MARCH 2004

Find out how to adapt your facilities for a growing market of disabled consumers. The ADA made accessibility a requirement, but therapeutic recreation goes a big step further. We'll show you how, by creating and marketing adaptive sports programs, you can transform your facility from merely accessible to truly desirable and ultimately life-enhancing for people with special needs.

The world of the health club is not the place it was two, four or six years ago. While people will always need to exercise, how they want to do it changes, sometimes drastically. In order to survive, you've got to adapt to the occasionally fickle world of fitness, where today's must-have could be tomorrow's dust-collector. We talk to the experts in finding out what works and, perhaps more important, what doesn't.

It's no secret that scoreboards these days do a lot more than just keep score. Just stopping short of julienne fries, today's scoreboards boast a host of fancy features. Find out what equipment is right for your facility, whether it's ease of use, durability, or selecting the right bells and whistles.

With spring about to be sprung, everyone is thinking green. Turf managers, in general, are one of the most helpful and generous groups in the recreation industry. These professionals go out of their way to help each other achieve the perfect playing fields and lawns. They're always willing to lend advice on improving safety, beating tight budgets, enhancing aesthetics and enriching the environment.

What do kids, perfume, theft and cell-phone cameras have in common? Well, they are each at the center of four hot issues, all of which relate to locker rooms, that are proving to be some of the most contentious topics in the fitness industry today.

Selecting the right locker size and style for a particular facility involves a lot of good old-fashioned common sense. Here are five simple rules to keep in mind.

For everyone in the commercial play attractions industry, please note: It's high time to get out of the stuff business.

In their seminal 1999 book, The Experience Economy, marketing gurus B. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore point to theming as the most important element in creating what properties, customers and guests want from the commercial play industry.

Safely maintaining a public swimming pool or spa can be an overwhelming task for any pool operator or manager. Their attention must be split over many facets of the operation, including pool/spa/facility maintenance, budgeting costs, personnel training, accident prevention and water quality.

Third-Party NSF/ANSI Standard 50 Certification can ensure commercial pool and spa owners and operators their equipment is safe to use, is structurally sound and performs as claimed.

Chicago's (in)famous old stadiums have been replaced one by one.

Comiskey Park gave way to U.S. Cellular Field. Chicago Stadium was razed to build the United Center. Only Wrigley Field, due to its legacy and fame, has withstood more or less intact. The other holdout, Soldier Field, home to the NFL's Chicago Bears, is a much different place now than it was when it opened in 1924.

For years, the camping registration office at Trap Pond State Park—Delaware's first state park—was, well, very minimal. In fact, you'd probably be exaggerating if you called it an office.

The 2,685-acre park offers 142 campsites on the pond's northern shore as well as two yurts and eight cabins, which translates into a busy recreational place during its March-to-November season. There are also plenty of daytime visitors, hikers and birdwatchers who come to explore the wetland forest.