Developing passion for playing pool enables West Virginia’s Bonds to become national champion

QUINCY — Derrick Bonds recalled the date instantly.

“It was July 24, 2011,” Bonds said.

That was the day Bonds, an avid motocross racer from Beckley, W. Va., was involved in a horrific accident at a local track.

“I wrecked off the side of a jump,” Bonds said. “The bike landed on me and broke my back.”

The accident did permanent damage.

“It paralyzed me from the chest down,” Bonds said.

In the midst of the anguish that resulted from no longer being able to ride, Bonds found a new obsession, one he had stayed far away from as a kid — pool.

“I actually hated it,” Bonds said. “My dad played it when he was growing up. We always had a table in the house, but I never liked it. I always wanted to go outside. I was one of those kids.”

That changed when Bonds, now 30 years old, turned 18.

“My dad (Bryan Bonds) put me in this little bar tournament,” Bonds said. “I didn’t even want to play in it. He was like, ‘Well, I’m putting you in it. It’s $5.’”

Bonds fared well considering his apprehension.

“I thought I was pretty good back then because I got second at this little bar,” Bonds said.

As it turned out, he was more than pretty good. Bonds began playing competitively six years later, participating in — and winning — several local and state tournaments. He won two West Virginia Moose Lodge 8-ball state championships, as well as a 9-ball title. He also won a Billiard Congress of America 10-ball Ohio State Championship, but until this week, Bonds had never competed in a wheelchair national tournament.

Now, he is a national champion. Bonds rallied from down 3-1 and won four consecutive games to beat wheelchair pool legend Charlie Hans 5-3 and capture the BCA Wheelchair 8-ball National Championship Tuesday at the Oakley-Lindsay Center.

“At some point, you just have to free stroke,” Bonds said. “You just have to go for it, and it either works or it doesn’t. It happened to work in my favor. I just kind of switched the momentum and held onto it as long as I could, and it worked out.”

Bonds adopted that free-and-easy attitude from the beginning.

“With big events like this, I try really hard not to have expectations,” Bonds said. “I come in, just play my game and hope good things happen.”

That is exactly what happened.

“It’s pretty sweet,” Bonds said.

This was also Bonds’ first trip to Quincy. It marks the farthest west besides Las Vegas that he has traveled for a pool tournament, and he has grown fond of the Gem City.

“I like it,” Bonds said. “I do a little photography on the side, and I went over to the bridge and took some cool pictures. It’s nice.”

A sport that Bonds had little to no interest in as a kid has transformed into his passion, in part because of a day that changed his life for what he thought at the time were all the worst reasons.

It also took a little motivation from his father.

“I never saw the competitive side of it until he put me in that one tournament,” Bonds said. “I never really saw this side of it when I was racing because all I cared about was motorcycles and that kind of stuff. I never thought I’d be anywhere near this kind of stuff, but I got obsessed with it and here we are.”

Now, Bonds feels compelled to defend his title.

“I’m going to try to be back next year,” Bonds said.