Nicole Weide works out at the
Overland Park Community Center, 6300 W. 87th St. Weide
is a member of the Kansas City Krunch, a women's semiprofessional
football team.
Some women exercise to look
slim in wedding dresses or swimsuits. Not Nicole Weide
-- she plans to wear a football helmet and pads.
A member of the Kansas City
Krunch, the 31-year-old Overland Park woman will be a
defensive end on the all-female, full-contact semiprofessional
football team that will begin its inaugural season in
April.
To meet the sport's physical
challenges, Weide exercises several days a week at the
Overland Park Community Center, 6300 W. 87th St.
"It's one of those hidden
places," said Weide, surgical services manager at
St. Luke's Hospital. "Most people don't know about
it."
The community center, built
in the 1950s as Osage Elementary School, has a fitness
room with free weights, weight machines and cardiovascular
equipment such as treadmills, stationary bicycles and
elliptical machines. Fitness classes there include yoga,
martial arts and aerobics.
The building transformed into
a community center in the late 1970s and has become a
well-used facility, said Carl Cromer, city recreation
supervisor. The center's other amenities include a gymnasium,
a multipurpose room
available for rent and a game room with Ping-Pong and
billiard tables.
Basketball and volleyball leagues
meet in the gym during fall, winter and spring seasons.
The Johnson County Park and
Recreation District also operates a day care center at
the site as well as some 50 Plus programs.
"During the day you'll
see everybody -- from a 3-year-old to a 93-year-old,"
Cromer said.
The center is open from 6:30
a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 8 a.m. to
6 p.m. Saturdays. The center is closed Sundays.
Annual membership for Overland
Park residents is $20 for youths or seniors and $60 for
adults who use the fitness center and gymnasium. Fees
are double for nonresidents. Membership at the center
also allows for use of the city's Tomahawk Ridge Community
Center, 11902 Lowell Ave.
"There's facilities all
over Kansas City and Johnson County, but the proximity
is helpful and the prices -- you can't beat that,"
Weide said.
For more information, call (913)
895-6390.
Nick Kowalczyk/The Star
Learn more about the
NWFA at www.nwflcentral.com.
