04.14.11

Great Gear, but for Whom?

Posted in Guests at 6:51 pm by Brad Clark

Tom O’Connor, the director of athletics at George Mason University, spoke in a press conference Thursday on campus.  O’Connor is in his 16th year at GMU, and has over four decades of experience with other programs as well, including Dartmouth.

He provided many answers and opinions on the basketball team and with the department in general, but his experience and involvement showed its fringe when asked about certain equipment present in the gyms on campus.  “I know some of the specialized equipment we have is for our athletes,” O’Connor said, “but I don’t definitively about all the equipment.”

These specialized pieces, normally seen at a power lifting gym or strongman facility, are both very expensive and hard to come by. The GHR, for example, ranges in price usually from $800 to over $2,000.  Then there’s the reverse-hyper, which you’ll have to drop over $3,000 for.   Bumper plates, which are weights designed for heavy impact lifting (deadlifting, clean and jerks, etc.) are a very expensive commodity as well.

It seems rather strange, then, that you can find two GHR’s at the RAC, two at the AFC, one at the Skyline, and several at the Field House.  Student athletes generally work in the Field House, so why spend all the extra money putting this stuff – that most people don’t even know how to use – in each of the gyms?

The GHR, a.k.a. 'the leg killer.'

The bumper plates and reverse-hyper can be found in the RAC, which is also unusual.  Bumper plates normally cost four to five dollars a pound (though the link here shows the cheapest ones you can find, which are still $22 for a 5lb plate)(, compared to $.50-.75 for regular plates.  In a gym that mainly boasts light motion machines, where do these bumper plates fit in?  The reverse-hyper machine is the most difficult piece of equipment to work with.  It focuses on stretching your spine, so someone who isn’t familiar with it has a good chance of using it incorrectly (not good).  For those who do know how to use it, it’s a saving grace. But, is it really useful for athletes – especially at the RAC?

The reverse-hyper.

Recently, a group of students, who do power lifting at the Field House, were upset when some of the specialized equipment was moved to the RAC when it was opened last year.  The equipment was certainly not purchased to cater to these students, since there isn’t any funding or support of power lifting at GMU.  With such a considerable amount of  money used on this stuff, its unlikely any of it was purchased by the school without purpose.

It’s great that this stuff is here, and available for anyone to use, but the question remains: why?

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03.10.11

Jim Iovino

Posted in Guests at 7:24 pm by Brad Clark

Jim Iovino, managing sports editor for NBC in Washington, came in today, discussing an unique history of the early days of blogging.

Iovino started out writing for sports in college, and began one of the first blogs, which focused on the NHL.  This blog actually become one of the first that was credentialed and had their writers allowed in to talk with the players in the locker room.

Iovino brought up a term new to our class, re-purposing, which involves compiling information from a more brick-and-mortar source to a new one.

Important points brought up by Iovino:

• Re-tweeting is important for sharing your tweets and introducing yourself to different groups of followers.
• Hockey teams are one of the biggest in sports in terms of reaching out to their communities, in particular teams like the Washington Capitals.
• Look at Dan Steinberg — his blog is unique in that it tells the reader something they don’t know.  Coming up with new angles for stories can be what separates you as a sports writer from others.

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