Beginning with a stationary bike warm-up, the trio sets in motion what will be 17 uninterrupted hours of bustling activity in and around the College's central athletic building. By day's end, hundreds of students, coaches, faculty and staff will have made their way through these doors for classes, workouts, practices and play.
The Rains Center, completed in 1989, is the crown jewel of Pomona's athletic complex. Open seven days a week, the building is populated throughout the day, with the weight room and the new cardiovascular room seeing heavy use. All day long, like great Pacific Ocean rollers, waves of students roll in the east door, charge through their classes--70 offerings a semester, in all--then retreat back to the dorms, classrooms or dining halls around campus. Some make the pilgrimage daily, others only once or twice a week.
Morning here is classtime. Jones, Palmer and Svagdis are gone shortly after sun-up, and in the weight room, the first of three successive classes begins, with students who range from complete novices, exploring each machine in turn, to lifting veterans who have years-old routines to maintain. Weights bang out colliding rhythms as the radio plays hits from the '70s. Over in Memorial Gym, Coach Pat Mulcahy '66 (men's track and cross country) teaches a badminton class to a handful of students who zip the birdie to and fro. Out on the Pauley Tennis Courts, Coach Mike Riskas patiently drops ball after ball to feed beginning students in their backhand practice. Some students are hitting, some are retrieving balls, some are standing behind Riskas shadowing the backhand motion. Like a well-oiled machine, all students are in action. One heads out the gate to retrieve a home-run backhander that has cleared the fence.
At noon, Svagdis' beginning golf class heads back in the east door after hitting a bucket at the Claremont Golf Course's driving range. Hitting long and straight, Sarah Minton '00 has had her best day of the term. Upstairs in Rains, Pam Havlick, the women's volleyball coach, has just completed a Step and Cardio Kick Box class. The popular class fills the mirrored MacLeod Room with vigorous kicks and punches.
Downstairs, a handful of faculty head into the weight room to take advantage of the faculty/staff hour from noon until one. No students are allowed in during this hour, and professors move from machine to machine with ease. After the reserved noon hour today, the weight room is open for recreational use until late afternoon when the varsity teams arrive. Other classes this afternoon include three swimming courses, as well as beginning fencing.
Across the hall from the weight room, the training room opens for business around noon. From now until an hour after the last varsity practice ends at seven, Jones, Assistant Trainer Heidi Stevens and a crew of work-study students will tend to the training needs of the varsity teams. Ice baths and water jugs are filled, and rolls of tape are stacked in anticipation of needy ankles. Early November is a busy time since the end of fall season overlaps the start of winter team practices.
Most varsity teams begin practice just after four. Here again come waves of students through the east door: men and women basketball players, aquatic athletes and cross-country runners. Most fall teams have just ended their seasons, while the hoopsters and swimmers have yet to compete.
The men's football and soccer players look relaxed as they head in. Fresh off a 24-21 overtime victory over cross-campus rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps two days before, the gridders are cleaning out their lockers. Likewise for the soccer players, who defeated both Redlands and Cal Lutheran in the previous week to end the '99 campaign. The women's soccer and volleyball teams both finished successful seasons two weeks before.
The men's water polo team cruises to Haldeman Pool for a final week of preparations before the upcoming weekend's conference tournament at Caltech. Both cross-country teams are heading into the NCAA West Regional meet in Portland, where berths to the National meet will be on the line. Today the 35-minute easy run takes the six men and six women runners north on Mills Avenue into Claremont neighborhoods. After returning to the blue track, the harriers finish with strides on the grass, and then head for stretching in the Rains hallway and ice baths in the Training Room.
In Haldeman Pool, Coach Wang's women swimmers begin their second workout of the day, one that will total over 10,000 yards of swimming. One section this afternoon has swimmers going 10 by 100 yards just faster than aerobic pace.
Back in Memorial Gym, Coach Kat's men's basketball practice is timed to specific three- to 12-minute increments. Among the 16 listed items: 5:08. full-court transition passing; 5:11, three-on-three with no dribbling; 5:15, defensive shell drill; 5:22, defensive footwork zigzag. Down the hall in Voelkel Gym, Coach Connell's women's squad is similarly drilled: full court three-on-three followed by 10 free throws, and so on.
As the teams finish their two-hour workouts and students head to the locker rooms, music with a driving beat drifts downstairs from the MacLeod Room, where Psychology Professor Bill Banks is leading his legendary intermediate aerobics class. Fresh off the infamous Halloween session a week before, students and faculty steam the windows while Banks' exhortations rise above even the loud rock beat. Inside the office section, a few coaches phone prospective students to discuss their interest in coming to Pomona.
Back in the weight and cardio rooms, many students and a few faculty are getting in post-dinner workouts. In the gyms, it's shirts and skins in a couple of pickup basketball games. As ten o'clock nears, gym monitor Mike von Guillaume '01 gives last call for one more lifting set and one more made basket. As the Rains hallways empty out and quiet descends, he closes all the inside doors, turns out the lights, locks the east door and heads out into the night.
And Rains Center sleeps--for a little while.
--Kirk Reynolds
