Sara McMann

Sara McMann is an Olympic Silver medalist for the United States at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. After wrestling with the varsity men’s team at Lock Haven University, Sara became a three-time World Championship medalist, a two-time Pan American Games Champion, and a World Cup Champion. Sara is also a seven-time World Team member and six-time US National Champion.

Currently, Sara is concluding her post-graduate work in Mental Health Counseling and is continuing her athletic career in the sport of MMA. She enjoys working with youth clubs and speaking to up-and-coming girls and boys about wrestling. Sara is a new mother to her child, Bella, born in April 2009.

Sara started wrestling when she was 14-years-old. She was drawn to the individualistic nature of the sport and loves that anyone can win on any given day. Sara finds it honorable and noble that each person puts their pride on the line in front of everyone and faces their fears in direct combat.

Wrestling has always been a sport that Sara truly loves. She has been called obsessed, but views it instead as absolute dedication to a sport that is constantly challenging, yet also fulfilling. Sara sees that wrestling gives young men and women the self-confidence and hard-working values that are necessary to succeed in sport, as well as in life.

Sara credits wrestling with having given her a chance in life. When she was younger, Sara was headed down the wrong and destructive direction, but when she joined wrestling, it forced her to make the right choices to succeed. She feels deeply indebted to this sport for saving her.

Sara’s motivation for staying involved in the sport is gratitude for the opportunities that she was provided by the senior-level wrestlers that helped her. She would not have achieved much of her success if not for the coaches and athletes that provided support, technical adjustments, and pushed her well beyond “many breaking points”. She feels a duty to help future athletes by standing up for the rights they are promised under Olympic governing law and by providing the same guidance and input services to them that compelled her to her many successes in wrestling.

Patricia holds the honor of earning the first ever US Olympic medal in women's wrestling. She is also a seven-time National Champion, three-time World Medalist, Pan American Games Gold Medalist and World Cup Champion and OW.

Patricia distinguished herself in college by wrestling, and earning a starting position, for a Division I men's program. She earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Stanford University and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Currently, Patricia is the Community Development Director for START2Achieve.org, is a co-founder of 5Ring Insight, LLC, and founded a non-profit project in 2008 along with teammate Katie Cygan for the benefit of women wrestlers. Patricia was also a 2005 recipient of the Soros Fellowship for New Americans and is also currently working with the Office of the Public Defender in Colorado Springs, CO where she resides.

Patricia started wrestling in her last year of junior high, largely for the challenge and partly because she was particularly bad at it when she first tried. Patricia was seeking a lot of answers on the mat, recovering in a way from her mother’s death a few years earlier. She appreciated the opportunity wrestling gave her to test herself; to be accountable for her failings and thereby work on improving her character. When she started wrestling, there was no Olympic wrestling for women; she was more interested in facing her fears and molding herself into the person she wanted to be. Wrestling gave her an avenue to do just that.

Patricia sees the institution of wrestling as a promise that if you are willing to work hard enough and to try to be better than you currently are, there is a place you can excel. To Patricia, wrestling provided that rare forum where sacrifice, preparation, and acceptance of one’s performance, can reward the participant internally as well as externally.

Over the course of her wrestling journey Patricia developed within her personal paradigm the philosophy that it's not who you know, it's what you have taken the time to learn; it's not about pandering to the "right" person, success in combat comes from being true to yourself in your preparation and dedication. Patricia steadfastly works to protect the fact that arenas like wrestling still exist in society and every high school kid has (or should have) access to this opportunity.

Patricia would like for every person to have the same or greater opportunities than she has had. She acknowledges that when she stood on the podium accepting her medal at the Olympics, she was not merely representing herself. She was representing her family, her culture, and her country. In Athens, she had the privilege of introducing the sport of women’s wrestling to the world.

Her message about gender equality was not that every girl should wrestle, but that every girl could. Her message about her country was that everyone should have the chance to live The American Dream—that the pursuit of happiness is for everyone, new and old, male or female Americans alike. Patricia believes that with the privilege she has experienced comes great responsibility to use her good fortune in furtherance of the ideals and good she experienced.

Patricia answers the question as to why she stays involved with her sport very simply: “because I can, because I owe.”

Randi Miller is the sole Olympic Medalist for the United States in women’s wrestling from the Beijing Olympic Games. She had an impressive rise through the ranks, moving from a previous highest place finish of 5th at the 2007 World Team Trials to become a 2008 National Champion, 2008 Olympic Team Trials Champion, and win the Outstanding Wrestler award at this event.

Despite the naysayers and the difficult environment she had to work through in her preparation of the 2008 Olympic Games, Randi stood tall once again and represented the United States with a bronze medal performance in Beijing. Randi is pursuing a degree in Sports Management and is now entering the coaching profession, having recently begun her assistant coaching position at Missouri Baptist University. She looks forward to passing on the joy and virtues of wrestling to future generations of college students.

Randi started wrestling because she was cut from her high school basketball team. She remembers well the performance of the 2003 World Team that medaled in every weight class in Madison Square Garden, and she dreamed of one day being a part of that kind of experience.

Randi attributes her success to the few coaches she has had that shared her goal and willingness to pay the price for the goal to be a true world contender that would bring home gold medals for the United States. Wrestling has been one of the most important endeavors in Randi’s life.

When asked what wrestling has meant to her, Randi will tell you, “everything.” She will also tell you unabashedly that without wrestling she would never have built the self-esteem and maturity she has now.

The purpose of this page is to communicate to you a little bit more about who we are, our perspectives, and the forces that have driven us to stand up for U.S. women’s wresting and its future generations. Thanks for visiting!

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