Aimee Patricia Walker Pond (born March 10, 1983) is an American gymnast. A graduate of Brigham Young University, Pond has been involved in gymnastics since the age of eight. She is completely deaf and is blind in her right eye, making her one of a very few disabled gymnasts who have competed at the national level (another is Marie Roethlisberger). Some have compared her to Helen Keller to which Pond has responded "She's so wonderful, but I am glad I'm not Helen Keller, I'm so lucky- I have my one eye."[1]
When Pond was seven years old, she watched her cousins practicing at a gymnastics center, and asked her mother if she could take classes with them. The trainer rejected Pond because of her deafness, stating that she would not know how to communicate with or coach a deaf gymnast.[2][3][unreliable source?] At age eight, her mother enrolled her in classes,[4] instructing her not to use sign language in front of anyone. After the coach noticed Pond did not respond when spoken to, she talked to Pond's mother and said she would like Pond to be on the team.
Pond began her college career as a gymnast at the University of California, Los Angeles.[5] She transferred to BYU in 2005, redshirted a year, and then competed in 2006 and 2007. Walker did not compete in 2008 due to a shoulder injury.
Pond has competed at the national and international level in addition to her collegiate experiences. At the Junior Olympic National Championships in 1999, she placed 19th overall with event placements of 6th on floor and 9th on bars. Her career high scores are a 9.715 on vault, earned February 2, 2006, and a 9.825 on bars, earned March 9, 2007. She did not compete during the 2008 season due to a shoulder injury.[6]
At age 14, Pond had a role in the movie Little Girls in Pretty Boxes and reprised her role as Lili from Season 2 of Baywatch in season 9 Episode 10. She enjoys hiking, basketball, and spending time with her family, including her husband Derek Pond. She hopes to coach gymnastics and especially wishes to inspire other deaf gymnasts to succeed at advanced levels.[citation needed]
Pond was one of the listed performers on Harris Communications' Sign and Sing DVD of songs in sign language.[7]
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Anne Sullivan Macy was an American teacher best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller.
Carly Rae Patterson is an American singer, songwriter and former artistic gymnast. She was the all-around champion at the 2004 Olympics, the first all-around champion for the United States at a non-boycotted Olympics, and is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame.
Chellsie Marie Memmel is an American artistic gymnast. She is the 2005 world all-around champion and the 2003 world champion on the uneven bars. She was a member of the United States women's gymnastics team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.
Jamie Annette Dantzscher is an American former artistic gymnast. She was a member of the bronze medal-winning American team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
The BYU Cougars are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Brigham Young University (BYU), located in Provo, Utah. BYU fields 21 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) varsity athletic teams. They are a member of the Big 12 Conference for all sports except men's volleyball which is a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. They were a member of the West Coast Conference from 2011 to 2022. From 1999 to 2011 they were a member of the Mountain West Conference and before the formation of the MW, the Cougars competed in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the Mountain States Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference. BYU officially joined the Big 12 Conference on July 1, 2023.
Marie Roethlisberger, is a former gymnast who was a 1984 United States Olympic gymnastics alternate. She is almost completely deaf. She is the daughter of United States 1968 Olympic Gymnast Fred Roethlisberger and the sister of 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympic gymnast John Roethlisberger. She was selected as a 1991 NCAA Top VI Award winner as one of the six top NCAA student-athletes and the 1991 female Walter Byers Scholarship winner as the National Collegiate Athletic Association's top scholar-athlete.
Sophia Kindrick Alcorn was an educator who invented the Tadoma method of communication with people who are deaf and blind. She advocated for the rights of people with disabilities and upon retiring from her long career in teaching, she worked with the American Foundation for the Blind.
The 2004 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship was held in April 2004 and involved 12 schools competing for the national championship of women's NCAA Division I gymnastics. It was the twenty third NCAA gymnastics national championship. The defending NCAA Team Champion for 2003 was UCLA. The competition took place in Los Angeles, California hosted by the UCLA in Pauley Pavilion. The 2004 team championship was won by defending champion UCLA and the individual champion was Jeana Rice of Alabama, 39.650.
MyKayla Brooke Skinner Harmer is an American former artistic gymnast. She was the 2020 Olympic vault silver medalist and was an alternate for the 2016 Olympic team. Skinner competed at the 2014 World Championships where she contributed to the U.S. team's gold medal, also winning an individual bronze medal on vault. She won 11 total medals at the USA National Championships during her senior career. She also competed for the University of Utah's gymnastics team and was a two-time NCAA champion.
Darling Princess Hill is a retired American artistic gymnast. She was at the height of her career in 2008 and was a 2008 Olympic trialist.
Haben Girma is an American disability rights advocate, and the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School.
Aslaug Haviland, known as "Utah's Helen Keller" was a deaf and blind Norwegian woman who came to the United States at the age of 16 to attend the Perkins Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. She became a nationally renowned motivational speaker.
Maile O'Keefe is an American artistic gymnast. She was a member of the U.S. National Team and is the 2016 and 2017 U.S. Junior National Champion. She is the 2023 NCAA all-around champion as well as a 4x NCAA event champion.
Geraldine Jerrie Lawhorn was a figure of the American deafblind community, a performer, actress, pianist, then instructor at the Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired. At 67 years old, she became the first deafblind African American to earn a college degree in the United States of America.
Grace Catherine Kramer, known as Gracie Kramer, is a former American artistic gymnast who was a member of the UCLA Bruins gymnastics team from 2016 to 2020. Following her retirement in 2020, she joined the Utah State Aggies gymnastics team as a volunteer assistant coach.
Diane Ellingson Smith was an American gymnast, teacher, and inspirational speaker.
Georgina Kleege is an American writer and a professor of English at University of California, Berkeley. Kleege was diagnosed as legally blind, with macular degeneration, at age 11. Kleege has written classic essays and memoirs in the field of disability studies on blindness and teaches a range of classes at Cal Berkeley with a specialization in creative writing and disability studies. She is best known for her autobiographical collection of essays in 1999 with her book titled Sight Unseen, where she compared her view of the world to the world's view of blindness. Her work often explores the relationship of art, culture, technology, and disability.
Helen May Martin was an American pianist. Helen Keller called Martin "the most accomplished deaf and blind person in the world."
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