Sixteen Floors of Athletics

While most departments at Yale are attempting to improve their facilities to reach levels dictated by present enrollment, one particular area need have no worry: mammoth Payne-Whitney Gymnasium should be adequate to meet all foreseeable problems of the department of Physical Education.

Present use of the nine and a half story neo-gothic structure is far below capacity, ranging from 550 to 850 students a day. Payne-Whitney officials estimate that during 1942-45 ten times this number were in the gym daily, because of compulsory physical training for all undergraduates and an exhaustive physical fitness program for 3000 Army Air Corps trainees.

Today chiefly freshmen work out in the building in attempts to pass their Physical Education requirements. And Yale's idea of minimum physical competence differs greatly from that of Harvard; requirements are so stiff, in fact, that over 70% of the freshman class annually fails one or more test.

Instead orf merely passing a step test as Crimson freshmen must, Yale's incoming class is subjected to physical fitness teams, which require proficiency in a standing broad jump (86 inches), push ups (25), sit ups (50), and chins (8). Also the Eli must swim twice the distance (100 yards) Harvard freshmen go.

Students who have fulfilled all physical standards can choose between a long list of inter-collegiate or intramural sports, or take classes in such improbable courses as tumbling, jui, jitsu, handball, badminton, polo, golf, and many others.

Not only does Payne-Whitney offer classes in uncommon sports, but its facilities for even ordinary sports are unusual. Each individual sport such as boxing, wrestling, and fencing has its own giant room. For fencing there is a unique device with a foil attached to a mirror, to enable students to fence themselves.

The Yale athletic department, renowned for swimming, has its most out-standing facilities available to teach future Olympic champions. In addition to the exhibition pool described above, the building also contains one of the largest suspended swimming pools in the world. Used primarily for practice, this 167-foot stretch of water is divided by a movable bulkhead, which can be adjusted to make the pool fit any standard American or Metric course.

The size of the structure can be imagined by visualizing the four elevators, a total of 16 floors, 28 squash courts, to begin with. Two sides extend from the central tower, each harboring an exhibition unit. The left wing contains the exhibition swimming pool, while the right wing holds an amphitheatre used for basketball and all other court sports.