B INNEKILL Vol. XXIX No. 14
a monthly publication for students, faculty, staff and friends
Sept. 12, 2012
Student Olympian reflects on journey to London 2012 games This week, Kyle Vashkulat, a Business Administration major at SCCC, plans to take a short plane ride to meet up with friends and have some pictures taken. The friends will be fellow members of the United States Men’s Judo Team who competed in the 2012 Olympics in London this summer. The plane ride will be to Washington, D.C., and the photos will be of Kyle and the other U.S. Olympians with President Barack Obama. Kyle plans to leave on Thursday to attend a meet and greet with the President on the White House lawn, followed by a private tour of the White House, a reward for the Olympians who represented the U.S. in the 30th Olympiad in London in July and August 2012. Kyle, who has taken classes at SCCC since 2008, was the youngest member of the Men’s Judo Team, travelling from the Capital Region to London for the games on July 24, his 22nd birthday. He’s been training seriously for the Olympics since he was 15 years old and moved by himself from his family’s home just outside of Philadelphia to Burnt Hills to train with Jason Morris, an Olympic silver medalist. Kyle lived with Jason and his wife Teri Takemori in their Burnt Hills home, along with other athletes training at Morris’s dojo. “The Olympics became more tangible at that point, when I started training at Jason’s club,” Kyle said. “When I moved here and was at a more serious training center, I said, ‘I guess this is what I’m shooting for now’ and I decided to do this full time.” Every school day ended with two hours of practice, on top of homework, while Kyle attended Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School, graduating in 2008. He enrolled at SCCC that fall for two years and then took a break from school for a year and a
half to train full time. What began as a hobby at the age of 10 and a way for the Ukrainianborn youngster to make friends, was now a fulltime career and lifestyle. Kyle has competed in junior and senior tournaments travelling to countries including Thailand, France, Japan and Canada, and went into the Olympics ranked No. 37 in the world in his weight class, the Business Administration major Kyle Vashkulat 100-kilogram half-heavyweight. with Kobe Bryant at the 2012 Olympics He made the Olympic team as a wildcard following a nail-biter at the Pan Am Championship in Montreal in Spring 2012 and immediately began training harder than he ever had to prepare. (continued on Page 3)
Well worth the wait Rob Krupanich, Performing Arts: Music major, addresses a crowd gathered outside the new SCCC School of Music during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Sept. 12 for the new $3.9 million building. He spoke about how walking through construction areas last year was worth it. “Now we stand today marveling at the fantastic new facility we have here at our disposal,” he said. The new building has more practice rooms for students, teaching studios, classrooms, a student lounge and will house a recording studio.