By Brittany Burke
Have you ever heard the name RECentral and wondered what the heck that is? If anything, as an incoming freshman or transfer student you were at least remotely curious. The better question to ask yourself about RECentral would be not what it is, but rather what don’t they do for the student body.
RECentral, headed by Recreation Specialist Ken DeStefanis and the Assistant Recreation Director Liz Urcinas along with a slew of graduate assistants, is a fun and active way to get involved on campus.
“When people think of RECentral we want them to think of three components. It’s recreation, intramurals and fitness. So we offer close to 50 classes a wk which is great, then we have the intramurals … and open recreation including our fitness centers,” said DeStefanis.
Intramural sports, fitness classes, the fitness centers and even aspects of the school’s organized club sports are all handled by the RECentral staff.
One of the biggest areas for the RECentral program is intramural sports. With over 600 student participants and games going on Thursday through Sunday from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., there is always something for the staff and students to do.
“We offer over 11 different [intramural] sports, everything from water polo, football, soccer, dodgeball, volleyball, floor hockey [to] softball, kickball and basketball. We added badminton last year as well, so we’re sort of just all over the place as far as trying to get different students who are interested in different sports involved,” said Urcinas. “Almost every year we’ve tried to add at least one new intramural club sport and we do have two different leagues that we currently do, A league for more competitive people and B league for people who more just want to have fun and play whatever sport that may be.”
With the intramurals, an online signup process has made it easier for students to remain in contact with RECentral. Once each player signs up individually, team captains can create their squads, have access to their schedules and even team statistics, which is a new feature. The site, imleagues.com/schools/ccsu also makes notifying the teams of a cancellation easier.
Beyond just intramural and club sports, RECentral is also focused on the fitness aspect, which is a newer component. As part of that, the program offers around 50 fitness classes a week at different times and in multiple locations all around the CCSU campus.
“One thing we say about these classes is, we offer classes all from a-to-z,” said Urcinas. “All from African dance to zumba. So we offer indoor cycling classes, cardio dance, this year we’re offering a lot more beginner classes … intro to spin, intro to zumba. A lot of classes where if you may be hesitant to try one of them you can come in and it’s all beginners and all people who are new to that fitness class in particular. Also on our website we have tips for [a beginner] that are just another addition, which can make you feel comfortable and make you want to try one of our fitness classes.”
Fitness classes are offered held in Davidson 123, Kaiser 03802, the bubble and the pool. Cycling is only held in the bubble and hydro-tone and aquatics is only in the pool, but you can also take things like yoga and self-defense classes.
If none of the fitness classes fit into your schedule, there is also three fitness centers staffed and run by RECentral. Two of the gyms are found right in the dorms, in the basement of Beecher as well as Sam May, so both up-the-hill and down-the-hill residents have facilities right on hand. The third fitness center is located in Kaiser on top of the hill.
The gym facilities have been given expanded hours this year, with the dorm gym hours varying from one another, but RECentral offers other programs to coincide with the fitness facilities.
“We have expanded hours this year especially on the weekend,” said DeStefanis. “Also, we want to do workshops in those fitness centers. For instance, strength training for beginners, so someone who’s never gone into that fitness center before or needs some assistance, [RECentral will ] have a program and a workshop for [them]. We’re also gonna have some all women’s only nights in the fitness center because we know some women don’t like to go in there when the men are there. They feel a little self conscious, so we’re going to provide some time for women only also.”
Limited personal training is also offered by the exercise science majors looking to fulfill their practicum requirements, and all the services provided by RECentral are free.
