Whether outdoors, indoors, or involving fitness and releasing stress, Campus Recreation has many opportunities for students to be involved.
Campus Recreation offers mind and body, cardiovascular, and dance classes to help students through struggles with school and help them be more fit. The gym area has fitness coordinators who show students how to use equipment and proper techniques.
“Any freshmen that are coming into the gym with no fitness experience, the coordinators can actually show them how to use the equipment,” said Ken Grasso, Campus Recreation fitness coordinator.
Campus Recreation offers non-credit instructional classes free to students, including classes in running and volleyball. It also hosts events throughout the fall semester, including a free Late Night at the Gym in October for anyone in the community to come to the gym late at night, and a turkey triathlon in November, which is not free.
“It’s less expensive for students and faculty, but it’s for anyone in the community,” said Pedro Olivas, fitness lead.
Another part of Campus Recreation is the Outdoor Program. The Outdoor Program hosts hands-on events for students all year, such as rafting, hiking and snowboarding trips and a gear swap in October. The gear swap allows people to buy used equipment at low prices to use in the different outdoor events.
“Our goal is to try and reach students through almost every type of avenue possible,” said Tim Nguyen, assistant Outdoor Program coordinator. He said the Outdoor Program markets through social media to show everything it does, like renting out normally expensive equipment to be more affordable to college students.
The Outdoor Program has its own yurt in Bloomington Canyon near Bear Lake, Idaho, available for students to rent. Reservations for the winter of 2012-13 will start on Nov. 1. More information on cost, rules and other important information for renting the yurt are available on the Campus Recreation website.
Students and the community can rent discounted equipment from the Outdoor Recreation building to go on outdoor adventures. Ogden has a trail system behind Ogden High School with a map of all the trails in the area along the Rocky Mountains. These trails can be used for hiking, backpacking, and mountain biking.
Fishing equipment can be used for the many fishing spots along the Weber river. Ski resorts cover the Weber County area, such as Wolf Mountain, Snowbasin, and Powder Mountain. Students get discounted passes with an I.D. and can also get passes from the outdoor program office, located above the tennis courts on the south side of WSU campus.
For students who want to participate in sports, there are intramurals. Intramural sports typically go on all year, with different sports at different times. Flag football, starting in September, will be the first intramural for the fall semester.
“The problem we have is that only a small group of people participate, so we want to get the word out,” said Casey Wilkerson, intramural sports lead.
Kosti Efstathiou, intramural and club sports coordinator, said the program will be hosting an “Amazing Race” series, in which players can form teams and participate in different events.
“If a student doesn’t have a team, they can do free agency and be put on a team,” said Mariah Hancock, intramural sports lead.
The other intramural sports will be soccer, volleyball, dodgeball and basketball. Soccer, football and volleyball leagues will start in September, so students can still sign up.
Grasso said Campus Recreation can fit any students with whatever recreational activities are their strong points. A list of events, schedules and programs is available at www.weber.edu/campusrecreation.
