Dancing Vaqueras

With more than 1,400 likes and 486 retweets on a video posted on Twitter, the UTRGV Women’s Volleyball Team became an overnight sensation dancing to “Fergalicious” during warmup, which features a rapping player.

The idea originated from Assistant Coach Vini Baigan. He told the Vaqueras he wanted to develop a cool warmup for the new year, and they agreed.

Senior captain Alexandra Ecker said she agreed with the idea right away because it meant replacing the team’s old dynamic workout.

“We used to do, like, a really boring warmup, called dynamic warmup, and we’ve done it since my sophomore year, so we used to get really bored of it,” Ecker said. “We just thought it’d be fun to incorporate kind of a Zumba-type dance or something for warmup, just to switch it up and have fun during warmup.” 

After the idea was presented, the team developed a “dance committee,” led by senior Gyselle Zayas, junior Barbara Silva and freshman Carter Helmcamp. The three Vaqueras are usually seen leading the team in the dance. 

When trying to come up with dance moves, the committee knew it had to incorporate jumping to get their heartbeat going and lunges to replace traditional stretching. Within a week, the committee had already developed a dance. 

The team dances to Shakira’s “Waka Waka” and Fergie’s “Fergalicious,” among others.

Aside from dancing, the team also has a rapper, junior Paulina Ramirez. Ramirez said she began singing for the team when there was no music for stretching.

“We went to Utah State University Invitational Tournament, we asked for music and then there wasn’t any when we were about to start,” Ramirez said. “We always start like 15 minutes before, so we were like, ‘OK, we are just going to start it without anything.’

“But, then I don’t know. I just, like, went up to the dudes and I was just, like, ‘Since you don’t have music, can I have a microphone?’ and I would just sing the songs. I just started singing ‘Party in the USA.’”

From that moment on,  the team decided that if there was no music, then Ramirez would be in charge of singing.

If you would like to see the Vaqueras’ unique warmup, catch them in action at one of their games. Their next home game is at 7 p.m. Saturday against New Mexico State University.