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By Elizabeth Newman

DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR

enewman@media.ucla.edu

  ANGIE LEVINE/Daily Bruin Staff The Wooden Center offers three weightlifting classes a week to small groups like the one above.

UCLA, an institution that prides itself as a leader, has some catching up to do.

In September, UCLA will finally start upgrading the Wooden Center with construction starting on a 7,000-square foot addition. Right now, however, student dissatisfaction with the facility is common.

According to Dan Wax, manager of the Wooden Center, UCLA’s facility houses 50 to 60 cardio machines, and more than 100 weights (a combination of selectorized and free weights). Many students, here for the summer from other University of California campuses, feel that the Wooden Center equipment lacks in quality and quantity as compared to the facilities they use during the academic year.

Kate Wilton, an outside hitter for UC Davis’ volleyball team and a Los Angeles native, chose to work out at UCLA because of the $20 summer membership offered to students from any UC campus not enrolled in summer sessions, a hard price seemingly hard to beat.

“This gym is so confusing,” she said. “The one entrance and exit to the weight room makes it difficult. At Davis, the weights are spread out over two floors.

“Plus, I feel like I’m going to run into people when I work out it’s so crowded,” she added.

Other students agree.

Max Amini, a third-year transfer student from UC Irvine, says his school’s two-year-old Anteater Recreation Center looks “like it was made for the Army.”

“(At Wooden), there’s not enough equipment, and the weight room’s small as hell,” Amini said. “You have to have a special eye for free weights because none of them have (lb) numbers on them.”

The Anteater Recreation Center, which opened in January of 2000, was a $25.6 million project funded by a student referendum, the same means by which the Wooden Center was constructed.

The construction of the Irvine health club was spearheaded by current UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero while he was UC Irvine’s athletic director.

“This is one of the most important facilities on any college campus,” commented Jill Schindele, director of the Anteater Recreation Center. “We didn’t have a fitness center before this.”

Irvine’s Rec Center is outfitted with a total of 15 Woodway treadmills, 15 Precor elliptical machines, 5 Precor cross trainers, 24 stationary bikes and 11 Stairmasters. The facility also boasts an elevated track, and Cybex and Hammerstrength weight machines. The cardio equipment is spread out within the facility to foster a more spacious workout environment, according to UCI fitness director Cindy Cook.

“We could never have enough treadmills or elliptical machines,” Cook said. “We bought more ellipticals because they’re highly used but half the price and take up half the space (as treadmills).”

The student referendum passed at Irvine to fund this facility now includes an annual student fee of $264. UCLA students are assessed $36 per academic year.

  ANGIE LEVINE/Daily Bruin Staff Students wait in line to use the treadmills at the Wooden Center during busy hours.

The Student Programs, Activities and Resource Complex referendum recently passed at UCLA will raise annual student fees to $84 per year to fund Wooden’s expansion. Wooden West, as the addition will be named, is the second structural change the Wooden Center has seen since its construction. The North expansion opened in July 2001 and was built to house facilities from the Men’s Gym, which was closed for seismic renovations after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

“Our plans include adding an additional 20 to 30 treadmills, 20 to 40 bikes, 20 stairclimbers and 10 to 20 elliptical machines,” said Wax on the approaching extension. “The weight room will be outfitted with brand new equipment as well. Right now we just don’t have space for new machines.”

Wax said the addition will be a “major step in alleviating Wooden’s shortcomings.

“Twenty years ago, when this was built, cardio was not an interest,” Wax added. “Originally, Wooden had just four stationary bikes in the back of the weight room.”

Mick Deluca, director of UCLA Recreation, said the Wooden Center “set the precedent for the whole (UC) system” as the first student-referendum funded building constructed on a UC campus.

“If we were to design this building today, we’d do it completely differently,” Deluca said. “20,000 square feet would be optimum, but to be tripling our space with this expansion will have a significant effect on the facility, in addition to the tripling or quadrupling of pieces of equipment.”

“Many schools our size have two or three John Wooden Centers,” he continues. “For the immediate time, this is a great improvement.”

Many students feel this change is overdue. 

“Santa Monica College’s gym is smaller, but it has newer equipment,” said Mike Rezai, a second-year transfer from SMC. “This place just looks torn down.”

Mike Hakim, a Los Angeles native who attends UC Berkeley, also takes advantage of Wooden’s $20 summer membership.

“There are more free weights at Cal, and more (weight) machines,” Hakim said. “Here, you have to wait for people to finish sets, and many times specific dumbbell weights are always taken. I avoid Wooden at all costs from 3 to 7 p.m., it just gets so hectic.”

The Recreational Sports Facility at Berkeley boasts 8,500 square feet of weight room space and over 80 cardiovascular machines, according to Cal’s recreation Web site.

Anand Upadhye, a fourth-year student at Cal, warns the uninformed.

“We (RSF) have a lot of lame cardio equipment that 24 Hour Fitness would donate before putting out on their floor,” he said. “We really have about 50 machines that are in demand.”

Mike Weinberger, director of Recreation and Sports at Cal, says space is a crucial commodity in their facility.

“We could always use more space,” said Weinberger. “We experience lines for the weight room and cardio machines from 4 p.m. onwards on a daily basis.”

Weinberger and Deluca both stress the impact of changing recreation trends on the layout of their respective campus facilities.

  CHRIS MONTALVO/Daily Bruin Senior Staff

“The atrium where we now house all our cardio equipment was originally a walk-through,” said Weinberger. “In addition, when these buildings opened, women just didn’t work out at the gym. Now our population is more than fifty percent female, and the building just wasn’t designed for that population in mind.”

One example of these changing trends is UCLA’s rock wall, converted from a racquetball court. 

“We took this space that was serving two people at a time and converted it into a space that could serve many more,” said Wax. “Combined with the increasing interest in rock climbing and a decreased interest in racquetball, this serves the school population better.”

With attendance numbers reaching 3,000 daily during the school year and ranging from 700,000 to one million annually, serving the masses is crucial for Wooden Center management.

“This is part of the fiber of this campus,” said Deluca. “Our campus is becoming increasingly residential, and very dense at that. It’s very demanding to have one facility to meet the needs of everyone, and we’re working to create several commitments to leisure and recreation around campus.”

These “several commitments” include Fit Center South, a small gym near parking lot 32, and possibly expanding Sunset Canyon Recreation Center. This strategy, according to Weinberger, has been employed on Cal’s campus with great success.

“We invested in our Strawberry Canyon Fit Center, similar to Sunset Rec, about one year ago to create an alternative and add capacity. From our population counts, it’s becoming quite popular.”

The increasing operational costs at Berkeley, however, come at a price, and students who use the facility must pay a $25 membership per semester.

“UCLA was the first campus to build a rec facility,” Weinberger pointed out. “It’s a blessing because you’ve had it the longest, but now you’re facing the biggest challenge in keeping it up to date.”

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