Fresno State Athletics
Free Falling in Fresno
9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM | General
By Josh Mitchell
jomitchell@csufresno.edu
GoBulldogs.com
FRESNO, Calif. - On Sept. 3, 2015, after a 15-year hiatus, skydivers once again dropped into Bulldog Stadium. With coordination between Boling Air Media and Fresno State, Bulldog Blitz, an all-female skydiving team, was born.
The idea, which was formed when skydiver Amy Anderson and Boling Air Media began throwing around the thought of becoming Fresno State's official skydiving team. Conversations occurred, and when there was mutual interest between the two sides, the idea became reality.
Anderson, along with her friends Sarah Gilbert and Brandy Robertson, who are both Fresno State alums, Gilbert even being a former member of the marching band, had been skydiving together for about five years at a drop zone in the Central Valley, had already been like a team, but with Bulldog Blitz being born, they brought in another skydiver. They added Nicole Harrison, a professional skydiver from Southern California who has competed at the U.S. National Skydiving Championships, who Anderson had previously known and thought would make a good addition to the team.
Bulldog Blitz will jump into Bulldog Stadium prior to each of Fresno State's home game in 2015, something Anderson and her team wanted to do.
"We're thrilled about it," Anderson said. "That's what we were going for. We wanted to be Fresno State supporters 100 percent and be the Fresno State skydiving team so the fact that we get to jump at every home game supports that, and we're very excited about it. We hope that what we do gets the crowd excited and that leads into an exciting game for everybody."
The first step for the team in making their debut on Sept. 3, was preparation. No one on the team had jumped into a stadium before, most drop zones are wide open fields. The individuals have jumped into tight spaces before as demonstration skydivers, maneuvering around more common objects like buildings, trees, telephone wires and fences. A stadium creates a different set of challenges, let alone one that is dug into the ground and shaped like a bowl.
"It was insanely nerve-wracking because any stadium is very intimidating because there are so many obstacles, so many things to consider," Anderson said of the first practice jumps. "All of us are very comfortable under a canopy, but once you involve lights, walls and goalposts, it get very intimidating. Once we were in, our nerves were gone and we thought it was so easy."
What Anderson found interesting with the stadium is the wind.
"Wind is always a factor for us when we're jumping because it's an enclosed area," Anderson explained. "The only place that the air is turbulent is at the very top of the bowl where the wind comes off of the sides, it kind of just circles around the very top so if there is a lot of wind as we're dropping into the stadium, we'll hit very turbulent air at the very top of it and we'll have to work our way through that air."
When game day came, Anderson just remembers her team being extremely excited because of all of the preparation and anticipation leading up, and it also happened to be the largest crowd any of them had jumped in front of. They were comfortable with the stadium after practice jumps, but the people, the music, and the noise were all elements that they could not prepare for. They gathered together and prepared two hours before the jump. Leading up to the jump, each of the three all handled their stress differently, getting into the open air was the easy part.
"We were up in the air circling for 30 minutes before we finally got the go ahead to go," Anderson said. "For us, once we left the plane, that's when we feel that release. It's the build up inside of the plane. A lot of people think that the release comes when you're on the ground, but for us that's not the case, it comes when we're up in the air because that's our comfort level. We're here, we can do it no problem, but the buildup of being in the plane waiting for the call to go is the part that gets us really amped up."
Less than 24 hours after the video of the team jumping was posted on YouTube, it had over 30,000 views. It wasn't something they expected. They were a bit overwhelmed with the excitement over the skydive and all of the support and encouragement they received.
One surprise to many on-lookers after the jump was that the team was in fact all women. Anderson estimates that about 90 percent of people involved in the sport are men so it is surprising to some to see an all-female team. She only knows of a few all-female demo teams, a couple that have performed at big air shows, but she admits that most of the big skydiving teams are made up of men.
"We like the fact that we can jump with all females," Anderson said proudly. "People don't expect it. We love when women get involved in the sport. That's one of the elements that we really like about it. That's what we pitch to people. That's what makes us different because it's just not seen that often.
"It's one of the things we get excited about, showing people that there are females in the sport and that you can be successful in the sport as a female."
Bulldog Blitz is not just jumping from airplanes; Anderson recently set a U.S. Aviation milestone by jumping from Bulldog1, Fresno State's blimp which first took to the sky in August. She happened to come across the blimp when it was first being inflated after arriving in the U.S., long before it was Bulldog1, so she just asked the owners if she could jump out of it. Anderson joked that skydivers just want to jump out of everything. With so few blimps out there, it's not an opportunity she would get every day.
She remembers the owners looking at her like, "who is this?" She just said she wanted to jump out of the blimp one day. Skydivers have jumped from helium blimps and hot air balloons, but never a hot air blimp.
It turned out that when Anderson joined up with Boling Air Media, she would get that opportunity she had waited for.
"Since I have been involved with them, we wanted to promote Fresno State," Anderson said. "Randomly one morning they said, 'hey we're going to inflate off site at an airport tonight, do you want to jump it?' I was just like 'yes, I've been asking for this for eight months!'"
Not knowing of what the procedures for the jump would be, they had to look it up. To their surprise, the procedures for jumping out of hot air blimps were put into place less than a year ago. It was an experience Anderson won't soon forget.
"What makes it different and awesome is that you're exiting into dead air as opposed to a plane where you have relative wind in front of you," she explained. "When you exit into dead air, you don't have anything grabbing you so you feel the acceleration of the fall. That's what makes it really exciting and awesome, the feeling of freedom that you don't get when you skydive."
For Anderson, it was one more chance to do something different while doing something she loves, but this time it was as a part of Fresno State. Anderson and Gilbert have grown up around the sport, Gilbert's father owning a drop zone while Anderson's mother was a skydiver and a pilot. Anderson's father even owns Thiel Air Care, a crop dusting company that is one of the team's sponsors. Robertson and Harrison just got hooked on the sport after doing tandem skydives. They were soon taking the accelerated free fall program and have been jumping ever since.
"It's about the presence of mind that you have," Anderson said of why many skydivers get into the sport. "All of us have that something that kind of makes us different and we don't have to explain that to each other so that's what makes us a family. We get each other. We get why we do it. It clears our mind. It makes us stop thinking about the millions of things that are going on in life.
"We like to say that we have our 'knees in the breeze' because you're just in the air, you feel free, you don't feel restrained by anything and it's just kind of satisfying, that feeling of your need to be free."
Bulldog Blitz will take flight next on Saturday prior to Fresno State's blackout game versus No. 21 Utah.
To stay connected with Bulldog Blitz, fans are encouraged to follow them on Facebook (FresnoStateBulldogBlitz) and Instagram (@FS_BulldogBlitz).
