 "Photo: Courtesy of Adam Gardner")
Some students like to play soccer or Texas Hold 'em in their free time. Some students volunteer or have part-time jobs.
Other students like to jump out of planes.
"It's an incredible sense of freedom," said Adam Gardner, a fifth-year accounting and global supply chain operations management student. "There's no safer way to hit 120 miles an hour."
Gardner is a member of Flying Gamecocks, USC's own skydiving club.
Four of the Flying Gamecocks travelled to Texas over winter break to compete in the National Collegiate Skydiving Competition.
"If you're a competitive kind of person, skydiving has a competition side to it," Gardner said. "The skydive competition was very, very cool."
John Scott, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, took home a silver medal in the novice category in sport accuracy competition.
"It was awesome," he said.
Students from all across the nation participated in a variety of events in the competition.
"We went out there with the expectation of meeting other collegiate skydivers and having a good time and in the mean time, we came home with a silver medal," Gardner said. "We were competing with skydivers all across the nation. It's a big thing for our school."
Scott made his first jump in 2005 and jumped once a year for four years. Last year, however, he increased to about 30 jumps.
"Everyone wants to skydive. Some people are scared, but they still want to skydive," Scott said. "They want to do it, but they're afraid of what might happen. It's an awesome feeling. The adrenaline rush is incredible."
During bad weather, the club practices in an indoor facility, using a fan to simulate the jump.
"You can jump into this tunnel and it's pretty much like you're skydiving. It generates 120 miles an hour wind. It's a great tool to train for free fall," Gardner said. "It's pretty much skydiving without the jumping out of the airplane, without the whole fear of heights and without having to deal with a parachute."
Gardner also said the indoor facility allows for competitive training.
"The learning curve from being in a wind tunnel is huge," he said. "When you jump out of an airplane, you deal with about 60 seconds. The good thing about a wind tunnel is you can work at two or three minutes."
The Flying Gamecocks have two more skydiving weekends this semester: March 21 and April 18. The last day to sign up for the March 21 event is March 4 and April 1 is the last day to sign up for the April 18 event.
The Flying Gamecocks meet Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in Gambrell, room 250. More information can be found on their Web site http://www.flyinggamecocks.com/.
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