The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, December 11, 1980, Page page 5, Image 5
thursday, december 11, 1980 daily nebraskan page 5 Are you aware that: -in the Big Eight, the average number of intramural activities offered for men is 21 .8, for women 22.2, and for co-rec 8. UNL offers 53 intramural activities for men, 52 for women, and 32 for co-rec. This is the largest number of intramural activities offered by any school in the Big Eight Conference. in the Big Eight, the average number of full-time pro fessional employees for intramurals is 2.4, and 1.4 gradu ate assistants. -at UNL, we have one full-time professional employee, and no graduate assistants. This is the smallest intramural staff in the Big Eight. Even Kearney State and UNO have graduate assistants in their recreation programs. UNL is seventh out of the Big Eight schools in terms of student accessibility to indoor recreation facilities. The University of Oklahoma is eighth, however, they will be moving into a new recreation building next year which is currently under construction. Since this recreational facilities survey was taken in 1978. Oklahoma State, Kansas, and Kansas State have completed additional facilities, and they already had facilities superior to ours. As the number of intramural activities offered here at UNL has increased, the number of students participating in the programs have also increased. This is exactly what the intramural programs are designed to do encourage student participation. However, the increase in students is putting a strain on the already over-crowded indoor recre ational facilities and under-staffed Recreation Depart ment. At the present time, we have five different buildings being used for indoor recreational facilities. These include Mabel Lee, Schulte Ficldhouse, Coliseum, Men's Physical Education, and East Campus Activities Building. The latter three are very old buildings and need updating badly. Not only arc our indoor facilities spread out be tween these five buildings, but these five buildings are not accommodating the students' needs and must be shared with athletic programs andor the School of Health, Physi cal Education and Recreation. Presently, we iiave over-crowded basketball courts, twer-crowded volleyball courts, over-crowded racquetball courts, over-crowded weight room, an inadequate recreational equipment storage and check-out space, an inadequate indoor jogging track (Mushroom Gardens), an inadequate martial art: area, no sauna, and no training room for student recreation. Are saunas and a training room luxuries? To the students of the University of Colo rado, among others, a sauna is only another feature in a complete recreational complex. It would be much more efficient to expand, and then consolidate all types of indoor recreational activities into one complex. This would not only be advantageous for the student wanting to participate in more than one phy sical activity, but it would be much more efficient for supervision. - There are letters to the editor dating back as far as 1970 that point out the inadequacy of student recreation al facilities, and since then, the average participation in recreation programs has increased 200 percent. There seems to be a lack of administrative support in correcting this obvious problem, since nothing has been done in this 10-year span. I, as one student, am tired of the inexcusably inade quate recreational facilities we put up with at UNL, and think it's time something is done. The time to act on such an indoor recreational complex is now, before spiraling costs and inflation make this type of building an impos sibility. Maybe it is time to bring back the cigarette tax, tliis time to build a facility that will benefit the entire student population, not just a select few. Isn't UNL (as a whole) concerned about the health and physical well-being of its students? Such a recreational complex would increase possibilities for learning and living healthy life styles, which would result in a happier and more productive student body. After all, a healthy body is needed to house a healthy mind. Jim Brockman Recreation Advisory Board Natural Resources Junior The Daily Nebraskan welcomes letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected on the basis of clarity, originality and timeliness. Letters are property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned to their authors. The Daily Ne braskan reserves the right to edit and condense all submissions. Readers also are welcome to submit material as guest opinions, subject to the editor's decision to print or not print the material, either as a letter or guest opinion. Anonymous submissions will not be considered, and requests to withhold names will be granted only in exceptional circumstances Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, Room 34, Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588. Y3GPED5 o urn 0 ACCESSORIES fo) UJ rv J ft 0JIUJ UN n TOtlEIHIMilE SALE FOXI KREIDLER SACHS o Perfect Kmas Gift o High Gas Mileage o Low Maintenance High Quality Low Insurance Sale Starts Wednesday, December 10 and positively ends Sunday, December 14 KJpen 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. 14775 Grover Street (1 block South of I in Cornhusker Industrial Park) INTERPED, LTD. i . I. M I $49.99 Sale Select from any one of our hundreds of frames and purchase a complete pair of glasses for only $49 99. Your choice of any single vision lens, plastic or glass, with any tint or oversize lens. Bifocals are $10 extra. Trifocals, cataracts and hidden bifocals are $20 extra. This ad is good through December 20th. 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