Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Happy Sunday, everybody. You're listening to Fit to Be Tied with Sheena and Whitney. But I do have a surprise. Well, not really like it's a good surprise, but kind of not a good surprise. Well, I guess the not good surprise is Sheena is not going to be with us this semester. But the good part is she has become a mother to her little baby, Jack, so she is going to be spending some time with him this semester, her family. The great news is I have Mr. Charles Burrows, who is one of our fitness coordinators on the show with us. Charles, welcome.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Thanks, Whitney. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Well, thanks for jumping in and co hosting with me. I know my audience has been, like, dying to hear somebody else's voice besides mine because I normally just ramble about nothing. So I'm glad that you have decided to co host with us and to, you know, kind of share your knowledge on some fitness things and just to be another voice on the radio. So what's been going on with you?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: You know, not too much.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: You know, like a lot of us,
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I've been working, sometimes in the office, sometimes at home. You know, I am happy to do this, though. I'm no Sheena, but I'm definitely happy to contribute in some way. And as you know, I love talking about this kind of stuff, so I'm just excited to be here.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think what's cool is, you know, with me and Sheena and our balance, we've known each other for a pretty long time. And, Charles, we've known each other for the past couple years since you've been working at the rec center. I'm kind of excited that this show will kind of take the fitness route a little bit. We've kind of hijacked it, I guess, which is kind of selfish and cool for us. I know we've got a couple of topics that we're going to be talking about throughout the semester, specifically about fitness. And that's kind of where me and you thrive, I think, is talking about our programs and when people have questions about health and wellness and where to get started and Mythbusters. I think this is going to be a really cool segue, which is, you know, something we're going to talk about next week. I know you've done a presentation for health promotion wellness a couple of times talking about, you know, kind of Mythbusters and things like that. So just to kind of give people a little taste of next week's show, just a little, you know, mythbuster. Can you think of one?
Maybe I Know, I'm kind of putting you on the spot here, but like, one Mythbuster that people talk about, hear about that we see a lot. Maybe one that we could kind of just, you know, put out there and bust right now.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Ooh, that's a really good one. I'm gonna have to think for just a second. You did catch me off guard.
I don't want to give away any of my real good ones.
You know what?
I got one.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Oh, you got one.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Okay, I got one. I got one. This is gonna be a good one. So one popular thought belief about fitness. One thing I think is really interesting is that people often think that lifting weights makes you bulky and that lifting weights in general makes you gain muscle, but that's actually not the case, although that is one of the biggest contributing factors to gaining muscle. Nutrition plays a really heavy role in that, as well as our own genetics and our hormones. So the average person is not going to be able to just start lifting weights and all of a sudden gain a lot of muscle. And I think that's important for people to understand, because if you don't realize that, a lot of people, they kind of stay away from any kind of resistance training because they're worried that they're going to gain a bunch of muscle, but that's actually not the case. Gaining muscle is a pretty tough thing to do, and so doesn't happen for the average person by accident.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: You know, that seat you thought on your toes. I was going to say we could just talk about the end, but then you just came at it, like, quickly, and I think that's great information. I think I was talking to another group, campus group, about that, and specifically, women always kind of freak out that, like, they're going to gain too much muscle mass when really you're just not. And I think that that's just a great Mythbuster that we do need to be doing strength training. And that kind of, you know, segues into our topic for today. You know, with. With COVID and Changes and the rec center opening back up and the Witt center opening back up and just the facilities around town. We are going to have a guest on after the break that is going to share with us kind of his background and recreation and also what our facilities look like moving forward. But, Charles, we are going to take a quick break. And so our audience, you know, as Sheena would always say, grab a drink, wash your hands, get a sn.
You're listening to Fitz. Be tied with Sheena and Whitney. Actually, Whitney and Charles on 90.7 the capstone.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: The capstone. 90.7 fm wvua.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Welcome back, friends. You're listening to Fit to be tied with Whitney and Charles on 90.7 the capstone. And we've been starting our Sunday conversation about fitness. And it's been a while since we talked about fitness. But you know, Charles, you did enlighten us with a little bit of myth busting that if you lift weights, you're not just going to get that bulkiness. All of a sudden. We need to be lifting weights and building strength and muscles. And what better way to do that than coming to the rec center? Charles, I know you've been working out a little bit. We' started some personal training programs. But I do want to introduce our guest who is going to enlighten us on what the rec center looks like in these days of COVID Mr. Andrew Veer, one of our coordinators for facility operations. Welcome to the show.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Hi. Welcome, Andrew.
[00:05:42] Speaker C: Thanks. How are y' all doing?
Good.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: I mean, what better way to, you know, spend Sunday than on the radio?
[00:05:50] Speaker C: Exactly.
Anytime I get a chance to talk about myself and what I do is my job and the recreation center, I'm gonna take that opportun. So thanks for having me on.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Well, thanks for being here.
So, you know, we know about you, Charles and myself. We work with you at the rec center. But, you know, I think this might be the first. Is this the first time you've been on Fit to be Tied?
[00:06:11] Speaker C: It is. I actually used to do a weekly picks, used to do the skybox, used to be on Saturday mornings. I know there's probably a ton of cross listeners that are like, oh, I know that guy.
But yeah, this is the first time I've been on Fit to be Tied. So like I said, any chance I get to come on the radio, I'm excited to do so.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Well, good and welcome. So just tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, let our listeners know your background, just who you are. Who is Andrew dear? In a nutshell, yeah.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: That's a great question. Whit.
How long do we have? Like 10 minutes?
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Or you know what? We could just take the whole day.
Perfect.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: No, I'm just kidding. Like you said, my name is Andrew Deer. I'm from a town called Bowling Green, Kentucky. It's about an hour north of Nashville. I got my undergrad and graduate degree from Western Kentucky University.
I'm a hilltopper for law.
So if you know any hilltoppers, shout outs to them.
I have been here at UREC since July of 2014 actually came in and was. And helped open the WIT center in the summer or fall of 2014. So been here for that long. I love to fish, I love to golf, I love to watch college football, which I'm very excited about. It has started, which is great.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: And. Yeah.
[00:07:27] Speaker C: And like Whitney said, I'm a coordinator for facility operations. And so what that means, basically is I hire train schedule, all the student facility operations staff, the students that check you in, that check out equipment that are in the weight room.
I oversee maintenance requests at the Witt center and just kind of overall facility operations between the student recreation center and the Witt Center. So that's who I am, and that's what I do. So. And I'm a friend of mine.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Well, it doesn't sound like I know this for a fact that y' all staff has been super busy since reopening the facility. And we've all been coming back kind of. It's kind of happened in phases. I know. You know, with fitness, we kind of had to wait for the green light to go because we had a lot of things we had to work through, just like facilities. I mean, you guys, that's a really big undertaking. And those of you that are listening to our show that have been in the facility, you have definitely seen some changes. Those that have not been back to the facility. We're hoping that this show will get you excited about coming back in the wake of COVID but, you know, there's just been so many different things to happen. For a while, we were closed down. I guess it was March through. I can't remember when did we open back up?
[00:08:46] Speaker C: We opened up at the SRC on July 15, and I'm glad you said that. Something interesting about facility operations and. When I was an undergrad, I worked in facilities for WKU athletics. And then when in grad school, I worked at the rec center at wu. One of the things about facilities is that we always. We're always here, and we always usually are open. And if we're not open, we have custodial staff here, we have maintenance staff here. So it's kind of part of our DNA and it's kind of part of who we are. And so we kind of like that. We like that about ourselves, and we like that, you know, we are kind of the first ones in and first ones out of the rec center within facilities. And so it's.
It's been challenging and tough, and we've been working really hard, but also, deep down, we really kind of like it,
[00:09:36] Speaker A: you know, Charles and I had the opportunity, I guess it was in August, to be supervisors, and that was definitely. Charles, I'm curious to hear your take. You know, being in fitness, we know what we do on our end of the spectrum, but then, you know, facilities is a whole nother thing. Charles, what are your thoughts on being a supervisor?
[00:09:58] Speaker B: You know, I realize it was definitely something that wasn't in my skill set before, and it was a good learning experience.
It definitely gave me a lot of appreciation for just the whole facilities crew and what they do. I mean, they put a lot of good work in. And, you know, I was just kind of thinking, like, in a lot of ways, Andrew, you guys are unsung heroes at the Direct Center. You guys are on the front lines that are making sure things are staying clean in addition to the custodial staff and just trying to help reinforce new policies and procedures that, you know, we've never seen before. And so I think you guys do an awesome job at what y' all do. So a lot of kudos to you guys.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks, Charles. I think I would be.
It'd be terrible of me not to mention this. I do have to give y' all a hard time. I did tell Dee Hanson, our fitness. Our other fitness coordinator, who will be on this radio show at some point. I'm sure she was the supervisor of all the pro staff supervisor of the year. So she provided the best customer service and I believe worked the hardest. So I do need to give you all a hard time and give her shout outs for that.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: But, yeah, more power to her, because I'm going to be completely honest with you guys. I am very happy to stay in the wheelhouse of fitness. Like, after being a supervisor, I was like. I was like, you know, I'm grateful for the opportunity because, first of all, I love getting to know your staff because I felt like it was a chance for them to meet the fitness staff, and that way they could ask us questions, especially if there's things, you know, because they're running the whole facility, there might be things that they just don't know about or have learned, but there's so much information, they just don't know where to go ask. And so that was a really great part, but, man, I just.
I have to be honest. It wasn't my thing, but I'm glad that somebody from fitness Services. I'm glad that Dee, like, just took it all in and got the supervisor of the year kudos, and I think that's awesome.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: That's unofficial, by the way. I Haven't really said that. I guess I just announced that on the radio.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Okay, so now it's official.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. We, you know, we want. Our biggest thing is we want to provide good customer service for folks that come into the rec center. So that's cleanliness. That's a smile when you walk in.
And then, you know, if you need us, we're here. If you don't need us, have at it. You know, that, that's kind of what. That, that's kind of what we want to do. We want to provide a fun, safe, clean environment for people that come in our recreation facility. So we do strive to do that. I know some patrons get upset at us for certain things for enforcing policy. I'm sure we're going to talk about a few policies in the next segment.
But yeah, ultimately we want people to be in here and we want people to have fun and exercise. And so it might not sound like a lot, but as you all understand, there's actually a lot that goes into that. There's a lot planning and thinking and moving parts that go into that. I'm blessed and lucky to be a part of it.
And really, it really falls a lot upon our. I have to give credit to our student staff.
I mean, they open and close the building. You know, like, I'm here to support them. And other facility coordinators, Nathan and Caroline, we're here to support them. Like I said, they're the ones that are here at 5am opening up the doors and locking the doors. I only come up here at 5am if I absolutely have to. So they're the ones that get most the credit.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: I think that's something that's, you know, for our listeners, that's, that's a huge bit of information. And we'll talk later about like, hiring and job opportunities. And I firmly believe that working in recreation, whether you're in facilities, aquatics, fitness, you're going to learn certain skills that when you move on to the next job, you're going to be able to set yourself apart from others. It's not just a job where I'm swiping action cards. That's not it at all. You're, you're learning conflict resolution, you're learning customer service skills. You're having to think on your toes. And it's definitely, I mean, like you said, our students are running the building. I mean, the professional staff is there to help guide them and mentor them, but at the same time, they're opening the doors at 5:30. They're closing at the end of the day.
[00:13:51] Speaker C: No doubt. No doubt. And like I said, I'm just lucky and blessed and happy to be a part of it.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, cool. Well, we are going to take a short little break and catch you guys on the other side. You're listening to fit to be tied on 90.7, the capstone.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: The capstone 90.7 fm wvua.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Thank you guys for listening to fit to be tied on 90.7 the capstone. We are talking about changes to the rec center in the wake of COVID And you know what, we are rolling right along and we've had some great conversations about our student staff and how hard they work and the pro staff that works in facility operations to make things happen. And so I don't know about you, Charles, but I feel like we're always enlightened when we hear from our other campus partners and UREC partners. And it's just good stuff.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, today our guest, Andrew Deer, who's one of the facility operations coordinators with University Recreation, he's here to kind of shed some light on what's going on over at University Recreation right now, especially from a facilities perspective. So, Andrew, again, thanks so much for coming on with us today.
So I got a few questions for you.
So can you just describe some of the changes that have been made to the facility to kind of help address some of the concerns that are going along with this pandemic?
[00:15:26] Speaker C: Absolutely. That's a great question, Charles. So if you're listening to this and you're user of facility, if you're thinking about coming into the facility, I want to know what precautions we've taken.
Earlier in the summer we really started to look at, hey, how are we going to open the facility? What changes are we going to make? And a few of those major changes are we have spaced out our wet equipment and our cardio equipment at least 6ft apart from each other. So that was obviously a CDC recommendation is to say six feet apart from everybody. And so our director of facilities, Scott Elliott, had this big plastic whooping stick is what we called it. And we literally took that stick and we put it between every single machine that we had.
So we moved equipment in the SRC and at the Wood center and on the cardio deck. If you go up to the cardio deck and you're a regular user, you'll notice that machines are definitely farther apart than they used to be. Some machines have been taken out.
So that's one of the large changes that we've made. We've also put some dumbbells in the north gym, which is our gym with the track around it and the racquetball courts. So we've taken our lighter dumbbells and put them in there just to space people out. If you want to get some free weights, dumbbell work in. It's not as crowded as that, as that dumbbell area. So if you've been in our facility or if you haven't, the area where people lift free weights and dumbbells is usually our highest traffic area. So we kind of wanted to space that out as well.
Unfortunately, our lap pool is not open here at the SRC and our showers in the locker rooms are closed. And then our sauna and steam room are closed as well. You can't play basketball right now.
And then, you know, there's no family hours, unfortunately. So we have made a lot of changes. Our biggest, really, the biggest thing that we want you all to know is that we're open. You can come get an exercise in. But really, we want people to stay at least six feet apart and have a mask on. And we'll talk about the mask policy here in a second. But unfortunately, basketball, you know, doesn't fall into that. Racquetball doesn't really fall into that. There's. There's a few things that we know that people love to do and that we love having people in here to do. We just can't do them right now during this time. So those are really the major changes. The first thing, when you walk in, you'll see that all of our tables and chairs. You can't sit down in our tables and chairs in the lobby. I miss that. Personally, I like to take phone calls out in the lobby.
If I need to break from my computer. If I need to get up and walk around the facility and I need to take a break, I'll go sit out in the lobby. So, yeah, those are a few changes. And like I said, we've done the same thing at the Witt Center. We actually opened up the Witt center last week on September 15th.
Each machine and each cardio equipment is spaced out six feet apart. We actually just put out of order signs on every other cardio.
Cardio piece at the WIT Center. So can't play basketball, can't play indoor soccer, unfortunately. And the showers are closed there as well. You know, that was a lot. But our staff is there to kind of help if you have questions. Our staff is there to help you out with anything that you've got. When it comes to changes. So I know that was about three minutes of a lot of different things, but that's what we got going on.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, one thing I gotta say, for those of you who have not had a chance to make into the rec center, the spacing, you know, the six feet apart of the machines, it actually. It's really pleasing to look at. That's weird to say, but it's, like, really aesthetically pleasing. And that combined with some of the new machines you guys got, it just looks really nice in there, I gotta say.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. You know, once we get. Hopefully get out of the COVID era, you know, we kind of get to put some machines back. And when we get back to adding things, it's gonna look a little. It's honestly gonna look a little cluttered because we're so used to having things spaced out. But, yeah, it is very aesthetically pleasing right now. It's nice.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: I was just thinking about that. You know, I think.
I mean, like, you're saying, charles, it looks great, like, having everything spaced out. And I'm wondering if, moving forward, we could just leave it like that. Of course, that's gonna be a conversation, I think, you know, for facilities. And it may be like, this is obviously, quote, unquote, the new normal phrase we keep throwing around, but, like, it may just be this way forever. I don't know. I mean. And so I think it looks great. It's kind of like the studios where we have, like, our participants spaced out six feet. It looks so nice to look out at your participants, and everybody is in the right spot, and they're spaced out perfectly to where you don't have, like, people cluttered in one section. It's just aesthetically pleasing. I totally understand that.
[00:20:02] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, it's not been easy. It wasn't, you know, it's not been easy. We've been working on it a lot. A lot of us have had different opinions on it, but this is kind of the best system we've come up with. Up with. We've looked at different guidelines. We kind of talked to other schools, other fitness centers to see what they were doing. And we felt like this is what was the best thing for us to do. So it's worked out so far. We have people in here exercising and working out.
And I think that's the message we want to get out, is, hey, you can come in here and you can get your cardio in. You can lift weights. You can really do a lot of the same Stuff fitness wise that you used to, that you were able to do, especially with group fitness starting fitness wise. Basketball, other recreational activities like lap swimming, things like that aren't still available. But yeah, there's still things we're still open and you can still come get in great workouts.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: You know, it's funny, you know, we've had issues at the beginning of the semester with the mask policy because we had kind of, you know, gone a little back and forth. At first it was okay, everybody needs to have on a mask. But when you're actively exercising, we were going through our guidelines that were provided for us and then we moved to the policy, which I think was a great idea. Everybody have on mask the entire time. Has that helped to cut down on some confusion for you guys?
[00:21:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So to be completely honest with a lot of decisions have been tough, they've not been easy. And the mask policy decision was one of the things that has been one of the bigger challenges of this era, I guess. But when we first opened, you could have a mask, you had to have your mask on unless you were on a machine or actually doing physical activity. And that has changed. To have a mask on at all times, from a operations and facility operations standpoint, it was really challenging for our staff to enforce that first policy. And then once we consulted some UA health experts, obviously and some other folks and kind of talked through, we decided that having a mask on at all times was the best and safest precaution going forward. Because ultimately we want people to be in here, we want them to exercise, but we don't want them to spread. Covid and what the research says and what, you know, like I said, what UA health experts told us was that having a mask on at all times was the best way to prevent spread. And so that's, that's where we're at. We understand that it's frustrating when understand that you might not want to wear it, but it's one of those things that we have to enforce whether you believe in it or not. So we, like I said, we want you in here, but if you're in here, you have to have a mask on. And so I know that, like I said, we understand that that's challenging. It's tough. I don't like running on the treadmill with a mask on.
I prefer to go run outside.
So that's what I've been doing. And so, you know, we're all making changes and sacrifices, but we don't want that to stop you from coming in here.
We want people to still, you know, it's.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: It's the patrons that I've talked to that are coming back to the rec center that are working out. They are so happy and pleased with the changes that have been made in the facility and very.
And I know there's some that aren't with like the mask policy and stuff, but the majority of people really appreciate that and they're willing to wear their mask. And I feel like the community, like the UA community as a whole has adopted this where we are all trying our hardest to do the right thing. I mean, there's some of us, you know, it just happens and we don't always do what we're supposed to do. But the majority that I see, especially our students, I've been very impressed with our students and how they are wearing their mask. Sometimes we have to tell them, hey, put the mask up over your nose. I get it. It's just unfun. But they have been. For the ones I've talked to, they may be cussing me under their breath, I don't know, or under their mask. But for the ones that I've talked to, they've been like, oh, yeah, sorry. And it's like they kind of get it. So, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about this after the break and kind of our student staff and keeping them safe. But thanks for listening. We're going to take a quick break. Grab a sip of water, wash your hands, grab a snack. You're listening Fit to be tied on 90.7 the capstone.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: The capstone. 90.7 fm wvua.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Welcome back. You're listening to Fit to Be Tied with Charles and Whitney on 90.7 the capstone and talking facilities and Covid and keeping you guys safe. But also we've been talking about keeping our student employees safe, which is super important for us.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So obviously we're here with our guest, Andrew Deer, and I have a few questions. We want to continue this discussion about the student recreation center, as I guess the Witt center is also included with that. Of course. But I just want to talk a little bit, Andrew, about what are you guys doing to deal with this in terms of safety with your students, specifically your student employees here at the rec.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, when I look at problems and I see problems within the facility operations structure, I think of our student staff first, because like I mentioned earlier, they're actually running the building. They're moving and grooving and make things happen. This was one of the first Conversations we had is if we're going to put students out on the floor to work, how are we going to keep them safe? So a couple things we've done. We've put sneeze guards at the front, in front of the access, in front of the point of sale computer. We provided PPE for our facility operations students.
And then really the biggest thing was kind of education with them. So we did a zoom training with them on, hey, this is what you can expect. This is.
This is how you know why it's important to glove up when you clean. This is why it's important to wear your ppe.
If you are having to talk to a patron or you're having a conversation with somebody, making sure you're staying six feet away and you're following all those guidelines. So those are really the things. Education is one of the biggest parts. And then those little steps of providing ppe, going through extra cleaning measures. We didn't talk about this earlier, but I wanted to touch on it.
You know, I feel like our cleaning measures before COVID were really solid. And so we kind of had to kind of reframe what we kind of had to reframe of. Hey, are we doing enough? Do we need to add more? And so we've restructured a few cleaning items. We clean more often. We deep clean every single machine on the weekends now.
And a big part of that is teaching the staff. You know, you have to wear gloves while you clean. You know, you have to make sure that you're taking the gloves off properly. You have to make sure that you're masked up and all these things. So, yeah, we've really juiced up our cleaning and we've juiced up our education with our students, staff of how to handle different situations during this time. So they're staying safe while they're on shift.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I gotta say, you know, and you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said that even before the pandemic, y' all had really great cleaning procedures. I think that's one bit of feedback that I've been hearing constantly, really since I started working here, and especially now with the pandemic, is that the rec center just does an awesome job in terms of keeping things clean and tidy. We have a few trainers on staff that work at other gyms and they just, they're always blown away at how clean everything is at the rec center. So again, kudos to you guys for that.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: And it's so funny you say that like we. I'll still go out there and our standards are really high. And that comes from our leadership, Andre and Scott Elliott and Darrell Hargraves. They. They have a high expectation of cleanliness, which I really appreciate, which we all appreciate.
And so, you know, I will go to other gyms in town or. And I'll just be appalled with what's going on. And so I really appreciate, I really appreciate what we do and how. And so that was always been a priority. I think I actually even mentioned that earlier in the radio segment. Hey, we want a clean facility for people to come into, right? And so that's something we can really hang our hat on. And during COVID we've had to add different cleaning procedures. We have used oxavir more often, which is a more powerful cleaning agent.
We have changed different towels and cleaning times and things like that. Like I said, we added the deep clean sessions on the weekends.
It's really something that we've tried to change and adapt to. And our custodial staff has really had to take on more of a role than they already do. They're absolutely fantastic. Our custodial staff is honestly, they're irreplaceable and they're really, really great. And they've taken on a lot more than they normally do. And I can tell you what, with the high standards we have, they did a lot before, so they've been awesome.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: You know, I think it's, you know, 100%. I love our custodial staff. And they are some of the hardest working individuals that you will ever see. And especially they, they really love our students because they are constantly, you know, wiping off the machines. Like, we want our patrons to make sure they're cleaning up after each other, but we realize that like, okay, some people just don't always do that. And so the student staff and the custodial staff, I'll see them constantly coming behind somebody and wiping off.
You know, they did that kind of stuff before, but it's just amped up to a whole nother level. And I think in terms of like a hiring process, just shifting gears a little bit, thinking about your staff for anybody that's listening, you know, who do you hire? Like, what types of individuals, what personality traits are you guys looking for? If I wanted to work in facility operations at the rec center or the Witt Center, That's a great question.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: Whit, who we're looking for? We're looking for anybody. And I mean, we hire students.
We hire students. And so we hire some people who've worked in gyms in high school for Three or four years. And we hire people that have never held jobs before, right?
And so the reason for that is we as facility operations pro staff, we can teach you the skills of how to do the job.
And so, like I said, we just need you to bring a positive attitude and willingness to learn, right? And so we try to hire different types of personalities. We understand that, you know, you need to be personal, you need to have communication skills, but we can teach you that.
We just want people that really, really. That can work and that want to work. Right. So we can teach you everything that you need to know about the job. But we want to bring in people with different perspectives and, you know, just people from all over and with different levels of experience, right. So we'll honestly, we'll hire anybody, which is, which is great. And I think this is a perfect entry level job. If you've never had a job before, this is a perfect job. Working access and saying hello to people and making sure that, you know, the right people are in and out of the.
To be honest, I tell people all the time it's not super hard, but the experience you get from that bleeds over into everything else that you do, right. When you're having a bad day and you have to come in and say hello to people, that's a character builder, right?
When you have to clean weight machines that people have sweated all over, that's building character and that's doing stuff that you don't want to do. And so once you graduate college and once you leave this job, you're going to have to continue to do stuff that you don't want to do.
And so that's kind of one of the great things about the job is that we can teach you all the skills, but it's everything else, it's the transferable skills that you leave this job with doing right.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Well, I add to that from me and Charles perspective, I mean, we always seem to poach y' all staff. I mean, there's always individuals that are maybe in like a kinesiology major or something like that. And like they clearly want to go into fitness or maybe this is, is a new, new avenue or adventure for them. And that entry level job of them coming in just to learn those basic skills already sets them up for those other positions within urec, you know, like becoming a personal trainer and having those conversational skills, things like that. So unfortunately, we kind of do poach, but like, in a very loving way. We like to, you know, give people the opportunity for sure.
[00:32:17] Speaker C: I'm Glad you said that. We want, like I said, we. If we can be the baseline for recreation or for fitness or, you know, for this world that work in. If this can be the entry level job and you want to, hey, you want to go be a personal trainer, you want to teach group exercise, you want to be an intramural official, which not many people go be intramural official. So those are those. We love those folks.
Those are the toughest of the toughest people we have. But, yeah, we love seeing that, like, you know, it messes with our schedule. But that's okay, Charles. We don't mind. We want you to have good people as well. And most. For the. For the most part, if they come from us, I like to think that they're good people. So the thing I'll say is we hire in January.
So we do group interviews. We actually have around 100 staff on at a time, and so there's a lot of turnover. But in January, we do a big hiring spree. So throughout the facility, you'll see signage, you'll see things like, you know, we want you to apply online, and then we'll kind of go do group interviews. You'll come into a group interview, and then you'll interview, and then we'll move on from there. But, yeah, so we hire in January is when we open up apart.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. For those of listeners who don't know, Campus recreation is one of the largest employers on campus, if not the largest, and a big portion of that is facility operations.
One thing I've always admired about the facility ops crew is I always see a big amount of camaraderie amongst the student staff, which is something that's just cool to see. I feel like the student staff that work in facility ops are all just like, good friends. Like, they actually are friends with each other outside of work, which is something that you don't often see at a lot of. Lot of jobs.
[00:33:55] Speaker C: Right. I know we have just a few more seconds left, but can I tell a very funny story about Dee and Charles from this past weekend? So I struggle with exercising. It's one thing that I don't love, but I have great coworkers that always encourage me.
And so we were out having a great time on Friday night, me, Dee, Charles, and a few of the coordinators. And I had mentioned, hey, you know, I don't actually really hate yoga. I don't like yoga. Like, I physically don't see a difference when I do it, which I've really only done it like twice. And I could See, Dee and Charles like their heads about to explode. And so they looked at each other and they're like, should we tell them? Should we tell them about yoga? And so basically I got like a 20 minute lecture on how great yoga is. So I'm going to be a yogi now.
So when you get Dion, let's talk about the positives of yoga and moving laterally and not in the same plane all the time.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: I think that's a perfect segue into our break to, you know, just kind of close it all out. But Andrew, thank you so much for being, being with us today and for dropping your knowledge on the rec center. We'll definitely have you on again maybe in the spring to get people encouraged to come back to the facility. So thanks for coming on our show.
[00:35:06] Speaker C: Awesome. Thank you guys for having me. This is great.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Thanks, Andrew.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Take a quick break and then we will wrap it up. You're listening to Fit to Be Tied with Charles and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone.
[00:35:26] Speaker C: The capstone 90.7 fm wvua.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Welcome back. You're listening to Fit to Be Tied with Charles and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone and Charles, we've had a great show today.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we really had, we had a great guest today, Andrew Deer with facility operations. And we had a chance to talk a lot about just the student recreation center and you know, what all they're doing to keep it safe and clean during these unusual times.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it was funny the last little segment, you know, Andrew talking about yalls conversation like this past Friday about doing yoga. And I feel like I just want to take like the last few minutes just to kind of talk about that because, you know, yoga sometimes has a bad rap for I don't get the results I'm looking for or it's not in my wheelhouse. I'll tell you my thoughts on it since I'm a yoga instructor. And then, Charles, I'll let you say your thoughts for those of you listening. Yoga is probably my number one thing to do personally.
It helps me to do other exercises more efficiently. It helps to release tension. It helps to get more range of motion. So while some of you guys may have tried yoga maybe one or two times, I always say give it a little bit more time because every yoga practice is going to be different. And the benefits that you get from yoga are not necessarily the same benefits you're going to get from running on the treadmill or doing strength exercises. It's very different. And a lot of it is mental Awareness and connection to how you move physically. Charles, I'm not sure what your thoughts are on it coming from a yoga instructor. That's how I view it. What do you think about yoga?
[00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a really good, unique aspect of yoga which really teaches you body control.
It was funny when Andrew first made that statement. He's like, oh, I don't like yoga.
I looked at D. I looked at him and I was like, you know, I might have to pull a PowerPoint on this because there's just so much we can talk about and the benefits of yoga. One thing I think of when I think of yoga and this kind of coming from just the male perspective and kind of being a part of a community that for a long time is just like, don't think about stretching, they don't think about yoga, and really just wants to lift weights. And one aspect of yoga that I've really come to appreciate is that it really teaches mental fortitude. And it's this idea of kind of creating calm within the storm. And you know, those guys out there, you might be squatting heavy weight and think that's tough. But in yoga, what's really interesting is there are points where you've got to find kind of a tough position and then find peace within that difficulty. And it's a really unique sort of mental toughness that develops that I've only really experienced in yoga. It's really cool to see.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: You're exactly right. Because I'm thinking about one of our instructors, and she's a personal trainer, and she has talked about the mental strength of yoga, that yoga comes with a different type of strength, which is what you were talking about. And I think that's why I enjoy yoga.
I know the benefits of cardio and strength and all that kind of stuff. I can sort of of have all of that in yoga.
And I would encourage our listeners to try different types of yoga, maybe go to our YouTube page and try, like a basic yoga class just to get started. Because I have worked on strength in yoga, worked on flexibility, and I've gotten my heart rate up, doing sun salutations. And you also have to focus on breathing. And just to give you guys a little insight, it does help to calm your parasympathetic nervous system. So those of you that kind of deal with chronic stress, where you never. You have that fight or flight always happening in your body by. By doing yoga, it helps to calm that down and get the parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system to bring you down. It does have those other physiological benefits. But yeah, Charles, I think that's a great point that you bring up. Hopefully our listeners will maybe try yoga sometime.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I say step outside your comfort zone if it's something not used to and really give it a go. I was so hesitant for the longest time, and when I finally did it, I was. I realized that it's awesome. And it's something that I really try to do on a regular basis, Whether I'm at home or even coming into one of your classes or just watching something online. Whatever I can do, I want to make sure and try to do it because I just noticed such a unique benefit. I feel like I ached less and I hurt less. And I just, like we said, working on that mental fortitude aspect is just really, really important to me.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: I think that's some great info and we've had a great show. And Charles, thank you for agreeing to to co host with me this semester. I think we're going to have some good topics and next week we are going to be talking about some Mythbusters and we may go ahead and just talk a little bit more about yoga and some of the misconceptions of yoga. Maybe that will be our kickoff for the for the session, but it will be me and Charles next week. Fitness will be our conversation. We want to thank everybody for listening to us today. You have been listening to fit to be tied with Charles and Whitney on 90.57, the capstone, and we will catch you next week.
