Spring Break
41 titles in 45 years; judo club hungry for another gold
Rainier Ramirez
Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: Sports
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Out of the 45 years the National Collegiate Championships has been held, the SJSU judo team has won the title 41 times, according to judo team's Web site.
Andy Hung, a senior in business management and captain of the Judo team, said he has high hopes for the collegiate nationals.
"We won it last year, so hopefully we will win it again," Hung said. "This is my last collegiate, so I want to go out with a bang, with a win."
Even though the team is young, the members have a lot of experience, Hung said.
"We train five to six days a week, pretty much all year round ... we have no season," said head coach Chuck Jefferson. "The team focuses on the college national tournament, but our goal is also to put people on the Olympic team."
According to Jefferson, in addition to facing against other collegiate programs, the team regularly goes against Olympic training centers.
"In the next year and a half we have a few people that have a good chance to make it into the Olympic trials and possibly make the Olympic team," Jefferson said.
The objective in judo is to throw one's opponent to the ground, and to subdue him or her using a variety of maneuvers, according to Davor Vasiljeviz, a senior majoring in kinesiology
"It's basically kind of like wrestling except with a uniform," Vasiljeviz said. "The point is to throw your opponent flat on his back, with force and control. If you do that, then the match is over and you win by a full point. If you get on the ground, then you continue to try and pin, choke or arm bar the opponent."
Unlike other fighting sports striking your opponent, like in boxing, is not allowed in judo, according to Tabitha Lum, a sophomore majoring in elementary education.
"It's not so much about hitting the other person," Lum said. "It's the technique used to get the other person on their back."
The judo team dominated the competition at the San Jose Buddhist Sensei Memorial Tournament, which was held in the Event Center on February 11. Winning a total of 13 medals, including seven golds, the team won the overall tournament by a large margin.
Hung, one of the gold medal winners in that tournament had to fight against his teammate in the final round.
"That was the hardest fight because we basically practice all the time together," Hung said. "He knows what I do, I know what he does."
Even though Hung won in the end, he said it could have easily gone the other way.
It happens frequently in tournaments that members of the judo team end up having to fight against one another, Hung said.
According to usajudo.com, San Jose State University was named a USA Judo National Training site last month. The team will now receive funding from the U.S. Olympic Committee to increase its capabilities of training Olympic hopefuls.
USA judo, the U.S. Olympic headquarters for judo, considers the coaching staff as being one of the strongest in the country. Coach Yosh Uchida, who started the program at SJSU in 1946 and was the first U.S. Olympic judo coach in 1964, is considered to be the father of modern American judo.
Chuck Jefferson is a two-time Pan American Champion and coaches alongside alumni Mike Swain, who is a former world champion and four-time Olympian.
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