The sailing team has grown since last year, from 32 to 54 student athletes, with the addition of three recent walk ons.
Allison Jolly and Tim King are the coaches for the USF team, based at USF St. Petersburg. They allow students to join the sailing program, as participating members, with no prior sailing experience, as long as the student is full-time, can swim and is an undergraduate. However, not all students will get the chance to compete in races.
“You never know,” Jolly said. “The one that you cut might be the one you need.”
Jolly and King have been training students for several years now at USF. The team competes during the fall and spring semesters against other schools in the country for six different championships.
Jolly is entering her 11th year as the women’s coach for the Bulls and Tim King is in his third year as the co-ed coach.
All the women on King’s co-ed team are on Jolly’s women’s team. And all but one, who graduated, has returned to Jolly’s women’s team from last year.
During her tenure at USF, Jolly and her women’s team have qualified for national’s every year, except one.
Senior Reba Campbell, 20, has been on the team since her freshman year.
“I love it,” Campbell said. “It’s like a big family. Everyones really close.”
But sailing is not just sitting there, moving along the water carried by the wind without a care in the world.
The sailor must be active and mobile inside the boat, often times with a teammate, and can hurt themselves on any given day. You’ll see sailors jumping from one end of the boat to the other, with their bodies almost completely out of the boat, just to maneuver the boat in the desired direction.
“At this level of sailing, you get minor scrapes and lots of bruising on their legs,” King said.
“It’s a contact sport, only your contact is with the boat,” Jolly said.
The team may be required to wear helmets in the near future to prevent hitting their heads on the “boom” (the bottom of the sail).
This does not happen as often to the more experienced sailors and Jolly and King are coaching the students for the proper techniques in order to prevent such harm.
Jolly said meteorology is another passion of hers and goes hand-in-hand with sailing. The team will sail through rain or shine and sometimes even snow.
“Lightning is about the only thing that will keep us off the water,” Jolly said. “I’ve actually taken the team up to Massachusetts in a snowstorm.”
But the sailing team is more than just competing for championships. The coaches also enforce a minimum 2.5 GPA requirement for students to stay on the team. This provides the motivation to do just as well in the classroom as they would on the water.
The coaches hope to teach the students the necessary skills for them to succeed in whatever future they choose.
“Hopefully they’re here to get jobs and they and have some successful path in whatever their major was, but for a lot of them, sailing becomes a lifelong passion,” King said.
