Gallery: (10-22-2022) Tamyra Mensah-Stock HofH Look Back
Tamyra Mensah-Stock won over the hearts of millions of Americans in the summer of 2021 when she put her tremendous talents, passionate patriotism and exuberant personality on display while winning an Olympic gold medal. But Mensah-Stock captured the hearts of those at Wayland Baptist University – not to mention a pair of national titles for the Pioneers – years before that.
A native of Katy near Houston, Mensah arrived on campus in 2011 and would spend parts of the next seven years not only dominating the mat but helping establish and legitimize Wayland wrestling, which a couple of years before Mensah's arrival became the first college in Texas to offer competitive wrestling.
(NOTE: Tamyra Mensah-Stock – along with Jim Carlisle, Alden Mann, Shahala Hawkins and Mary Williams – will be inducted into the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor, and Kathy Harston will receive the Harley Redin Coach's Award, at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 29 during a ceremony at the University Center on the WBU campus. Friends and supporters are invited to attend.)
Tamyra and twin Tarkyia were recruited to Wayland by then head coach Johnny Cobb and his assistant Aaron Meister. Cobb figured it could be a challenge to land the sisters – one a two-time state champion and the other a potential state finalist at Morton Ranch High School – with much more established wrestling programs also interested. But there was something about Wayland that Tamyra couldn't deny, more than it being located in her home state.
"The top three schools we were looking at were King (a perennial wrestling powerhouse in Tennessee), Oklahoma City University and Wayland. We went on visits to all three. I thought it would be King, but after we visited Wayland, there was just something about the team camaraderie and how loving everyone was. Coach Cobb was just so welcoming," Tamyra said.
It also meant a lot that Wayland was interested in both Tamyra AND Tarkyia. After all, it was Tarkyia who convinced Tamyra to take up wrestling in the 10
th grade. "(Wayland) was offering (Tarkyia) a deal before she was a state champion, and other schools were not. Wayland said 'We'll take both of you.' They wanted both of us, and I loved that."
Oh, and there was one other thing that helped Tamyra decide to choose Wayland. "I knew Jacob Stock was going to be there," she said of her then high school crush and future husband who also wrestled for the Pioneers. That, in fact, may have sealed the deal.
Once at Wayland, Mensah-Stock slowly but surely began to hone her incredible but still raw wrestling skills. As a freshman she finished fourth in the 143-pound class at the WCWA National Championships, then the following year took third. She then captured the first of her WCWA national titles as a junior in 2014, going undefeated in the process.
After the national meet, Cobb – as impressed as he was about Mensah's on-mat accomplishments – said: "The thing we feel the best about Tamyra winning, though, is the kind of representative that she is for our program. Winning that championship could not have happened to a better kid on and off the mat. She's an excellent ambassador for Wayland and the values it portrays. She's a great kid and she's the type of person we want representing Wayland."
Mensah-Stock went on to take third place later that year at the ASICS Las Vegas Senior Open, prompting Meister to say: "She's helping us grow as a program and putting Wayland on the map. She's the future not only of Wayland wrestling but USA Wrestling."
Indeed, she was. Mensah-Stock would take the next two years to train for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She won the U.S. Olympics Trials that year but because the U.S. fell short at qualifying the weight, Mensah-Stock wasn't able to compete in Brazil.
She returned to Wayland to earn her exercise and sport science degree in 2017 when she also claimed another WCWA national title, this time at 155 pounds, to complete another undefeated season. She was named Most Outstanding Wrestler at nationals after breezing through the competition, winning her first three matches by pin and her last two by tech fall and a combined score of 22-1.
Meister, who by then was Wayland's head coach, said Mensah did a tremendous job "serving two masters" while competing for Wayland and USA Wrestling. "Tamyra has been the face of this program for five years now. It was nice of her to come back and lead this team the way she has. She did a lot of coaching this past year, leading by example, and the team accepted that leadership."
Once out of school, Mensah-Stock – who said she twice signed up to compete in the Miss Wayland Pageant "but couldn't do it because of wrestling tournaments" – turned her complete attention to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, once again taking up residency at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Her stock couldn't have been higher after winning the World Championships in 2019, in addition to numerous other titles around the world.
Her Olympic dreams were put on hold when the 2020 Games were postponed due to COVID-19, but Mensah-Stock came back the following year to capture the U.S. Olympic Trials again before going on to win all four of her matches in Japan and claim Olympic gold. She became just the seventh female from the U.S. to win an Olympic medal, and only the second to claim gold, since women's wrestling was added in 2004.
Mensah-Stock was gracious in victory, as always, and overcome with emotion. As she did after each of her three dominant wins leading up to the gold medal match, she flashed her signature "heart" sign to the television audience. Then in her post-match interview, Mensah-Stock – with tears in her eyes and the U.S. flag draped around her shoulders – showed why Americans fell in love with her. Asked if she ever dreamed of winning a gold medal, Mensah-Stock excitedly said, "100 percent yes! I knew it would be hard. I prayed I could do it (and) left it in (God's) hands."
At age 29, Mensah-Stock continues to wrestle – and win titles – around the world, gearing up – potentially – for a run at a second Olympic gold medal in Paris in 2024.
Despite her success, Mensah-Stock remains the bubbly, carefree person she was when she arrived at Wayland a decade ago. She attributes that, in part, to lessons she learned as a Pioneer.
"I wanted to go to a college that had Christian morals and values. It was really cool to be supported by that many people with the same morals." She also liked the atmosphere of the WBU wrestling program. "We had fun, but we also knew when to be serious." She added, "The coaches would always tell us to have 'faith and courage.' Coach Meister always said it and hash-tagged it, and without a doubt I still hold true to that. I definitely abide by it, because it was instilled in us."
