When the University of Nevada, Reno’s CrossFit affiliate first started running classes, eight people showed up. The next day, 16 people arrived. On the third day, 30.
“We knew we were on to something. We also knew we were in trouble because we had to go spend more money,” explains Jim Fitzsimmons, director of campus recreation and wellness.
Since then, the university’s affiliate has shared space inside the Lombardi Recreation Center, built in 1974 to support a student population of 4,000.
“We have renovated and reconstructed big sections of it to turn it into gyms and CrossFit gyms and things like that,” Fitzsimmons says.
Now the affiliate is on the verge of getting its own space—128,000 square feet of it apart from the treadmills and Smith machines. The building will be near the library and the student union.
“It’s creating that healthy sense of self for the entire culture of the university,” says Nora Constantino, an associate professor at the school.
Adam Gray, a CrossFit trainer at the university, says being a coach is what he wants to do.
“I want to help people,” he explains. “I want to see the change in people, just the same way I saw a change in myself.”
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Additional reading: Found Money by Chris Cooper, published Feb. 2, 2014.