The student recreation center is a location on campus that is accessible to all the students of Arizona State University who are willing to use it. But in my eyes the recreation center is bad because it lacks the one thing that former athletes, such as me, were once so accustomed to, and that is the "sense of community" (Dixon Warner 1). This map demonstrates the lack of community or team environment that the student recreation center possesses. A good recreation center would possess the team environment that is the focus of this project. There would be fields outside the recreation center where only organized teams play. Then there would be another field only for teams who sign up to play each week that provides a team atmosphere. Another criteria to fit a team feel is team organized team workouts in a weight room or gym area. And a final criteria for a team community is a the closeness that an environment brings for a team. It is hard to explain it through quantitative evaluation but instead it is easier to portray through qualitative observations and what is seen at the recreation center and the rec center fields. It is impossible to replicate the same team atmosphere that one had in high school or other team sports that they played outside of school but there is always an alternative. The easiest way that one could replicate the team society is bring together a tight knit group of friends who they are familiar with; that brings back the brother/sisterhood of the team environment that one will most likely familiar with.
View Student Recreation Center in a larger map
On my map I mark out four specific locations within the recreation center and outside the recreation center. My first location is the west field outside the rec center. The west field is an area that has the potential to be the team field to fit the criteria because the rugby and ultimate frisbee teams hold practices there everyday. But the field also allows for pickup games of soccer, football, and games of catch with a baseball The only sport that has the team environment that I mentioned earlier is the rugby teams because they are organized sports teams on the campus. The other sports that are played on the west field lack the team environment because they are just pickup games or simple games of catch that do not supply the team feeling to the sport activities.
The second location on my map outside of the recreation center is the east field which comes to life at night with the intramural football games. The east field does to an extent fit the criteria for a good recreation center because the intramural games are relateable to signing up to play on the fields, and the games are weekly with the same teammates. This has a more team like feel because everyone has to be on a team in order to play, however the lack of team atmosphere is still present. For example even though teams are present on the field that feeling of team is just not there. The teams are made of some random people put together to make a team and then some people that know each other to some extent. The closest example to a team that is present at the field is when the fraternities and sororities have their games, because most of the members of the team have been in their respective houses with each other for a couple of years so they are familiar with each other. But I still feel like the close knit team community is still lacking even in these situations.
My third location is the weight room with in the student recreation center. The weight room is a place that allows people to keep up with whatever workouts they want to by using the free weights or the weight machines. There are rows of free weights that always are being used and it is nearly impossible to find the weights that one needs because they are always being used. The weight machines are a more modern way that people have been lifting and takes them away from the free weights. But I find it very hard to lift within the weight room because I am accustomed to the team weight workouts that became the norm for me. It is a change up from the structured workouts that my high school football team to now a more chaotic lifting environment where it is first come first serve for everything that is there.
And my fourth location is the upstairs cardio area where there are treadmills, bicycle machines, and ellipticals that allow for people to increase their conditioning by doing long lasting workouts. But these are individual workouts that again lack that team aspect that I am focusing on. All the workouts that are accessible on the second floor are mostly individual workout stations as opposed to the weight room where it is possible to workout with at least a group of people, which could represent the team part of the recreation center. The only thing that could make the second floor a team environment is working out in a large group like we did in my high school. We had team conditioning everyday over the summer that made us all closer together and that is another hard thing to access in the recreation center with in the student recreation center.
No comments:
Post a Comment