UWRF celebrates National Recreation and Fitness Day

Feb. 22 is the day when the National Intramural Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) celebrates "National Recreation and Fitness Day."

NIRSA is an organization that helps to regulate various sports through the collegiate systems across the U.S. NIRSA helps students at both the varsity and club level, but does not participate in any NCAA or NAIA activities.

NIRSA was established in 1950, and its mission is to provide the education and development of professional and student members, and to help develop and expand on recreational programs, facilities, and services for students.

National Recreation and Fitness Day is the day where NIRSA promotes living a healthy lifestyle. This, of course, includes physical health, but also mental health and sportsmanship.

NIRSA helps promote this day by asking people to submit their recreational plans through various social media platforms. In this way, NIRSA ensures that colleges are spreading the word about campus recreation all across the U.S.

UW-River Falls also celebrates this day. On Feb. 23, campus recreation held some promotional tables in the Knowles Center. These tables were designed to not only let students know about upcoming recreational events, but also to see what students enjoyed about recreational activities on campus, and to get extra feedback.

“The biggest thing is meeting people,” said senior computer science major Randall Pfeifer. “Second off, is just having fun, I mean most games don’t last more than half an hour, so it’s nice to just get away from everything and just play a game for a while, and have some fun.”

Pfeifer has been in virtually every intramural sport available at UWRF. This includes: sand volleyball, volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, broomball, soccer and softball. The only sport Pfeifer has not been in is flag football.

Campus recreation has also held giveaways and freebies for the students, as a thank you for using campus recreation and supporting the organization. Campus recreation also gave out updates on the construction and operation of the Falcon Center. This includes an upcoming student referendum on whether or not there should be an additional segregated fee for the operational costs of the Falcon Center.

Around 68 percent of the entire student body at UWRF are involved with at least one campus recreation program, this includes intramurals, outdoor adventures, and open recreation. Even with decreasing enrollment these percentages have remained steady overall.

“We believe that campus recreation provides an enormous amount of benefits to students,” said assistant director of recreation Tiffany Gaulke. “Everything from physical activity to the whole social aspect, it allows for people to release some of that competitive energy.

Now the Recreation and Sports Facilities department is looking forward to many events and competitions in the near future. These events include a one-day indoor soccer tournament, a month-long bike maintenance clinic, and an annual spring climbing competition that invites students of any level to participate.

For more updates on campus recreation visit the Recreation and Sports Facilities web page on the UWRF website.