USU gymnasts preparing for upcoming home meet, want more student support
The founder and president of Utah State University’s Gymnastics Club, Ahseante Hicks, is proud of his club for many reasons: it has a laid-back atmosphere that attracts members of all skill levels, it allows students to participate in a dying sport and it provides competition opportunities through meets like an upcoming home meet in April.
The club spends fall semester training and then spring semester hosting competitions as well as traveling to them. The next competition will be a home meet on April 2, located at Cache Valley Athletics starting at 1 p.m. There is a $5 admittance fee that also comes with a raffle ticket to put in for prizes.
The club was started four years ago and began as an all-men gymnastics team. It was then expanded to be a co-ed team and now the total active members number 13. Hicks started the club because he wanted to get back into the sport, and at the time there was not much of an avenue for the sport for men.
“The purpose of the Utah State Gymnastics Club is to give students, men and women, who seek to better themselves physically and mentally, the opportunity to do so through the progressions of various trainings,” Hicks said. “This club consists of students with a wide range of skills from novice to highly advanced. Through this, leadership and greater student involvement is taught.”
The club’s atmosphere is positive and stress-free, which allows students from beginner levels through advanced to become members.
“When new students join, we assess where they are at as far as skill level, then we ask them where they would like to be and then we work on getting them to the level they would like to be at,” said Jake Howard, the vice president of USU’s Gymnastics Club. “We have had beginners make it to competing and finals, so any student in our club can go as far as they are willing or want to go as long as they work hard to accomplish their goals.”
Howard also said that most people, when first starting out, worry that they are not good enough, but being a beginner should not deter students. Everyone in the club coaches each other with no pressure of going beyond anyone’s comfort level.
“When I came to college, I wanted to find something like this club to help me develop more skills since I had only dabbled in the sport a little bit in high school,” said Jenyse Ikeno, a freshman at USU who is also a member of the gymnastics club. “This club is an affordable way for me to continue in this sport while I develop different skills from more experienced gymnasts in the club.”
Students that have an interest in gymnastics are welcome to come and check out the practices, Ikeno said. She also said that it is a great community and everyone is very nice and helpful, and that the club is a place for people to get together to improve their skills and to just have fun.
The club meets three times a week — Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays — for practices at Cache Valley Athletics from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Men have six different events that they practice and compete in, which includes the floor, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar. The women have four different events: the floor event, vault, uneven bars and balance beam.
Right now the club is trying to raise funds to cover expenses for nationals in Philadelphia. They have set up a donation page and are also doing a fundraiser at Buffalo Wild Wings on April 2. The club will receive 10 percent from every check from someone that brings up the USU Gymnastics Club while paying for their meal.
The club would like to thank everyone for their donations and support this season.
For more information on the USU Gymnastics Club please visit, www.facebook.com/usuclubgym.
For more information on donating to the club please visit, www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/6kb7.
— jillian.mccarthy@aggiemail.usu.edu