CSU can suck it!
So, as many of my devoted followers already know, the CSU pools and rec. department are a bunch of jerks. Over the past few years, they have worked diligently to pretty much outlaw kayaking in the CSU pools. Your average school of this size would probably have a roll session that was put on by the school itself. However CSU not only doesn't put on a roll session, once we got together and put together an informal kayak club (informal because CSU wouldn't fund the club) and made our members pay in order to rent the pool, the school started introducing bogus rules to make the pool sessions unviable. They limited the number of kayaks in the pool to 8, which was nonsense. We had about 30 people standing around chest deep in the pool (glaring at the lifeguards), and only 8 of the paying people could be in their boats at a time. Then they upped the rule to say that there could be only 8 kayakers (not kayaks, but kayakers) in the pool area at one time. This meant that we had to raise our prices, and basically killed what was left of the informal kayak club.
Since those times, we've been trying to bring the club back to life. Natalie called all over town, seeing if there was anywhere other than a campus pool that would be cheap enough for us to rent and would allow kayaks. After many searches and interviews, she found Stephanie at Pulse Fitness, who would give us a reasonable rate and was excited about having kayaks in the pool! Tonight was our second weekly pool session there, and it ROCKED! I thought I'd take a couple photos, so that I could say: IN YOUR FACE, CSU! Pulse is AWESOME!
You know where to shove these, CSU.
If you're a parent considering schools, really, CSU is just about the worst choice that you can make. Honestly. I am a grad student in the physics department, and I can definitely say that the math, physics, and engineering departments are of terrible quality. Classes are overcrowded, and the standards of education are quite low. Consider sending your kid to CU Boulder. In the meantime, here are some photos of the CSU Canoe and Kayak Interdisciplinary Team (a.k.a. CSUCKIT) rockin out in the Pulse Fitness Center pool.
It was a little shallow for looping, but it was possible.
Natalie working on the bowstall in the small Nemesis
Jeremy Allen, shown above, was the one who proposed forming a new organization, taking a lot of the qualities of the CSU kayak club, but bringing it to a new, more competitive level. We eventually decided that we would call it the CSU Canoe and Kayak Interdisciplinary Team. However, Jeremy quickly noted, "that's a mouthful," so we decided that we would mostly just use the acronym; CSUCKIT. We're going to be attending our first formal competition this weekend, in Golden CO, possibly aided by the CSU Canoe and Kayak Assistant Support Squad.
Leif was probably a little harsh about the schooling quality of CSU. I actually think that parts of the engineering department are pretty good and if you are interested in Ag topics you could do quite well. He's just a little bitter about the physics department, I think. And really, he's actually confided to me that the physics undergrad program is quite good, its just the graduate program that he thinks sucks.
ReplyDeleteLeif I like the play on words....keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteCSUCKASS is a great acronymn too! Nice subtle understatement. Good journalistic technique leading the reader to participate and discover.
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