Pensacola Christian has the best college pool

“By far, Pensacola Christian has the best aquatic and recreational experience to offer college students.”

“The Sports Center at Pensacola is a two – story complex that also has the standard amenities that most every other college has, except it has a 12-lane bowling alley, ice skating rink, a miniature golf course, an indoor water park, and simulated surfing with the million dollar wave rider, Flowrider. Now that’s pulling out all the stops, and the tuition does not reflect all that you get as a student. By far, Pensacola Christian has the best aquatic and recreational experience to offer college students.”

Discussion

At PCC, male and female students cannot go to the beach together, however they will run into non-PCC opposite sex at the beach.

[Jim]

That this is off limits?

Jim, students can still go to the beach, just not Pensacola Beach. And, guys go to a different section of the beach than the girls.

[T Howard]

Jim, students can still go to the beach, just not Pensacola Beach. And, guys go to a different section of the beach than the girls.

But non-PCC girls can go to the same beach that the PCC go to.

[Jim]

Means they have the coolest pool. They have a Flowrider / Video

I’m still trying to figure out how you would baptize someone in that thing!?!?! =)

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Seriously, it’s certainly an unexpected amenity on a Christian college campus to have (apparently, by looking at the manufacturer’s list of installations) the only Flowrider on a college campus, anywhere. Not at Stanford, not at Yale, not at Arizona State, but at PCC!

Beyond the initial seven-figure cost of installation, looking at the technical specs for the double Flowrider, I see that electricity to operate it (lots of powerful pumps needed to keep that water moving) is estimated to be about $17/hour. Assuming it’s on for 40 hours/week, that would be around $3,000/month in electricity expense.

[WallyMorris]

Is all of this an example of secular culture influencing Christian colleges in unnecessary ways?

Clearly they have a purpose, an intention, a reason for investing in such an expensive diversion for their students. Granted, Abeka (their publishing house) is known to be a cash-cow, but are they so flush with money that they can just part with $1M to install such a thing (plus $$ to operate it)? What’s the strategy? (Not to mention all of the other activities the PCC Sports Center offers.) Did they determine it would help them attract and/or retain students? If so, it shows that even Christian colleges are not immune from the “amenities wars” that many secular campuses are recently engaged in. Or on the flip side, does the school think that such a sports center will help keep students on-campus and therefore off the nearby public beaches, where the school fears that students would have the “secular culture influencing” them instead?

My hypothesis is that para-church organizations like the schools are more like a business (not that there is anything wrong with that) than a church. Think about it:

  • They have to have a business plan and location matters (think Dunbar)
  • They jockey for market share and the other schools are their competitors (think the BJU / Pensacola disputes or Liberty / BJU) (see ” Bob Jones University declared the Moral Majority organization “Satanic”“). It’s just like when I was selling mainframes for IBM and we completed against the seven dwarfs
  • They sell their services and have to price them competitively
  • They have a “cost of goods (services) sold”
  • While they are non-profits it doesn’t mean they don’t need to have income that exceeds expenses.
  • Back to PCC and the Flowrider. They have a Flowrider just like cruise ships have a Flowrider. To distinquish their offering from their competitors.