<< Front page Sports December 12, 2003

In the Locker Room With...
Marc Penalvero Aguila

This week I interviewed the program director for the climbing wall, junior Marc Penalvero Aguila. We talked about his interests in both climbing and kayaking and how he has been able to remain active in these sports while at Oberlin.

How did you get started with climbing?

I started climbing in eighth grade because we had to play a sport every season and one of our options, luckily, was to join this outdoor program that was a combination of climbing and kayaking.

Were you a part of the group of students that pushed to have a climbing wall built at Oberlin?

No. I pretty much just jumped on after it was built. I had a little bit of say in designing some of the protocol about how the wall gets used, but that was about it.

How do you feel that having the wall on campus and as part of the gym complex has improved Oberlin?

I think it’s awesome because I’ve seen a lot of climbers come out of the woodwork and I didn’t think this school really had any. Beyond that, I spend more time at the gym and it’s a whole part of Oberlin that I had never really experienced before. I knew some athletes before, but now I know a lot more because a lot of varsity athletes will come in and want to climb on the wall.

How would you compare climbing to other sports?

You can practice it at any level you want to. If you want to climb once a month or once a week and not do anything in particular with it, just have fun, you can do that just like you shoot around a basketball and play pick-up games. Or as an athletic endeavor, you can follow a very rigorous training regimen, which I don’t have right now, but which I have certainly done in the past when I have climbed competitively and was training seriously six days a week.

How do you see the varsity athletic community and the climbing community interacting? Do you ever feel like the climbers are just closed in their little glass cage cut off from the rest of the gym?

I definitely did feel that way at first because we are kind of separated from the rest of the athletic facilities even though we are inside the gym. But really it’s been nice to see people that are just interested in being athletic or physical come in. There have been soccer players and football players and all sorts of people come in and try climbing because it’s fun and athletic and that’s what they like. It’s also not as structured as varsity sports so we also get a lot of people who are athletic who don’t want to be on a team. In general, I think it does a lot for the athletic community in that respect.

Has there been any thought on making climbing a club sport at Oberlin creating a climbing team that would compete against other colleges or does such a thing even exist?

We haven’t talked about it too much. We have talked about setting up competitions for the climbers here and then making those competitions open to anybody. We have a really nice wall, so it brings a lot of Oberlin kids in. I don’t think too many other schools have walls that are as nice, so I’m not sure what the climbing communities are like at those schools and if climbing is a club sport at other schools.

Switching subjects, have you been able to get any kayaking in while you’ve been at Oberlin?

Yeah. I went once on the Cuyahoga River and I highly recommend no one to ever go there.

Why is that?

It’s disgusting. It’s a combined sewer overflow. Also, the park rangers will do their best to arrest you if you don’t have a permit to carry your boat across the parkland.

Are you speaking from personal experience?

Yes.

Are there any other places you’ve been able to kayak or was that initial experience enough to deter you?

I’ve been out to Findley State Park. It’s only about ten miles south on 58 and they have a really cool lake. It’s not as exciting as kayaking on a river, but it’s just really nice to be outside.

   

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