Ode To the Marino
On Friday I went to the Northeastern Gym (the Marino Center) for the last time this year - its being renovated over the break. When it re-opens on January 3rd, I'll be jogging again hopefully which will radically change my workouts. I'm going to take a moment to do a shout out for the ole' Marino. Northeastern has always been probably the #7 college people think of when they think about Boston schools. Come on, try to make a list, and I'm sure Harvard is at the top, followed by . . . . and see where you put Northeastern. It occasionally shows up on the national radar screen because of the wildly popular co-op program, but that's it. In NU's defense, its not a bad urban academic institution, and the engineering school is quite good.
However, someone in the facilties department in the early 1990's was a true genius. This person thought, hey instead of having crappy rec facilities for non-athletes and making everyone go to Gold's Gym or the Huntington Street Y, let's build our own gym and market it to students. They found a very wealthy donor (Mr. Marino) and spared no expense. When it opened in 1996, the Marino Center was the premier collegiate recreation space in the country. All of the facilities people at universities around region had the Bill Simmons "Troy Aikman Face" of being completely dumbfounded that little Northeastern had produced a facility that was not just better than any at Harvard or MIT or BC or BU or Brandeis or Williams or Amherst, but that this recreational space blew theirs out of the water and was drawing away potential applicants. BU, a bitter rival for applicants and athletes, had to spend about 3 times as much just to make sure its facility (which opened last year) was bigger and more impressive. BC didn't even try.
Anyway, for now I'll have to use NU's smaller rec space, the Rosen-Badger Center. However, I'm pretty psyched to see what the Marino will look like when they clean the place and open it for the next semester.
Here is a link if you have never seen it:
https://www.campusrec.neu.edu/marino/images.shtml
However, someone in the facilties department in the early 1990's was a true genius. This person thought, hey instead of having crappy rec facilities for non-athletes and making everyone go to Gold's Gym or the Huntington Street Y, let's build our own gym and market it to students. They found a very wealthy donor (Mr. Marino) and spared no expense. When it opened in 1996, the Marino Center was the premier collegiate recreation space in the country. All of the facilities people at universities around region had the Bill Simmons "Troy Aikman Face" of being completely dumbfounded that little Northeastern had produced a facility that was not just better than any at Harvard or MIT or BC or BU or Brandeis or Williams or Amherst, but that this recreational space blew theirs out of the water and was drawing away potential applicants. BU, a bitter rival for applicants and athletes, had to spend about 3 times as much just to make sure its facility (which opened last year) was bigger and more impressive. BC didn't even try.
Anyway, for now I'll have to use NU's smaller rec space, the Rosen-Badger Center. However, I'm pretty psyched to see what the Marino will look like when they clean the place and open it for the next semester.
Here is a link if you have never seen it:
https://www.campusrec.neu.edu/marino/images.shtml
posted by seeherman at 9:46 AM
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