Hutch gym officials confiscate weights

Despite physical improvements to the weight room in Hutchinson Gymnasium, students are still steamed about conditions there. Now they are upset because the management has been confiscating weights that are left on the floor in order to teach patrons how to properly utilize the gym. University Strength and Fitness Manager Rob Wagner decided that something needed to be done about students' treatment of the weight room. According to Wagner, students were leaving weights on the floor of the room after they used them. He said several injuries had resulted from students tripping over the weights and from equipment damage. He drafted a plan entitled "Proposal for the Improvement of the Hutchinson Weightroom Facility for Students," which outlined his objectives and the methods in which he would achieve them. In mid-October, Wagner placed 50 signs in the weight room telling patrons to put their weights back on racks. Prior to this, signs reminding students, "rerack your weights" had already been on the walls. Wagner said this sign campaign, had no effect. He then began to chart the amount of weight left on the ground and found that by 6 p.m. on some days there was as much as 4130 pounds of equipment on the floor. When there was still no improvement, Wagner posted warnings stating that in a week, he would begin confiscating weights left on the floor. When the situation was still not completely rectified, Wagner told the weight room monitors to chart the number of weights on the floor every hour and to remove them at the end of each day for a week. Wagner said the effort improved student treatment of the equipment in the first week. He said before the confiscations began, students would leave 70 percent of the weights on the floor. But in the entire first week of the program, only 55 percent of the weights had to be removed. With these results, Wagner said he thinks the program is working, although he plans to reevaluate it today. If he decides treatment has not sufficiently improved, he will reinstate the program after winter break. Director of Intramural Recreation Sports Bob Glascott, who first approved Wagner's proposal, said that one of the program's downfalls is that everyone will be affected, even students who previously treated the weights with care. Students working out in Hutch's weight room said they are frustrated with the program, although many admitted that weights were left on the floor out of "sheer laziness."

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