Why is the Rec Center Worth Your Time?

In a world that is pushing for a more active lifestyle, the Rec Center is a place that offers its patrons a way to sharpen their abilities, let off some steam from their busy lives, and enjoy the process of bettering themselves. Many people take the Rec Center for granted because they don’t understand what it has to offer them while others are intimidated by the stronger people who go to the Rec Center every day trying to get even bigger. In this blog, I will enlighten those people who are skeptical about coming into a Rec Center.

Participation increased Skills 

Becoming active and using the Rec Center can help one improve a variety of social factors that may include, increased self-esteem, social communication, sharper skills and abilities, and while decreasing health risks as well as many more. People fail to realize that engaging in recreational activities can help them grow as in individual in all aspects of life. Whether you are going to start working out, running, or playing a sport of some kind, each activity can help you grow to become something better. Working out (lifting) helps build muscle, builds confidence in everyday life, decreases health risks, and can even decrease stress. Engaging in activities such as basketball, soccer, softball, and even volleyball can help increase in social communication, build self-esteem, and help maintain a healthy body inside and out. Just by simply running you can decrease stress, health risks, increase a healthy body, build endurance and even a stronger heart. All of these can even help put you into a better mood and provide a positive outlook on your everyday lifestyle.

People are often intimidated by the people they see at the Rec Center because they see people who look mean. They see this serious face from those who are serious about their body because they are goal oriented.

The people who are in the Rec Center are set out to accomplish a goal that betters themselves. What they don’t see is how willing those same people are to help out others who are too scared to push themselves. As they succeed, they want others to succeed as well. Those goal-oriented people are ready to share their insight on how to push yourself to be better and how beneficial it really is to be active. Scott Forrester talked about the benefits for participating in recreational activities.

Beneficial Skills from Participating 

As you can see, the benefits of working out or participating in a sport for fun can be more beneficial than what people initially realize. Some don’t see why they should and others give the excuse of “I’m not good at that stuff…”. One fact about Campus Recreation is that no matter what people are doing, they are bettering themselves whether they are good at it or not. You can not expect to better yourself by just sitting around and not doing anything. To learn something, you must experience it and by experiencing it, you get better at it.

Importance of Activity Before, During and After College

The whole point of Recreation is to get people to be active. There is no prize for being the best unless you would like to count the championship shirt for intramurals, which they give out for free after they get new ones every year. People need to understand the overall purpose of the Rec Center is to better one’s lifestyle in any way they see best fit. Utilize it but also have fun with it!

References

Forrester, S. (2014). The Benefits of Campus Recreation. Corvallis, OR: NIRSA.

Kampf, S., & Teske, E. J. (2013). Collegiate Recreation Participation and Retention. Recreational Sports Journal, 37(2), 85-96. doi:10.1123/rsj.37.2.85

Special Days for the Rec Center

Working at the Rec Center for Tarleton State University, more times than not I have heard how great it would be to have a special day or time for specific people to come into the Rec Center. I’m sure some of you are asking, what I mean by that? Well, not everyone can come during the slow hours to get their full workout in so they have to settle for what they can get during the busy hours.

The busiest hours fall during the weekdays (Monday-Thursday) with numbers steady reaching over 400 patrons using the facility per hour during the times of 3 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Now that doesn’t count the random high number hours throughout the week before 3 p.m. that even reach 400-500 patrons before dropping to the 200-300’s just to spike up during prime hours. Because of these prime hours, I think it would help increase customer satisfaction overall and help the patrons enjoy themselves better.

Something that could possibly be implemented is scheduling times during the week or month perhaps that allow only certain patrons to enter. What I mean by certain patron’s are the students, faculty, and the staff. The scheduled group will have the whole Rec Center at their disposal to use. During this time, that designated group will be allowed to use the facility however they please, meaning no other groups may enter during that time frame.

Students obviously outweigh the faculty and staff. More times than not, I have seen where the faculty and staff will butt heads with the students because each thinks they deserve a certain spot in the Rec Center. For example, we’ve had faculty come in and reserve a court for badminton. During that scheduled time, the students are often just getting out of class and coming into the Rec Center to play basketball. Now, with our Rec Center, we only have three courts available. Court one is always free for basketball. Court two is set aside for the professors playing badminton and court three is used for volleyball. Tarleton State University has around 12,000 students and about 500 faculty members. not all use the Rec Center, but you can tell students far outweigh the faculty. What this means is that just using the courts as an example from earlier. The students often try to push the faculty to the side to have more court space to play basketball. This causes tension between the two because if the faculty didn’t reserve the court, the rule the Rec staff uses is majority rules. Meaning if basketball has enough for 3 courts versus faculty only using. The Rec staff would kick off the faculty so basketball can have more people playing and rotating in. Since the faculty does have a reservation nothing can change so the students must wait until it is their team's turn to play.

Seeing that faculty is far out numbered by the students, it would be very beneficiary to them to have their own time at the gym. At Tarleton State University, where I work, the faculty knows the best times to come in but they can’t always utilize this time because they have their job to do first. So for the ones who can’t utilize that free time, they are forced to come in during the busy hours when most students are done with classes and also using the facility. Now the faculty doesn’t use up half the space of the students simply because there are fewer faculty than students. This being said, the only problem with having the Rec Center open for the day to them is that most of the day, the Rec Center wouldn’t have anyone utilizing the time. Unless of course more faculty came in during that time because of the time given to them. For the Rec Center to have the best outcome, the Rec Center staff would have to be careful planning and using every resource to reach out to the faculty of Tarleton State to best predict what the total numbers would be for that day.

To implement something like this, it would take months of careful planning and also reaching out to the students and faculty of Tarleton State University. It would have to be carefully advertised through social media, word of mouth, and even put onto posters inside the Rec Center so the patron’s may actually vote on it. The best way to figure out what times best suit the students and faculty would be through a survey they would have to fill out individually. This survey would allow them to pick the best time during the day as well as the specific day of the week that best works for them. After about 2 weeks of taking surveys, they will be taken up and counted. Then the professional staff would tally what time and day has the most votes. The Rec staff would then decide the starting week and then share it through social media, word of mouth and posters around the Rec Center.

After the final numbers are in and counted. The final date would be set for the first day for the faculty/staff or students and then see how it goes and what happens. If the outcome results in a positive feedback then it could possibly be implemented for a more permanent date.

References

(B. Mills, personal communication, March 23, 2017).                           

What can be Changed to Better the Rec Center's Community

Most Rec Centers will one day face the same problem if they are experiencing growth - sooner or later the Rec Center will need to expand. This need for expansion is what’s happening at the Rec Center where I currently work. As a Student worker of five years at Tarleton State University, our Rec Center is undergoing an  influx of patrons coming into the facility on a daily basis. Thus, the Rec Center needs to create more space to keep the patrons happy.

Top View of Rec Center

The problem my Rec Center could run into though is space outside the Rec Center. With all the new construction and dorms popping up, it is decreasing the space around campus. Also, they are supposed to be adding an Aquatics Center in the small space right outside the Rec Center where the sand volleyball courts currently are. On the east side of the Rec Center is where the weight room is. There is a small space they could use to expand the weight room northeast but it would block the windows of where the rock wall is facing (east). The only solution I could think of is to dig deeper than the regular base. By doing this, you could expand the weight room farther northeast and avoid blocking the rock wall windows. Creating just this space would greatly increase the amount of patrons who are able to use it. Campus Rec Centers will in time have to add on to their facility sooner or later if the population around it is growing. For a college Rec Center this will probably happen. As time goes on, things will change and there will be new patrons who require something different or simply more of something.

Closer view of the Weight Room Expansion

Lobby Close-Up

Right now, my Rec Center could use a smoothie bar. This special smoothie bar would have healthy smoothies that you could drink before or even after your workout. This wouldn’t require a ton of space like adding onto the weight room. This could just be taking over a small space in the main lobby. This way, it’ll be the first thing they see walking in and the last thing walking out. From a business point of view, this would be ideal because it would offer a better chance at patrons purchasing a smoothie. More money that can be added to the budget to make other additions, big or small. This money could be used to buy additional equipment like indoor soccer balls, footballs, and other miscellaneous equipment.  

Another thing that could be added to help the overall space of the Rec Center would be an additional court. This court could be used for basketball, volleyball, indoor soccer, or any other indoor activity that requires court space. This would free up even more space especially when they host intramural basketball during the spring. This would cost quite a bit because in my Rec Center because there is no more room unless you expand outwards. Providing an additional court would be beneficial but in order to do so, we would have to tear down the north side of the Rec Center and rebuild it just for everything to fit again.  If that happened and it was plausible, we could even add racquetball courts which are multi-purpose as well.

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed that we are missing compared to other Rec Centers is our own pool area. Adding an aquatics center would be very beneficial by adding space, more activities, and even jobs. Having that extra space for activities would allow a bigger influx of patrons coming in meaning more money overall to go into the Rec Center budget.

References

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON STUDENT RECREATION CENTER EXPANSION AND RENOVATION., 5(40). (2016).

Rec Sports. (2017, February 14). Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://www.tarleton.edu/recsports/

What Patron's Like versus Dislike about Recreation

With every advantage there are always disadvantages depending on how people look at them. Since I’m a supervisor for the front desk at the Campus Recreation Center at Tarleton State University, I took the opportunity to ask random people what they liked versus disliked about our Recreation Center  facility.

Now, keep in mind that the Rec Center can help build self esteem, reduce stress, improve communication skills, and improve weight lose. Whether the patrons using the facility realize it or not, the Rec Center can help build a patron’s character, get stronger physically and more importantly mentally. In Scott Forrester’s article he wrote “Students were asked, “In what other ways has your participation in campus recreation activities, programs, and services helped or enhanced your experience at this college/university?” Over 6,700 students responded to this question. The top 5 responses were..”

• Meeting new people and forming relationships
• Relieving stress
• Physical fitness
• Improved health by weight loss and control
• Fun and enjoyment

Likes

• Equipment (clean and variety)

• Hours
• Atmosphere

Photo Cred: Tarleton State University- Campus Recreation

Some of the things they liked included the equipment, hours, and atmosphere. The patrons like the equipment because it was well kept and  if they saw a machine broken, within a week, it was fixed. They also liked the fact that there is a wide variety of machines to use. The Rec Center hours were both liked and disliked by the patrons. While some said that it fit their schedule and they enjoyed the hours that were provided, we also had patrons that said it should be open 24/7. These people said that they do not have time to come during the hours that are provided and are hoping one day soon that we will change the hours to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone mentioned the great atmosphere that is present when they are in the Rec Center. Patrons enjoy the positive flow of energy going around whether it is in the weight room, the track upstairs, or while using the courts. As Rec Center employees, we pride ourselves in giving the patrons a positive atmosphere for them to enjoy during their time in the facility.

Dislikes

• Lack of space
• Lack of equipment
• Music selection
• Dress code
• No Smoothie Bar

Photo Cred: Tarleton State University-Campus Recreation

I found that the dislikes had a bit of a longer list. Patrons said that there is an overall  lack of space and  equipment. They also dislike the music playlist, dress code, hours, and the fact that we do not provide a smoothie bar or something similar. When they mentioned the lack of square footage, they said that there is not enough space during the prime hours on weekdays and also no room to stretch or roll out. I’ve personally seen people use the basketball courts to stretch on because it was so busy everywhere else in the Rec Center. The equipment or lack thereof was also on the dislike list for patrons. They said that during the prime hours, it’s hard to find a machine to use, or when you do find one, there is a good chance of somebody stealing it while they were still using it. They also added that there weren’t enough squat racks, platforms, or ab mats. One thing I’ve noticed while working at the Rec Center was the music playlist. No matter what we play, we seem to upset a group of people. The music is either not good enough or the patrons do not like the lyrics to the songs because of abrupt language. One common complaint is the dress code. It seems like every day we are having to send patron’s home to change because they do not meet the dress code requirements. The main reason we send patrons home is because their shirt is either cut too low or they don’t have one on at all. Even though the hours seem to please most people, some have a different mindset. They said the hours we provided were inconvenient for them and wish we’d change them to 24 hours seven days a week. They said their reasoning for this was because the window of 6am-11pm and 6am-8pm does not fit into their busy schedule because most are free later in the evenings. They said that if the Rec Center was open 24 hours, we would have more people coming in every day.  After working here for five years I would have to say that since we are not open to the general public but instead only open to the students, faculty, and staff of the Tarleton State University, we would ultimately be losing money if we stayed open 24 hours. To put things into simpler words, even though our numbers might increase, they wouldn’t increase enough to make a profit after all the bills are paid. Another common dislike that was mentioned was not having a smoothie bar. Why don’t we have one yet? Many people who have been to other gyms said that there was a smoothie bar for them to indulge in either before or after a workout. This has been talked about among professional staff, but we already do not have enough workout space so adding a smoothie bar just isn’t feasible. We would have to find a place to put the smoothie bar where everyone can see it in order to maximize profits. Janet Fletcher wrote "Concern about quality of life, physical health, and human development will become even more important in the future. "Recreation will move beyond a narrow focus on activities, buildings, and parks toward a mission of improving the quality of life and environment." (6, p.140). Social agencies will use recreation as a tool to deal with social problems".

After gathering the list of pros/cons, I have concluded that each of these areas

can be improved upon. The only real problem with making additions to the Rec Center would be the money to portion. Once we have a larger influx of patrons coming in, we can then add money to the budget. That money could be used to fund the smaller, more plausible renovations, which in turn could bring even more patrons and raise the percentage of customer satisfaction. This would turn into a domino effect and the Rec Center could potentially add everything that people want. This could also become a problem because with the bigger influx of patrons coming in, there would be a longer list of improvements that needed to be made in order to keep the customer satisfaction up. The Rec Center must be able to evolve and grow, otherwise it will crumble simply because it can not keep up.

Forrester, S. (2014). The Benefits of Campus Recreation. Corvallis, OR: NIRSA.