New Building for a New Era

11-9-92

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports.

The volleyball team played well in their MIAC tournament games. The football team kept their MIAC title hopes alive with another convincing win. And, behind these up-front scenes of Cobber sports, some people behind the scenes are working to put the finishing touches on a funding campaign for our new fitness center.

The plan is for a multi-use facility just East of the current Cobber field house which would house, among other things, a 200-meter track and room inside the track for four basketball courts, or multiple volleyball courts, or tennis courts, or whatever else your sporting mind might want. We're hoping it comes soon.

I had a chance to think of those fund raising people late Thursday night as I slumped into a seat in the stands of our Memorial Auditorium.

It was 10:45 p.m. and we had just finished our fifth basketball practice of the year. With the adrenaline that flows in a college basketball practice, our players were not likely to get to sleep before 2 or 3 in the morning.

As some of our players did their post-practice stretching, a couple hundred students and a few faculty were franticly setting up volleyball nets all over this beautiful field house. They were beginning an intramural volleyball session that would last into the wee hours.

Our basketball team began practice at 8:00 p.m. because the women's team had practiced at 6:00.

The women had practiced at 6:00 because the volleyball team had practiced from 4:00 to 6:00. They were getting ready for their conference tournament and had wanted more time.

But there simply wasn't enough to go around.

The gym had been in constant use since 7:00 that morning, what with phy ed classes, dance classes, softball pitchers and assorted others trying to squeeze in time to exercise.

At least we were warm.

The football team, which is making another title run, had nowhere to practice but out in the snow and 17-degree November wind. The cross country team went sliding on the streets of Moorhead for lack of a warm place to run.

The two soccer teams ended their season in the cold a week ago. Thank goodness they didn't make the playoffs.

During the day, builders had mapped out plans on our basketball floor for yet another stage setup, this time for a dance performance by a troupe from Peking. The basketball coaches were scrambling to schedule practice time in other crowded gyms around town in late November and early December, the ten days when the music department moves in to prepare and present their ever-popular Christmas concert.

Having basketball practice late has its advantages. At least there aren't wrestlers running and puffing on the stairs, and there isn't an aerobics class blaring in one of the small gyms, and there aren't too many faculty here power-walking, dodging stray passes.

And the cheerleaders have usually finished their practice at the end of the west court.

And the baseball batting cage isn't up, with its constant hammering of balls drowning out what you want to teach your players.

As I look out on our renovated Auditorium, with basketball courts that feel like a cloud under foot, and seating that makes a crowd of 4,000 feel like an intimate gathering, I marvel at how it's endured, built as is was for another era.

It was built in the early 50's, before women's sports saw their phenomenal growth, before the fitness craze taught young and old alike the importance daily exercise, before Concordia had 2,950 students, before wildly-popular wellness and intramural programs, before aerobics classes, and before coaches and athletes learned the multi-sport benefits of weight- lifting and year-round conditioning programs.

People in the athletic business need to be careful not to sound whiny when talking about what new facilities we think we need.

Coaches are a notoriously never-satisfied lot.

And athletes can easily sound like spoiled excuse-makers when they start talking about inconvenient practice times being detrimental to their performance. In the big scheme of things, a new sports building might not rank high on a national priority list of things we need to do to solve our nation's ills.

But the rationale for the new fitness center goes beyond letting athletes come in out of the cold, or letting coaches get home for supper with their families.

The proposed fitness center will be an expression of our commitment to educating whole people, people anxious to build habits for healthy living, people who long for the simple joy of athletic expression as a vital interlude in their hectic academic lives.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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