By John Leschak, Columnist
We all know how stressful student life can be. And many of us need to worry about paying our bills while keeping up with our class work. A break is essential once in a while to maintain sanity. Some of us choose to relax through yoga or meditation. Quite a number of us prefer the soporific of inebriation. Others, myself included, unwind through exercise.
The Hofstra Rec Center was part of my daily routine – whether I was lifting weights, playing basketball or running on the treadmill. However, I also had many qualms with the Center – particularly the weight room. Hofstra has more than 12,400 students, yet the weight room was not more than a couple hundred square feet large. As a result the weight room was frequently overcrowded. The weight room was more like the “wait” room since that is what you had to do to use anything. Even worse, several of the free weights and machines were very old – they belonged in the Hofstra Museum, not the gym. I often feared they would break and snap me in half. Oh, and you had better get your tetanus shot before using ‘em!
With these complaints in mind, I was totally stoked to hear in 2008 that the University would be renovating the Rec Center. It was about time! We put thousands of dollars into Hofstra’s coffers each semester, so surely they could afford to give us a better gym. But, the wheels of justice turn slow and the Hofstra bureaucracy moves even slower. Fast-forward to February 15, 2010 and the opening of the “new and improved” Rec Center.
Everyone knows Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” But the new Rec Center is proof of Murphy’s correlative, Finagle’s law – “If anything can go even worse, it will go even worse.”
I didn’t think they could make the Rec Center worse, but somehow Hofstra managed to finagle it. As if the gym wasn’t too crowded before, now the entire Rec Center is confined to the space of the basketball courts, with the entire weight room stationed in half of one basketball court! And they are still using the same decrepit weights! I spoke to one student who was on the former football team who expressed a deep feeling of victimization. First they axed the football team and then they left him with a gym under construction! “I don’t even feel like working out anymore,” he said. The new Rec Center is a disaster. They should call it the “Wreck” Center!
Sure, once they finish the construction it will look great but for those of us graduating this year that doesn’t matter much. For the amount of money we pay to go to Hofstra we ought to be able to use a half-way decent gym. And there is one for us to use. The weight room of the PFC is pristine and filled with new equipment, but apparently we can’t use it. Why not? I still have not been given a reason. Yes, I understand that the sports teams should have priority in using the PFC, but that doesn’t justify a total ban on use by other students. The University could simply make the PFC open to use only when sports teams are not using it.
School life is stressful enough, and with the amount of money we pay Hofstra is obliged to give its students what they want. Until the new Rec facility is opened, students should have the option to use the PFC rather than the Wreck Center.
