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Ann McGowan helps Kyle Dewitt in warm- up exercises.
Adapted P.E. program
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journalism
tor for The
By JENS B. KOEPKE
Reporter
Texas A&M is one of the lew
universities in Texas which of fers
a physical education program for
students enrolled in activity
classes who are injured during
the semester or who are chroni
cally disabled.
Adapted physical education is
an alternative for those A&M stu
dents who are chronically or acu
tely disabled by injuries.
“In most universities, if you get
hurt in physical education, you
have to drop the course or take
an incomplete,” said Anne McGo
wan, coordinator of the adapted
physical education program.
Hie class starts the semester
with 100-125 students, but ends
with 150-200 students, McGowan
said. The larger class at the end
of the semester is the result of
students who join the class be
cause of injuries, she said.
Each student who transfers
into the program from another
physical education course is given
an individual exercise program
tailored for his injury, McGowan
said. Weight training, aimed at
strengthening the injured mus
cles, is combined with warm-up
and flexibility exercises.
By transferring into the
adapted program, injured stu
dents avoid losing credit in their
regular P.E. class.
Grading is determined by the
instructors in both the adapted
section and the student’s regular
section that the student was in,
she said.
Since she cannot follow every
student through his exercises,
some students may not work all
the time and may consider the
class a “blow-off’, McGowan said.
But all students who spend more
than four weeks in adapted must
write a 8-page term paper, she
said.
“My program is the only one
with a term paper, which is worth
50 percent of the grade,” McGo
wan said.
Chronically disabled students
also participate in the program.
McGowan said that for these
students, an individual exercise
program is designed based on
their abilities and not their disabi
lities.
Stroke victims, for example, do
flexibility exercise# to increase
their range of maflfep and jump
rope to improve wpir coordina
tion and balance, sfie said.
An aquatic program, although
not a permanent part of the
adapted program, is an activity
especially useful JR* wheelchair
students, she saidTlvnese students
suffer numerous medical prob
lems due to their lack of locomo
tion.
The aquatic program negates
the pull of gravity on the body
and increases circulation and
blood pressure.
This program also can be use
ful to adapted program students
with acute injuries, such as dislo
cated shoulders, twisted knees
and sprained ankles, McGowan
said.
Exercising damaged joints or
muscles is much safer in the water
than through weight training.
During aquatic exercises, a per
son can only stretch as far as his
body will let him.
Dr. Charles Powell, coordina
tor of handicapped and veteran
services, said mat the influx of
handicapped students at A&M in
the last five years has made the
adapted program increasingly
important.
The growth in the number of
handicapped students at A&M
can be traced to passage of A fed
eral law passed during the 1970s
mandated that universities make
their campuses accessible to the
handicapped, he said.
Tom Van Dyke, a senior com
puter science major from San An
tonio, has been in the adapted
program twice. He transferred
into the adapted class as a fresh
man, following a knee injury suf
fered during military training.
Since Van Dyke wore a cast for
three months, he spent most of
the semester exercising his upper
body. When his cast was re
moved, Van Dyke was able to be
gin strengthening his hamstring
and quadricep muscles.
While recovering from knee
surgery a second time. Van Dyke
returned to the program this se
mester after he tried to partici
pate in aerobic running.
“I think the biggest difference
is that everybody in here
(adapted) is doing his own pro
gram,” he said. “There’s also a lot
more interaction between stu
dents.”
Offshore oil platforms
useful as artificial reefs
University News Service
Obsolete offshore oil platforms in
the Gulf of Mexico and along the
west coast could provide the founda
tion for a lucrative sport-fishing in
dustry, says a recreation and parks
expert.
Rather than scrap the huge rigs,
Dr. Robert Ditton of Texas A&M
suggests leaving some of the struc
tures in the ocean because they act as
artificial reefs which attract a variety
offish.
“Fifteen to 30 years ago the fish
were distributed all over the Gulf of
Mexico,” Ditton said. “Then the oil
and gas industries came in and built
these vertical steel columns which at
tracted the fish that attracted com
mercial fishermen and spurred the
development of a recreational fish
ery," Ditton said. “Now we’re at the
point of wondering what’s going to
happen when these platforms are re
moved offshore Galveston, for ex
ample.”
Ditton, who serves on a National
Academy of Science panel looking
into a variety of alternatives for dis
posing of the platforms, said there is
,
The platforms are pre
ferable as- attiBdal reefs]
the vertical ste** 1
the whole water column.
considerable interest in retaining
some of the structures for fishery
enhancement purntglfc.
“ The platforms wBpreferable to
using ships because rryou sink a ship
for an artificial reef it doesn’t come
up that high in the water column
and there’s really not the same diver
sity of fish,” Ditton said.
“When you’re talking about an oil
structure from the surface to the
bottom, you’ve got a good fish profi
le.”
Serious fishermen learned quickly
that the platforms provided good
fishing grounds and often dock
around them, Ditton said.
He said this is true in the Gulf of
Mexico where there are more than
4,000 petroleum structures. About
1,000 of them are major structures.
Once drilling is complete, oil and
gas companies are required to re
move the platform and usually do so
to eliminate their insurance liability.
“There are thorny issues involved
in keeping the platforms in place
and the main one is liability issues
because there are few precedents in
court,” Ditton said.
Ditton said companies and federal
agencies are ironing out differences
wnere liability, tax breaks and other
issues are concerned, to increase the
number of artificial reefs off the
country’s coasts.
“Artificial reefs date back to the
ancient Chinese who threw piles of
rocks in the water to create vertical
profiles,” said Ditton. “Since then we
have thrown lots of things in the wa
ter for reef development, only in re
cent years we’ve been doing it care
fully.”
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