Weightlifting Wise and Texas Barbell Club

Ursula Garza Papandrea is the only female USAW Level 5 Senior International Coach in USAW history, earned in 2003, and the head coach of Texas Barbell Club, 2014 USA Weightlifting Championships Men's Team Champions. She is a two-time senior national champion, two-time Olympic Festival champion, 5 time world team member (1992-1996), and former record holder in both  snatch (masters) and clean and jerk (seniors and masters).  She has extensive national and international experience in competitive weightlifting as an athlete since 1987 and 22 years of coaching experience at national and international levels. Her athletes have competed at and won national championships at the junior, collegiate, senior, and master levels as well as Olympic Trials and have represented Team USA at the Junior World Championships, University World Championships, Senior World Championships, and Pan Am Games, and have broken both junior and senior American records.  She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise and Sports Science, and a Master's Degree in Political Science. She is a Professor at Austin Community College since 1994 in Kinesiology and since 2004 in Government.  She has recently competed herself winning Master’s National Championships(best lifter award) in 2009, and national champion again in 2010 and 2014 as well as winning her age category  and in 2014 breaking 3 more national records and 2 unofficial world records.  She is additionally CrossFit Level 1 certified and has been part of the CrossFit Weightlifting Certification Staff since 2009. She instructs USAW Level 1 Sports Performance and Level 2 Advanced Sports Performance courses.