Throughout this academic year, The Rider will explore the student organizations at UTRGV. This is the 15th in our series. The Rider interviewed Vice President Tanner Wilson.
President: Cheyenne Miller
Vice President: Tanner Wilson
Treasurer: Fernando Urcullu
Advisers: Lecturer Eric Martinez and Associate Professor Robert Schweller
As an organization, what do you plan to accomplish? “To answer that, I have to kind of go where we started back in 2012. We were really just an informal club. We didn’t have any goals, really. We just were a bunch of guys sparring together on a mat, with little experience. Over time, we kind of shaped it into a club. The main purpose was to get people interested into Brazilian jiujitsu, creating the groundworks for formal lessons of jiujitsu. Now it’s just a really established club. It’s completely student led.”
What is your focus? “Every lesson we do is catered towards someone who has no clue what they are doing. So, we want to bring in women who [are] interested in self-defense. We also want to bring people, like Cheyenne, who are interested [in] competing at the highest level.”
What are the membership requirements? “We don’t have any requirements. There is no GPA requirement, or anything like that.”
Meetings: 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at the indoor basketball courts in University Recreation on the Edinburg campus.
Facebook: Valley BJJ club
Email: TannerJWilson@outlook.com
–Compiled by Jorge Abundiz
