The Bombshell
Shannon I were sorority sisters in college. White-blond hair and very sweet, she pledged the sorority during my sophomore year and in fact may havepledged as a sophomore (which was unusual then) but I may be remembering that wrong. I’d always suspected a wilder side; she had a tattoo on one of her butt-cheek which I thought was pretty scandalous. Not that she had a tattoo which in 1989 weren’t as ubiquitous as they are today but the fact that someone got that close to her butt-cheek. Then and now, I’d rather have a root canal than walk around naked in the locker room at the gym and yet there was Shannon with a tattoo on her butt. I want to say it was 0f a heart… but I might not be remembering that correctly. She was a beautiful girl but I wasn’t looking that close.
Shannon was on the Jayhawk’s dance team, a position that took her 3 seasons to earn and later became a cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs becominga Captain during her 5 seasons. I lost track of her after that but have wondered what became of her.
And then, through the miracle that is Facebook, another sorority sister forwarded a link to Shannon’s company.
I’ll admit that when I first got the link, it was with the same curious perversion normally reserved for car accidents and reality television that I perused every photo searching for some semblance of the Shannon that I remembered. 20 years changes us all, Shannon’s once lithe body now contorted by musculature such that I didn’t recognize her. I find that I am curious about what drives women to so radically change their appearances through power-lifting and, based on some of the photos I saw, contort their faces with liberal use of restylane, juvederm, collagen and botox and their chests with implants like bowling balls. Then I realized that it’s no different than gaining 100lbs which also changes your appearance in a totally different way.
This is the sport which (I think) ESPN 2 carries between the end of basketball and beginning of baseball season and features woman carved out of orange granite who perform high impact gymnastic acrobatics and represent the ideal female physical form.
I decided to blog about this because the spectrum of what is commonly accepted as attractive or beautiful about women can be bookended by Shannon and I. You’d never say that Shannon or her Bombshells are fat but I’m not sure how many men find over developed pectoral muscles supporting enormous breasts any more attractive than my soft belly and huge ass. Figure is clearly a huge passion of hers and she’s built up what appears to be a very lucrative business training other women in this sport while challenging the common definitions of beauty, femininity and strength. In this capacity, I suspect she is ever the Cheerleader- helping others reach dreams that I can’t begin to understand.
I’m proud of Shannon. Proud of her for pushing herself to the outmost limits of her physicality. Proud that she parlayed her life’s work into a sustaining career that includes 4 gyms and countless camps that travel around the country. Proud to have known her so many years ago when she was just a little girl from Olathe, Kansas.
I don’t get it, but I’m proud of her.
Oh. My. God.
I went to this website and clicked the enter button. This is one of the scariest websites on earth. What on earth are these women thinking?!?!?!?