At the University of Florida, students juggle coursework, clubs, internships and research. But every Thursday in the Plaza of the Americas, the Gator Juggling Club offers the chance to juggle even more: rings, clubs, balls and scarves.
Juggling has the same effect on the brain as taking up an instrument, learning a new language or even ballroom dancing, according to Brain&Life. For students who don’t want more to think about, seeing a group of people throwing and catching colorful objects in Plaza while walking to and from classes is enough of an enticement.
Trey Gephardt, an 18-year-old UF business administration sophomore, is the club’s current president.
“It’s open to everyone,” he said. “The awesome part of being in Plaza is that everyone’s just walking through their classes. A lot of people will stop by.”
Participants are not required to know how to juggle beforehand since one of the club’s main missions is to teach the skill, he said.
Alexis Hansen, a 19-year-old UF plant science sophomore, joined the club during her first week on campus. She said the club’s president at the time asked if she wanted to learn how to juggle as she walked out of Library West.
“I didn’t have anything after that,” Hansen said, “so I was like, sure. And here we are.”
Now, she’s the club’s treasurer.
If someone can catch a ball six times, they can juggle skillfully, Hansen said. Members often start juggling with scarves because they’re lighter and have longer “air-time” before moving to balls or clubs. New jugglers are ceremoniously crowned with a stack of three clubs when they successfully learn how to juggle.
Being a member of a juggling club is a great thing to throw into interviews, she said. The interviewers were surprised but reacted positively.
“It’s a nice way to break up the professional involvement things,” Hansen said.
However, juggling is not all the club offers.
Oliver Deng, a 19-year-old UF mathematics and computer science sophomore and secretary of the club, said the club also practices pen spinning, unicycling and kendama, a traditional Japanese toy that involves juggling a ball with a wooden handle.
“Juggling is just a nice, fun, low-commitment thing that I can do,” he said.
Contact Koushin Unber at kunber@alligator.org. Follow her on X at @KUnber27.
