“The longer I have been here, the more and more and more I love it,” says Phoenix native Breya Brown of living in Silver City. Brown, who graduated from WNMU with a degree in Kinesiology in May, is the new Campus Recreation (C-Rec) Coordinator. One of her goals in the role is to help students love living here as well, and she certainly has enough activities planned to keep students happily busy when they are not in class or studying.
One of the first items on her agenda when she began the new position was to start an intramural sports program. “Being in charge of the gym and all the intramural sports is something I am really passionate about,” said Brown. So far, the sports in the intramural program include basketball, volleyball, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, and pickleball. “Pickleball is a really popular one right now,” she said, “A lot of the community members come for that one.” Involving the community in C-Rec programs is important to Brown. “I think it is really important to include those who are not students,” she said, “[I want to make] sure they know it’s fun, and everyone is learning, and everyone is having a good time.” She sees intramural sports as an important inclusionary program for students as well, especially for those that are not part of one of the university’s formal athletic programs. Said Brown, “I think it’s really important that the students that are not student athletes have something that allows them to be physically active, stay fit, and participate and interact with other students, and I think intramural sports is the perfect [solution].”
Brown and her C-Rec team have many other activities in the works for the coming school year, starting with a kickball “kick-off” on the new softball field on August 11. “It’s kind of like a kick-off for the semester,” said Brown, noting that one of her goals with the kick-off is “to introduce the sport and the programs and what we are doing [in C-Rec], and to get people to see this is really fun. It doesn’t have to be awkward or all about school; you can come out, you can have fun, you can meet people, and it’s all good.” Brown said that she wants to get students involved early in their WNMU careers, and she feels that C-Rec can play a role in student retention. “In order to want to stay here,” she said, “they have to have something that is keeping them here, and having that community, having those friends that they met, and all the things they can do [through C-Rec], I think it’s really important.”
Beyond the kickball kick-off event, Brown is looking forward to Homecoming Week, September 25-30, which she sees as a “school spirit” week and expects to be full of C-Rec activities. “That’s going to be a big week for us,” she said, “Each day of the week will be designated for something different.” While all of the activities should be fun for students, Brown is especially excited about a cooking competition modeled after the reality game show, “Chopped.” “What I am most excited about is our first annual ‘Chopped’ challenge,” said Brown, “We are going to recruit teams of students, and we are going to set up in Graham Gym, and the teams will compete against each other in a cooking challenge. It’s going to be so much fun.”
Further in the future, Brown is planning a basketball tournament for later in the fall semester, and she is already looking ahead to next summer, when she plans to invite students from other New Mexico universities to the WNMU campus for a “Summer Games” event. She is also excited about some upcoming changes to the fitness center, including the addition of a rock climbing wall that is currently in the planning stages.
Brown said that her favorite part of her job is working with students. “I really love interacting with students—talking with them, creating relationships with them. I feel that creating those relationships is really what gets the students involved,” she said. Getting students involved is exactly what Brown is out to do, and she trusts that she will get to do more of that as students return to campus. “This summer, we have minimal student involvement. . . a lot of involvement comes from the community [while students are on summer break],” she said, “When all the students come back in the fall, I want our numbers to get bigger and bigger.”