Whether they are in the airport, on vacation, or even at a basketball game it’s hard to miss two seven-foot-plus sons, three 6-7 women, one 6-3 youngest daughter and a 6-8 father.

There may be BYU women’s basketball fans who don’t know Spaulding Hamson’s background as one of the school’s all-time best players but all she has to do now is point to the ceiling of the Marriott Center and say, “That’s me.”

Spaulding Hamson’s jersey was retired at halftime of Saturday’s BYU-Arizona State women’s basketball game. Her No. 54 will forever reside in the rafters of the building where she scored 2,304 points and grabbed 980 rebounds during her career as a Cougar. Her 61% career field goal percentage and 424 blocked shots are still program bests.

“It’s just been a wonderful day,” Spaulding Hamson said. “I’ve been able to reminisce and to think about my career and my family and my children and all the things that they’ve accomplished, and it’s just a joy. It’s very rewarding to me as an athlete and as a parent and as a mother to see my jersey in the rafters.”

Spaulding Hamson, a 6-7 center who was raised in Meridian, Idaho, played for the Cougars from 1983 to 1987. She also won two gold medals competing with Team USA at the World University Games in 1983 and 1985. Spaulding Hamson was an alternate on the 1984 Olympic team and played two seasons of professional basketball in Europe.

Her oldest daughter, Jennifer Hamson, led BYU to the NCAA title match in volleyball and the Sweet 16 in basketball, both in 2014. She took up basketball as a freshman at Pleasant Grove High School and said she used to call her mother while riding on the bus to and from games, pleading for post moves and advice.

“My mom loves competition,” Jennifer Hamson said. “She’s always pushing us to work hard and putting in the extra effort. She has a great love for the game. She put her whole heart into it and was always there for her teammates. Her family is all here to support her. It’s great for her to be recognized by the school that she loves and to be remembered forever. This is amazing.”

Sara Hamson also played for the Cougars (2017-22). Mom, Jennifer and Sara are 1-2-3 in career blocks at BYU. A son, Alan, was a walk-on for the BYU men’s program in 2015. Heather Hamson is currently on the Cougars women’s basketball team.

“Watching my daughters play is by far more difficult (than playing),” Spaulding Hamson said. “My husband pokes me a lot, so I don’t yell too much. I had a good coach tell me a long time ago that my position has changed, and I’m not a coach anymore. When it comes to the girls when they’re playing, I’m a support, and my job is to love and to support them and to encourage them to do the very best that they can. And that was really good advice. I try really hard, but sometimes I do yell at the refs.”

Courtesy BYU Photo

Spaulding Hamson is still hooping. She won a gold medal in the 50+ Division of 3-on-3 Basketball at the 2024 Utah Senior Games in St. George and also competed in volleyball, winning a silver medal on a 55+ team called “Victorious Secret.”

BYU women’s hoops loses to ASU in OT

Turnovers (20) and poor end-of-game execution continues to plague the Cougars in a season with too many blowouts at the hands of the top teams in the league and frustrating losses in winnable games.

Saturday’s contest was definitely the latter. BYU led Arizona State 71-66 with 1:02 to play but allowed the Sun Devils a wide-open 3-pointer and later committed a foolish foul in the back court with 12 seconds to play, which led to the game-tying free throws. The Cougars could only get off an air ball 3-pointer as time expired and the contest headed to overtime.

Arizona State thoroughly outplayed the home team in the extra session, scoring the first nine points and outscoring BYU 14-2 to ease to only its third Big 12 victory of the season, 85-73.

Freshman Delaney Gibb led the Cougars with 25 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists but was just 8 of 19 from the field and committed five turnovers. Amari Whiting had 13 points (and seven turnovers) and Emma Calvert scored 12 points before fouling out late in the fourth quarter.

Courtesy BYU Photo

Jalyn Brown topped Arizona State (9-19 overall, 3-13 Big 12) with 23 points and Tyi Skinner contributed 22.

BYU (13-14, 4-12) will host Kansas (15-12, 5-11) in the Marriott Center on Tuesday.

Cougar men’s volleyball sweeps Barry

Cole Hauser recorded a career-high 11 kills in the Cougars’ 3-0 victory (25-12, 25-16, 26-24) over Barry University on Saturday night in the Smith Fieldhouse.

“Another good night for us to start out there with a familiar lineup and for some other guys to get an opportunity to get in,” said BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead. “Cole had his first match last night and that wasn’t what we knew he was capable of. He’s a great player for us every single day in practice. He got to spread his wings, and I was excited about what he did tonight.”

Hauser’s 11 kills came from 18 attempts for a .500 hitting percentage. The junior from San Diego, California also tallied four blocks to tie a team-high.

Courtesy BYU Photo

Keoni Thiim and Teilon-Jonathan Tufuga combined for 14 kills with eight and six, respectively. Teon Taylor tallied his first perfect game of the season with five kills on five attempts.

After a bye-week, BYU will play a two-match home series against the No. 5 ranked USC Trojans from March 7-8 at 7 p.m. MT. Friday’s match will be streamed live on BYUtv, with Saturday’s streaming live on Big10+.

BYU men’s and women’s tennis get wins

BYU men’s tennis picked up its seventh win in a row and ninth of the season as they swept the University of Idaho on Saturday, while in their final non-conference match of the season the BYU women’s tennis team swept No. 55 Fresno State, increasing their record to 10-3 overall and 5-0 at home.

The Cougar women will begin conference play at noon MST on Thursday, Feb. 27, against Arizona, while the BYU men head back to Provo as it is set to face off with Denver on Friday, Feb. 28 in just the third home match of the Cougars’ season.

Cougar baseball loses series finale at CSUN

After winning the first two games of the series at CSUN, BYU baseball dropped game three, 9-4, on Saturday afternoon at Robert J. Hiegert Field in Northridge, Calif.

Courtesy BYU Photo

“Tip your hat to CSUN for being patient at the plate and taking advantage of offensive opportunities today,” said BYU head coach Trent Pratt. “Our defense has been great through the first eight games of the year, but we need to learn to be more patient at the plate and do a better job throwing strikes on the mound. The plan is to improve each week, so we are playing our best baseball when Big 12 play begins in three weeks.”

The Matadors improved to 2-4 on the year, while the Cougars fell to 4-4. After playing eight road games in 10 days in California, BYU will return home for a few days before heading to Spokane, Washington for a three-game series with Gonzaga, Feb. 27-March 1.

BYU softball loses pitcher’s duel vs. Duke

BYU softball hung with No. 11/14 Duke but ultimately dropped a 1-0 contest to close out Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic play at the Big League Dreams Complex in Cathedral City, Calif., on Saturday morning.

The Cougars (9-4, 0-0 Big 12) surrendered the game’s only run in the first inning before settling in. Both teams had four hits, while BYU left four runners on base to Duke’s five.

The Cougars had runners on in five of the seven innings, including two in scoring position in the seventh, but were unable to bring any runners home.

Despite the loss, BYU starting pitcher Kate Dahle tossed a career-high eight strikeouts, giving up just four hits on a career-high six innings pitched.

The Cougars will head back to Northern California next week for a series of games, beginning at Sacramento State on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. PT on ESPN+.

Cougar men’s track sets new distance medley relay school record

BYU men’s track and field ran 9:20.72 for a new school record in the distance medley relay on Saturday.

The unique distance event is composed of four different legs of a relay: 1200-meter, 400-meter, 800-meter and 1600-meter. This year’s group is composed of Carter Cutting, Josh Taylor, Tyler Mathews and Lucas Bons.

The breakdown of splits included a 2:52 performance by Cutting in the 1200m, 45 second 400m from Taylor, 1:45 800m leg from Mathews and 3:57 split from Bons in the 1600m.

The Cougars will compete in the 2024 Big 12 Indoor Track & Field Championships on Friday-Saturday, February 28-March 1 with Texas Tech set to host.