Olympic weightlifting is more than just a hobby for Paul Bowling, it is something unique and special he shares with his wife.

“If we weren’t both on the team, we would hardly see each other,” Bowling, president of Sacramento State’s Olympic Weightlifting Club, said.

Bowling’s wife and training partner, Kathy Redcher-Bowling, Darcy Kellam, and Scott Salwasser will head for Atlanta, Ga. this weekend to compete in the American Open Championships, the second of two national tournaments hosted yearly by United States of America Weightlifting.

“Team Sacramento,” as the team has dubbed themselves, trains an average of 12 hours per week on top of holding down jobs and attending classes.

Bowling, who plans to teach Physical Education, qualified for the event by lifting a total of 287 kilograms. A senior at Sac State, he is scheduled to graduate this spring.

He had never heard of Olympic Weightlifting before enrolling at Sac State and credits Kathy with introducing him to it.

“After she had been on the team for about a year trying to get me to join, I finally did and we’ve been training partners ever since,” Paul said.

Kathy qualified for the Atlanta tournament with a total of 170 kilograms. She is a graduate student at Sac State and got her start lifting the same time in her college career as her husband. An injured gymnast who had near run out of eligibility, she took the suggestion of a peer to try weightlifting.

“I just love to compete, that’s why I came into weightlifting,” Kathy said.In the past six years Kathy has flourished, appearing in many tournaments and becoming the club’s first and only national champion last May lifting a total of 167.5 kilograms while injured with subluxations of the clavicle.

In addition, she was invited to take place in the Mermet Cup at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo. to compete on the United States team versus Australia.

Kellam qualified for the American Open with a total of 136 kilograms and like Kathy, is pursuing her graduate degree at Sac State. The Del Campo High School product returns to the Sacramento area after earning her undergraduate degree in kinesiology at San Francisco State University in 2002. She played basketball for the Golden Gators and holds the SFSU women’s basketball single game record for assists with 13.

Unlike her peers on the team, Kellam began weightlifting in high school under the direction of Steve Kenyon, an alumnus of the Sacramento State strength and conditioning program. However, she did not lift competitively until she began pursuing her graduate degree at Sac State. Since then she has competed in five tournaments but this is her first Nationals appearance.

“As long as I can stay calm, relax and focus I should do well,” Kellam said.

Kellam teaches weightlifting, serves as strength and conditioning coach for most of the athletic teams on campus and hopes to one day oversee her own program.

Also making his first national appearance is former UC Davis defensive end Scott Salwasser. He lifted 265 kilograms to qualify for the American Open. Salwasser was introduced to the sport by Bowling a last year when the two shared a sports psychology class.

The Olympic Weightlifting Club began at CSUS in 1990 under the direction of Dr. Bill Kutzer with only one lifter, then student Harry Theodor.

Theodor has since gone on to obtain a teaching credential and is now a lecturer of physical education at Sac State, works with the strength and conditioning program and coaches the weightlifters.

In Atlanta the team will compete against weightlifting programs from around the country. Among them, Team Savannah from Savannah, Ga. sent four lifters to the summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia in 2000 and swept both the men’s and women’s team competitions last May at the National Championships.

The Sac State women placed third in May and fourth in last year’s American Open.

“We all want to bring back another banner to tack on the wall,” Kellam said.