Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 3, 1993 TAG: 9302030022
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
WRESTLING WITH GENDER EQUALITY
People of a particular sort, especially those with striking looks, have been known to derive a certain enjoyment when the mere act of entering a room causes heads to turn.One day late last month, Kimberly Bond - sophomore, slim and blonde - walked into a roomful of boys, her fellow students at Radford High, and heads turned as if they were on swivels.
Eyes bugged.
Jaws gaped.
She was mortified.
"Oh gosh," she thought. "Is this what it's going to be like?"
The boys, all of whom no doubt had been taught that it is impolite to stare, apparently just couldn't restrain themselves.
Kimberly Bond had walked through that classroom door and smack dab into the middle of an organizational meeting for the Bobcats' wrestling team. She wasn't there to be a cheerleader or manager.
Her interest was in wringing necks, bending spines, jerking feet, and twisting arms and all the rest of those rough and confrontational things wrestlers do.
"Somebody say something," she said.
Still nothing.
"They'd been talking, but when I walked in, there was dead silence," she said.
Bond hadn't just plunged into all this without first seeking out opinions from elsewhere. Among those willing to offer an objective view was Jake Bondurant, another sophomore who would be a 140-pounder on the team.
"I thought she was crazy," he said. "I thought that maybe she'd All we did differently for her was make sure she had a separate locker facility and we had to get [basketball coach] Brenda King to weigh her in. Other than that, we put her out there and let them beat the hell out of her. Buddy Shull Radford wrestling coach stay out for a week, then quit. I didn't think she could handle it."
His advice?
"He said if I did come out, to stick with it," Bond said.
Other counsel came from her parents, Debby and Danny Bond. After their initial shock that Kim was serious, the Bonds played devil's advocate.
"We warned her about how the other wrestlers or their parents might take it," Debby Bond said.
Her father had other concerns.
"He was worried I might get hurt," Kimberly Bond said.
She held firm, so the Bonds went to see Buddy Shull, the Bobcats' coach. If he was as flabbergasted as you might have thought, he didn't let on.
"I told them that if she were going to be a member of the team, then she would be treated no differently than any other member of the team," Shull said.
The terms were acceptable and Kim was soon off for the organizational meeting.
"I didn't say hoot nor holler about her coming out for the team," Shull said. "I wanted for it to be as less of a big deal as possible."
Bond is not the first girl to have wrestled in Virginia.
"Wrestling has been open to girls in Virginia ever since Title IX [the 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination by institutions that receive federal aid]," Virginia High School League programs supervisor Claudia Dodson said. "We've had girls wrestle here before. There are girls wrestling this year, although probably not many. We get about 10 calls a year from people wondering what the rules are."
Even so, if Bond isn't Timesland's first female wrestler, then she is one of only a very few.
Every effort was made at Radford to ensure Bond's immersion into the sport would cause as little uproar as possible.
"All we did differently for her was make sure she had a separate locker facility and we had to get [basketball coach] Brenda King to weigh her in," Shull said. "Other than that, we put her out there and let them beat the hell out of her."
Which isn't the most glamorous way for an attractive, straight-A student to spend her afternoons, but Bond knew what she was in for.
"I didn't do this for the attention or for the guys," she said. "I've wanted to do it for a long time, but didn't have the guts to do it. I had wanted to play football, but that didn't work out."
Bond has been involved with athletics for a long time. Her mother has a background in gymnastics and Kim took that up. She dabbled in T-ball as a young girl. Some of the more traditional girls' sports didn't work for her.
"I'm terrible at basketball," she said.
But why wrestling?
"I wanted a new challenge," said Bond, who hopes to graduate a year early so she can seek appointment to the Air Force Academy. "Besides football, wrestling is the toughest sport they offer here."
Challenging it has been. Bond has gone 1-5 wrestling at 125 pounds, with the only victory coming by forfeit.
"My goal is to make it into the second period," she said.
Maybe not this year. Bond has a cracked shinbone after a scrimmage with Chilhowie and Floyd County and probably is done for the year. Nevertheless, she has stressed that she intends to return to the team next year.
"It hasn't been discouraging," she said. "All I know about wrestling is what we've done in four weeks of practice. I look at it like if I can improve a little each time, I'll be all right."
The main problem, of course, has been strength.
"I told her that she was going to have to get stronger," Shull said. "Her father already has gone and gotten her some weights."
She has been a quick study.
"If she just had a little more experience, she could be as good as some of the young guys on the team," said Bondurant, the 140-pounder.
Jeff Smith, the assistant coach, added: "I really wish that some of our guys had come to practice and listened as well and worked as hard as she has. She hasn't backed down from anybody, in practice or in the match."
Two potential sources of trouble never materialized. One was her teammates and one was her opponents.
"My teammates have been just great," she said. "They've tried to help me and they've all been very nice. They tease me, but there haven't been any sexually oriented remarks or anything like that. The worst they say to me is, `Oh, you wrestle like a girl.' "
"Her teammates have made this possible," Debby Bond said. "Before, it was kind of 50-50 as to how they would react."
Potentially, it could have been an ugly situation.
"The guys could have shunned her, given her the cold shoulder, they could have run her off in a heartbeat," Smith said. "But they didn't do it. They treated her like another one of the guys. I've been very proud of them."
Then there was the matter of her opponents. The first was Justin Hackler of George Wythe.
"I didn't know how to react," he said. "It was a different feeling. You're afraid to be too aggressive, or something, like you would be with a guy. You're afraid you might hurt her. But I was also afraid of making a mistake and maybe getting pinned."
It was she who got pinned, but not without a struggle.
"She's a lot more flexible than anybody I've ever wrestled," Hackler said. "She could do almost a complete split. I couldn't turn her over."
The feelings of the George Wythe coach, Frank Scott, seem to be typical of those who know of Radford's girl wrestler.
"She's got a lot of heart to do it," he said.
What of the future, assuming that she does return to the team next year?
Said Shull: "If she lifts weights and runs cross country next year to get ready, she just might beat somebody."