Community effort seeks to save Antioch’s Curl gym
By Susan Gartner
The text message reads: “ball at noon.”
Modern technology meets pick-up game of basketball.
“One gentleman and I come no matter what,” said Branson
Pyles recently, taking a moment out from practice to be interviewed.
For 12 years, Pyles has been part of a basketball group that meets weekly
at the Curl Gymnasium, commonly referred to as Antioch Gym.
“It’s a nice group of high school, former high school, college
players and community members,” he said. “We help them with
their game. They can outrun us but we can out move the ball.”
Pyles knows most of the kids who join them because at one time in their
life he was their soccer or basketball coach. He brings his fourth grader,
Folger, and Folger’s friends and cousins to the gym. “All
I have to do is ask, ‘Do you wanna go to the gym?’ and phhht,
they’re here. Between the mats upstairs, the pool and the basketball,
they’re in heaven.”
The Curl Gymnasium is much more than its name implies. The building
houses an upper gym with weight training and cardio-fitness equipment,
a climbing wall, a balcony with assorted punching bags, two gymnasiums,
four racquetball courts, a regulation size swimming pool, a dance studio
and performance space. It provides the same amount of fun, friendship
and physical exercise as a modern multiplex fitness center at half the
cost.
But all of that is on the line. As of now, the gym is slated to close
June 30 with the rest of the Antioch College campus, unless a local
effort to save the building succeeds.
“Our future depends both on the results of the survey [presently
being distributed] and on the university keeping its word to lease us
the building,” said Judy Kintner, director of Antioch College
physical education and facility manager.
Kintner is at the forefront of the “Save the Gym” effort
to maintain the gym as a non-affiliated entity.
“We would serve the Yellow Springs area and whatever entity comes
to or stays on campus,” said Kintner. “The vision is to
consolidate a number of needs into one facility so that we lessen our
utility and maintenance footprint. This consolidation will allow all
of us — dance, theater, team sports, therapeutic swim —
to succeed where individually I don’t think we could at this point.”
Kintner and Antioch dance professor Jill Becker, along with a group
of investors and concerned citizens, are proposing a way to maintain
the facility and raise adequate funds to improve it. A business plan
based on results of the survey is being developed by Wittenberg economics
professors David Wishart and Jeff Ankrom, and is slated for completion
in early July.
“This proposal gives [the university] a different way of looking
at their plans for the campus for at least the next three or four years,”
said Kintner. “A very successful collaboration can happen if we
go about it in this way.”
For Kintner, the Antioch gym is a lifeline to the community’s
overall health and well-being. “We all know the statistics about
obesity, the high incidence of heart disease, the increase in smoking
rates among school-age kids,” said Kintner. “We know that
Village resources are stretched thin and that they may need to shut
down some Bryan Center functions. When you look at the picture as a
whole, what you see is that options for wellness, fitness, and activities
for kids in this town are decreasing fairly dramatically.”
The effort could be successful, according to Antioch University Chief
Financial Officer Tom Faecke in a recent interview.
“If an acceptable plan can be put together, the university is
committed to keep the gym open,” said Faecke. “An alternative
heating source would need to be found for the gym and the pool. The
pool needs extensive work and the physical condition of the gym’s
infrastructure is in need of repair, roof, plumbing, etc. That being
said, if the resources can be found, we are prepared to work with the
community of which we are a part. Where there is a will, there may be
a way.”
But some gym users have already lost its services. On Friday, May 30,
Antioch University requested that the pool be drained to avoid potential
liabilities during the transition. Jan Goodwin has been a part of the
Antioch pool for 20 years, teaching kids and seniors how to swim. She’s
also been leading the Water Nymphs — senior men and women —
in water exercise for eight years.
“The group has been displaced,” said Goodwin, whose plans
to start an intense water workout catering to a younger crowd have been
temporarily sidelined. The Water Nymphs have a large and loyal following
and even raised funds to purchase the gym’s defibrillator.
The gym has been well used by the community. When the schools close
for a “snow day,” Kintner said, there will be 30 kids at
the gym. “If we go away, those 30 kids are going to go somewhere
else,” she said. “Do you go sit out in front of The Emporium?
Drive out of town? You have got to provide accessible, positive options
for kids, reasons for seniors to come out and socialize and be active.
The motivating force for everyone engaged in this effort is that none
of us want to live in a town that doesn’t provide these options.”
The number of people in the community who use the gym is as exhaustive
as the many ways in which the gym is used.
Kingsley Perry has been playing volleyball for 36 years at the gym,
currently seven times a week. He also uses the upstairs gym for weight-training.
Perry, 72, credits his workouts for keeping his knees in good shape.
Perry’s teammate, Donna Silvert, likes the flexibility of the
pick-up games. “You don’t have to schedule it or commit
to it,” she said. “If you have the time, it’s open
to anybody.” The intergenerational mingling is a big appeal for
Silvert. “You get high school kids and [octogenarian] Walt Tulecke
playing volleyball together. That’s what community is.”
Silvert also uses the weight-training equipment and often works out
with her friend, Pat Robinow.
“I love the Antioch gym,” said Silvert’s brother,
Neil, who uses the gym daily for strength-training and aerobic workouts.
“It’s wide open,” he said. “I love the high
ceilings and the beautiful old wood. It’s not one of those sterile
environments. It’s got class.” After introducing his friend,
Kurt Thrasher, to the boxer’s balcony, Thrasher, 50, moved to
an apartment two blocks away. Thrasher’s hypnotic pounding on
the speed bag is a familiar sound to gym users.
University of Dayton returning adult student Suzanne Fogerty can easily
be spotted working out on the elliptical machine while concentrating
on her required reading. “I’d either be out of shape or
failing my classes if I wasn’t able to do that,” Fogerty
said about her simultaneous workout. Her 6-year-old daughter, Kiera,
comes for impromptu play dates with other gym kids.
“I can’t start my day until I exercise at the gym,”
said Naomi Orme who sees how exercise affects both her and her kids’
ability to focus. She and her husband, Jim, who home-school their kids,
notice a big difference between the days when their kids exercise and
when they don’t. “When they exercise in the morning,”
she explained, “they really get to task when they get home and
have a better attitude about schoolwork.”
Ali Thomas and her husband, Rick Walkey, bring their daughter, Charlotte,
to the gym regularly. “If the gym goes,” said Thomas, “we
might be moving. It’s that important. I can’t survive the
winter without the gym.” The gym plays an integral part in their
family’s life. “There isn’t a room I don’t know,”
said Thomas, whose involvement includes a swim clinic and variety of
dance programs. “The dance community would be crushed by the loss
of the South Gym,” she said.
Kintner sees the importance of starting exercise young. “Kids
need to come in with their parents and see them exercising,” she
said. “They need to see exercise as a part of the day as much
as eating or sleeping.”
In order to move forward with the plan, a shift in perception from the
village is essential. “This facility has been underwritten by
the college forever,” Kintner cautioned. “People are accustomed
to walking in and paying only $3 and getting use of a fairly decent
facility. We won’t have that anymore. We’re going to have
to charge market rate — more like what the YMCA charges —
to provide this better product.” At the same time, philanthropic
dollars will be needed to tend to long-overdue repairs and improvements.
“It’s still going to be that cool place that’s big
and airy and welcoming,” she assured, “but it’s going
to have a pool that doesn’t leak and improved piping and wiring
and better locker rooms and a turf gym so you can play indoor soccer.”
The gym has not been able to provide swim or aerobic classes, or fitness
training for the community because they’ve been a college-class-providing
entity. “When we make this shift,” Kintner said, “we
will be asking, ‘What does the community need in terms of its
health and well-being?’ That’s the part I’m excited
about. We can start providing proactively instead of just taking whatever
business walks in.”
The new plan includes a three-phase series of improvements. “If
we can get people to hang with this and pay that market rate for the
first six months to a year while we’re fundraising,” said
Kintner, “the benefit will be a much, much nicer facility at the
end of the road.”
* The writer is a freelance journalist for the News.
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