A look back

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Student Recreation Center and the culmination of student support that allowed the building to be constructed.
The SRC will hold a two-hour celebration from 3 to 5 p.m. today in commemoration. Kristin Strong, the event and marketing coordinator for Campus Recreation, said the event is about celebrating 10 years at the University of Idaho and bringing students together.
“It’s our way of celebrating what the SRC was built for — to bring people here to get active … to have some type of recreation,” Strong said.
The SRC has seen close to 3 million visitors since its opening a decade ago, according to Brian Mahoney, operations supervisor of campus recreation. Construction of the $16.3 million, 85,563-square-foot facility began Nov.10, 2000 and the SRC opened Feb. 20, 2002 thanks to a significant amount of support from the student body.
According to Associate Director of Campus Recreation Gordon Gresch, from Nov. 3 to 5, a staggering 35 percent of the student body voted on the referendum and 67 percent cast ballots in favor of the construction.
It was the largest percentage won by a student referendum at UI, thanks in large part to the fact that it was a student-driven initiative, Gresch said.
Gregory Tatham, assistant vice provost for student affairs, said the student body came out in such large numbers because of the dire conditions of the recreation facilities on campus at the time.
“We were operating campus rec out of Memorial Gym and with space limitations, gym limitations, the weight room, the availability of space for wellness classes — it was just lacking in facilities and we were sharing with athletics and other entities,” Tatham said.
Tatham said it was the largest referendum passed for a recreation center in the United States.
The building went up, but there were obstacles along the way — primarily in funding.
“If we were going to identify one frustration it was that we were cutting so much of the building that I don’t think people realized it — it soon became called phase two, but it really was everything we couldn’t afford,” Gresch said.
In lieu of a shrinking budget first went the pool, then the extra gyms, a weight room and finally the student health center portion, according to Tatham.
Despite funding issues, the building was finished and Gresch said he was pleased with the outcome but there was no manual to run the place. Over time, Gresch said they have adjusted to the challenges running the facility has brought and feel they have stayed competitive with other recreation centers across the nation.
Tatham said he sees a possible problem in the near future as the center will eventually have to consider an expansion to accommodate UI’s growing student body.
“If you have ever been here from 3 in the afternoon until 9 o’clock at night and seen how crowded this place is — we definitely need to have phase two fairly soon,” Tatham said.
Today will be more about looking back than looking forward though, as the SRC will have a slide show with pictures and facts about the center. There will also be Vandal Massage, food and prizes that include a punch pass, personal training, rental gift card, clothing, a gift certificate from the book store and sweat towels to the first 200 people.
Looking back at the SRC’s decade of existence, Tatham said he is proud of the level of quality found in people at the university.
“One thing I am very proud of is the quality of our student staff — we hire close to 200 students a year … they do an outstanding job for us,” Tatham said.
Gresch said he he thinks about how cutting-edge the university was to only be behind Washington State by one year and ahead of a large portion of the United States — showing how desperately the building was needed.
Gresch said he and others jokingly refer to the SRC as the Disneyland of Campus — because it’s a fun place to be and even better to be a part of. He said it symbolizes not only the university, but the state as a whole.
“If you look at our rec center it is not by coincidence that it has peaks and ridges and … Earth tones,” Gresch said. “The atrium concrete is the forest floor, the pillars with the wood coming out of them is the trees of Idaho, the climbing wall is the mountains up against the back drops of our mountains … the carpet was blue … those are the waters of Idaho.”

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