World class jump roper also a UNC student

If you ask Mary Hunter Benton if she played sports in high school, she doesn’t know where to start with her answer.

After traveling all over the world performing, competing and training with the Bouncing Bulldogs rope skipping team, she said jumping rope has changed her life.

“It’s a lot more than just a sport,” said Benton, who is originally from Chapel Hill.

When she started at age 7, her coach recognized her potential to be a world champion if she worked at it.

Now 19 years old and a sophomore at UNC, Benton has done just that.

“She is so focused that when she sets her sights on a goal, it’s hard to tear her off it,” said her father, Glenn Benton.

With a laundry basket full of national and world championship medals to prove it, Mary Hunter Benton earned the chance to travel internationally with the team, including taking a senior trip to England, Denmark and Sweden, starting a team in a township in South Africa and performing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Her father, who traveled with her to many competitions, said his proudest moment was seeing her on the Top 10 Plays of the Day on ESPN after a national championship.

“When she was on that and playing on the loop every hour on the hour, that’s when Dad was really proud,” he said.

Many people use jump rope to cross-train for other sports, but the jumpers on teams like the Bouncing Bulldogs have taken it to a new level, combining dance and gymnastics with single and double rope skipping.

Jumpers in about 30 countries participate in the world competition in speed, freestyle, endurance and artistic categories.

“It’s an evolving sport,” Mary Hunter Benton said. “One year you come up with something and perform it at nationals and then you see other people doing it the next year.”

With about 150 members, the Bouncing Bulldogs is considered one of the best teams in the nation, having won the national competition for the past 7 years.

Mary Hunter Benton points to the team’s emphasis on senior leadership as a big part of its continued success.

“Everything we learned we learned from the older kids,” she said. “When we grow up, we owe it to the kids below us.

“I’ve always been motivated to help kids that are younger than me, however that may be.”

Although she is double majoring in biology and Spanish and a member of the UNC chapter of Tri Delta sorority, Benton still goes to practice twice a week and leads the team in running the steps at Kenan Memorial Stadium each week.

Benton still practices at home in front of her house mates, but she said this will probably be her last year competing as she is turning her focus to school and involvement on campus.

“When I go back to practice, it reminds me that there’s a lot more than just having fun in college,” she said.

Luke Riley, a 12-year-old who joined the team 7 years ago, directly benefited from Benton’s dedication to the team. She and Riley competed together at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, N.Y., December 2009.

“She’s a great teacher,” Riley said. “She helps you out, and whether you did good or bad, she helps you think you did good.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.