Coming to UWSP… Parkour Club!
Flip Johnson runs through a parkour routine while visiting Denmark. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Coming to UWSP… Parkour Club!

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point club sports department announced over Easter weekend that it will field a parkour club in the fall of 2018.

After months of deliberation, the club sports committee unanimously approved a proposal brought forth by students to officially add parkour to the school’s list of club sport offerings.

Students like Flip Johnson, junior physical education major and Parkour Club president, expressed their elation upon hearing the news.

“It’s incredibly exciting news,” Johnson said after the announcement on March 30. “I started my parkour journey five years ago along with my friend Anthony after watching a documentary about it and since those days I have always longed for a community of fellow parkour competitors to connect with, and now–in a little over five months–I’ll finally have that opportunity.”

Donna Dangerfield, sophomore chemistry major, is another student who campaigned to bring the club to UWSP.

Dangerfield says her interest in the sport initially began several years ago after the subject was broached on one of her all-time favorite television shows.

“When I saw the episode of ‘The Office’ where Michael and Dwight did parkour throughout the office, I knew that it was something I wanted to do,” Dangerfield said. “I’ve always struggled to find outlets for self-expression, but after discovering parkour, I finally feel like I have the perfect canvas to convey my identity.”

The idea for the club was originally conceived by Johnson two years ago after he heard about a similar team that was started at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Johnson, with his intense passion for the sport and desire to connect with others who share his love for parkour, was inspired to start a similar team on his own campus.

“When I started college at UWSP, I was disappointed to find that such a community did not already exist and that’s what motivated me to push for a parkour club here on campus,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that he had spoke with many students on campus about the possibility of a parkour club before he drafted the proposal and was surprised by the amount of support he got for the idea.

Johnson also said there were plenty of students who were unfamiliar with the sport–a response to which he replied thusly:

“The goal of parkour is to get from point A to point B in the most creative way possible,” Johnson explained, while also elaborating on the profound meaning of the sport to his own life.

“I think parkour is so appealing to me because I see it as analogous to life… As in life, in parkour we have to navigate many different obstacles and sometimes those obstacles become increasingly difficult for us to handle, but despite that we have to keep pushing ourselves to think creatively about ways that we can maneuver around these things that are put in front of us,” Johnson said.

When UWSP’s parkour club opens competition in September, it will become only the second university in the United States to field a competitive parkour team–the first of which was the University of Wisconsin-Stout whose team was founded in 2016.

Membership will be open to all UWSP students.

 

Michael Scott

Parkour Enthusiast

theofficerox@parkourwithdwightandmike.com

 

*This article was featured in the Pointless April Fools 2018 issue of The Pointer and is completely satirical with the creative license at the discretion of the author. We hope you enjoyed this comical read.* 

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