PROVO, Utah – The jersey of three-time All-American, Tresa Spaulding Hamson, will be retired by Brigham Young University in a halftime ceremony at the Marriott Center during the Cougars’ Feb. 22 game against Arizona State.
Spaulding will become the third BYU women’s basketball player to have her jersey retired when her No. 54 is lifted to the Marriott Center rafters to join the jerseys of No. 44 Tina Gunn Robison and No. 22 Jackie Beene McBride.
The 6-foot-7 center is a three-time All-American honoree and two-time High Country Athletic Conference Player of the Year during her career that spanned from 1983 to 1987. Spaulding is considered one of the greatest players to ever don a Cougar jersey and sits in the top 10 of 13 statistical categories.
Spaulding is BYU’s all-time leader in field goal percentage with a 60.9 career clip, blocked shots with 494 and blocks per game with 4.62 per contest. She is also the third-leading scorer with 2,309 points, scoring 21.6 points per game, which is good for second in Cougar history.
The 1986 and 1987 High Country Athletic Conference Player of the Year is second in career field goals (968), third in rebounds (980), fifth in rebounds per game (9.16) and eighth in free throws made.
Spaulding came to BYU in 1983 from Meridian, Idaho and immediately made an impact on the Cougar squad. In her first season in Provo, she earned First Team Women's Basketball Yearbook Freshman All-America honors and was named honorable mention All-America by Street and Smith. Spaulding also set the single-game BYU record for blocks with nine.
As a sophomore, she broke her own single-game block record with 10 blocks, twice. Following the season, Spaulding was named First-Team All-HCAC, Kodak Division I All-District VII, and American Women's Sports Federation Fourth-Team All-America.
Due to her successful sophomore campaign, Spaulding was one of 12 players who received preseason All-America honors from the Women’s Basketball Yearbook in 1985. She finished the season ranked third in the nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game and seventh in field goal percentage with a 63.6 percent clip. She earned HCAC Player of the Year honors and was named Kodak All-District VII.
Spaulding’s senior season was legendary as she made 30- and 40-point games the norm. She finished the season as the nation’s top scorer at 28.9 points per game, with a career-high 50 points against New Mexico State in January before setting a USU Spectrum record of 47 points in just 27 minutes of play in a win over Utah State, in Logan.
After a record-setting senior season, Spaulding earned her second-straight HCAC Player of the Year award and was named an American Women’s Sports Federation First Team All-American with the designation “Best Center in America.”
During her college career, Spaulding represented the United States on multiple occasions on the international stage. In 1983, she helped Team USA win the gold medal at the 1983 World University Games. She was one of 17 players invited to try out for the U.S. Olympic Team and was an alternate for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She donned the stars and stripes in 1985 as the U.S. Team earned a silver medal at the World University Games.
After graduating with a recreational management and youth leadership degree and a minor in physical education and coaching in 1987, Spaulding played two years of professional basketball in Europe. She returned to BYU in 1996 and completed a master’s in exercise science and athletic training.
All three of Spaulding’s daughters have followed in her footsteps in donning the Cougar blue. Jennifer Hamson played for BYU from 2010-14, when she earned All-American honors in 2014 and helped the Cougars to their second Sweet 16 appearance. Sara Hamson represented BYU from 2017-22 and is second in career blocks with 472, just 22 shy of her mother Tresa’s record of 494. Heather is the third Hamson sister to play for BYU and is currently a junior on the team. She scored a career-high 11 points against No. 12 Kansas State on Jan. 11, 2025.