When Bayley Humphrey was 7 years old and just starting gymnastics, she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. She tumbled, she vaulted, she swung on the bars just like everyone else. As time passed and the years went on, she realized that she was built differently from the other girls.
Some of her teammates made comments about it, but Humphrey also noticed the contrasts herself. They were hard to miss. She was always the tallest, the strongest, the most muscular girl in the group.
At Baylor, she learned to lean into and love those differences. Now, the superior strength that made Humphrey a three-time All-American and four-time national champion for Baylor’s acrobatics and tumbling team has busted down the door to several unique opportunities. There’s no telling, you might even see her slamming your favorite wrestler on “WWE Raw” someday in the future.
“It’s amazing,” Humphrey said. “I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think I’d be another athlete after college. I’m so excited.
” Truth be told, that attitude mirrors Humphrey’s feelings when she decided to quit artistic gymnastics just prior to her senior year of high school. Humphrey participated in that style of gymnastics for more than 10 years. She loved it.
Well, maybe except for the balance beam — “That was my least favorite part of practice,” she said, noting that she fell off the beam “all the time.” But after a decade in artistic gymnastics, Humphrey grew burnt out. She needed a change.
She didn’t necessarily want to leave athletics, but she had no idea what the next step might be. Then a friend brought up the idea of acrobatic gymnastics, and Humphrey was introduced to a whole new world of opportunity. Finding her home in acro “A full-on blessing,” Humphrey said.
“My friend told me, ‘Hey, you can do collegiate acrobatics and tumbling,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t even know what that is.’ But I just wanted to see. I went to both Oregon’s and Baylor’s summer camp, and that’s kind of where I got my toe in the water.
Like, this is kind of what the sport is. “So, I reached out to both coaches and I just sent them videos and said, ‘Hey, this is me!’ Little did I know that I would get offers from both. So, it was amazing.
” Humphrey spent her senior year in her hometown of Chandler, Arizona, at one of the only gyms in the area that specialized in acrobatics and tumbling. She felt right at home with the powerful positions that an A&T base must inhabit. On her visit to Baylor, she fell in love with the school and with head coach Felecia Mulkey, making her decision easy.
“She basically raised me from the time I was 18 years old until I was 22,” Humphrey said of Mulkey. “One of the biggest aspects I take from this sport and this team is, strength is power. It was amazing.
I was always built differently from a lot of females, I never looked like them. And I struggled with that — being muscular as a female. I was like, oh man.
“But Coach Fee was like, ‘Muscles are beautiful! Look at what you can do in this sport, and look how you can change the world for girls!’ Being able to celebrate strength and muscles and just being able to appreciate who you are, appreciate hard work and humbleness and how far that can take you in life.” Mulkey said recruiting Humphrey to Baylor was a no-brainer. “Athletically, you look and marvel at her athleticism, but she’s also a fantastic human being,” Mulkey said.
“That’s the cool and special part for me, is seeing her become more confident in who she is as a person. That’s a big part of our program, is allowing our athletes to be comfortable in their own skin.” Humphrey actually spent a year at Mesa (Arizona) Community College, getting some of her basics out of the way, before enrolling at Baylor for the 2020-21 school year.
She made meaningful friendships with many of her new teammates. But her aspirations of delivering a huge contribution to Baylor’s powerhouse program crumbled when she suffered a season-ending Achilles injury just two meets into her freshman season. “I really struggled that year, because I was just so excited to be at college and I was so grateful,” she said.
“I was having so much fun on the team, you know? And then the injury happens. I really struggled mentally. I was kind of like, what’s my role now? What do I do now that I’m not on the mat physically? What can I do on the side? “Honestly, that’s just as big a role.
My teammates were there for me like no other. They’re the reason I got through it. And I could be there for them in a different light than what I was before.
” Coming back stronger than ever It took about nine months of rehabilitation for Humphrey to return to full strength. But she came back with a furor in 2022, winning NCATA All-American and NCATA Specialist of the Year honors for Baylor’s national title team. Coach Fee encouraged Humphrey to embrace her powerful physique and to experiment with new stunts that might showcase it.
She and teammate Jordan Gruendler created a never-before-seen move that became known as the “Baylor Boomerang.” In it, Humphrey hoisted Gruendler into the air, where the flexible top performed a back arch. The twist that Humphrey and Gruendler added was that Humphrey would release her left hand from Gruendler’s grasp and finish the stunt one-handed.
Naturally, it became a crowd-pleasing and high-scoring display of athleticism for the Bears. “That’s another reason I love Coach Fee,” Humphrey said. “She was always like, ‘What’s the next thing? What’s the next challenge?’ That’s my mindset as an athlete, I need to be constantly challenged and I need to go past the boundaries.
So, when Jordan came in and we kind of had similar backgrounds, it was really cool. “I’m so blessed that Coach Fee was like, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m just going to give you two time. Create something crazy, let’s do something different for the sport.
Let’s continue to grow it, because this sport is still new and it’s not going to stop anytime soon.’ Yeah, she kind of just let us do our thing. Me and Jordan challenged each other, and we built each other up.
It was a great partnership.” Baylor Acro & Tumbling: We're in love with the Baylor Boomerang 🫶🥰 // via BaylorAthletics on YouTube Still, Humphrey said it took “years” of training to perfect the stunt. The botched attempts the pair endured were innumerable.
The first time they finally nailed the Boomerang at a meet was ‘the best feeling ever,” Humphrey said. As a senior this year, Humphrey claimed her third straight NCATA All-America award. She also pushed the Bears to a fourth straight national title since she’d reached Waco and ninth consecutive crown overall.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end my career at Baylor, because that’s exactly how I wanted to end it,” Humphrey said. “The moments I felt with my teammates, I was like, yep, this was a good one to end on.” Unique opportunities With her time at Baylor coming to a close, Humphrey kept an open mind toward any new opportunities that came her way.
One of those arrived earlier this year when Mulkey pulled Humphrey aside at practice to inform her that the U.S. Olympic Women’s Rugby Team wanted Humphrey to come to a camp in June as a tryout for the team.
“I was like, ‘What? They know I’ve never held a rugby ball or a football in my whole life, right? Or tackled anybody?’” Humphrey said. “I’d never done any of this. And she was like, ‘Yeah, they know.
They want you to come out there.’” So, Humphrey hit the Internet for a crash course on all things rugby. In June, she attended a three-day camp and learned about the sport all the more.
She even impressed onlookers and demonstrated her toughness when she dislocated a finger while making her tackle. “Don’t worry! It snapped back in and we went back out there,” Humphrey said, laughing. “That’s the Baylor Bear attitude, right? So, it was an experience, another blessing in disguise.
” The other athletic endeavor that fell into her lap proved even wilder. The WWE targeted Humphrey as a participant in its “Next in Line” program, where it seeks out college athletes who might have what it takes to make it as a professional wrestler. Much like with rugby, Humphrey had little knowledge of the wrestling world, outside of knowing the names of some of the most famous stars, like The Undertaker and Chyna.
But she was excited to explore the WWE opportunity further. So in June, shortly after her rugby camp, Humphrey visited a WWE gym and met some of the company’s wrestlers and executives. She even got the chance to enter the ring and learn a few moves.
That event led to an upcoming tryout, where Humphrey will try to prove herself WWE-worthy in the ring. “This is my time to prove myself to everyone in the company, whether or not they would want me in the future,” Humphrey said. “I’m excited.
I’m a little nervous. But this is fun for me, and I do want to pursue this on a deeper level.” Every good ’rassler needs a fun persona, a character.
Humphrey has some ideas to that end, though she’s not getting ahead of herself. She said she’d love to continue to showcase her strength as much as possible while also tapping into some of her other interests, like forensics. Hey, the WWE already has The Undertaker.
Maybe Humphrey could be The Coroner. Slam ‘em, kill ‘em, then check for cause of death after they’ve been pinned. It’ll certainly be a lot different than the sport of A&T, where she was so focused on keeping her teammates suspended in midair.
“I actually was telling my Mom this — you know what, it’ll be kind of fun to throw a woman and not have to worry about catching them,” she said, chuckling. Mulkey said she has no doubt that whatever path Humphrey chooses, she going to kill it. “The sky’s the limit for her,” the Baylor coach said.
“I tell her to call me if she ever needs to know how great she is. I don’t remember if it was after the USA Rugby thing or the WWE thing, they were back-to-back, but she called me and said, ‘Coach Fee, they told me I was a generational athlete!’ And I said, ‘Yes, Bayley, you are!’ But part of what makes her special is her humility.” Humphrey is keeping her options open to whatever the future might hold.
Maybe she’ll be a rugby player, maybe a pro wrestler, maybe an Olympic weightlifter. (She routinely killed it in the weight room at Baylor, bench-pressing 235 pounds and back-squatting 405.) Whatever she does, she knows she’ll spread the gospel of embracing one’s differences.
She has experienced her share of insensitive comments over the years, and she wants other girls to avoid similar treatment. “You can look different! It’s OK!” she said. “You have your own strength and your own ways to go use it.
” Her time at Baylor taught her that. Humphrey said she’ll be forever grateful to Coach Fee for demonstrating that Bears can come in all packages, that champions aren’t “one size fits all” but rather all sizes welcome. “She taught me mental toughness on a level I never even thought of before,” Humphrey said.
“And grit and the mental attitude and the competitiveness and just the confidence. I love how she always says, ‘Go in with confidence but also humility.’ That has taken me so far, so far.
“Whatever she has taught me these past four years will definitely translate into my future. I can already tell it’s making a positive impact.” Be the first to know Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
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