“The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why I wouldn’t do this,” assistant director of campus recreation Ivy Marie Adkisson said.
The journey to her current position at Union began when the former graduate assistant for campus recreation encouraged her to apply to take his role. She resisted the idea at first but decided to apply, and much to her surprise, Adkisson was offered the job.
Only days after starting her job as the graduate assistant and while preparing to start her MBA in leadership and human resources, plans began to change again.
“I got here on Aug. 1, and the assistant director was leaving on Aug. 5,” Adkisson said. “We went the month of August without an assistant director.”
After receiving encouragement to apply to this newly opened role, Adkisson transitioned to “the big desk” in her office.
“It just seemed like the right move,” Adkisson said. “I’m here until I quit or they fire me.”
Despite the nice title and long-term position, she still does many of the graduate assistant duties, the biggest one being intramurals. She does everything from planning the games to training refs to handing out the champion shirts.
“All things funnel through me,” Adkisson said. “It’s so fun. They’re one of the best things that student life puts out because they’re the most consistent. It goes on all year, and there’s truthfully something for everyone.”
She recounted some of the many times she played in intramurals with her friends in college. She participated in them every year while pursuing her undergraduate degree, and she loves the growth she had through the sports, especially the ones she was bad at.
“One of my professional rules is that you have to figure out what you’re bad at and you have to do it more,” Adkisson said. “It’s such a such a humbling process. Basketball was that for me in college. I’m not good at basketball. I pride myself on being decently athletic, but I’m not good at basketball at all. I made myself play, and I recruited some of my friends to play. We had fun, and that’s gone down as one of my favorite intramurals because I didn’t have that pressure to be good.”
She did not play basketball this year, but she still plays in a select few sports as a graduate student. This year, she played in the volleyball intramurals with some friends she made in undergrad who are still here.
Joanna Wafler, senior social work major, was on the team “Good Ole Days” with Adkisson, and she enjoyed seeing Adkisson’s teamwork.
“She values other peoples’ opinion,” Wafler said. “She seeks the betterment of the group regardless of individual differences.”
While Adkisson loves planning and playing in intramurals, she also enjoys the other aspects of her job, like working with the club sports and planning Greek Olympics. Last fall, Greek Olympics was her first big event to plan as the new assistant director.
During the planning process, she said there was a lot she did not realize goes into the event. She was given a lot of creative liberty with some guidance from Jonathan “Johnny” Wilson, the director for campus recreation. While he gave tips and some guidelines, Wilson let her take it and run with it so she could learn on her own, for which Adkisson is thankful.
“There’s a certain element of just doing things and figuring them out,” Adkisson said. “That’s how you learn.”
The first several months of being the assistant director of campus recreation have taught Adkisson a lot, and she has come to value the programs and events even more.
Moving forward, she is excited to say that campus recreation will be offering even more programs and classes. Once the highly anticipated, new wellness center is here, they plan to have wellness classes to encourage more students to have good spiritual, mental and physical health.
“Dr. Dub says that these are the most formative years of your life,” Adkisson said. “I want those formative years to include physical health because that’s going to help you out and help you to have a long number of years.”
Photo by Laila Al-Hagal
