For $5, you can pop in and stay as long as you like -- walk the treadmill or run the track. Swim in the pool. Work out with the weights. Join one of the almost-constant aerobics classes. Play racquetball or squash. Shoot hoops. Sit in the sauna. Take a shower. Do whatever makes you healthy and happy.
For $123, you can do it every day, as much as you like, for a semester. That's if you're an alumnus. If you're staff or faculty, it's less, and you can have it deducted from your paycheck. If you're a student, it's free, since you've already paid for it in your student activity and service fees.
FSU's Dr. Bobby E. Leach Student Recreation Facility, named after the vice president for student affairs from 1978 to 1988, is the largest of its kind in the southeastern United States and is regarded as state-of-the art. The British Olympic team used it this summer to prepare for the 1996 Olympics.
"Nobody's got all the stuff we've got," said an enthusiastic Alicia Crew, associate director, "the total number of different kinds of machines; we've got it all under one roof."
Students, whose fees run the center, use it most --14,185 in the fall of 1994 -- but the center also recorded use by 393 faculty or staff, 317 spouses or alumni, 1,010 guests and 4,045 visitors.
"The thing that is most gratifying to me is the broad base of support the center receives," said Paul Dirks, the director of campus recreation.
Crew said alumni and employees of the university can come anytime -- the center is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- but she warned about a rush of students between 3:30 and 7:30 p.m., when classes and work end.
Otherwise, she said, the only problem is parking. The center is between Tully Gymnasium and the band field, where parking can be scarce during the day.
For more information, call Crew at 644-0553.