USU hosts first-ever Aggie Cup to connect alumni, students
Utah State University recently held its first-ever Aggie Cup, a pickleball tournament for both current USU students and Aggie alumni. With two different tournaments with various skill levels and an opportunity to play ping pong with USU President Brad L. Mortensen, the Aggie Cup was full of activities for students to meet alumni in Cache Valley.
The event was hosted by the USU Alumni Association on April 8. Whitney Boudrero, senior director for alumni engagement, shared about how often Cache Valley gets forgotten about when it comes to hosting alumni activities, despite the fact it has one of the highest concentrations of USU alumni.
“We’re always looking for fun ways to engage our alumni. We’ve held pickleball events in Vegas before, so we just started kicking around the idea of how much fun it would be to do one in Logan,” Boudrero said. “We’re always looking for different ways to reach different groups of people, and we figured pickleball is something that people get pretty passionate about — kind of like a golf tournament but pickleball style.”
While the pickleball tournaments, featuring a partnership with local company Holbrook Pickleball, were the highlight for the majority of attendees, the alumni association wanted to allow students to connect with alumni. With alumni donors in attendance, students had opportunities to make connections.
The alumni association invited alumni to attend and recruited the USU Pickleball Club to help get students in attendance as well. Combined, they were able to fill up both tournaments with 16 teams in each tournament. Some attendees were veterans of the local pickleball scene, while others were playing in a competitive scene for the first time.
“The tournament has been super fun. This is my first tournament ever, so at first, it was super nerve-racking, but then I remembered how I play, and I was able to play better,” said senior Lily Hufford. “We’ve only won about half our games, but it’s been a lot of fun. I feel like we’ve had some really good games to play in.”
Along with the pickleball tournaments, USU President Mortensen attended the event between tournaments to play ping pong with the students and alumni present.
Boudrero said one of the main goals of the event was to have fun, so she asked Mortensen if he would be interested in playing pickleball. He responded that he was good at ping pong.
“We got everything planned with the Picklr. We discovered they had two ping pong tables and decided ping pong would be a lot of fun,” Boudrero said. “I think it shows our new leadership is really trying to be genuine, authentic, and connect with people. So, we thought that ping pong with the president would be a fun way for that to happen.”
The Aggie Cup served as more than just a day of competition but as an opportunity for students and alumni to connect and share their Aggie spirit. Boudrero said the alumni association hopes the Aggie Cup can become a regular event, helping to continue to grow the connection between the students and the alumni in Cache Valley.