Echoes Of Olympic Honors

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, former Bald Eagle wrestler, Sara McMann won the silver medal as the first American woman to make the podium.

Twenty years later McMann was back at the Olympic Games as a coach for Amit Elor, who became the United States’ youngest Olympic gold medalist in any division of wrestling.

Leading up to the Olympics, Elor won the U20, U23, and Senior level World Titles in a span of three months in 2022 and has consistently been one of the best in the world, but McMann’s wisdom was still very much influential in the gold medal run.

"Mostly it was using my experience of the emotional aspect of it. I very much trusted her ability to control and take care of the physical aspect," says McMann. "It’s just different than a World Championship, and until you experience it, you can’t really describe to people the way it’s different and how much more stress or more important it feels."

Coaching was never the end goal for McMann. The Lock Haven alumna made a career for herself in the UFC, owns her own gym, and is now a mother. It all started by McMann just offering to help Elor.

"I really love competing and I didn’t feel for a really long time that I had the right skill set for coaching," McMann says. "I think that I could definitely help people along and help my teammates, but I think that it took me getting wiser and learning a lot more about sports for me to shift into a coaching role."

In her time at MatTown USA, McMann was one of the earliest trendsetters of Division I women’s wrestling. Her time in Lock Haven influenced the rest of her life on and off the mat.

"I had the total support of all of the coaches and my teammates," says McMann, who had transferred from North Carolina. "When I came to Lock Haven, because I was a hard worker, because I really loved wrestling, I just was taken in and accepted.

The trailblazer started the momentum for women’s wrestling in Central Pennsylvania. Just last year the Lock Haven Women’s Wrestling team finished seventh place at the NCWWC tournament.

"I am really proud of that, and it’s not just because I started it, but I am really proud of the athletic director, (former AD) Sharon Taylor was just a huge supporter of women’s wrestling and women’s sports in general. I like that, Lock Haven, a place that is just so great for wrestling in general, they are able to take what they do for the men’s wrestling and also do that for the women’s wrestling. That is like the most right and fitting thing just because of how great my experience was there."

Among many of her remarkable accomplishments, McMann’s own medal is still one of her greatest. "The decades of dedication that I put into it definitely has a more satisfying feeling when you compete yourself."