Tika Hemingway: “I’m really deep and I believe adversity builds champions.”

Tika Hemingway: “I’m really deep and I believe adversity builds champions.”

The story of Chatiqua “Tika” Hemingway is dark, depressing and in many ways inspirational. The Pittsburgh native has battled more than most. Tika was raped when she was only 14, and fell pregnant as a result of that harrowing ordeal, her former coach was shot dead in 2019, make no mistake, life hasn’t been easy. The understatement of any year. The fights inside a boxing ring pale in comparison to how hard she has had to fight outside of the ropes. There have been many demons to overcome, Tika has had to show her resilience many times in her life.

It wasn’t supposed to be a life in boxing. Tika had talent and plenty of it in another sport. Her calling, her future was supposed to be in basketball she told me over Zoom:

“I grew up in Pittsburgh and I loved basketball. I was a huge basketball star actually, I loved it, all I did was play basketball. I went outside in the morning to play basketball and I was still out there playing in the middle of the night. My dream was to be a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) player. I was about to go to one school but I got recruited to go to a different High School to play basketball.”

I have interviewed hundreds of fighters, and some of those stories go to very dark places, they would go even darker if I told the full story. I knew this story prior, and I did wonder if I should make Tika tell it again. It seemed beyond cruel to make her go over and relive a night that she wishes she could forget. Of course, it is a night that will never leave her mind. In truth, how could it? I didn’t need to go there, and I’m not sure I would have done, but Tika probably expected the obvious and expanded bravely on my opening question of how she got into boxing.

As she moved through her house trying to find a place of comfort, along the way apologising for the Christmas toys scattered around the room that were still in play, Tika told me about a bus ride home that would have a defining impact on her early years:

“After one of my amazing basketball games I had scored 30 points, 10 3-pointers. I was on fire. After the game, I went home on the school bus and everyone was cutting up, misbehaving, and throwing stuff out of the window. We were about to get in trouble and get thrown off the bus, we were getting yelled at to get off the bus, I didn’t want to get in trouble so I got off the bus about a block away from my intended stop.

“I was walking home and a grown man came up behind me and beat me up on a street corner and dragged me into an abandoned house and he raped me for hours and hours. I was only 14 at the time. I eventually escaped from the house and I told myself I would take this to my grave. I was still a virgin and I was scared to even mention it at home because we didn’t talk about sex in my house. A few months later I found out I was pregnant by the man who raped me when my stomach started growing and I wasn’t sexually active. Then the bullying started, everyone started calling me a whore and asking whose baby is it, it was a lot to go through all that when you were 14 and then keeping it a secret. My parents were going through a divorce at the time and I didn’t want to take them on a path to depression and destruction about what happened in that house. So I just kept it all to myself and I took it all rather than give it all to them. So nobody knew how I got pregnant. I had the baby and I ended up keeping her. The plan was to give her up for adoption because everyone was thinking I was a whore remember. When I gave birth they took me into a counselling room, I was crying and they were asking if I wanted to keep her and I said no.”

Her plan was to give her up for adoption. When she gave birth they took her into a counselling room while she was hoping to sign the papers for adoption but was made to take the baby home. She was only 14.

The secret of the awful night remained firmly locked away and Tika only told her daughter when she was 18 what happened in that old abandoned house. Her daughter had never asked where her dad was. Not ever. Maybe she didn’t know exactly what the story was, but she knew it was something dark and a subject that couldn’t be touched until the time was right.

Tika tried to live a normal life, but school isn’t the best place for passion and understanding. Bullies are plenty, and Tika tried to ignore the many. She bravely stayed in there until 12th grade, but even with the finishing line in sight, the bullying became too much and Tika dropped out of school. Tika fell in with the wrong crowd, and trouble was never far behind. Tika was drifting on the road to nowhere and the day before her supposed graduation, she hit an all-time low:

“I was still going to school at 17, I was doing my best. I hung in there. But I was missing a lot of days through truancy and stuff and I started getting into trouble and I started hanging out with people who I shouldn’t be hanging around with committing crimes. The day before I was supposed to graduate I broke down and cried. I thought about all the dreams I had about being in the WNBA. And I thought about what happened to me in that house. I also thought about the two other girls who were in that house who were still there when I left. I start praying and asking why did this happen to me. I was praying so hard, my face was on the basement floor and I’m crying out to God. The next day I was supposed to graduate from High School and I’m thinking this is not how my life should be going. I should be going to Tennessee State to play basketball. I was crying and praying all night and I mean all night.”

The very next day the life of Tika Hemingway suddenly had purpose and hope. A walk with her friend, a chance meeting on a street corner with a boxing trainer wearing his patented Army fatigues called Sheldon “Sarge” Stoudemire, and out of nowhere, Tika asked if he would train her.

There was early reluctance and much of it from the trainer who probably had heard the same tale a million times. But the more he said no to Tika, the more determined she became to change his mind. The conversation was long, over an hour, maybe longer, but approaching midnight Tika had won her first fight. He said let’s go training now, Tika obliged and once the midnight hour had passed her first boxing session was over. A bond was formed with the coach and her sport, and Tika had big ambitions almost immediately:

“I knew I was going to be a champion on that first night. We became like father and daughter. He was in my life from that day on until the day he died. He knew he had something and I knew this was home.”

Tika labelled Stoudemire her angel and boxing her salvation. Stoudemire was a minister and had hopes of using his position to rid the Black community of gun crime, drugs and more. But in 2019 he was shot dead. He was just 57. The importance of Stoudemire in the life of Tika is something she has never forgotten. A mentor in boxing and life itself.

Success came quickly for Tika, within a year and after only five fights she had her first National Title and a place on Team USA was hers. A four-time National Champion and her amateur career ended with 100 wins and only 13 defeats. But Tika never made the Olympics proper, a certain Claressa Shields was in her way. There were six battles with Shields and Tika had to be content with a place as an alternate for the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. There were periods away from the sport, Tika had another daughter and that took priority over her boxing.

“I wanted to live the life I wanted to live and I had a child,” Tika told me.

There was no intention to turn professional until an invitation came her way to go to Croatia and help Ivana Habazin prepare for her fight with Claressa Shields in 2020. Tika turned pro soon after, but with her six-year-old daughter Solara battling an illness in her legs that left her temporarily wheelchair-bound, Tika put her boxing career on hold to care for her daughter who is thankfully now on the mend and walking once again. The pro career has been restricted to just two fights, one in 2020 and one last year, but the Ted Mrkonja and Roy Jones Jr trained fighter is now ready to go:

“I’m really deep and I believe adversity builds champions. I am just ready to take what has been waiting on me. I’m back training, I’m back at it, my daughter is healthy and now I can focus on me and the women in my weight class. Who can beat me when I am in shape and 100% focused and making history. I am going to keep fighting until I win a world championship”

Tika 36, will look to get her career going again in 2023 and her impressive amateur resume should see her advance quickly. Tika is a survivor of many things, and winning a world title is the least she deserves after the life that she has lived. If any fighter deserves a happy ending it is Tika Hemingway.

Due to her story of being an overcomer and her huge accomplishments in boxing, Tika was presented with a rare honour from the Smithsonian Museum. Tika Hemingway was inducted into the Heinz History Sports Museum with a permanent display. She is also set to go into the PA Hall of Fame after her career is over. 

Tika also gives back to her community. She has her own organization in Pittsburgh called Pittsburgh Girls Box for women and girls 13-60 where she gives her time for free and teaches them boxing and self-defence: 

“My goal is to use boxing, to make a positive impact on as many women and girls’ lives as possible.”