American University

Tyra Massey joined the American University cross country and track staff as an Assistant Coach on August 25, 2021, tasked to oversee the construction of American’s sprints program. Massey, who graduated from Auburn in 2020 after a successful sprinting career, comes to AU after a year spent as a volunteer assistant coach at Samford University.

Across her first three seasons with American Massey’s athletes set 69 program top 10-marks and 22 school records across the indoor and outdoor seasons. On the women’s side, Lorelei Bangit already holds individual school records in the 100m, 200m, and 400m outdoors and the indoor 400m in only her freshman campaign at AU in 2023-24. Highlighting Bangit’s season was a runner-up finish in the 400m at the 2024 Outdoor Patriot League Championships in a program best 55.18. Bangit's classmate Ciera Thacker also made her mark during her first-year, holding two indoor school records in at the 60m and 200m distances. As a team, Massey's squads already hold eight of the top 10 marks in program history in the indoor 4x400m relay, including the school record of 4:01.23. 

On the men’s side, Massey has helped coach Fernando Ibarra to two individual school records in the indoor and outdoor 200m with a best mark of 21.55. Massey also mentored Malcolm Lewis to a school record in the indoor 400m and Jason Omari-Anim to a school record in the outdoor 100m in each of their first years at American. The men’s sprint program ran 3:17.54 in the 4x400m relay to secure a third-place podium finish at the 2024 Outdoor Patriot League Championships, the fastest time in program history since 2003. 

In her fourth year coaching the sprints program at AU, Massey helped several athletes earn Patriot League medals, program records, and AU top-10 performances. Under her leadership, the women’s sprints program broke AU records a total of 22 times in the indoor and outdoor track seasons. The men’s and women’s sprints rewrote the record books, setting 65 new top-10 times. Massey helped sophomore Lorelei Bangit break her own program records in the indoor 400, indoor 200, indoor 4x400 relay, outdoor 400, outdoor 200, outdoor 4x400 relay, and outdoor 4x100 relay. Bangit also earned Patriot League silver medals and Second Team honors in the indoor and outdoor 400 meters; earned a bronze medal in the outdoor 4x100 along with Zoe Clark, Ciera Thacker, and Tamara Dorval; and was named to the Academic All-Patriot League Team in indoor and outdoor. Freshman Tamara Dorval also had a standout first year for the Eagles, running program records in the indoor 60, outdoor 100, outdoor 4x100, and outdoor 4x400, and placing sixth in the PL indoor 60 and fourth in the outdoor 100. Massey had nine athletes named to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll in 2024-25.
 
An SEC Academic Honor Roll member during her time at Auburn, Massey graduated with her degree in exercise science and is currently working toward her master's in business administration from Alabama A&M.

As a volunteer assistant at Samford, she helped guide both the men's and women's teams to team title sweeps at the 2021 SoCon Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
 
Individually, Massey helped coach a pair of men's hurdle specialists to the NCAA Championships East Preliminary Round last during the 2021 season. During the outdoor championship meet, her student-athletes earned eight podium finishes and three individual titles in the men's 100m dash, 110m hurdles, and 400m hurdles.
 
Massey currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Updated July 9, 2025