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Ward moves from basketball to boxing
Updated: Saturday February 03, 2001 1:36 AM
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Vonda Ward is acknowledged as one of the best female basketball players ever in Ohio. Now she wants to leave her mark in a different sport. Ward, 27, quickly has become one of the nation's top female boxers. She has won all 10 of her professional bouts by knockout. She passed the stiffest challenge of her career Friday night with a victory in a heavyweight match against No. 1 contender Keisha Snow at the Ohio State Fairgrounds. Now Ward hopes to get a title shot. "I think sooner or later, someone will give me a shot at a heavyweight title," said Ward, the daughter of former harness rider Larry Ward. "I believe this bout will help elevate women's boxing. It's a chance for us to show that we're fighters with skill and that we're not just brawlers. "Hopefully, we can put on a good show," Ward added. "It's important that the sport is getting more good athletes."
The 6-foot-5 Ward twice was selected as The Associated Press Ms. Basketball during her playing days at Garfield Heights Trinity. From there she went on to Tennessee, one of the nation's most successful women's programs, where she had a solid if unspectacular career. Ward followed that with one-year stints of professional basketball in Germany and with the Colorado Xplosion of the defunct American Basketball League. She still is contacted by coaches in both the WNBA and Europe. While she hasn't ruled out the possibility of returning to basketball, she has committed to winning a boxing title. In her quest to reach that goal, Ward purchased World Gym in Macedonia, enabling her to spend as much time as possible in preparing for matches. Ward, who earned a degree in sports management and marketing from Kent State, insists that boxing isn't a passing fancy. She puts in nearly 20 rounds of shadow boxing and sparring every day in a small ring. "I just started working on the bag in the gym one day, and my manager noticed that I had natural ability," she said. "Then he said there's a possibility of me pursuing this professionally. "I was ready for a new challenge after playing basketball my entire life. I had always been interested in boxing. "Even when I was a little kid, I had a boxing bag at home," Ward said. "It's a very respectable sport, and it requires the same kind of commitment and dedication as basketball." She skipped amateur boxing and won her first bout -- a first-round knockout of Faye Steffen -- on Jan. 15, 2000. At 190 pounds, Ward can fight as either a cruiserweight or heavyweight. She prefers the heavyweight division, because it's where she feels more comfortable and it's likely to be the most lucrative. "I think in the long run, the heavyweight division will be the showcase division," she said. "But there are a lot of women who are going down in weight."
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