How a Team USA wrestler grappled with the choice to serve a Latter-day Saint mission

Few sports resemble life’s struggles quite like wrestling.

Even if you don’t know the difference between wrestling’s double leg takedown from a Granby Roll, you’ve surely “wrestled” with tough decisions. Maybe you’re wrestling with guilt or doubts. Maybe you’re wrestling to find truths and answers.

And wrestling is demanding and lonely. A wrestler exhausts every muscle in a typical match — and he or she competes alone. There’s no teammate on the mat to set a pick, come off the bench or share the load.

So a world-class grappler such as Alex Hedrick possesses a rare understanding of what it means to wrestle, in all its forms.

But understanding wrestling doesn’t always make wrestling easier.

For Hedrick, wrestling with the decision to step away from her sport at the age of 25 and serve a full-time Latter-day Saint mission was as challenging as battling the world’s top rivals on the mat.

In 2024, the California native was just entering a female wrestler’s prime years while holding tight to a coveted roster spot on Team USA. And Hedrick knew if she went on a mission that she would be several years older than most of the other sister missionaries. She was, after all, a college graduate in her mid-20s who had already lived independently for several years.

But that quiet yet clear impulse to serve a full-time mission persisted. So Hedrick, well, tapped-out.

Prior to finalizing her mission decision, she had long reasoned that maybe wrestling was her mission. It was, after all, a positive way to represent her Latter-day Saint faith. But she still needed divine clarity to resolve her dilemma.

“So I started praying, saying to the Lord ‘I’m only going on a mission if you make it really clear to me’,” Hedrick told the Deseret News. “Then I had an experience, six months before the Olympic trials in 2024, where it became so clear that I needed to go.”

So Hedrick swapped her wrestling shoes for some practical proselyting footwear, bid farewell to her coaches and training partners and answered a call to the New York Syracuse Mission.

Ascending America’s wrestling ranks

For Hedrick, wrestling and faith have always co-existed. Both are family legacies.

Several of Hedrick’s uncles were accomplished high school grapplers and her father, Pete Hedrick, competed for BYU under coach Mark Schultz when the Cougars had a wrestling program. Then Pete Hedrick went on to coach at the local junior high and high school in Fair Oaks, California.

“I just remember always being around the sport as a little kid,” Hedrick said. “Sometimes my dad would run kids’ practices and I’d come with him and I might jump in if they were playing a game or something.”

But young Alex was typically the only girl. Growing into adolescence, there were still limited opportunities in her region for school-age female wrestlers. But that didn’t stop her from competing.

“I actually took seventh place in the Northern California boys championships when I was in the eighth grade,” she recalled.

Playing team sports such as soccer was fun, she added. But her competitor’s heart always belonged to wrestling.

“I love everything about the sport. I love going to practice. I love how hard it is. I love that wrestling is a big puzzle with infinite possibilities to solve.”

Hedrick wrestled for her high school’s boys team while also traveling around the region to compete in girls tournaments.

Meanwhile, female wrestling was becoming an international sport that included Olympic and World Championship competitions. The paths for wrestling glory were being blazed for female athletes — and Hedrick even had a hometown role model who was also from a Latter-day Saint family, elite wrestler Jennifer Page.

“I just remember watching (Page) at these Olympic Trials in 2012 and thinking, ‘This girl had the same coaches I have. She’s from the same place I am. Why can’t I do this also?’”

After graduating from Bella Vista High School, Hedrick had her choice of several universities. But she opted to compete for Canada’s Simon Fraser University, which boasts a renowned women’s wrestling program and competed against schools from the U.S.

She would go on to win two national titles and, in 2021, claimed the U23 national crown in her weight class. She left Simon Fraser with an English degree and is now pursuing graduate studies in coaching and athletic leadership.

Hedrick’s college career also overlapped with her years representing Team USA that included a bronze medal finish in the 2022 U23 World Championships in Pontevedra, Spain.

Grappling with the choice to serve

But even as Hedrick was ascending the top levels of her sport, the mission question was always lingering.

“Growing up, I knew I wanted to go to the Olympics, so a mission was totally not in the cards,” she said. “But then when I was 15, I got my patriarchal blessing — and it told me very specifically I’d serve a mission in my youth.”

She considered putting in her mission call application after a year of college. But she had a highly successful freshman year, clouding her decision. Soon she was focusing on the Olympic trials. With each passing year, full-time missionary work seemed increasingly unlikely.

But 2024 proved to be life-changing. Hedrick placed a respectable third at the Olympic team trials, but it was not enough to land a roster spot for the Paris Games. After prayerful confirmation, she made the call to serve.

She left Team USA and officially became “Sister Hedrick” in October 2024.

“People in the wrestling community respected my decision to leave for a mission — they knew that my faith was something very important to me,” she said. “Maybe people didn’t fully understand it, but I didn’t have people try to stop me.”

Adjusting to, and thriving in, mission life

Hedrick reported to New York certain of her decision to serve. But the mission was still tough.

“I didn’t really think about the adjustment before I left for my mission. I just believed I would be blessed for being obedient,” she said. “But then when I actually got there, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m with all these kids that are six or seven years younger than me.

“It was really hard.”

Her first few months in the mission field were often frustrating. After living alone for several years, she felt micromanaged.

“But I had the best mission leaders that were so understanding,” said Hedrick. “They were prayerful about what companions to put me with and what areas to put me in. They were so patient with me and gave me a lot of guidance to be able to work through that period.”

The New York Syracuse Mission leaders, President Kory Coleman and Sister Carolie Coleman, said Hedrick’s life experiences and maturity proved to be an asset. She was often given leadership roles that demanded sacrifice and selflessness.

“Alex is a very thoughtful person, and we needed to make sure that she was with companions that challenged her and could help lift and bless her as well,” said President Coleman.

Hedrick’s maturity brought a grounding presence to many of her companionships, added Sister Coleman.

“She served with sisters who were younger than her and were still learning how to deal with emotions and processing hard emotional things. And she was always a steady, calming influence. Nothing really ever got her super riled-up.”

Now a returned missionary, Hedrick relies on hindsight to measure her proselyting experience.

“My mission made me a lot more patient. It made me a lot more loving. I learned how important companionship is, and just relationships with other people in general.”

And while Hedrick has enjoyed renown in an individual sport, missionary service taught her the importance of belonging to something bigger.

“What’s always appealed to me about wrestling was that it’s an individual sport, and I’m a very independent person,” she said. “But I think the Lord wanted to teach me that I need to be able to be on a team and that I need to be able to work with others.

“The Lord wants me to help with the gathering of Israel. He needs me on his team.”

Wrestling dummies and sub-zero Buffalo mornings

Hedrick is not the first elite athlete to step away from competition to serve a Latter-day Saint mission. And typically, those athlete/missionaries return home in awful physical condition, at least by competition standards.

But Hedrick remained in pretty good shape during her mission. Her mission president gave her the thumbs up to work out frequently. At some point in her mission she located a stationary bike. She also procured an elliptical. And one of her apartments had a treadmill.

“I even found some old dumbbells on the side of the road,” she said, laughing.

And then more good fortune. In her final service area, she discovered that a wrestling club practiced at the local Latter-day Saint meetinghouse.

“So there were mats at the church and they gave me permission to roll them out and use them to do my stance and motion drills,” she said. “I was also able to get a hold of a throw-dummy from the local middle school and throw the dummy for my last two transfers.”

Brynn Campbell was Hedrick’s final missionary companion, and an enthusiastic workout partner.

“We would go to the church every morning, even if it was 20 degrees below zero,” said Campbell, laughing.

A Riverton, Utah, native who played girls tackle football in high school, Campbell was a game grappling partner for a missionary companion who happened to be a world-class wrestler.

“Sister Hedrick would pick me up on her shoulders and squat me or carry me around,” said Campbell. “It was super fun, and we had some really cool opportunities together to make connections because of her wrestling.”

Campbell was still a teenager when she served with Hedrick, and she initially worried the age difference might be a challenge.

“But she was an amazing companion and never made me feel like I was less than her because I was younger.”

Hedrick also prioritized nutrition while in the mission field, keeping her muscles strong and her joints pliable.

Preparing for ‘lifelong discipleship’

Hedrick’s mission concluded earlier this year, and she immediately returned to training and competing.

She relocated to Colorado Springs to be close to the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

And she’s back on Team USA, winning the Grand View Open title in the 130-pound division. More importantly, she secured a top-three national ranking that makes her eligible for U.S. National Team support such as funding, training and competition opportunities.

Hedrick’s now focused on the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles and plans to stay connected to the sport for years to come.

But regardless of what success awaits her on the wrestling mat, she will continue to lean upon lessons acquired in the mission field.

“I learned so much to rely on the Holy Ghost. I’ve learned that life is about experiences. And my mission prepared me for lifelong discipleship.”