Jaterra Bonds sat on the sidelines, watching her father coach a youth rec-league basketball game. Suddenly, he called her to come onto the court.
He was down a player, so he put his daughter in the game. Onlookers at the Martin Luther King Center on Waldo Road knew they were seeing something special.
Bonds was only 5 years old.
“Everybody must have loved me,” Bonds said. “Because they said, ‘That girl right there, she’s going to be good.’”
Now a senior in college, Bonds still has people in her hometown talking. She never left.
Bonds is one of 22 UF athletes who hail from Gainesville and the surrounding region, including four from Gainesville High and three from Santa Fe High.
Local athletes say campus and the city still feel like two separate towns.
But for residents, these hometown heroes are helping integrate the two communities.
“It’s like I’m living in two different worlds: on-campus and off-campus,” Bonds said.
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Havana Solaun liked the UF soccer program, but she hesitated to enroll at Florida because it was so close to her family’s farm on the outskirts of Gainesville.
“I didn’t want being in Gainesville to hold me back in any way,” she said.
But Solaun had a change of heart. Campus was on a different side of town — unfamiliar to her at the time — and seemed like “a totally different world.”
“It was the new start you want when you go to college,” she said. “I still got that.”
Solaun said she gets compliments in the grocery store and greetings in restaurants from fans congratulating her on a game well-played.
She enjoys that feeling.
“You definitely get the recognition in Publix and in random places around town,” Solaun said. “It’s comforting when you go out to dinner and see someone you know — familiar faces.”
Solaun, a junior who scored eight goals this season, spent many of her formative years traveling. When her mom remarried and landed the family on the farm, Solaun, a seventh-grader at the time, said she was excited about the change of scenery.
She milked cows, caught chickens and kept working on her soccer skills, but she had trouble adjusting to the area.
“I didn’t initially fall in love with it,” she said.
As she stood in sweats propped up on a pair of crutches, the psychology junior who suffered a recent ACL tear recalled how she missed living near the ocean. She had wanted to move out of state when she went to college and venture away from her family.
Later in high school, though, her affinity for the area began to build.
“When I saw Devil’s Millhopper and all the cool things Gainesville has to offer, I kind of started to fall in love with it more,” she said.
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Bonds, who is averaging a team-high 17.1 points per game this season, laughed when she admitted she gets local recognition. Sometimes she goes with her family to restaurants that have posters featuring her adorning the walls. She said people she does not know often approach her to talk or offer encouragement.
“It feels good, but I also learned that you have to be humble,” she said.
For Bonds and other hometown athletes, stepping into their role at UF lets them be in the middle of what the town revolves around: sports and academics.
“Honestly, there’s not much excitement in Gainesville besides the football and basketball games,” said Bonds, who likes to spend her free time shooting pool and playing Grand Theft Auto 5. “The college students — we make Gainesville. That’s really all it is.”
Havana Solaun heads the ball during UF’s 2-0 win against Texas A&M on Oct. 27 at James G. Pressly Stadium.
Despite not leading for the entire game, the Gators overcame a 16-point halftime deficit to shock the Hoyas. After tying the game at 58 at the end of regulation, Florida quickly took its first lead of the game on a three-point-play by senior Jaterra Bonds.
With the UF lead down to 66-65, Bonds, who scored a career-high 26 points in the game, drove hard to the basket and completed one of two fouls to cement the Gators 67-75 comeback victory.
