestlers at the PRTC at Penn, alongside a handful of other professional athletes who’ll also be competing at the trials. On this weekday morning, practice began the same way it does in wrestling rooms across the country, with a game of dodgeball to loosen up.

Not long after, though, Burroughs was battling with Mark Hall, a four-time All-American at Penn State who won a whopping six state titles in high school back in Minnesota.

Sweat was pouring off both of them.

“You’re not giving me everything,” Burroughs said to Hall between rounds.

Hall, 27, said practicing with Burroughs feels exactly like you’d imagine.

“It’s tiring,” he said between deep breaths.

Hall, who coaches at Penn and also lives in Philadelphia now, will compete for a spot on the Olympic team at the 190-pound division at the trials in State College which begin April 19.

Burroughs began competing in the international freestyle wrestling scene weeks after winning his last title at Nebraska. He went on a bulldozing run to the 2012 Olympics in London, where he beat highly touted opponents from Russia and Iran to win gold.

In 2016, Burroughs went to the summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as a heavy favorite to repeat but left without a medal. Dake, a four-time national champion for Cornell University, beat Burroughs in a best-of-three series at the Olympic team trials in State College in 2020.

In between those Olympics, Burroughs has won six world titles.

In 2020, Burroughs had a bye until the Olympic trials final. This year, Dake will have the bye and Burroughs will have to face a gauntlet of elite wrestlers to see his rival again. Manning, thinking of the scrappy freshman he knew back in Lincoln, thinks the adversity suits Burroughs.

“In 2020, he was the hunted, and now he’s the hunter,” Manning said. “He knows what’s in front of him and that people are doubting him, but I would not count him out.”

Kevin McGuigan, the director of operations at the PRTC, said Burroughs’s age gives him some advantages.

“There’s a patience you acquire,” he said. “And you develop that patience because you’ve just about seen it all.”

Still, wrestling’s as much a physical war on the body as a tactical one, McGuigan said. He gets to see that up close at Penn.

“Watching him and Mark Hall go at it, it’s quite intense,” McGuigan said. “I could charge admission to watch them.”

Burroughs plans to move back to South Jersey, eventually, but he’s trying to find that perfect school district that cares about academics and wrestling. His own wrestling school, The All I See Is Gold Academy, has classes and camps there, and after South Jersey’s dismal performance in Atlantic City in March, he’s making it a personal mission to help bring some balance to the state.

“I’m excited to change the landscape in South Jersey,” he said.

Burroughs said he’ll always be involved in wrestling as an ambassador, a coach and commentator, and as a father. He has three sons and two daughters, and two of them are competing on the mats.

His daughter, Ora, won bronze at the prestigious War at the Shore wrestling tournament in Wildwood last month.

His son, Beacon, took first place there.

Burroughs never even wrestled in the tournament.