All-American. Two-time Big Ten champion. No. 1 in the country. When Kellen Russell entered the 2009 NCAA Tournament, he had it all.

But almost as soon as it began, Russell’s season came crashing to an end. Once the favorite to win a national championship, he didn't even reach the quarterfinals, dropping his second-round match to Illinois’s Ryan Prater, who he had beaten in their previous five matches. He lost in the consolation bracket and stumbled to a seventh-place finish.

This was only the beginning in what would become a difficult couple of months for the young phenom.

Upon arriving in St. Louis for the 2009 Nationals, Russell knew nothing but success. His high school, Blair Academy in New Jersey, has won 30 consecutive national prep titles dating back to 1981. Russell won back-to-back-to-back individual national titles.

He kept up his pace at Michigan as a Wolverine. He was Big Ten Freshman of the year in 2008, when he won the Big Ten’s 141-pound weight class and won two matches at nationals. He won the Big Ten again in 2009, and earned All-American honors before being upset in nationals.

“I wasn’t really surprised,” Russell said Tuesday. “I came from a really good high school program, and I expected to wrestle really well in college. My freshman year, early on, I could see that I should have success and I really did believe I’d have as much success as I did, if not more.”

But only weeks after his sophomore disappointment in the NCAA Tournament, he developed a staph infection in his knee. Next came an injury to his thumb. Instead of jumping into summer workouts to prepare for a season in which he would have been a favorite to win nationals, Russell saw his year begin to slip away.

He underwent surgery in June to treat the staph infection. But in the following weeks, his outlook on the next season grew grave as his knee injury lingered.

In July, after much deliberation, Russell came to a fateful decision.

“I wasn’t able to wrestle everyday,” Russell said. “Shortly after surgery, I knew I wanted to redshirt, just because it wasn’t healing the way doctors said it should’ve.”

But Russell’s turn under the knife wasn’t done. He underwent thumb surgery later in the summer and would be forced to undergo a second knee surgery in January.

The Wolverines were reeling even before Russell’s decisions. Michigan had already lost its other top two wrestlers to graduation — national champion Steve Luke and three-time All-American Tyrell Todd.

The 2009-2010 team struggled immensely, stumbling to a 10th-place finish in the Big Ten with a 4-15 record.

“It was hard, having to sit back and watch and not being able to help as much as I wanted to,” Russell said. “I knew it was the right decision to make, even though it was tough having to watch the team struggle last year the way it did.”

But Russell, who Michigan coach Joe McFarland considers one of the Wolverines’ leaders, found other ways to make an impact.

“I was still going to practice regularly,” Russell said. “Even though I wasn’t 100-percent healthy, I was trying to practice as much as possible. I was there everyday, talking to the younger guys about different things, what to expect, how to wrestle in different situations. I tried to help as much as possible and try to almost be another coach in the room for them.”

Russell — now a redshirt junior — is off to a good start this year. He’s won his first two matches of the young season and currently stands at No. 3 in the nation. Aside from winning a third Big Ten championship, the New Jersey native has title hopes in mind for this season.

And looking back, he’s pleased with his decision to take last year off.

“All the coaches knew that it’d be a good year for me to get good training in and I really made sure I was healthy when I came back this year,” Russell said. “If I wouldn’t have redshirted, I wouldn’t be as healthy.”

Russell will lead the No. 21 Michigan squad into this weekend’s Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. The tournament — which Russell won his sophomore year — is named after longtime Michigan coach Cliff Keen, and features eight of the nation’s top 11 teams.

“We need to be ready for this tournament,” McFarland said. “It’s going to give us a look at how our guys are stacking up. I’m hoping we can go out there and make a little noise.”