Dropping the ball

Jason Berger will be getting high and dropping out before Saturday’s football game.

Berger, who founded the UB Skydiving club in 2008, will be jumping out a Cessna 182 – a four person light utility aircraft – down onto the UB Stadium field Saturday to deliver the game ball to the Bulls before kickoff against Central Michigan.

"I’m very proud being the founder of UB’s Skydiving club,” Berger said. “The chance for an actual alumni to jump into the stadium and deliver the game ball, that to me is a great honor.”

UB Skydiving, a Student Association club that wears the phrase “Get high, drop out: UB Skydiving,” on their T-shirts, presents students a chance to experience the thrill of jumping out of a plane. The club skydives at Frontier Skydivers in Newfane, New York – about 20 minutes from campus from May to October.

The club has wanted to organize a dive into UB Stadium since its inception in 2008. Berger became the first student to jump onto UB’s North Campus, but could never get permission to do so at the stadium.

Berger finally received permission to dive on the field before the Bulls’ Oct. 25 game from Elaine Russell, senior director of marketing for the athletics instruction.

He first thought of creating a skydiving club after looking through a list of the clubs at UB.

“When I heard UB had a Quidditch club, I’m not making fun of anyone, but I said to myself, ‘Quidditch club? If they have this, why can’t we have skydiving?’” he said.

Berger then approached SA to propose the formation of a club in which students regularly jump out of planes.

“’No f***ing way,’ is what they told me,” Berger said with a laugh. “I said, ‘Well, you have to give me a better reason than that.’”

Berger turned to the United States Parachute Association (USPA) for help. The organization helped Berger argue the safeness of skydiving to UB and explain that other schools were doing the same thing.

After a year of fulfilling its club requirements, UB Skydiving became the fastest club to go from temporary to permanent, earning the best new SA club award of 2009-10.

UB Skydiving meets in NSC 228 every other Monday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Berger and John Huber, both club advisers, answer any questions reluctant students may have about skydiving. The two demonstrate how to pack a parachute or how to read an altimeter, the device used to measure one’s altitude.

“When [Berger and Huber] answered all of my questions, I felt so much better about what I was getting myself into,” said Taylor Williams, a sophomore occupational science major. “I didn’t know much about skydiving, but [when] you have two professionals, it’s really beneficial.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the governing body of the USPA, requires instructors to have at least three years of skydiving experience and complete 500 dives before engaging in tandem jumps. Instructors must also complete two written exams, in which one wrong answer results in an automatic failure.

The members’ adrenaline outweighs their fears before they jump out of the plane, according to Williams.

“Your adrenaline is pumping,” Williams said. “You’re just ready. You just go. That moment of free fall is intense. All that wind in your face; you’re falling so fast you don’t have time to think.”

When diving, club members said they don’t look down at the ground, but keep their heads up at the horizon. Before his first jump, UB Skydiving current club President Kevin Santa “blanked out” because of the adrenaline he was experiencing.

“My first thought was, ‘What if I fall out?’” Santa said. “My mind was kind of racing and I forget it was kind of the point to fall out. As soon as we jumped, my mind just went blank, not because I was scared, but because of the adrenaline. We pulled shoot and I just felt like a million bucks. I was hooked.”

Santa has been trying to convince his parents to dive someday with him, but to no avail.

“Its become a tradition before I jump, I send [my mom] a text message: ‘Hey mom, I’m about to jump out of a plane,’ then throw my phone in the car and walk away,” Santa said. “I like to mess with her. [I text her] ‘Lets hope the parachute opens.’”

Skydiving, however, is not as dangerous as some may think, according to Berger.

In 2013, 24 fatal skydiving accidents were recorded in the United States out of roughly 3.2 million jumps – that’s 0.0075 fatalities per 1,000 jumps – among the lowest rate in the sport’s history, according to the USPA.

“People hear skydiving and stereotypically think: ‘dangerous,’” Berger said. “Driving a car is dangerous, walking down the street is dangerous. I’ve taken hundreds of people on tandem skydives and have never had anyone walk away with a sprained ankle.”

The cost for an individual jump for members is $195. Nonmembers pay $250. To reduce the cost of members’ jump fee, Santa and UB Skydiving engage in various fundraising activities.

The club regularly sells their signature “Get High, Drop out” T-shirts, along with raffle tickets that can win a day of free skydiving. Students have jumped for a reduced price and even for free due to their fundraising efforts, according to Santa.

“What you pay for your jump really comes down to how hard you tried,” Santa said.

Saturday will not be Berger’s first experience diving onto campus. In 2009, with special permission from First Amherst, the company that owns the UB Commons, Berger became the first student to dive onto campus. He landed in the area between the Ellicott Complex and the bookstore.

Santa said Berger would skydive onto campus and then go to class.

“If people would ask, he’d say he couldn’t find parking,” Santa said.

Berger has twice competed in the USPA Nationals, where he competed in accuracy and six-way speed star – teams make formations such as circles and stars in the air as quickly as possible.

UB Skydiving currently has about 20 members, according to Santa.

"When I was president, we used to fill up the entire lecture hall of Knox 20 from front to back,” Berger said.” “We really hope this jump [into UB Stadium] brings up numbers.”

Santa hopes future members will become as hooked as he is after this Saturday’s jump. He believes the club is a great way to make friends and to try something new.

Berger will become the first UB Alum to dive into UB Stadium Saturday, but not the first person. Members of Frontier Skydivers have previously skydived onto the field about 10 years ago, according to Berger.

Make sure to look up for Berger this Saturday at UB Stadium when the Bulls take on Central Michigan at 3:30 p.m.

email: sports@ubspectrum.com