Simpson College fitness facilities have been crowded all year, and with the addition of new sports teams, the fight for space has been tight.

Junior Joey Goins is on the football team and works at the up-stairs weight room desk. He believes a new facility would help free-up space with the addition of new spring sports teams.

“I feel like a new facility would help out a lot,” Goins said. “It’s just with how many sports and how many people want to use the weight room it’s hard to get people to connect time-wise.” 

Being a football player, Goins thinks the football team has rushed the wrestling team out of the weight room before. 

“The wrestling team lifts before us. I feel like we kind of rush them into getting stuff done so we can get in there and get our hour lift in.” Goins said. “I feel like our football team gets a little more priority in our weight room, so it’s kind of hard for us to complain about it. We understand the struggles for the other teams.”

Fifth-year baseball player, Matthew Marquez, has been using the Simpson College fitness facilities five days a week for his entire time on campus. He says adding more sports teams has filled the facilities even more. 

“I would think this semester is more packed with teams because we’ve added three separate spring sports teams,” Marquez said. “That kind of schedule is pretty tough.”

Matthew also believes New Year’s resolutions have affected the crowd using the weight rooms. 

“Every year, it comes around. January to about end-of-February where all these ‘new year, new me’ like to come in and get their lifts in,” Marquez said. “Sometime around the end of February is usually where it starts to die down, and it’s nothing but athletes.” 

There have been many instances this semester where sports teams aren’t able to finish their workouts down in the athlete fitness center. This is something Marquez has experienced himself. 

“I have, personally, come upstairs to finish my lift. Honestly, it’s a dislike for me,” he said. 

Marquez thinks that sports that are in season should have priority over those that aren’t.

“In-season teams should definitely take priority over out-of-season teams,” he said. “Why I believe that is because at the end of the day we need to be in the weight room minimum three times a week at least to keep our bodies in shape.”

Adding another facility could alleviate issues the current weight room faces. 

“At the end of the day, I think we’re going to have to add another facility,” Marquez said. “It won’t be next year or three years down the road. It’s going to have to be probably six or seven years down the road, but there’s ultimately going to need to be a new facility.”

He thinks with the expansion of sports teams at Simpson, facility expansions would work best to free up space. 

“With all these new teams, I’ve also heard aspirations of other teams being added to our spring roster,” Marquez said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to have to be the two biggest teams, like baseball and softball, to have their own facility. Then football can take over this, with the smaller sports mixing in between the two different facilities. Ultimately, we just need more space.” 

Marquez thinks out-of-season teams should be more flexible with their workout times. “No offense to anyone, but they can be pushed off to either early-morning workouts or late at night, but definitely should not be mixed in with the in-season teams.”

He credits the strength and conditioning coaches for their devotion to making the spaces work. 

“Coach Chinch [Matt Costenson-Segura] and Coach Sam [Schmitz] being able to schedule eight to nine teams this spring, still finding time for them to do their separate lifts, and having the general public being able to lift as well,” Marquez said. “I know it’s not the easiest thing in the world, but I definitely want to give them credit as they continue to do a great job getting everyone in-season to get their lifting in.”