Students representing Texas A&M University-Kingsville attained third place, a historic finish in 10 years, at the 2019 Texas American College of Sports Medicine Student Bowl (Texas ACSM Student Bowl).
The event took place from Feb. 28 through March 1 at the Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. The student bowl involves 35 teams of undergraduates from universities all over Texas competing in a scholastic-jeopardy game devoted to exercise science and sports medicine topics.
“We’re just so proud of these students. They are our elite exercise science students, and they work so hard for six months, 6 a.m. practices and all that, for a chance to go up against the elite students from the rest of the universities in Texas. The competition is absolutely brutal, in front of hundreds of spectators, and our team performed exactly how we would expect a team from Javelina Nation to perform. They were awesome,” Christopher Hearon, chair of the department of health & kinesiology, said.
TAMUK’s team consisted of team captain Armando Gonzalez and fellow members, Alyssa Fick, Abbey Wells, Isaiah Culpepper and Isabel Soto. The five students had practice every other week starting from October and quickly became a tightly-knit group. Each member began to trust the other as they learned their strengths and weaknesses.
“Dr. Christopher Hearon offered me the position of Captain for this season and I owed it to my department, my professors, and my teammates to bring out the best of the team. It was never for me, I never wanted it to be for me. I took pride in serving the department that has done so much for us throughout my undergrad career. There is not enough praise in the world for them and professors that were with us every step of the way. Third place, first place, or last place, I’m so very proud of the team,” Gonzalez said.
The final standings for the bowl were as follows: 1. University of Texas, 2. University of Texas, 3. Texas A&M University-Kingsville, 4. University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, 5. Texas Christian University.
Texas ACSM is one of 12 regional chapters of the ACSM, which is the largest exercise science and sports medicine professional society in the world, with more than 70,000 members dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of the exercise sciences and sports medicine.
“Preparing for this competition, we focused on maximizing our strong areas and trusting each other to help in our individual weaknesses. Our ability to trust each other without question really helped us during the competition,” Fick said.