New recreation director talks improvements

October 1, 2007 —

by Adam Baudoux

Richard Buford, center, SVSU's campus recreation director and assistant director of Student Life, talks with students during the Robin Hood archery tournament on Saturday. The SVSU alum brings a wealth of experience in athletics to the job.

Rich Buford not only has big plans for sports activities on campus, he now has the power to make these plans a reality. Buford was recently named assistant director of Student Life, Campus Recreation, and Intramural Sports. While the name of his position is long, his list of duties is even longer.

As part of Student Life, Buford is responsible for helping to plan Homecoming, powder-puff football, weekend activities such as StreetFest, and anything else Student Life is sponsoring at the time.

"Anything that Student Life does, I'm involved," Buford says.

It doesn't stop there. The Campus Recreation part of the job requires overseeing the six club sports on campus, while intramural sports currently includes 11 sports for the fall season. All of these have games and tournaments to set up.

Add overseeing 25 student employees who work at Ryder and the Fitness Center, and Buford is one very busy man.

With all of this Buford can only smile as he thinks of what he does day to day.

"I have to keep busy to function right," he says. "I keep busy all the time."

It is clear that Buford not only enjoys his job but has great passion for it as well.

"My favorite part of the job is the intramurals and getting back into the sports arena," he says. "I love planning tournaments and getting to work with the students and play sports with them."

For the past three years Buford had been working in the Office of Admissions, so his direct contact with students was not as high. Now, he gets to work with students on a personal level every day.

"This is better as far as what I want to do," he explains.

Buford has always had a love for sports. As a student at SVSU he played football and ran track. He was on the football team that won the GLIAC championship in 2000, and he was the conference champion in hurdles and javelin and part of the relay team that currently holds SVSU's 4X100 relay team record.

While working near Detroit, Buford started a program called Adrenaline Rush Sports with the help of the Detroit Police Athletic League (PAL). The junior high schools in Detroit have no sports programs, so Adrenaline Rush Sports gives kids a way to play sports for fun. A track team was organized to run over the summer.

"A lot of scholarships came out of that," Buford says.

Just has he had high hopes for Adrenaline Rush Sports, Buford has many things he wishes to see at SVSU as well.

Some changes have already occurred. The Ryder Center Program CardX has been changed to Cardinal Fitness. For a fee of $25, students can go to any of six offered classes taught by certified individuals ranging from spin class to yoga. Buford says many people are participating in the program and he has had "a lot of good feedback."

In intramural sports, one change has been an increase in student participation. Buford is hoping to use this to his advantage and add even more to the intramural sports program.

As of now, the intramural teams only play each other, but Buford hopes to get into a college challenge where the teams could play other area schools such as Northwood.

He also hopes to offer more sports next year - such as ultimate Frisbee - and create a program called Cardinal Iron Teams, in which teams would compete against each other in a variety of sports in a tournament. The winning team would get an Iron Teams trophy.

Buford's hopes don't stop there. He has some big plans for the Fitness Center as well, including ordering new equipment such as treadmills and getting all existing equipment working so students can plug in their headphones to listen to the televisions. Buford also plans to rearrange the equipment so everything is more accessible.

However, his largest plan is to add an addition onto the Fitness Center: a small studio for aerobics and other classes as well as general use during the busiest hours of the day.

"That's on my wish list," Buford says.

All of these changes are ones Buford thinks are in the best interest of students and faculty alike.

"These ideas are based on our need as a campus community," he says. "I want to do what I can to get everyone active."