Your rec center is leaving lasting impressions, whether you realize it or not. We wanted to share one story of how campus recreation has had a positive influence. If you have a story of campus recreation’s positive impact you’d like to share, let us know by contacting bobby@peakemedia.com!
The idea of “love at first sight” is usually considered a figure of speech, but it was a reality for Sam Bramm and her fiancé, Dan, recent graduates of Towson University. Avid exercisers who got engaged over the summer, the two attribute the start of their relationship to their shared love of fitness and campus recreation.
It all started with Bramm’s heavy involvement with the Towson campus rec staff, maintaining a position with them through her entire college career.
“I was very immersed in campus rec,” said Bramm. “I was teaching Zumba with Group X, I was on the fitness floor during the summer, and I was the group exercise student manager during my senior year.”
And it was during this year the two first met. “Don’t judge me because I remember this. I’m just really good at remembering dates — it was Monday, August 3,” laughed Bramm. “I had just come back from a study abroad trip in Italy and it was my first day with fitness floor duties.”
In that first interaction and onward, Bramm shared she and Dan didn’t talk much but “exchanged glances across the room” whenever the two were in the rec center. He came to the gym often to work out and play basketball, but they weren’t his real motivation.
“He came in twice a day, and he still says the reason wasn’t because he wanted to work out, but he wanted to see whether I was working first or second shift,” said Bramm. “He really does work out twice a day, though — I don’t know how he does it.”
After seeing each other so often in the rec center, the two began dating. And two years later, the time came to pop the question.
“He took me to an early dinner at a local restaurant — and I kind of had a feeling,” recalled Bramm. “He took me to the restaurant where we’d had our first date, and all my friends and family were here.”
The biggest surprise, however, was after dinner. “He asked if I’d seen the new Towson fitness center that was about to open,” said Bramm. “I said I had passed it but hadn’t really looked in, and so he wanted us to stop by and see if we could get a look inside.”
And just outside the place they’d met, the place that meant so much to each of them, Dan got down on one knee and asked Bramm to marry him. Now, they’ve got a wedding to plan.
But the Towson rec center still had one more role to play in this story. “We wanted to take some of our engagement photos in the Towson rec center,” said Bramm. “They encapsulate our story with campus recreation, fitness and Towson University.”
The shared time in campus recreation means the world to Sam and Dan, but not just because they met each other — although meeting one’s soulmate is a nice perk. The experiences they each had in the Towson rec center, that led them to each other, are experiences they’ll carry with them for a long time.
“You meet so many great friends through campus rec, just being in that environment,” shared Bramm. ”I’m really happy I spent four years of college working in campus rec and doing all these different things, because of course, if I hadn’t spent that one summer on the fitness floor staff, I might not have met Dan.”
