Thursday, April 24, 1997

Kimuyu loves his sport and it shows

By MARK WILSON

Staff Writer

HALTOM CITY - As the Abilene High boys gymnastics team enters the state meet beginning today, only a few facts are certain.

The Eagles are healthy, and have almost no pressure coming in as the sixth-ranked team in the state from their performance that earned them second place in the Region III meet.

The other fact is that regional all-around champion Mark Kimuyu will enjoy competing, and show it with an infectious smile.

"That's just Mark," said AHS boys coach Bob Sanderson. "He's a very happy natured person. He enjoys life. He enjoys competing."

With the honoring of Jackie Robinson for breaking the color barrier in major league baseball and Tiger Woods becoming a dominant golfer, Kimuyu's emergence in gymnastics also deserves attention. Kimuyu - a native of Kenya - isn't the only black gymnast around, but the percentage is relatively low.

Kimuyu - perhaps like Woods - simply saw a sport he was interested in and got involved without pondering any deep meaning to society.

"I'm just really proud, I guess," Kimuyu said of seeing Woods' performance in the Masters. "He wanted to do something and he's doing it. That's why I look up to Tiger Woods."

Sanderson said, "The percentages (of blacks) are lower in gymnastics than in a lot of other sports. It's, I think, more of an exposure thing than a performance thing."

Kimuyu - whose father, Solomon, will begin teaching the Kenyan language Swahili this fall at Abilene Christian University - isn't preoccupied with being one of the few black gymnasts around. But he did say, "If you're the only one there, you're going to have to do good."

Sanderson said, "Mark's a people person. He doesn't care where you come from. I think more of our society needs to be like that."

Kimuyu has noticed others who have done well such as former UCLA competitor Chaney Humphrey. When he was in the eighth grade, Kimuyu was impressed by a former black gymnast at Abilene High, Calvin Abor.

"It was pretty cool, and I wanted to do it," said Kimuyu, whose family moved to Abilene from Kenya when he was three years old. "I just wanted to do the skills he did. He was throwing some cool stuff."

Abilene High had a black high-school all-American gymnast, Jerome Whitmill, in 1987, and Adam Harris was a senior black gymnast with the Eagles the previous year.

In the regional meet, the Eagles used a strong showing in the optionals to move up from third to take second place behind Odessa Permian. The Eagles' regional score of 327.5 is nine points lower than the top-ranked team, Lake Highlands. Euless Trinity is ranked second and Bryan third.

Roland Reyes and Brandon Cribbs combine with Kimuyu to form the senior core that leads the Eagles. Cribbs led in the regional all-around after the compulsories, and finished third. Reyes ended up fourth in floor exercise and tied for fourth in rings and vault.

"It's pretty much like they're brothers to me," Kimuyu said of Reyes, who is Hispanic, and Cribbs, who is white.

"Our seniors are a real good nucleus for this team," Sanderson said. "Their maturity and experience is what's going to pay off this weekend. They've been to the state meet before, and they're experienced with that type of competition.

"We want to perform our best and if we do something from that, that's OK. Realistically, third place is not out of the question. First or second is possible, but quite a bit more difficult. I think they're real excited about their chances."

The AHS girls also qualified for the state meet by finishing fourth in the regional meet, but won't be at full strength.

Leading the way for the Lady Eagles, who are ranked No. 11 in the state, will be juniors Kelley Pollan and Darla Smith. Pollan tied for 13th in the regional all-around, and Darla Smith tied for 16th.

The Lady Eagles will have to perform without two gymnasts who are academically ineligible, including senior Kayla Smith, who was eighth in the regional all-around.

AHS freshman Kelly Adrian, who injured a knee the day before the regional meet, is out and plans to have arthroscopic surgery on her knee next week.

"The girls are not going down there expecting to win. They're expecting to have a good time and be glad that we qualified," Reynolds said.

Defending state team champion Round Rock, the Region II winner, and Rockwall, the Region I champion, head a strong girls field this year. L.D. Bell and Richardson Berkner also had regional scores of at least 228 points out of a possible 240.

Cooper is sending four boys to the state meet - all-arounder Marc Simpao, David Brigham in vault, Ryan Sparks in parallel bars and Steve Batchelder in pommel horse.

As a team, the Cooper boys missed qualifying as a team when they finished regional with 298 points, two points shy of the minimum score.

At the regional meet, Simpao took seventh in the all-around, Brigham tied for fourth in vault, Sparks was seventh in parallel bars and Batchelder was eighth on pommel horse.

"We are looking forward to going to the state meet, and being part of the state meet," Cooper boys coach Bob McKinney said. "We hope to represent Cooper High School as well as we can."

The only two Cooper girls who qualified were Jill Doty in the all-around and Kristi Dozier on balance beam.

Doty placed fourth in the all-around at the regional meet with 73.925 points. Dozier took fourth in balance beam at the regionals, just behind Doty.

"We're just going to go have fun," first-year Cooper coach Eric Briley said. "If they hit their routines, they have a good chance of being in the finals.

State gymnastics meet

n When: Today - compulsories (girls at noon, boys at 6 p.m.); Friday - optionals (girls at noon, boys at 6 p.m.); Saturday - individual finals (girls and boys both at 11 a.m.).

n Where: Birdwell Coliseum, Haltom City