Student Spotlight

Before becoming a supervisor with Rec Sports, Dylan Love’s story in the department began with regular visits to the Student Rec Center, but Love saw the opportunity to break the monotony of COVID-induced online classes and work alongside fellow Aggies with Rec Sports. So, in the spring of 2021, he applied to work within Rec Sports’ Strength & Conditioning staff.

“It was weird coming back to school and being online, so in getting a job here, I was able to make a bunch of friends,” Love said. 

Over the next two years, Love would work in Strength & Conditioning as an attendant before being promoted to supervisor nearly one year ago. As a supervisor, he’s managed the weight rooms at the Rec, Polo Road Rec Center, and at Southside Rec Center. In addition, he’s overseen about 150 junior staff. You can normally find him helping patrons find the gear they need in the weight room or making reports for equipment maintenance.

In his two years as an employee with Strength & Conditioning, Love said that his favorite memory was opening Southside Rec Center.

Love said, “I got promoted to this position right as we were starting the finishing touches on that building, and I can remember walking through that building in boots, jeans, a hard hat with a big yellow vest on…so it was really cool to see that go from an empty skeleton of a building to what it is now.”

For Love, participating in the establishment of a brand-new facility meant not just working to create a space that his fellow Aggies can enjoy but developing beyond the role of a traditional part-time job and preparing for greater opportunities henceforth.

“Being in my position, where I am at now as a supervisor, I get to network with a bunch of different people,” Love said. “Sometimes we’ll have conferences and we’ll have people come in from the fitness community. At least with the Southside opening, I got to talk to a bunch of TechnoGym executives that I would’ve never thought I’d ever meet in my entire life.”

He added, “The professional development side of this place has been great; I get to interview people all the time. We just finished our hiring process for this upcoming summer and fall, and we got to interview 80 or 90 people, which is not an experience you get in many other places, and there’s not too many other places that you get to open another facility with.”

And while his time as a student employee is coming to a close, Love reminisced on the charm of his employment with Rec Sports. Being a part of the Rec Sports team meant that Texas A&M was not just a place to learn in the academic sector; it was also a place to foster relationships and get professional experience serving other Aggies.

“I’ll probably miss the people the most. Working out at the facilities is great, but being able to come in and see a bunch of friendly faces every day is really cool, Love said. “It’s the highlight of my day.”

More specifically, Love recalled his first few weeks working with Strength & Conditioning and defined how it was to be the new employee in the weight room.

“I worked my first shift with Reece [Thorne] and it was really cool. She kind of just threw me in the water and I got to swim with the sharks for my first couple of weeks,” Love said.

He added, “The best way I’ve heard the community described is a student organization you get paid to be a part of. We get to hang out basically all the time…I’ve made some really good friends, we’ve gone to Chilifest together, we’ve gone on spring break trips together, we’ve gone on winter break trips together, summer breaks, too.”

With his graduation, Love leaves behind a team of Strength & Conditioning attendants, supervisors, and full-time staff participating daily in the deliverance of great customer service to customers throughout Aggieland. While his future is his to define, we are proud of the work Love has put in to ensure that all visitors of Rec Sports facilities find the amenities they need to develop their fitness goals.