By Suzanne Keating
Staff Reporter
When Kia Kelly enrolled at Alfred E. Smith High School in 1992, she was determined to be on the gymnastics team, never mind that every one else on the team was a boy.
"I wanted to be a gymnast," Kelly said matter-of-factly. "There was no other way."
Kelly came to Smith, a vocational school in Melrose with 150 girls in a student body of 1,500, because she wanted hands-on training in engineering and drafting. Until last year, the school had no girls' sports teams. Instead, girls who wanted to compete had to join boys' teams and only a handful did so.
Since then, the school has established volleyball, cross country, track and handball teams for girls, though only about 20 take part.
School administrators say they lack the coaches and gym space to begin girls' tennis, basketball and gym teams. So instead of practicing on the balance beam, a female event, Kelly was refining her moves on the side horse, a male event, last week.
Smith gymnastics coach Everett Bonan recalled Kelly's first day on the side horse, which is a male event.
"They're supposed to hold themselves up," he said. "Kia kept slipping, but she wouldn't fall off. She held on for dear life."
Nevertheless, Kelly made the cut and is now in her third season as the only girl competing on the Smith gymnastics team.
"She's crazy strong," said George Medina, a teammate, as he watched Kelly perform scissor cuts on the side horse.
Kelly said the boys on her team have welcomed her. "They are respectful," she said. "As the days and practices piled up I started to feel like a member of the team."
The remarkable tenacity Kelly demonstrated as a freshman was not limited to gymnastics. The 16-year-old junior has a brown belt in tae kwon do, is second in her class academically, and is ranked third in her boroughwide division in doubles tennis -- for the boys' team.
Tennis coach Ron Woods said he's caught some grief over letting girls play in hotly contested matches against all-boys teams. "Soon the guys realize what an asset Kia is the team," he said. "It motivates the guys to see how well a girl can play."
Only 25 percent of female high school seniors exercise regularly, compared with 50 percent of male seniors, according to recent research by the federal Centers for Disease Control. Another study found that urban girls are less likely to be athletes than their suburban counterparts -- all the more true for children of newer immigrants, who are often expected to care for younger children rather than play sports.
Woods said most girls arrive at Smith without a developed interest in athletics, because "in athletic programs in some of the junior high schools, the girls are allowed to be bumps on logs," he said. "They are left like that unless they have an innate thirst for sports."