The gym in Virginia Tech’s McComas Hall has been unusually busy considering the campus is largely deserted in the wake of Monday’s deadly shootings, providing an aerobic outlet for stressed-out students.
“I actually think it’s been really helpful,” said Mordecai Harvey, a 22-year-old senior who both works and works out in the weight room at McComas Hall, one of the two main student gyms on the Virginia Tech campus. “It made sense, I guess people were trying to blow off some steam, get rid of the stress, and take their minds off of things.”
Ali Arner, the gym’s fitness development coordinator, said that the staff decided to keep the gym open specifically to help students struggling to cope with the tragedy.
Given that Virginia Tech was listed no 21 on Men’s Fitness magazine's list of the “fittest colleges in America” for 2006, it should come as no surprise that students are using the gym as a way to get through this tough time, Arner noted.
McComas Hall was crowded on Wednesday night – with two large basketball courts being used by students playing pick-up games. Cathy Kropff, the facility’s marketing manager, said roughly 400 students used the facility on Wednesday.
Harvey said the benefits of the exercise extend beyond a toned body. “It has a good emotional effect on you because it takes your mind off of things and it makes you feel like, ‘OK, I can move on,” he said.
Despite media reports indicating that Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui worked out intensively in an effort to “bulk up” before Monday’s massacre, neither Harvey nor any other staff members or gym rats interviewed Wednesday recalled seeing him at the gym, the closest facility to his Harper Hall dorm.
But they noted that since McComas Hall gym is one of just two major recreational sports centers for the roughly 26,000 students on campus, it’s difficult to monitor who comes and goes. And no one has combed through the records of student IDs used to gain admission to determine if Cho was a frequent gym-goer.
Pro-gun student: I told you so
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As officials, students and families struggle to come to terms with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, a team of MSNBC.com reporters and editors and NBC News producers and correspondents is on the scene.
hello. im mili from venezuela.I am young too, and i am so sorry for all that things, all that tears,but everything is gonna be a right again.be stronger i know it's hard to forget but the time healht the holes of the past, not for cumpletly but we are with you, my country search the pain.
mili, valencia city. venezuela (Sent Apr 19, 2007 7:57:23 PM)
What i really would like to know and what the University will have to answer is why after all that was known of Cho that he was allowed to stay in the University...
Jay Kent (Sent Apr 19, 2007 7:57:32 PM)
I was DISGUSTED by the acts of the Media-- I walked out of the room - I will NOT EVER watch another news program untill all anchors who used those photos and vidio get on their KNees and BEG the families to for give you!!!!!!!!!!!!! I personaly spit on you !!!!!!!!
that package should NEVER been opened by any one except the FBI -- I hope you can see just how LOW you have all fallen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
toelle hovan, port orange, florida, 32128 (Sent Apr 19, 2007 8:07:59 PM)
hello i'm only 12 years old but am very worried of how kids feel safe going to school any more. i know my school is a maryland blue ribbon school but i think the scurity is worth crap and any one cna walk in and out as they pleased. i wish schools would in America would put better scurity systems in the schools. who ever gets this please make it a big problem and help keep our schools safer. and i pray for those who have died and are in the hospital. thank you
meg Ellicott MD (Sent Apr 19, 2007 8:25:18 PM)
i cant believe they put that murderers face all over the internet and the news. im no major in mental health or anything, but cant you tell thats why he did it to make a movie out of himself. We shouldnt even mention the killers names. who cares about that piece of trash. Way to go NBC you just aired the recruitment video for the next school massacre, but hey at least he will know where to mail the tape and ooh maybe he will have more gore is everyone in this country really this stupid.
Jason Faulkner Pennsylvania (Sent Apr 19, 2007 11:51:41 PM)
Cho was allowed to stay in the school because of the fear by V-Tech of not being 'politically correct', and by the liberal, all-inclusive attitude that govern's today's educational institutions.
MSNBC aired segments of the tape because it was profitable for them. I, however, do not loathe them for this. At least they did not advertise and then air the whole tape, which they could have done, and which would have granted them many more viewers. (not yet, at least). All the other major news agencies would have done the same as MSNBC, or worse.
Timothy Ells, Miami Beach, Florida (Sent Apr 20, 2007 6:14:26 AM)
my heart goes out to all the students and their families,be strong, carry on. the schools of ur beloved united states will be safe again once enough people put there foot down and demand that the security in the schools be tightened up unless it happens as its been said before anyone can just walk in the schools our prayers are with you as ur the strongest people i know
damian soo, ontario canada (Sent Apr 20, 2007 7:10:45 AM)
I know no words can comfort those victims' families, but knowing how sick Cho was from the NBC's, you just accept that the fate and may help ease a little everyone's (whole nation's) pain and sorrow. You feel less quilty, what could we do with this kind of sick person. We will learn lessons from this national tragedy.
Yang, Ann Arbor, Mi (Sent Apr 20, 2007 1:36:34 PM)
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