Josh Levin started rock climbing when he was 4 years old. It was the start of an athletic career that would later land him a spot on “American Ninja Warrior.”

“My parents were really supportive and they saw that their kid was climbing all over the bookshelves and tabletops, so they found that climbing was a natural outlet for this,” he said.

Levin, a senior mechanical engineering major at Northeastern University, recently competed on the hit show ANW. He advanced through the show’s Los Angeles stages to reach the show’s finals in Las Vegas, where he completed the first obstacle course before failing to do the same Monday night in the second course.

When Levin was growing up, he said there was a rock climbing gym near his home where he trained. He also met his coach Stacey Collver, who has become a long-term mentor to him.

Collver trained Levin from when he was 5 until he was 10 years old, and has mentored him as a sensei.

“Josh has a lot of experience performing in these climbing competitions,” Collver said. “He thinks instinctually and he solves his problems before he moves through the course and obstacles. He figures out what he needs to do and then he executes it.”

Levin’s training partner, Charlie Andrews, a senior math and computer science major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he’s often impressed with Levin’s ability to keep to his training schedule so that he can be in “peak performance mode physically.”

Courtesy of Photographer/NBC

“I feel like a lot of people see Josh as a competitor that really nails it every time mentally in a competition,” Andrews said. “But from training with him, I think I’ve been very grateful to have trained with him because he not only performs the best he physically can but also trains very systematically as well.”

Levin decided to audition for ANW after watching the show for many years and thinking that he could do the obstacles himself.

During ANW, competitors attempt to complete a series of difficult obstacle courses. The competition is televised on NBC.

“The whole idea that you get to play on this giant playground for adults, it’s just a huge incentive to want to try a new thing,” Levin said. “The fact that the course has been designed to be nearly impossible, it’s just a huge tantalizing challenge that would be just fun to try.”

Finding a balance between school and competing has been challenging for Levin. He took on a six-month co-op program with Apple right before sending in his application to ANW. He received a callback in March, about two months into the co-op program, and was given only a month to train after callbacks were over. Levin would have to travel back and forth between Shanghai, China and California.

In China, he would find rock climbing gyms for what he calls “impromptu training.” When he returned to California, he would travel an hour each way to a Ninja Warrior-specific gym. He managed to finish his co-op program a month early and dedicated that time to training for the big competition.

Levin said he was recently invited to participate in Esquire Network’s spinoff series “Team Ninja Warrior,” where teams of three compete against each other through Ninja Warrior-style obstacles.

“Team Ninja Warrior” took a bit of a toll on his scheduling this summer, Levin said.

“I had to take a final exam with me during the competition so it was a little bit stressful trying to do mechanics and material-related problems while competing on the TV show,” he said. “But I was able to get through it and pass the class, so it was all said and done.”

Published on September 14, 2016 at 9:29 pm

Contact Kennedy: krose100@syr.edu | @KennedyRose001