Greg Lindberg
Sports Editor
As it currently stands, the USF co-ed and women’s sailing teams are the only competitive athletic teams to compete against other schools at USF St. Petersburg. But a brand new team representing the campus appears to be on the horizon.
During the first week of the spring semester, the grappling club was born on campus. Grappling involves “overpowering your opponent to submit to you using different techniques,” according to Jonathan Jones, club president. It includes wrestling and some forms of mixed martial arts, such as jujitsu and judo.
Jones, an 18-year-old freshman finance major, has been passionate about wrestling and MMA since he was seven years old. He joined the wrestling team in middle school and wrestled all four years at Coral Reef Senior High School in Miami, where he was a state qualifier.
“I was always interested in contact sports,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to start this club here because they didn’t have anything like it and I wanted to keep at it.”
The Jamaican native had planned to go to USF Tampa until he attended a leadership retreat put on by the Lead-Learn-Serve program last year. There he realized he could create his own club at USF St. Petersburg and get fellow students involved in something he loves.
The grappling club currently has about 25 active members. Practices are held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the aerobics room of the fitness center.
Space for the club is currently limited due to the renovations on the Campus Activities Center into a larger student center. The club needs a 42-by-42-foot regulation foam mat to gain more members and become a sanctioned team on campus.
Student Government senator Mark Lombardi-Nelson, who is also a grappling club member, sponsored a bill to have SG buy a recreation mat that would cost $13,000. But the bill got “tabled”—or stuck—in a committee because of the high price. Lombardi-Nelson admits he took a chance with the bill because of the amount.
“I got a quote for a certain amount but didn’t take into account some of the circumstances on campus,” he said. “It’s not the easiest to pass a high-dollar bill. Being [a new club] always seems to limit things, but there is always a voice to say we need to support our clubs.”
SG President James Scott said that other locations at local gyms and high schools are being explored to provide the club with more space. He also thinks grappling could be a major sport on campus someday.
“We may end up supporting them [so they can] prove that they are worthy of us investing money in a mat,” Scott said. “We’ve got to give clubs the benefit of the doubt sometimes. The potential is there.”
Brett Lovell, 18, is an instructor for the club and has already taught several skills during the practice sessions. The freshman pre-med major owns black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Songahm Taekwondo. Lovell encourages all students looking to get in shape to come out to the practices to show support for the club.
“It’s constant moving, constant sweating,” said Lovell. “You’re going to be losing weight. It’s definitely more fun to throw somebody around than run on a treadmill.”
