From rodeo to figure skating to hammer throw: Tanessa Morris now has her sights set on breaking records

Friday, April 2

Spokane, Wash.

Montana

H.I.R. Invitational

Tanessa Morris - Al Manuel Northwest Invite - 3/26/21

Photo by: Tommy Martino

From rodeo to figure skating to hammer throw: Tanessa Morris now has her sights set on breaking records

4/1/2021 12:10:00 PM | Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field

H.I.R. Invitational Schedule Live Results

By: Montana Sports Information

It took Tanessa Morris a while to discover the hammer throw.

Growing up in rural Canada, Morris was born into rodeo. She competed for the first time at the age of 2, but she jokes – maybe? – that she was on a horse at six weeks.

Rodeo made sense for Morris, whose mother, Lynne, was a barrel racer, and father, Cam, rode bareback. Cam did so at the highest level, qualifying for the Canadian finals eight times. Her grandfather competed, too, and once won the historic Calgary Stampede.

Morris followed her family into rodeo, where she frequently competed in barrel racing, and still does today from time to time.

Tanessa Morris rodeo

If it wasn't rodeo, it was – in typical Canadian fashion – ice hockey. At the age of 8, she traded in her stick but kept the skates.

Figure skating became her passion, and she was good at it.

So good, in fact, that when she was 16, Morris moved away from her home province of Alberta to Saskatchewan, where she could focus more on the sport.

She attended the Excel Athletika Club in Regina, a sport school that allowed her to work more intently with her coaches, and do so at a higher level.

Her daily schedule was set, beginning early in the morning for workouts, before class from 9 a.m. until noon. She would then skate all afternoon.

That's when Morris' rigid schedule ended, so her mother suggested she find another hobby to keep her occupied in the evenings.

She settled on track, but still not the hammer throw.

One day before practice, a 17-year-old Morris noticed some University of Regina athletes spinning with a weight in their hands. An intrigued Morris asked if she could give it a try and they obliged. Turns out, despite not training and having little idea what shew as doing, Morris was pretty good.

Finally, after years of rodeo, hockey, figure skating and javelin, the hammer throw enters Morris' story.

"From the first throw, as soon as I released, I was hooked," Morris recalled. "It was so different from anything else I had done and I had to keep going."

The hammer throw took her to the university level, where she spent two seasons competing at the University of Lethbridge, two hours south of her hometown and five hours north of Missoula.

In her two years at Lethbridge, Morris excelled. She placed first in 19 events across the hammer, discus and weight throw and twice qualified for nationals. In 2019, she won a gold medal at the Western Canada Summer Games, a year after earning silver at the 2018 Canada U20 Championships.

Morris traveled her native country competing in throwing, and it even brought her to Missoula, first in May 2018 for Montana's annual Tom Gage Classic and again the following spring for the Montana Open.

With Canada's schedule, Lethbridge's season didn't begin until later than in the States, so each year Morris and a handful of her teammates would drive across the border to compete in a preseason meet.

When Morris knew her time at Lethbridge was coming to a close, she was looking for her next opportunity.

"I was looking at a bunch of universities" Morris said. "A coach I was working with suggested Montana, because he knew they were looking for a hammer thrower, and it immediately caught my attention. I had been to Missoula and absolutely loved it there."

She still thinks fondly of her recruiting visit to Missoula, despite the weekend featuring a torrential downpour.

She liked Montana's natural beauty. She liked that it offered an academic program in her major of choice, geoscience. She liked the idea of throwing at the Division-I level.

She chose Montana, and then weeks before she was set to make her debut, she was told she had to wait due to the COVID-19 pandemic wiping away the outdoor season.

Finally, last week, she made her long-awaited debut, and she didn't disappoint. Morris' top throw of 185-8 won the Al Manuel Northwest Invite by more than a dozen feet.

"It's always nerves for the first throw, but once I get the first throw in I'm fine," Morris reflected. "As soon as I step in the circle, it's a wave of calm. It felt really exciting to be back."

When she competed at Dornblaser Field for the first time in 2018, back when she was at Lethbridge, she was going head to head with Montana's record-breaking hammer thrower Hana Feilzer. Morris placed second in that meet, but was nearly 45 feet shy of Feilzer's winning throw.

Now, a few years later and competing for the Griz, she isn't shy about what's on her mind.

"I definitely want Hana's record," Morris said of the 209-10 mark. "I'm definitely going for that, and I want to make NCAA's."

When you talk with Morris, she doesn't come across as a typical thrower. She's smaller in stature than most throwers are and she's bubbly with a constant smile on her face.

It's one of the first things first-year throws coach Ryan Weidman noticed about Morris.

"Most of the women she throws against are taller and 50 pounds bigger," Weidman said. "From her appearance to her personality, she's not what you'd say is a typical thrower."

But she's good. Real good, in fact.

Her mark from Saturday currently ranks second in the Big Sky Conference and puts her at third on Montana's all-time performance list. In practice, she's reached more than 60 meters (196 feet), and with two years left in her collegiate career, a school record is well within her reach.

So what makes Morris so good, despite beginning her throwing career so late and having so few characteristics of a typical thrower?

To Weidman, it's all in her spin – perhaps a benefit to all those years figure skating.

"With a bigger thrower, they can get away with pure power, but the thing about Tess is she has foot speed to burn," Weidman said. "She's fast and can counter the ball, and her timing is impeccable."

Tanessa Morris cows

Last spring, during the COVID-19 shutdown, Morris was back home on her family's ranch. To her, that's her place.

Each day she would get up early and tend to the cows – 250 of them, pure-bred and commercial Red Angus. It's a chore for many, but something she loves so much, maybe even more than throwing itself.

When she was done with her tasks on the ranch, she'd then get some throwing work in.

Tanessa Morris practicing at home

She and her father created a cement throwing pad on their property, allowing her to perfect her craft even during a pandemic and being hundreds of miles away from campus.

It felt right. Being home, being around family, being around the animals and being able to throw.

"They like to watch and stand really close as I throw," Morris said of the cows. "I'm still figuring out how to get them to retrieve my throws."

Now, nearly a year later, she's finally competing again – in front of a crowd of people – and excelling at it.

And that feels right, too.

"I'm so excited to be here," Morris said. "I've been to many track meets where there are only two spectators in the stands, and one of them was my mom. Here, the support is unreal. The community support, the university support, the professors are even here watching… I love being able to throw for Montana."

Montana will compete in its second meet of the spring on Friday, traveling to Spokane, Washington, for the H.I.R. Invitational. The full meet takes place on Friday, beginning at 2 p.m.

The Grizzlies are coming off an impressive first meet. Competing against athletes from Eastern Washington, Montana State, Utah State and Carroll College, the Grizzlies won 12 individual events and recorded 62 PRs. In total, Montana's men came out on top, with the women placing second.

First-year coach Clint May set a goal of having 10 Grizzlies ranked in the top-10 on the Big Sky Conference performance lists following the weekend, a goal Montana smashed with 36 currently in the top 10 for their respective events.

Competing for Montana on Friday will be:

Women's 100 meters – Emma Normand
Men's 100 meters – Xavier Melice
Women's 200 meters – Cree Bell, Emma Normand, Faith Rebish
Men's 200 meters – Chase Armstrong, Cade Johnstone, Xavier Melice
Women's 400 meters – Cree Bell, Faith Rebish
Men's 400 meters – Cade Johnstone, Xavier Melice
Women's 800 meters – Amara Christensen, Carly Dahms
Men's 800 meters – Quincy Fast
Women's 1,500 meters – Emily Foote, Hannah Wylie
Men's 1,500 meters – Will Dauenhauer, Quincy Fast, Jacob Lamb, Rogelio Mares, Ellis McKean, Chandler Nill, Ben Vanderbosch
Women's 5,000 meters – Emily Foote, Beatrix Frissell, Lindsey Gallagher, Olivia Lackland Henry, Hannah Wylie
Men's 5,000 meters – Nathan Carter, AJ Eckmann, Truman Cowan, Hunter May, Joel Mendez
Women's 10,000 meters – Rachel Torrey
Men's 10,000 meters – Ben Cikutovich, Kyle Peterson
Women's 400-meter hurdles – Abby Harmon
Men's 400-meter hurdles – Chase Armstrong, Colton Hess, Cutter Thatcher
Women's 3,000-meter steeplechase – Hannah Wylie
Men's 3,000-meter steeplechase – Will Dauenhauer, AJ Eckmann, Rogelio Mares, Ellis McKean, Joel Mendez, Chandler Nill
Women's 4x400-meter relay – A: Cree Bell, Amara Christensen, Carly Dahms, Abby Harmon
Men's 4x400-meter relay – A: Will Dauenhauer, Colton Hess, Ben Vanderbosch, Chandler Nill
Women's pole vault – Kahsiah Benson, Jadyn Campbell, Aly Tekippe
Men's pole vault – Zane Johnson, Lawrence Moore, Carson Weeden
Women's long jump – Aly Tekippe
Men's triple jump – Zane Johnson
Women's shot put – Ariel Clark, Emilie Hinrichs, Whitney Morrison
Men's shot put – Brent Yeakey
Women's discus – Ariel Clark, Holly Houston, Tanessa Morris, Autumn Morse, Erin Murphy
Men's discus – Matt Ward, Brent Yeakey
Women's hammer – Ariel Clark, Emilie Hinrichs, Holly Houston, Tanessa Morris, Autumn Morse, Erin Murphy
Men's hammer – Matt Ward
Women's javelin – Kimberly Earhart, Emilie Hinrichs, Tatum McNamara, Tanessa Morris, Whitney Morrison, Autumn Morse, Erin Murphy
Men's javelin – Everett Fred, Matthew Hockett, Dylan Kipp, Evan Todd