The last two sessions I attended at the NIRSA show in Minneapolis were “The Path to Becoming a Recreational Sports Director” followed by a senior management panel of university administrators.

In an independent study conducted in 2006 similar to one NIRSA conducted in 2005, the average salary of recreational sports directors is between $60,000 to $80,000 at institutions with an enrollment between 15,000 and 25,000 students. The independent study also showed that 70 percent of recreational sports directors are male. Most of those surveyed said that a master‘s degree is mandatory for their job.

The senior management panel reminded me a little of the financial panel at the IHRSA show and a little of what many keynote speakers talked about at the IHRSA show.

The panel members revealed their paths to their current positions, and all of them took different routes that included some risk taking, a common theme at IHRSA. One administrator was at one time out of work after his accounting firm closed. He eventually worked to get his doctorate, and in July, he‘ll become the new president of Alcorn State University in his home state of Mississippi.

The Virginia Tech tragedy was mentioned in almost all the sessions I attended. The senior management panel ended with a mention of how university rec centers can play a role in the development and improvement of student mental health. –Stuart

My first session at the NIRSA show was titled: “Forecasting the Future: Recreation with Technology.” Although I sat in on only the last half of the session, what I saw and heard was pretty interesting.

In a poll of the attendees at the session, 46 percent said they “strongly agree” that their recreation centers should explore new forms of active entertainment to attract students. The words “exertainment” and “exergaming” were tossed around. One of the presenters referenced the XRtainment Zone in California, which I mentioned in my “Game Time” story in our April issue.

One cool thing that the presenters from WTW Architects introduced was the opportunity for the intramural championship basketball game to be streamed on the Internet. This saves Mom and Dad back home a trip to see the game in person. Another interesting concept is that some student rec centers can help students keep a personal running log by using a Nike and iPod sport kit.

A total of 72 percent of the attendees either were undecided or disagreed with the question: “Overall, we are prepared for the next evolution of rec centers.” One man in the audience questioned that some students might come to the student rec center and simply play Madden football all day long. Another attendee asked how universities were going to pay for all these changes and upgrades to student rec centers. There really wasn‘t much of an answer given. -Stuart

To follow up on an earlier blog, my favorite speaker at the NIRSA show was Kathy Cleveland Bull, whose presentation was entitled, “Get to the Cheese,” based on Spencer Johnson‘s best-seller, “Who Moved My Cheese?”

The underlying theme of the presentation dealt with the goals we have in life and how we go about achieving those goals. (Cheese is a symbol of what‘s important to us.) Bull used a quote from a man named Sydney Harris, who said, “Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time. What we want is for things to remain the same, but get better.”

Bull showed a cartoon (Yea!) that involved two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little men, Hem and Haw, who all went through a maze every day to go after a big mountain of cheese. Once the mother lode of cheese was gone, the mice quickly figured out where to get more. The little men, however, couldn‘t understand that they ate all their cheese and were resistant to find more.

Sniff can smell change in the air. Scurry goes into action quickly. Hem does not want change at all. Haw simply changes and moves on. Like most of the attendees at the session, I fit into the Haw category.

Bull, who worked in higher education for many years before starting her own consulting company, showed how difficult it was for her family to accept change in their lives. She told a personal story about how her mother suffered from early onset dementia in her 40s and died soon after. Bull said that there was a 50 percent chance that she or her twin sister would also get early onset dementia. Sadly, her twin is now suffering from it.

Bull cited William Bridges‘ Change Cycle in which there are three phases of change: endings, a neutral zone and new beginnings. Most of us are more afraid of change than we would like to admit, Bull said. At some point, we have to free ourselves to find “new cheese.” Bull encouraged us to “share the cheese” both at work and at home. I already have. - Stuart

I’ve only got a few minutes here at the noon hour on Friday at the NIRSA show in Minneapolis before it’s back to more sessions this afternoon.

The day started out a little bumpy. When I arrived at the convention center this morning, I realized that my badge was packed away in the bag at the hotel. So I had to walk back, get the badge, walk back to the convention center and sit in on a halfway-completed session about technology. Hey, at least I got in my early morning workout.

(On my way back to the convention center, I saw a construction sign I had never seen before: Steel Plate Ahead. Then I saw another sign that read: Steel Plate In My Head, and it had a picture of me next to it. I thought that was kind of rude!)

I’ll try to get into more details about each of the sessions later. As for the technology session, it wasn’t bad. When I walked in, they were talking about how technology is imperative to the future of recreation centers on campus. They even had some examples of interactive games, and for a minute, I thought they were speaking directly to me, since I just did a story on interactive gaming for our April issue.

The session itself was interactive. Attendees could vote on questions posed on the big screen by a remote control, kind of like on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” The last question was “How would you rate this presentation?” The five choices ranged from “excellent” down to “better than sex.” The “excellent” entry got the most votes with 39 percent, but “better than sex” got a whopping 13 percent. Now I really wish I would have attended the first half of the session.

The best speaker so far was Kathy Cleveland Bull, who owns her own consulting company. Her presentation was “Get to the Cheese,” which sounded kind of cheese-y at first. But Bull was no bull. She loosened everybody up by engaging the entire audience into sort of a “meet and greet” demonstration, then talked about how we all go after the “cheese” — or what we really want in life — and have to figure out how to get it. The speech was partly based on a 1998 book by Spencer Johnson entitled “Who Moved My Cheese?” I’ll get into more detail about Bull’s presentation in another blog, but she’s someone who definitely needs to come speak at one of our Club Industry shows.

That’s about all the time I have for now. It might take a couple of days before I update the rest of this show here, so check back sometime early next week.

P.S. The lunch was pretty good, too. They had turkey sandwiches–with cheese. And yes, they were free. –Stuart

It‘s hard to believe why some college student recreational centers would still use the old three-ring binder to keep track of their day-to-day operations.

After meeting with Shawn Boom of Active Network at the NIRSA show in Minneapolis, it seems the way to go for college rec centers is by using campus recreation software such as that developed by Active Network to make things easier and more efficient.

No longer do students or intramural basketball teams have to go across campus to the student rec center to see when the gym is available or register for a sport. At a lot of universities these days, all of that information is on the student rec center‘s Web site. This saves time and money for all involved.

Active Network has 30 years experience (starting with telephone registration back in the 1970s) and claims to have a 97 percent customer retention rate. Boom said the company‘s business has tripled in the last two years.

One of Active Network‘s clients, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, saves close to $20,000 each quarter by using Active Network software. It used to take Cal Poly about 400 hours to process 4,000 participants for intramural sports registration in each quarter. With the software, Cal Poly completed four separate sports leagues in a total of about two hours. Plus, the school has about five to 10 participants in line at the front desk instead of 300. -Stuart

Welcome to beautiful downtown Minneapolis, where people are actually walking outside rather than through the skywalks that become so convenient when it’s 40-below in the winter.

I’m here at the 2007 NIRSA (National Intramural-Recreation Sports Association) Conference and Recreational Sports Exposition. Say that five times really fast.

As far as the Fitness Business Pro editorial staff goes, I’m flying solo here through Friday. I met up with our sales rep, Matt Sinkovich, on my connecting flight out of Chicago, where Matt lives. Matt already ran into a childhood buddy of his at the Minneapolis airport.

After walking the trade floor together, Matt and I went our separate ways the rest of the afternoon. I had a discussion with Shawn Boom of Active Network, a computer software company. I’ll delve more into our conversation in a separate blog. We did talk a lot about a subject matter that is the basis of a story I’m working on for our May issue. Stay tuned.

A few things have caught my eye. Because this is an organization that deals with colleges and universities, I wondered if NIRSA was going to do something in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy earlier this week. Sure enough, there was a small display at a welcoming table where people could write notes that will be sent to Virginia Tech University. Also, there were little orange and maroon ribbons — the Virginia Tech colors — for people to wear.

On the trade show floor, my favorite things to see have been box hockey (Matt and I should give this a try), Speed Stacks (these two girls can stack cups at lightning speed) and a free spread that you could spend days at. Seriously, with chicken and meatballs and pasta and breadsticks here, you could gain 20 pounds in one day alone — and that’s after testing out all the treadmills and elipticals.

Another thing about this show that separates itself from last month’s IHRSA show in San Francisco is the number of free computers set up on the trade show floor. There are 20 computers here, five times as many as at IHRSA. (My boss, Pam Kufahl, will like the fact that I have not spent one dime writing this blog entry.) Plus, there are no lines in back of you while you’re trying to use the Web, and there isn’t some IHRSA “heavy” walking by the computers to tell you to “move it along.”

Well, that about wraps it up for Day One. On Friday, I’m going to spend most of my time attending seminars and sessions. And if there’s a spread at lunch, I’m sure I’ll hit that, too. (They just announced that lunch will be served on Friday. YES!) –Stuart