Richie Liberio is a sophomore at West Virginia University. He is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is an Exercise Physiology major. Richie loves working out, has a passion for health and fitness and using his knowledge of medicine to help kids of impoverished countries . Richie has admired the sport of wrestling since he was five years old, and was disappointed to see that there wasn’t a wrestling club a WVU. This sparked an idea to start a club of his own. I sat down with Richie to learn more about it.
Q: What made you want to start the wrestling club? A: In high school, wrestling took up a lot of my time, I would go to school then have practice and my weekends were even occupied by the sport. When I got to college I didn’t know what to do with myself so I thought I would try to start a wrestling club.
Q: How many members do you have in the club? A: Last year there was 25 people but since we never had the money to buy the mats to practice on, people dropped out. This year I still get a couple of emails a week, but nobody ever sticks around for fundraising.
Q: What were the steps you took in order to start the club?
A: First I got in contact with the organizer of club sports, I told him I was interested before I even came to the university last year. I had a couple of meetings and recruited around twenty-five guys last year and one girl. After a couple meetings it was all paperwork. I then had to find an advisor, who ended up being a graduate student.
Q: What is the status of your club? A: We are a registered club sport through the school and the NCAA, but we can’t hold any practices because we don’t have any mats.
Q: How much are the wrestling mats you need to get practices started?
A: Anywhere from five thousand to eight thousand. I have participated in auctions for used mats, but I always get outbid. I have fourteen hundred raised so far and sixteen hundred to go.
If you would like, donate to the WVU Wrestling Club through the link below! If you are interested in joining or helping out, Richie’s email is rnliberio@mix.wvu.edu and you can find more information the the Club sport page on West Virginia University website.