Where are our exercise balls?
Where are our yoga mats?
Where are our weights?
What happened to our gym? Yes, we had a gym.
In 2015, due to a lack of use by students and the retirement of the full-time fitness instructor Elaine Milligan, the doors to the Larimer Campus gym were closed.
What was once lined with hardwood floors and state-of-the-art equipment is now the new multicultural center, instituted in 2023, where people of all backgrounds go to hang out and study.
Following its closure, all fitness equipment was moved to the Westminster Campus to remodel its campus gym, which has been present since the 1970s.
Containing a weight room, cardio area, and a floor that can serve as a basketball and volleyball court, the gym, open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., is all set and ready for students with a Wolf Card to use. An average of a hundred students today take advantage of the facility.
Since its opening, the Westminster students have formed a variety of fitness clubs, including dance, basketball, and volleyball, and offer a weight room class for credit.
The Westminster Health and Fitness Coordinator, Jackson Tate, said that two new classes, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and yoga, will be held monthly at the gym starting this spring.
The Westminster Fitness Center also hosts monthly basketball and volleyball tournaments for students, allowing those rising sports stars to show off their skills. The volleyball team recently had the honor of playing in a co-ed tournament at Red Rocks.
Despite having its own student-organized sports clubs, including yoga, soccer, and volleyball, and the success of Westminster’s fitness program, Larimer has yet to rebuild another fitness area for its students.
However, there is a reason for this.
Tate said that FRCC met with Colorado State University earlier this semester to discuss if the Larimer campus could have access to some of its facilities.
The goal, G MacDonald, an employee of Student Life at Larimer said, is that we will be allowed in at least three resources on the CSU campus. He said he hopes those would be the library, the cafeteria, and, most importantly, the rec center.
The different CSU fitness classes, such as swimming, kickboxing, a rockwall for climbing, pickleball, table tennis, badminton, cardio/strength, and yoga would become available through this partnership.
The project is still in the works, and CSU has yet to decide whether they will move forward, but fear not. FRCC’s faculty is aiming to make it happen.
MacDonald said that if successful, Larimer students will have direct access to the CSU facilities with a simple scan of their Wolf Card.
