Department of Intramural-Recreational Sports 2014-15 Annual Report
Health Science Campus Fitness Center
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Health Science Campus Fitness Center Now in our thirteenth year of operation the Health Science Campus (HSC) Fitness Center remains consistent in user numbers from previous years. During the 2014/2015 calendar year we amassed 42,287 facility visitors despite the fact that the HSC Fitness Center was closed on weekends and had reduced hours during the week for the first time since our opening. Compared to our modest size our user numbers are impressive. However, our lack of physical size is very prevalent during our peak hours (early mornings, lunch hour, and early evenings). During these peak hours it is not uncommon for patrons to struggle to complete their workouts in a timely manner due to wait times for desired machines. Lack of space remains the main issue facing our facility and something we are doing our very best to offset. With that said the current year brought about many changes to both the facility and facility staff to assist in providing the best possible services to our patrons. The most impactful change made to the HSC Fitness Center during the current year was the replacement of nearly all cardio equipment. This was important not only to better serve our patrons, but also to alleviate some of the cost concerns with having machines out of warranty. Many machines were so old that parts weren’t available for them anymore. We did a great job of keeping them functional for as long as we did. The process of replacing the cardio equipment was very extensive, including identification of old pieces and selection of new, identification of vendors, purchase of new equipment, delivery and removal. Upon delivery each vender would remove agreed upon equipment, which lowered the delivery cost. We orchestrated a delivery plan for the three vendors to deliver the equipment on separate days to prevent any inconvenience closing the facility would cause our members. This was the facility’s first major upgrade since opening in January 2002. Other additions that have been well received by our patrons albeit on a smaller level are a new weight scale, five 45lb weight plates and industrial flooring rugs. The weight scale provides more functions for our patrons such as Body Mass Index (BMI) calculations. The weight plates allow for more weight benches to be used concurrently, which reduces some of the workout wait time for our members. The industrial flooring rugs were acquired from custodial services to protect the facility’s rubber flooring from the wear and tear of the winter season (salt). The rugs also assist in keeping the facility clean by preventing dirt from being tracked throughout the facility and protecting our new cardio equipment. The last physical change to the facility during the current year was a new commercial dryer and finally an improved dryer venting system. The dryer allows the staff to do laundry more efficiently due to the increased number of towels we can wash and dry in a timely manner, which likely reduces water and electric cost for this facility. The new venting system helps in several different ways: it reduces the amount of heat produced from the dryer because it vents outside, it should prolong the life of dryer and allow it to operate at maximum efficiency, and it should reduce the amount of dust in the center, which in turn will keep the dust from collecting in the cardio machines operating mechanisms (lengthening their lifespan). One aspect of the facility that remains stellar is custodial service due to great communication between our custodian Rhonda Midkiff and facility staff. Rhonda continues to do an excellent job of keeping the facility clean and orderly. A shower cleaning (pressure washing) schedule has been improved upon. The custodial closet could not be kept more efficiently stocked and organized. There have been several membership changes during the current year. These changes were brought about due to the opening of the SRC and its membership pricing. The HSC’s summer membership was changed from $20 to $49 to ensure that summer member dues are consistent across the board. Our HSC Dependent ID’s increased to $25, up from $20 a year ago. The center’s visiting memberships can be complex and seemingly ever changing. The complexity comes from the HSC campus departments creating positions for visiting scholars, housing residents, and faculty. A lot of thought and discussions between facility managers, departmental assistant, and facility director went into working out an appropriate pricing system. The results of these discussions were that visiting students and visiting housing residents pay $25 per month which is roughly what UofL students pay. Visiting faculty/staff and scholars do not have to pay a fee because UofL faculty and staff use the facility for free. There have been a few changes in the HSC Fitness Center staff. The Intramural Department was granted Departmental Assistants and the HSC Fitness Center was awarded one of those positions. Addina Tritle was hired to be the first departmental assistant for the HSC Fitness Center. She has been with us since August and has been a very beneficial addition to the center. Because of the makeup of our campus, most of our students are unable to take a job due to time restrictions. It is difficult to get students from the Belknap Campus to fight the hassles with coming downtown to work, so having a DA with flexibility to help cover the facility has been a tremendous improvement for us. Another staffing change occurred due to the untimely passing of our evening facility manager, Rusty Michalski, who had held the evening manager position since 2008. Rusty suffered a heart attack, which lead to a coma from which he never recovered in October. It was a very trying time for our department as a whole as Rusty was dear to our hearts and very well liked. Addina was moved to an interim position to take over his evening position until a search could be conducted and a new facility manager hired. This led to the hiring of Justin Lucas in January 2015. Justin had previously worked for our department as a student and everyone felt very comfortable with him in the evening position. We lost four students, two to graduation and two to other career opportunities. To replace those who left we added five new student workers, of which two were work study, bringing our current student staff to nine. . The HSC Fitness Center saw numerous upgrades, which have vastly improved our patrons experience at the center. We are looking forward to continuing the enhancement of the thirteen year old facility in the upcoming year. We have already begun looking at every aspect of our operation as a staff to insure we continue that trend. Intramural Sports This year was a record breaking year for the Intramural component of the department. We saw a record number of teams registered in ten of our thirty sports that were offered. For the second straight year we had a record number of teams register for our Basketball league with 112 teams. This year we also saw a record number of participants with 3,025 unique participants and 9,677 total participants. The new student recreation center and the input that we get from the students greatly impact these numbers. We make great efforts to keep the schedule fresh and exciting from year to year. We saw a higher than normal staff turnover this year, with three undergraduate supervisors graduating and the hiring of five new ones. We determined that we would need to expand our undergraduate supervisor staff due the expansion seen in our program before the year began. The luxury that we had was that the five new staff members that were brought onboard were very well prepared for the position and it took them little time at to step in and take charge. In an effort to keep our students engaged in our social media efforts, we expanded the use of our Twitter account and posted every championship photo the same evening it was taken. Facility space inside the new student recreation center is not as hard to come by anymore as it was in the old building. Having three courts available at all times for both Basketball and Volleyball has made it much easier to accommodate our record number of teams. The MAC Court has allowed for us to easily expand our offerings for Indoor Soccer, Floor Hockey, and Team Handball. Outdoor facility space was a little more problematic this year than normal. Due to a shortened growing season last summer, the SGA fields did not have a proper root system and half of the field became unplayable after the fall. This created some major challenges for spring soccer season, but thankfully because of a very understanding student body we were able to modify the season and get all activities completed with less field space than in the past. This was the second year of utilizing IMLeagues in our program. This year went much smoother than the first as everyone had a much better understanding of how to use the platform. We also made a major push to get our participants to download the REC*IT app, which is IMLeagues’ mobile application. The app allows for students to get intramural updates sent directly to their phone, which makes communication easier between them and the department. All-Campus Points Championship This year all 3 points races went down to the wire, with the last event deciding every points race. The organizations that were able to put together consistent performances all year ended up beating out all of the other competitors. The Fraternity Division had three organizations that separated themselves from the rest of the pack early on. These three organizations competed hard all year, with all of them finishing near the top of every sport we offered. This year’s point’s race was won by Pi Kappa Alpha by 127.5 points over Sigma Phi Epsilon. The Campus Division saw a few very competitive teams but we saw one organization rise above all others this year. The winning organization competed at a high level all year and had teams entered into every single event that we offered. This year’s Campus points champion was the Intramural Sports Department. The Women’s Closed points race was a competitive race all year with two organizations switching between first and second all year. This race was not decided until the last event of the year was over. This year’s point’s race was won by Kappa Delta by 155 points over Delta Zeta. Sportsmanship As with every year the department strives to encourage sportsmanlike acts while enforcing rules set in place to discourage unsportsmanlike conduct of the participants. Many protocols have been put in place to make participants aware of the standards the department has set for sportsmanship. Participants must sign a sportsmanship contract and are read a sportsmanship statement at every game prior to taking the field in order to remind them of their pledge to remain good sports. Ultimately the department would like to have zero ejections over the course of the year. Unfortunately this year we had twelve ejections, with five occurring in Flag Football, three occurring in Soccer, and four occurring in Indoor Soccer. All of the ejected participants were dealt with in a firm but fair manner. Our hope is that after participants are ejected once that they will not have any more issues on the field during Intramural play. Intramural Handbook The 2014-15 Intramural Handbook continued to be a valuable tool for the participants. This handbook gave participants answers to a lot of their questions and allowed them to become informed participants. The handbook serves as a measure of checks and balances for the participants in order to be certain that the Intramural program is upholding the responsibilities set in place in the handbook. The Intramural Handbook was updated before the year started to make sure that all rules and procedures for IMLeagues were up-to-date and clarified. Officials This year we continued our trend of having a lot of new and inexperienced officials for most of our sports. The students that came out to be officials this year spoke volumes about the quality of students that are on campus as they were all very intelligent and quick to learn even though officiating is not easy. Most of the officials that we had this year were freshman or sophomores so the Intramural Department is very optimistic about our officiating crews in the future. If any of these students return to officiating again this year then we will have a very strong core of officials to build off of. Championship Nights The Intramural Sports department has made it a point to create exciting events when possible for not only the participants but the spectators as well on “Championship Night”. This year we moved our basketball championship night back to Cardinal Arena, after holding it in the SRC last year. The participants love the opportunity to play in a Division 1 arena for their championship nights. We held the Flag Football Championships on the Intramural Field and made an effort to make it a bigger spectacle than in years past. Both were well attended by spectators and had a feel of something bigger than just an Intramural championship. Not everyone can say they played in a major Division I sports venue like the students who participated in the Swim Meet and Track Meet. Thanks to a great working relationship with the Department of Athletics our participants have been awarded these opportunities. Intramural Sports Awards This year was our 28th edition of the annual Intramural Sports Awards. This year’s Awards Banquet saw another large turnout at the George J. Howe Red Barn. We continued the tradition of giving out official’s awards in honor of Dale Orem, Frank Nuxoll, Alfred Smith, Tony Crush, Chris Brawner, and James Breeding. We created a new award this year in honor of one of our former staff member Rusty Michalski. The award that we are giving out in his honor is the Rusty Michalski Honor Award and is given to the participant who best embodies the characteristics that Rusty had. Qdoba sponsored our meal for the sixth straight year. As is the tradition for this event various students and organizations were recognized for their achievements throughout the school year. This year the awards were heavily discussed among the intramural staff to ensure the top candidate would receive each award. Ellis J. Mendelsohn “Mendy” Awards Female Heather Luce – Delta Zeta Male Austin Dunn – Sigma Alpha Epsilon Sports Club Julia Grady- Gaming Club Other Departmental Awards Dale Ramsay Sportsmanship Award Lambda Chi Alpha Outstanding Male Chair Award Matthew Baker – Pi Kappa Alpha Outstanding Female Chair Award Jaclyn Schmitt – Zeta Tau Alpha Outstanding Sport Club Ice Hockey Club Rusty Michalski Honor Award Scott Sallade Dale Orem Flag Football Official of the Year William RJ Washington Frank Nuxoll Volleyball Official of the Year Olivia Zarek Alfred Smith Basketball Official of the Year Dan Filipowski Tony Crush Soccer Official of the Year Madeline Jacob Chris Brawner Rookie Official of the Year Pierce Feltner James Breeding Official of the Year Jakson Deyer Most Improved Fraternity Sigma Pi Most Improved Women’s Closed Kappa Delta Most Improved Campus Points Pi Kappa Alpha IM Service Awards University of Louisville Parking Office Janice Day Suzanne Galbreath Intramural Council This year we continued to use the Intramural Council to keep our program fresh. Last year the council was responsible for adding several sports back to the Intramural schedule. The sports that they added were some of our most popular sports this year. The Intramural Council continues to be a valuable asset for the Intramural Department as they give us a direct opportunity to talk to each organization individually. The council members also had the increased responsibility of teaching all of their organizations members the ins and outs of both IMLeagues and REC*IT this year. Without their help it would have been very difficult for us to use these two platforms as effectively as we do. Changes Implemented for 2015-2016 After discussions with IM Council it was decided to only make one change to the Intramural schedule for next year. The decision was made to make the golf tournament a golf scramble for the upcoming year. This will allow for more people to participate and also give more groups an opportunity to be more competitive. Recommendations Continue to develop partnerships with outside corporations to provide the best experience possible for the participants of the program. Continue to develop ways to recruit and retain sport officials. Research ways to adjust our marketing techniques to match the needs of a very tech savvy generation. Continue to adjust the Intramural schedule to keep it fresh and keep the student body engaged and interested in the program. Make direct efforts to encourage participants to utilize the mobile application for IMLeagues to increase communication between the department and the students. Marketing and Promotions Marketing was a major focus of our program this year. Our goal was to greatly expand our level of interaction with our student population, mainly through the increased use of social media as well as enhanced visual promotion within the SRC. During the year we released 3,198 pieces of information through these vehicles. They featured not only things like important dates coming up, classes, etc. but real time promotional releases from events while they were taking place. The entire staff has been a part of this emphasis and it has now become a part of our culture. The quality of our printed and designed materials was much better than it has been in the past and we increased our number of visual displays by a good number over previous years. This year we completed 36 different marketing projects. The projects included every program area and featured many times of “cross promotion” that included more than one program area. They ranged from tabling to social media to printed material to digital material. We are continually moving our marketing efforts to include many different platforms in an effort to reach the highest portion of our total community as possible. In addition to the visual and social media efforts, we made a number of personal, promotional appearances to groups like the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association, SOS staffers, and a host of other organizations. Hosting the state conference of our professional association gave us a great opportunity to promote the facility and program to our colleagues. One of our major goals was to become much more active not only in social media, but specifically Twitter. We conducted some extensive marketing projects during orientation and early in the fall to build our number of followers. We are over 1,200 now. We also made it a point to release information every day on events that would be taking place as well as to send out promotional “tweets” during activities to generate interest. All of our program areas have access to the account so we are able to get out information very consistently and quickly, which allowed schedule changes and weather conditions to be sent out very easily and actively “re-tweeted” by different organizations. We were also very active in the fitness area, promoting classes at both the SRC and the HSC Fitness center every day. The facility staff did a good job of promoting hours of operation, upcoming holidays, locker renewals and other things. We made a major step forward in establishing this as part of our daily routines with much of the staff and will look to continue so in the future. Reach Television As part of our overall marketing emphasis, we made much more effective use of our REACH digital monitor system. During the year we posted 187 different screens or slides on the system promoting every program area in some fashion. Every roster due date, change in hours of operation, special fitness class, as well as messages from our corporate partners were on the system, which goes out to 16 of our 42 monitors throughout the SRC. In addition, we have posted several videos on the system that promote different program areas. Our graphic art student did some fantastic work for us in this arena and came up with a number of slides that were very unique and attention-getting. Summer Orientation For the second year we had our own info fair during Orientation, partnering with the Greek system, which is a good fit for us. Every afternoon during the attendees’ break, they are able to visit us in the breezeway of the Life Sciences Buildings. We have been involved in many different formats with Orientation over the years, but this one works well for us. There are not a lot of other groups vying for the student’s attention at this session, which is great for us. We had staff from the intramural, fitness, club and marketing areas of the program at each of the ten sessions. Web Page With the implementation of Plone 4, we had to completely re-develop our web site. David Rice and John Smith attended a series of training sessions conducted by the IT Department to learn the new system. The University had a deadline for launching the new versions of every web page hosted by the UofL. Many departments did not meet that deadline but we were one of the earlier ones to be completed and ready for launch. Our new design has eliminated some redundancy in our previous site and is much easier to navigate. We are making good use of it in every program area. With the re-design, we now have the Student Affairs event calendar running on one of our scrolls which is great not only for us, but helps cross-promote events through other unit sites. Our page continues to be one of the cornerstones of our overall marketing program. Intramural Web Site Statistics Visits – 55,343 Pageviews – 155,939 Duration – 1:45 Page per session – 2.82 Unique Users – 19,283 Learfield Sports Properties We continue to be one of the only Intramural-Recreational Sports departments in the nation to be represented by a professional sports marketing agency. We have seen a few others begin to use our model, but we will always be one of the pioneers in this model nationwide. Learfield is very connected to the Atlantic Coast Conference and is a national player in terms of sports marketing. Marketing in our context is about corporate relationships and financial gains for the department and not promotional ventures. Partnerships with corporate entities come with a high level of expectations from a compliance standpoint. It is crucial for us in our ability to retain current partners and attract new ones, that we complete all of our obligations in a timely manner. This entails a consistent effort and awareness from our entire staff. Last year we did not fail to complete any of our obligations to any of our partners. John Smith has regular meetings with the Learfield representative responsible for our program to insure both our compliance and to investigate potential corporate partners. Our partnership with Qdoba remains very strong. Even though we have had the partnership for several years, Qdoba is so popular with the students that there is still the same level of excitement associated with the program. We have established good relationships with several other corporate agencies and continue to develop those. In addition to the Learfield related marketing, we have been working closely with Glenn Gittings from the Vice President of Student Affairs Office in procuring sponsorships for the new Student Recreation Center. Currently, due to restrictions in place on a University level involving these types of efforts, we are not allowed to do much but we are hoping for some changes in this area soon. Graphic Arts Student One of the best things we have ever done on the marketing and promotion front was to hire Nick Cook to help us with the visual presentation of our materials. Nick is a very talented graphic artist and very creative person. He has significantly raised the quality of every area of our program in this area. His work has appeared on our web site, REACH digital monitor system, posters and printed materials. He still has two years of school left and we hope to retain him for both of those but having a student skilled in the area of graphic art will be a consistent goal of our program. Alumni Memberships We continue to work with the Registrars’ Office in promoting the program to every graduate of the university. This year we were able to distribute almost 5,000 pieces of information to current graduates through a printed information sheet placed in the diploma package. We are starting to see an increase in the number of students who paid the recreation fee prior to the opening of the new SRC who are eligible to receive 6 months of membership (free) for every semester they paid the fee prior to opening. We want to make sure and include that information on the materials we are able to distribute through the Registrars’ Office. We hope to retain a high number of those former students as alumni members when their free period of membership is completed. With our new format of allowing alumni to join for 3, 6, 9 or 12 months at a time, our number of members is very fluid and fluctuates greatly depending on the time of the year. The main factor that drives memberships is parking. The lack of parking, and more importantly free parking, for alumni anywhere near the center will always be a determining factor in how successful the program might be. The opening of a 24 hour fitness center in the nearby Cardinal Station shopping area will also have an effect on our membership as they have free parking and membership rates of $10 per month. We know of a number of alumni and faculty staff former members of our’s who now use that facility. Dependent ID Validations This program continues to be popular and appreciated by students, faculty and staff. In a period of time when cost of living raises are small, benefits cost more and more, and general inflation eats up more of everyone’s discretionary income, a real value like this is a very strong public relations tool for our department. We have had a strong response from families at the Health Science Campus Fitness Center and have more intentionally marketed the program to families on that campus. We released information through the UofL Today email feature at the start of each semester. As with other membership programs, our rates for dependent IDs have changed to reflect the student recreation fee. Summer ID Validations The summer validation program allows students to use intramural facilities over the summer if they were enrolled in the spring or can show proof of registration for the upcoming fall semester. This is very popular with our students as so many of them live in the Louisville area. In addition to being a good revenue stream to us, it is a good value and appreciated service to those students. To be consistent with other membership programs, the fee matches the student recreation fee. We do not think anyone should be gaining access to the SRC for less than the students are paying so all membership fees are based off that amount. Directory: intramurals -> about-us intramurals -> Monday, April 20th through Saturday May 2nd Registration Deadline: Monday, April 13th at 5pm the game about-us -> Department of Intramural-Recreational Sports 2016-17 Annual Report about-us -> Annual Report Table of Contents Download 413.65 Kb. Share with your friends:
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