2 UTRGV athletes near end of collegiate careers

Karina Rodriguez| THE RIDER

As the semester comes to an end, UTRGV Athletics is preparing to lose two great athletes, Desirea Buerge and Luca Portelli, as graduation approaches.

UTRGV Women’s Track & Field thrower Desirea Buerge is a graduate student pursuing a master of science in health sciences. 

Buerge said her favorite part about being a collegiate athlete is honing in on leadership skills.

“My favorite part about being a student athlete was being able to use my time-management skills but also be able to be a leader to the incoming freshmen and underclassmen to help show them how to be a better performer,” she said. 

Buerge said she plans to continue her education in nursing after she graduates. 

“My plans for after college is to go to nursing school and to finally become a [neonatal intensive care unit] nurse because growing up, I have seen how nurses have impacted my life,” she said. “Not only just seeing how they worked with my grandpa when he got ill, but also seeing how in the NICU they worked with my cousin when he came up full term but had collapsed lungs.” 

UTRGV Assistant Track & Field Coach Bradley Foote said Buerge is a hard worker.

“She’s just a workhorse,” Foote said. “That’s the best thing that I can say about her, is that she just learned. She goes into everything, you know, very hard. … I will never get on somebody for going too hard. I’d rather have the reason to tell her to back off than say, ‘Put the foot down on the gas pedal.’”

UTRGV Men’s Golf player Luca Portelli is a graduate student pursuing a master’s in business administration. 

Portelli was one of the first five freshmen who started the UTRGV golf program when it first began and has participated in all seven tournament wins.

He plans on continuing his golf career after graduation.

“I’m going to go professional right after I finish this summer and then go start playing professional tournaments,” Portelli said. “I already have a schedule of the tournaments [that I] am going to play.” 

He said Kobe Bryant has always been his sports idol.

“It’s always been Kobe Bryant for me,” said Portelli, a native of Milan. “He lived in Italy for a long time, so we consider him half Italian. Yeah, I grew up watching him and taking him as an inspiration. And, you know, [even] today, I always listen to his interviews or watch his videos and stuff like that.”

UTRGV Men’s Golf Coach Philip Tate said his favorite memory of Portelli was in California.

“I remember, I think it might have been his freshman year or something like that,” Tate said. “We were fortunate enough to travel to California and walk through Los Angeles. It was just fun to kind of spend some time with the guys and Luca, especially. We went to an Italian restaurant. He hadn’t been home in a while and so to go to a nice Italian restaurant and get some good Italian food [was] good.” 

The golf coach offered advice on how Portelli should approach the end of his collegiate career. 

“It’s run through the finish line,” Tate said. “We have a lot of work left to do and if you take one step short of that finish line, you’re going to regret it because you’re going to leave a stroke out there on the golf course or a test unfinished or something more that [could be] done.”