The University of Texas at Austin WTF Tae Kwon Do Program

Greetings Old Horns,

I hope this newsletter finds you all well.

March 3, AAU Regional Qualifiers, Houston TX

The Team recently came back from AAU Regional Qualifiers this weekend in Houston. Here are the results.

The next tournament on the schedule will be Collegiates held at Texas A&M this year, March 30-31. The Team will be spending their spring break in Austin training hard and preparing.

Paul Cho made a visit to the team this past weekend. It was great to see Paul (again) and have the team listen to his experiences. Paul is also the older cousin to Team member Sam Kim. Thanks for coming out and supporting the Team Paul!

New Website

The website has been redesigned and updated recently. The new design will now allow Team, Club, and Alumni members to create an account to share and post photos and information. http://utwtftkd.roffletown.com

Alumni News

Paul Cho has been involved with the ice cream franchise Piccomolo and they currently have 15 stores in Texas and California with two more opening in Texas. Paul is also still involved with running his father's dojang in the Woodlands, TX. To visit Piccomolo, follow the following link http://www.piccomolo.com/.

Correction: In the last newsletter I stated that Jessica Lee is currently in residency. Well, Jessica has recently returned to Austin for a 6 week rotation at Brackenridge Hospital and trains with the Club every Tuesday and Thursday and has informed me that she is in her 3rd year of Medical School, not residency. She then proceeded to kick me in the stomach. Thanks for visiting Jessica!

Congratulations to Wai Lee and Dan Cameron on their new jobs!

If any of you all have news you would like to share with the rest of the alumni, please email me and I will gladly post it.

Fundraising News

We are currently at $225 out of our goal for $1000 to donate to the Club/Team with more pledges on the way. Again, the Club/Team could really use our help and I highly encourage Alumni to make a donation. You will also receive the year's tshirt for your donation.

Alumni Gathering

The Club/Team is planning to have an Alumni Gathering this year after Collegiates. It will be a great opportunity for Alumni to see each other again and to meet with the current Club/Team. I will keep you all posted when new details emerge.

Again, I'd like to hear from you all. If you have any news you would like to share with the group, please feel free to contact me.

Hook'em,

Mike Tran

Not too much has been going on with the alumni. We have all grown gray and old and on our separate ways. I recently hung out with David Cho on February 3 at the Moody Garden Tournament. He's doing well and recently started his new job with GHG at NASA. We spent our time talking about benefits and retirement plans like we were old men. I also got in contact with Jessica Lee who is doing her resident in Galveston. Unfortunately Jessica could not make it to the tournament but it was fun to somewhat catch up.

The past few months I've been able to hear from a few of you, some of you have moved back to Austin and we've shared a few beers when you came back. Some of you never left Austin, and we share beers on a normal basis. Many of you may not even know each other or have never met because some of you graduated before some even joined the club. Wherever life takes us, no matter what some of our differences may have been, we all have a connection. We all trained in Taekwondo at The University of Texas at Austin. We all know the feeling of strapping on, and kicking a few paddles. We have all experienced totally winging a demonstration, awing little children with breaking boards, traveling on the road to a tournament, eating pho together, or singing loud and drunkenly at the karaoke.

This year we're going to have a banquet, something to celebrate the 10 year Anniversary of UT Taekwondo. I'll give you more information as it's planned, but would really like to hear everyone's input and feedback. It would be great to see everyone there.

On top of that, the Alumni group is growing by the year. It is not some huge massive organization, but managing it could use some help. If anyone would like to help out with the UT Taekwondo Alumni Group please email me. Also, I'd like to help raise $1,000 to donate to the team. For most of us we all knew what it was like to scrap for money for the club and team to go to tournaments or social events. This year, the team really needs it for tournament traveling costs. Each team member put in $300 each to cover their expenses for the year, and for a freshman $300 is a lot. I've talked to a few alumni already, and out of the $1,000 we're at $200. I'm sure if we all put in just a little bit we could definitely help out our new team.
That's all I have for now. I hope to hear from many of you soon.

Sincerely,
Mike Tran