Gym

The Costa Mesa City Council on Tuesday night gave the green light to a Santa Ana-based adult basketball league to rent its municipal gym on Sundays for league games. The Parks and Recreation Commission previously voted to allow Rigoberto Bautista, founder of Aztec Basketball League, to use the court at the Downtown Recreation Center, displacing an average of 22 people who come for drop-in adult basketball and volleyball games. Councilman Eric Bever appealed the Parks Commission’s decision and voted against allowing the league in but could not find any allies on the council, which approved the contract, 4 to 1. Councilwoman Katrina Foley implied that Bever opposed the league only because it was primarily made up of Latino players.

Firefighters and two 24 Hour Fitness employees saved the life of a 67-year-old man who went into cardiac arrest at the gym, officials said Friday. At about 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Costa Mesa firefighters received a call that a man had gone into cardiac arrest while working out at 24 Hour Fitness at The Triangle, according to Costa Mesa Fire Department Battalion Chief Fred Seguin. Another gym member notified employees that the man was down in the cardio area, said Josh Graves, a fitness manager at the club.

If Olympic beach volleyball players April Ross and Jennifer Kessy seemed right at home Wednesday afternoon as they signed autographs and posed for pictures at CdM Fitness, it's because they were. The pair have trained at the gym on East Coast Highway for about two years. The gym's owner, David Jurevich, accompanied the team to London as their trainer. And Ross and Kessy, who have spent the last month or so since the games toting around some new silver hardware, are both Orange County-bred.

ROBERT GARDNER I'm trying to figure out when we all started working out. Nobody worked out in my youth. We did sports like swimming, but those were part of being in school. We didn't consider swimming laps as working out, and we certainly didn't do any other sort of exercise to prepare ourselves for swimming like lifting weights. I suppose the football players did, but since I wasn't even big enough to be water boy, I don't know. Certainly, the grown-ups I knew didn't "work out."

Councilman Eric Bever has called up for review a Parks and Recreation Commission decision to allow a Santa Ana-based adult basketball league to use Costa Mesa’s municipal gym on Sundays. Aztec Basketball Leagues, a quickly growing organization with about 50 teams, wants to use the Costa Mesa gym because its normal gym in Santa Ana is closed for a year for renovation, according to league President Rigoberto Bautista. After initially denying the league’s request, the parks commission approved the request unanimously at its last meeting.

An adult basketball league will be allowed to take over Costa Mesa’s downtown basketball gym on Sundays after a unanimous decision by the Parks and Recreation Commission on Wednesday night. The Santa Ana-based league asked to use the facility last month because its usual gym in its home city is closed for renovation, but four of the five commissioners did not support Commissioner Kurt Galitski’s motion to approve it. Commissioners said at Wednesday night’s meeting that they had no problem with the league and were just indecisive because they didn’t have enough information, specifically about how many Costa Mesa residents would be displaced by the new league.

The wind was chilly and the misting rain wilted their hand-made cardboard signs, but the small crowd of protesters didn't care. The group of about 15 people picketed and marched outside the Newport Center 24 Hour Fitness gym Saturday morning in a last-ditch effort to save the gym's popular juice bar ? and its friendly owner ? from being evicted. Many of the club's members are angered that club remodel plans leave no room for Jin-Sung Kim and his juice bar, Surf City Squeeze.

Noaki Schwartz NEWPORT BEACH -- Harbor Day School officials hope that new paint and climbing vines on the new 40-foot-high gymnasium -- at first considered an eyesore by neighboring residents -- will soften the view. Last fall, the school proudly unveiled the gym, the result of a year's worth of student fund-raising. Unfortunately, the $2-million facility was not a hit with surrounding residents, who vociferously complained that they were uninformed about the new building that ruined their views.

A crowd of disappointed fitness buffs stood outside 24 Hour Fitness Sport in Costa Mesa in the drizzling rain after being evacuated from the gym due to what authorities think was an electrical fire Friday morning. Power went out around the whole area surrounding the downtown building at West 19th Street and Park Avenue, and officials say the incidents may be connected, but weren’t sure which caused the other. People saw smoke billowing out from an air duct just before noon.

COSTA MESA — When Bernie Rubio moved into the building he intended to convert into a gym, there were two sizable bathrooms — one for men, one for women — that took up quite a bit of the floor space. The average gym owner, in that situation, might have had the bathrooms moved to widen the exercise area, or at least filled them with bodybuilding magazines and vending machines full of Powerade. Rubio, on the other hand, enlisted his wife as co-decorator and filled the bathrooms with paintings, scented candles and even a bowl of dry rose petals for the women.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has picked out seven athletics improvement projects to build with a $100,000 grant from Costa Mesa. The money is the first installment of what could add up to half a million dollars in grants from the city in the next five years if Costa Mesa chooses to continue the program as it has projected, according to a resolution the council approved in February. The money is meant to fund capital improvements at Costa Mesa high schools where the public has access during non-school hours.

Corona del Mar High, Newport Harbor and Sage Hill School secured home matches to open the CIF Southern Section playoffs in boys' volleyball, as pairings were released Saturday morning. In Division 1, CdM (18-10), the Pacific Coast League champion, will play host to Trabuco Hills, Tuesday night. Matches are scheduled to being at 7 p.m. Trabuco Hills (27-5) finished third in the South Coast League. Also in Division 1, Newport Harbor (20-8), the Sunset League second-place team, will play at home against Newhall Hart (17-13-1)

CORONA DEL MAR - One of the first things an opponent notices when it walks into the Corona del Mar High gym is the dozens of CIF Southern Section championship banners on the walls. Five belong to the boys' basketball team at the school. The Sea Kings tried to earn the right to play for another on Friday. Their opponent was La Verne Damien and its players looked up and saw all the banners. Never had Damien played for a section title in its history. Damien will now. A sophomore point guard named Jeremy Hemsley led second-seeded Damien to a 61-53 win in a Division 3AA semifinal road game against third-seeded CdM. He ended the game the same way he started it, strong.

Firefighters and two 24 Hour Fitness employees saved the life of a 67-year-old man who went into cardiac arrest at the gym, officials said Friday. At about 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Costa Mesa firefighters received a call that a man had gone into cardiac arrest while working out at 24 Hour Fitness at The Triangle, according to Costa Mesa Fire Department Battalion Chief Fred Seguin. Another gym member notified employees that the man was down in the cardio area, said Josh Graves, a fitness manager at the club.

COSTA MESA - The shorthanded Orange Coast College men's volleyball team pushed defending state champion Long Beach City College to the limit on Friday night before the Vikings found the upper hand down the stretch for a five-set win inside OCC's Peterson Gym. Greg Utupo had 19 kills and Austin Arcala added 10 kills to lead the undefeated Vikings past the Pirates, 25-16, 28-30, 21-25, 25-21, 15-10 in a nonconference matchup. The Pirates (2-2), playing without the services of two starters - Austin Bagby and Cody Martin - overcame a sluggish start and gave the Vikings (4-0)

There was an emotional moment for Darlene Gardner on Thursday night at Equinox fitness gym in Irvine. Gardner held back tears when she talked about a life-changing experience and the support she received while she worked to lose weight for charity. This isn't a story about touchdowns or home runs. It involves plenty of sweat, and maybe some tears. Somewhere in this, believe it or not, Kobe Bryant can be found. Let me explain. Gardner, an Irvine resident who owns Antonia, a women's shoe store in Newport Beach, joined the 28-Day Weight Loss Challenge put on by Fit Foods 4 Life.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO - Halland Mckenna used a clapping motion every time she lined up to serve. Her hands never touched because the ball was in the way. All everyone heard were a couple of loud smacks. In the fifth set, she and Sage Hill School were six points away from putting away St. Margaret's on Tuesday. The rival schools met for the first time since their meeting in last year's CIF Southern Section Division 4-AA title match. They're still the top two girls' volleyball teams in their new division: 3-A. Like the previous matchup, this one went the distance.

If Olympic beach volleyball players April Ross and Jennifer Kessy seemed right at home Wednesday afternoon as they signed autographs and posed for pictures at CdM Fitness, it's because they were. The pair have trained at the gym on East Coast Highway for about two years. The gym's owner, David Jurevich, accompanied the team to London as their trainer. And Ross and Kessy, who have spent the last month or so since the games toting around some new silver hardware, are both Orange County-bred.

Dan Fisher is well aware that the performance of his women's volleyball team at Concordia University last season has raised expectations. A 36-match winning streak and reaching the championship match in the NAIA national tournament have a funny way of doing that. But whatever is expected of his team outside of their practice gym pales in comparison to the expectations inside that gym. "The best thing about this year is we don't need to talk about what our goals are," Fisher said.