Badminton Star Remembers Team’s Time Out for Terror

The gym in Lima, Peru, was dark as Joy Kitzmiller and her U. S. teammates huddled at midcourt, surrounded by armed guards. A bomb threat and subsequent terrorist attack on three electrical towers had brought the 1987 Pan-American Badminton Championships to a halt.

“The first thing we did was get together,” said Kitzmiller. “You didn’t want to be alone in there. It just gives you goose bumps.”

They waited, and eventually the power came on. For Kitzmiller, 23, it was a momentary interruption in a life that has been preoccupied by badminton.

At age 7, Kitzmiller was on the court in a Manhattan Beach junior badminton program. She continued her play at Aviation High and served as player/coach for Stanford’s badminton club.

Kitzmiller’s indoor badminton, which will be an exhibition sport in the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in South Korea, is faster and more aggressive than the backyard version played by many Americans.

Kitzmiller, who lives in Manhattan Beach, hopes that the Olympics will give badminton the credibility it needs to raise its low profile.

“The lack of popularity and lack of exposure have hindered the sport because we can’t get good corporate sponsors,” Kitzmiller said. “But badminton will grow because it’s fun,

it’s cheap to play for high school students, and it doesn’t depend on weather conditions.”

Kitzmiller was named women’s badminton athlete of 1987 by the U. S. Olympic Organizing Committee.

“Down in the close games she has that extreme mental toughness that carries her through,” said Tariq Wadood, Kitzmiller’s coach.

That toughness helped Kitzmiller earn a degree in theoretical mathematics from Stanford in 1987, while still coaching and playing for the school. She said the energy she put into her studies improved her game.

“I wasn’t thinking about badminton all the time anymore, unlike high school where badminton was my life,” said Kitzmiller. “When I got to college, I had other diversions. When I went out on the court I was much more relaxed.”

Kitzmiller’s opponents argue that she is anything but relaxed.

“She is mentally strong and fast,” said Katarina Skole, who lost to Kitzmiller in the Uber Cup tryouts, which is equivalent to tennis’ Davis Cup. “She gets fired up and angry at herself but it helps her play better.”

Kitzmiller attributes her No. 1 ranking in U. S. women’s singles by the U. S. Badminton Assn. to her hatred of losing.

“It is a sense of relief when I win,” she said. “When I lose, it is a disaster.”

But Kitzmiller admits that the time she has spent playing badminton has taken a toll on her search for a career.

“In a job interview, although I have a good education and I’m probably capable of a lot of things, I feel like I haven’t had that class in that particular computer language and there is no way I can do it. I feel like they sense that.”

Kitzmiller is a substitute math teacher in the Los Angeles County school system but fears she will have to give up badminton when she finds a full-time position.

“I think when I stop playing badminton I wouldn’t be able to play competitively again because I couldn’t win,” Kitzmiller said. “If I got a full--time career I would put a lot of energy toward that. I would be just as obsessed with it as I was with badminton. I have to be obsessed with something.”