FORT COLLINS — Before she chased Olympic gold, Mya Lesnar was comedy gold, the kind of walking roast that would make Kevin Hart and Tom Brady blush.
“One thing we like to do is, when we’re out in public, we’ll walk around and we like to find lookalikes,” CSU Rams discus thrower Michaela Hawkins explained to me after practice the other day. “So she’ll go, ‘That looks like a Walmart version of Keith Urban.’
“If I come to practice and I do my hair differently … she’ll just say, ‘That looks bad.’ Or, ‘That looks weird.’ Like, any sort of change. I got braids, and she was like, ‘Well, that looks, you know, stupid.’ But worse words, of course. She hates when I do something weird. And she’s just constantly ripping on me.”
Brock Lesnar’s daughter is a star in her own right, with her own light, her own might, her own tribe. And what a tribe.
Stick a microphone in front of the trio of CSU throwers heading to the Olympic trials that start Friday in Eugene, Ore., and watch the sparks fly. There’s Lesnar, ripping Hawkins’ affection for ’80s music and country legends The Judds, Wynonna in particular. Teammate Gabi Morris rips Hawkins for her pet cockroaches (she has three, of the “Madagascar hissing” variety). Or Hawkins’ guitar playing. Or her drawings. Hawkins rips Morris for being a Lord Of The Rings nerd. Hawkins rips Lesnar for her love of rapper Pitbull. Hawkins rips Morris for having a tattoo on her back dedicated to sci-fi author Dan Simmons’ “Hyperion Cantos” series. Or the dragon on her thigh.
“One thing I love about them is they’re very competitive, confident and very sarcastic,” CSU track and field coach Brian Bedard told me. “Which works well with me because I told them that in the recruiting process: ‘I’m really sarcastic, so you’ve got to wade through that, you know, 80% sarcasm and then 20% of you know, quality material.’”
That said, he knows quality when he sees it. Lesnar, a transfer from Arizona State, won the NCAA indoor shot put championship this past March in Boston, becoming the first woman to ever do so in CSU green and gold.
“Honestly, this is not really going to sound good,” Mya said of her famous dad, an NCAA champion wrestler with the Minnesota Golden Gophers in 2000. “But right after I won my NCAA title he was like, ‘Take it all in, enjoy it. And then, you know, put it away. And, you know, we move on.’
“And honestly, at first I was like, ‘What do you mean? I have been literally dreaming about this day and it was such an incredible moment.’
“Then I kind of thought about it. I was like, you know what? That is kind of just how life happens — you win some, you lose some and honestly, it’s important to recognize all the hard work that you have put in.
“But I think the biggest thing that (Brock) has taught me is, ‘Do not let your trophies or anything that you’ve done change you as a person.’”
It hasn’t, to hear Morris tell it. The two will compete in the shot put prelims on June 28, with the finals a day later. Discus prelims for Hawkins begin June 24, with the finals June 27.
“(Mya) is the same big personality (as Hawkins and myself),” Morris told me. “She’s just a fun, like, hard-(expletive), hard-working. She’s a country girl. She’s a great addition. She’s really fun.”
Bedard has more than a few fun Lesnar tales in his locker. He recruited her twice, technically, a saga that started with a voicemail message in his office some four-and-a-half years ago, one he’d decided to play aloud.
“This is Brock Lesnar,” it began. “My daughter’s a thrower, she’s being recruited by a couple of schools, she has one visit left. I have a feeling that CSU would be good for her.”
Bedard did a double-take. Lesnar. Where have I heard that name before?
“I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know who Brock was,” the coach recalled. “And the guy in the business office (was) like, ‘That guy said “Brock Lesnar?”‘ I’m like ‘Yeah.’ And he’s like, ‘That’s the pro wrestler guy.’ And then we looked up her results and I was like, ‘Oh, she’s a good athlete. So I called him back and said, ‘Yeah, we’d definitely be interested.’”
The Sun Devils edged out CSU during that first go-round. But a coaching change in Tempe had Mya considering her options. Bedard had taken being No. 2 gracefully, and the Lesnars didn’t forget it. Nor did they lose his number.
“I’d said (to her), ‘That’s OK. Good luck to you. Don’t be a stranger when I see you at meets,’” Bedard continued.
About 20 minutes later, the phone rang again. Brock.
“Please tell me she hasn’t burned a bridge at CSU, just in case something goes haywire at Arizona State,” the elder Lesnar said.
“Absolutely not,” Bedard replied. “That’s part of the recruiting process.”
The second courtship had a catch, of course. Hawkins had just transferred from North Dakota State. And let’s just say she and Mya had a … history. Basically, the two were among the best prep throwers in the state of Minnesota. Michaela, gregarious and competitive, built up a sliver of disdain for the celebrity’s daughter whom she’d beaten for the state discus title in 2019.
Hawkins: “I kind of started to hear about this Mya Lesnar girl. And I was like, ‘Who is she?’”
Lesnar: “I had no idea who she was. I just knew that, ‘Oh, that was the girl that won the discus, and I was the runner-up.’”
Naturally, they got along like gangbusters. Mya transferred to CSU, and the rest, as they say, is history. Even if only half of it’s printable.
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
Originally Published: June 20, 2024 at 7:40 p.m.
