The whistle blew on Matt Lackey’s final collegiate match and the referee raised Lackey’s right hand, introducing him as the 2003 NCAA national champion of the 165-pound weight class.

The senior had just executed a textbook foot sweep of Lehigh University’s sophomore Troy Letters in the waning seconds of the championship match to become the 20th national champion in Illini history.

But just a year before, it was a different story.

Lackey‘s first appearance in the national championship match came a year earlier, when the then-junior dropped a narrow match to Iowa State’s Joe Heskett.

With the score tied at 2-2 and 30 seconds remaining in the match, Lackey had an open shot on Heskett’s left leg to secure the victory. But Lackey lost his grip, and Heskett scored the game-winning takedown with four seconds left on the clock to win the national title.

“It was the most heartbreaking experience of my entire life,” Lackey said. “To be so close and make it all the way to the finals and lose it at the end, to come up just a little bit short was really tough.”

The loss propelled Lackey on to a senior season that ranks as one of the best in program history for one of its most storied wrestlers.

Compiling a 38-0 record, Lackey became the second wrestler in Illinois history to finish a season undefeated.

On top of the national championship, Lackey collected individual titles at the Big Ten Tournament, Las Vegas Invitational and Missouri Open.

“That loss at the end of my junior year was a tough one to take, but it fueled the motivation for the next year,” Lackey said. “It all worked out at the end.”

Lackey’s .896 career winning percentage is tops in program history, while his 120 career wins ranks seventh on the all-time list at Illinois.

“There are only a handful of guys that you first see and know that they’ll make it and be something special,” said current Illinois head coach Jim Heffernan, who was an assistant coach during Lackey’s wrestling days. “That’s what he was like.”

Lackey’s 2003 championship is the last time an Illini wrestler won a national title. Prior to his second-place finish in 2002, Lackey placed third in the national tournament his sophomore season.

“There’s nobody better when it comes to shaking hands and going at it for seven minutes,” said current Illinois assistant coach Carl Perry, who was both a teammate and coach to Lackey. “He had an unbelievable consistency as a wrestler that was impressive to watch. When he was competing, you were watching the total domination of the sport of wrestling.”

But the three-time All-American and two-time Big Ten champion had early aspirations to wrestle at a different Big Ten program.

Growing up in Moline, Ill., an hour away from the University of Iowa, Lackey followed a Hawkeyes program that dominated the college wrestling scene. Lackey watched as the Hawkeyes crowned 22 national champions in the 1980s, winning seven NCAA team titles and all 10 Big Ten team titles.

“Growing up in Moline, we got Iowa public television, which televised every single Iowa wrestling meet,” Lackey said. “Everyone out there watched Iowa wrestling back then. They had some great wrestlers there back then, and, of course, I wanted to go to Iowa.”

Everything changed in 1992 when Illinois handed the reins of its wrestling program to Mark Johnson, who grew up in neighboring Rock Island in the Quad Cities area.

Lackey recalls his first encounter in sixth grade with the then-recently hired Johnson, when Lackey introduced himself at a Moline High School football game.

“I had walked over to the concession stand with my mom, and she spotted him sitting the stands and said, ‘Hey there’s Mark Johnson, the coach of Illinois! Let’s go meet him,’” Lackey said. “I went up there, and he was very gracious as we said our hellos, and we were on our way. I didn’t really think anything of it.”

A week later, Lackey came home to discover that Johnson had remembered his interest in wrestling, mailing him a Fighting Illini wrestling T-shirt.

“From that point on, I was sold,” Lackey said.

The relationship between Lackey and Johnson grew as Lackey began to attend Johnson’s wrestling camps in seventh and eighth grade, and Lackey committed to Illinois after becoming the first high school wrestler from the Quad Cities area to win the Junior National Freestyle title since Johnson did it in 1973.

“Mark was always my coach, but he was more of a friend and father-figure more than anything else,” Lackey said. “Besides my parents, he was the single biggest influence in my life. He still is. I speak to him probably around once a week.”

Lackey and Johnson would often share rides back to the Quad Cities, and Johnson helped train and raise funds for Lackey’s bid for the 2004 Olympics.

“I’ve had great relationships with all my wrestlers, but I’ve always had a special one with Matt,” Johnson said. “It has become a bond that is as close and strong as any I’ve developed with a wrestler.”

Naming Lackey as the top wrestler he has ever coached, Johnson fondly remembers Lackey’s behavior before stepping on to the mat just as well as his success on it.

Ten minutes before every match, Johnson would gather his 10 starting wrestlers for a pregame meeting, only to find that he was consistently one grappler short.

“Where’s Lackey?” an annoyed Johnson would ask, well aware of the answer.

“He’s up in the stands talking to his mom and his dad,” a teammate of Lackey’s would respond.

“What? Get him up here!”

Even today, though, Johnson can’t help but smile about it.

“Every single time he would be up there talking to his parents. He would just meet us down there,” Johnson said. “But hey, if it’s working for them, you let them do it.”