The Center for Athletics, Recreation and Wellness is opening its doors.
The much-anticipated project has created a facility that matches the excellence of Sagehen
Athletics and supports health and wellness for the campus communities of both colleges.
But before we take a look inside our beautiful and spacious new facility, let’s take a
look back at the history of athletic centers at Pomona College.
The year is 1900.
Pomona College is barely a teenager—just 13 years old—and it’s about to ring in
the new century by opening its first, rather modest athletic center, Renwick Gymnasium.
Total cost: $5,500.
Renwick is relatively small—just 4,000 square feet.
It contains two bowling alleys and some basic workout equipment.
Renwick will remain in use until it’s destroyed by fire in 1952.
But years later, when alumni reminisce about Renwick Gym, they’re probably not talking
about this building at all.
They’re talking about… this one.
It’s 1918.
Pomona’s enrollment has grown to nearly 600, and little Renwick is no longer adequate.
It’s time for another step in Pomona’s athletic progress.
Known at first “the Big Gym,” it will eventually take on the name of its predecessor—Renwick.
It will also gain a touch of Hollywood immortality as the location for scenes from the Disney
film, The Absent-Minded Professor.
Double the size of the first Renwick, it features Pomona’s first indoor basketball court.
But right from the start, it has serious problems.
Hastily constructed, its unfinished redwood walls are home to pigeons and bees.
Riddled with woodpecker holes, it quickly earns its nickname: “Woodpecker Heaven."
In fact, just a year after it opens, the College is already seeking to replace it.
But it will be another three decades before the College can afford to take the next step
in building its “great Memorial Gymnasium.”
] Fast forward to 1950.
Enrollment has again nearly doubled, topping 1,000 students.
The need for a new athletic facility has grown too pressing to be put off any longer.
It’s time for another step forward.
And so, some 30 years after it was first conceived, Memorial Gymnasium finally becomes a reality.
When Renwick is finally torn down as a fire hazard in 1982, Memorial is the only athletic
facility left standing, and it’s soon bursting at the seams.
Not only has Pomona continued to grow—since 1970, it’s also been sharing its athletic
programs with Pitzer College.
Now it’s clear that it’s time for another step forward in Pomona’s athletic progress.
In 1986, a surprise gift arrives—and what a gift!
More than $40 million from the will of Mrs. Liliore Green Rains.
The Rains Center for Sport and Recreation is the centerpiece of an ambitious building
program in athletics in the late ’80s and early ’90s that also includes a new track,
soccer field, tennis courts and Olympic-sized pool.
Unlike its predecessors, Rains isn’t just a gym.
It’s truly a “center for sport and recreation,” designed to serve the athletic and recreational
needs of the entire student body—both men and women.
It’s a fine facility for its time, one that might even be called state-of-the-art.
But state-of-the-art isn’t forever.
Rains served the College well for 30 years, but during that time the world of college
athletics has changed.
The needs of an athletic program on the rise and the wellness needs of the College as a
whole have once again outstripped the design of an aging and inflexibly designed athletic
facility.
Once again, it’s time to take the next step in Pomona’s athletic progress.
120 years after the foundations were laid for Pomona’s first athletic center, it’s
time for a center worthy of an athletics program that aspires to excellence in every sport
and to nurture lifelong habits for the good health of every student.
A facility with the capacity and flexibility to meet both the changing needs of student-athletes
and the growing demands of student wellness.
A facility where every student, faculty and staff member can envision themselves thriving.
A facility that reflects the success and growth of the Sagehen Athletics program.
Welcome to the new Center for Athletics, Recreation and Wellness.
This nearly 100,000 square-foot facility has greatly expanded our recreation and fitness
offerings.
Our new fitness center is 2,000 square feet larger than the one in our previous facility
and includes a wide array of new cardio equipment, weight machines and free weights.
The Pomona community will have access to studios that will house spin classes, yoga, and Pilates,
in addition to a variety of activities and expanded offerings for P.E.
classes.
The new facility also has room to support a burgeoning athletics program that has had
unprecedented success, winning three national championships in this past year.
In addition to twelve team-branded locker rooms and three new classrooms, the new Athletic
Performance Center will give Pomona-Pitzer’s 450 NCAA Division III athletes a strength-and-conditioning
center that rivals those at some Division I programs and ranks among the very best in
Division III.
The center also provides new campus gathering places.
The first floor includes a large central area where students and other visitors can study,
relax and learn about the history and growing success of Sagehen Athletics.
Newly landscaped areas outside the main entrance and Sixth Street courtyard provide space for
fans to gather before a big Sixth Street Rivalry game.
And the view of the mountains from our upstairs gym—everyone is going to want to experience
that.
The Center for Athletics, Recreation and Wellness pays homage to the past and gives us the facilities
we need for the future.
I can’t wait for you all to see and experience our new space.
To all the members of the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehen community, welcome home.