SF State’s Tae Kwon Do club performed exceptionally at the Amateur Athletic Union Las Vegas Kick Off 2008 on March 1, with some members winning big awards and qualifying for the upcoming AAU Taekwondo Nationals in Madison, Wis.

Jaclyn Wong, a 21-year-old purple belt competitor, won gold in her traditional division and silver for exhibition. Ryan Morishige, a white belt competitor won gold for full contact sparring—which, as the name suggests, involves plenty of punching and kicking. The 19-year-old cinema major defeated an opponent who was about a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier.

“It was like fighting against a pitbull,” Morishige said. “I punched him a lot until he finally fell. I was excited.”

The club competed in several events, including full contact sparring, exhibition matches and traditional forms. Each of the competitors were placed in divisions according to their weight, age and belt rank—which ranged from the lowest, white, to the highest, red.

Exhibition enables competitors who have no opponent in their division to compete against other ranks, knowing that they will automatically get gold from their division.

Traditional forms are choreographed sets of moves that require a specific knowledge of techniques that the competitor has to demonstrate before a panel of judges. Each technique is specific to the division, meaning that those who have a black belt have to demonstrate their knowledge of the sport from the time they had their white belt.

DeLonzo Pope, a 41-year-old red belt and industrial design student, has actively trained with the team since transferring to SF State last fall.

“Before registering for an event, you have to seriously train,” Pope said. “You don’t want to go there and get killed.”

In Pope’s third tournament ever, he had a notable showing, winning gold in his division for form and another for full contact sparring.

“It felt really, really good,” he said. “I felt really special.”

However, what was supposed to be a fun and gratifying event turned into a disaster for one SF State competitor.

Hayley Latter, a 20-year-old psychology student, got so sick that she was not able to compete and had to spend five days in a Las Vegas hospital to undergo a battery of tests while under morphine.

She explained that when the team reached the hotel, she felt “a horrible stomach pain” which forced her to call an ambulance. She was diagnosed with colitis, a serious medical condition caused by the formation of E. coli bacteria in an air pocket of her stomach.

“I dropped to under 90 pounds,” Latter said. “You don’t realize you take things for granted before they are taken away.”

Knowing their friend was in bad shape at the hospital, Wong, Morishige and Pope competed with Latter on their minds, yelling “Hayley” as their fight cry instead of their usual “Hu ya” or “Ha ya.”

Latter, as the only entrant in her division, automatically won gold and qualified for the nationals despite not competing, she is currently on antibiotics and has to take it easy for at least 10 days after spending five days in a hospital she characterized as the worst she has ever known.

However, her misfortune did not affect her state of mind as she kept smiling and joking.

“I am usually very active but I now walk like a grandmother,” she said, wearing a shirt that says it all: “Valley Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada: I spent here my vacation.”

The 40 or so SF State Tae Kwon Do club members who were not able to make the trip will have other opportunities to qualify for the nationals on June 30 in Wisconsin, including a major tae kwon do event on May 3 hosted by SF State: the AAU California State Tae Kwon Do Championships 2008.