Verbeek joins world wrestling hall of fame
Gratitude was the overwhelming emotion for Tonya Verbeek this past Monday in Paris, France, when she was inducted into the United World Wrestling Hall of Fame one day after the start of the wrestling competition at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
“It’s nice and an opportunity to reminisce and look at the people who were behind me and supported me. Those are the things you appreciate as time passes,” the 45-year-old Grimsby native said. “It is not so much what I did on the mat, it’s the people who had an impact on me and just the joy of being able to do what I loved for so many years.”
The three-time Olympic medalist — two silvers and one bronze — began her wrestling journey with Dave Collie at Beamsville District Secondary School.
“He was the first to offer girls wrestling at Beamsville high school. And it wasn’t just that he got it started. It was his belief in me and his commitment to myself and other girls on the team. As a coach, I’m now seeing the progress within girls wrestling and the importance of teachers and coaches saying, ‘Yes I will.’ Dave took a chance and that was in the early 1990s. That says a lot about the person he is and we had Bill Smith supporting the local area and Ontario girls wrestling,” she said. “Those things matter. They really do. It’s the people who say yes and back then and even today it was men who said yes and ‘Why not girls wrestling?’ ”
The yesses continued when Verbeek resumed her wrestling career at the post secondary level at Brock.
“Being able to get into the (wrestling) room when I was in high school and being able to train with those well-rounded athletes and seeing what wrestling really was was important,” the three-time world medallist said. “There weren’t a lot of girls or women at that time and Richard DesChatelets (Sr.) was the head coach. He brought that forward for the university program when I decided to come to Brock.”
The final piece in the development puzzle for Verbeek was Marty Calder, her partner.
“He was the technician, he was the brains, he was the passion behind being able to push myself and the other athletes regardless if you were a man or woman,” the St. Catharines Sports Hall of Fame member said. “He looked at us as wrestlers and that really helped me to recognize my capabilities and realize that I could push further. He embodied what being the best version of yourself was and it was having a team behind you.”
Those teammates were crucial to her successes.
“I am still friends with a lot of my teammates. One my teammates who is also a friend (Heather Sweezey) came to Paris to help celebrate the induction with me. She was in London and I get emotional thinking about it. When you are in the moment as an athlete, you don’t stop and recognize those people.”
The two-time silver medalist at the Pan-American Games and silver medalist at the Commonwealth Games never took her family’s support for granted.
“I had almost my whole family there in London and I’m thinking back to those times when I couldn’t go to a lot of family things and they had to understand that and recognize my goals were different. I decided to take a path that maybe wasn’t what they thought I would be doing.”
Verbeek is also grateful for the people who didn’t want her to succeed.
“That’s good too, having that balance and motivation to go further. I was the type ‘I will show you. You say I can’t and I will.’ ”
Verbeek heard the news about her induction via email while driving back from a luncheon with fellow members of the University of Iowa coaching staff.
“I was like ‘Really?’ I was definitely caught off-guard and I wasn’t expecting it. Not that you forget about your athletic career but it has been more than 12 years. I don’t think that way any more. My role is as a coach now and it’s just a different mindset.”
The former head coach of Canada’s national men’s and women’s team has been an assistant coach at Iowa for almost two years.
“I decided to step down from my head position at Wrestling Canada because I noticed I needed to still love the sport.”
She wasn’t involved enough in the day-to-day coaching to want to remain in the role.
Verbeek knew Iowa head coach Clarissa Chun, who used to work USA Wrestling.
“She was looking for coaches and to see who would fit. She really made me think about what came next and I realized that I wanted to be coaching.”
Verbeek wanted to get back to the daily grind of wrestling and the Iowa job allowed her to do just that.
“Being part of a college program intrigued me and it was the first time a women’s program was going to be at the University of Iowa and it was the first and only Power Five Big Ten school to offer women’s wrestling. I took a leap.”
The experience has been all and more than she expected.
“We work hard and there’s a lot of hours but it is well worth it. It is neat to see the process we have been going through and what you learn about yourself and others is just incredible.”
This past season, after redshirting its first 15 athletes in 2022-23, Iowa won the NCAA national championships against Division 1, 2 and 3 opponents with a team double its initial size.
“It was by a fraction to the reigning national champions. We had a great year and it’s pretty cool what our women do. They love competing and it makes our jobs easy.”
