Former coach training for U.S. Senior Olympics
Posted on Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Bonnie Vines spent her working years coaching others, and now she's devoting her retirement to her own training.
The hard work paid off when she won a gold medal in shot put and a silver medal in discus Sept. 19 and 20 at the Senior Olympics state qualifier in Hot Springs. She is one of six Bella Vistans who competed in the Arkansas games.
Vines, 62, is now training for the National Senior Olympics.
"Everyone is so excited for me when they find out about my training for the Senior Olympics. I didn't expect that," she said.
The 2009 National Senior Olympics Games will be held next summer in the San Francisco Bay area. Organizers are expecting 12, 750 athletes to compete in 800 events, according to the official Web site www. 2009 seniorgames. org. Entrants must be at least 50 years of age.
The games feature individual events and team sports, events in which competitors earn medals and demonstration sports. The 18 medal sports include track and field events, golf, swimming, archery, bowling and shuffleboard. Among the demonstration activities are water polo, fencing and equestrian.
To qualify for the national games during the Arkansas Senior Olympics, Vines had to throw the shot put at least 24 feet and the discus at least 59 feet, 3 inches, or place within the top three. She qualified by placing first in the shot-put competition and second in discus.
After earning her gold and silver medals, she immediately started making plans to attend the competition in California next summer.
Vines had only been training for a month before the Hot Springs games, but she does have prior experience. In 1964, the then 16-year-old participated in the discus throw at the Amateur Athletic Union National Track and Field competition. If she had qualified, the next step would have been the Olympics, but she threw the discus out of bounds.
Her Olympic dream and the idea of competing faded into the background, but Vines feels she helped break new ground in women's sports.
Her training consists of throwing practice every other day and weightlifting on opposite days at Branchwood Recreation Center. She throws her shot put and discus near the softball field at Scotsdale.
The athlete didn't believe she needed a special diet for training, because she's always been involved in sports, but she did cut out sugar.
Throwing a shot put isn't as easy as it appears. "It weighs 6 pounds, which doesn't sound like that much, but it's heavy, isn't it ?"she said.
The discus weighs only 1. 6 pounds, but throwing it isn't much easier. Vines shared a story about teaching her sister.
"Now, the safest place to stand would be right in front of the thrower before she starts spinning, because she'll throw in the opposite direction, right ? Well, that's where I stood when I taught my little sister - and she hit me !"
Vines moved to Bella Vista from southern California three years ago, when she retired from teaching. She currently works part-time at the Bella Vista Country Club mowing greens.
"It's a shame more women aren't in this field," she said of the golf-course work. "A woman's eye is very helpful to manicure the course."
Vines earned a bachelor of science in physical education at California State Polytechnic College and her master's degree in education from National University in Costa Mesa, Calif. She was 57 years old when she graduated cum laude from NU in 2003.
Even as a little girl, Vines wanted to be a teacher. She fulfilled her dream and went on to teach physical education, as well as coach girls'and boys'track and girls'basketball, for 16 years.
Lorbeer Middle School in Diamond Bar, Calif., had the league champion girls'basketball team for eight years in a row while she was coaching, Vines said.
She helped organize track teams and women's sports in southern California high schools at a time when little was offered to girls, she said.
Her students nominated her for Who's Who Among America's Teachers three times - a rare honor, Vines said, because the students must be included in Who's Who before they are eligible to nominate a teacher. Vines'name is in the book for 2002, 2004 and 2005.
"Teaching was always my love. I was wrapped up in that and enjoy being single. Life is so good, and I have been blessed with so many things. Live, laugh, love - that's my motto."
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