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What's Hot!: CSULB's fall from fitness
Tim Grobaty

BIG FAT COLLEGE KIDS: When the news came, only our tremendous girth kept us from toppling over in surprise. Cal State Long Beach, heralded by all of healthdom just a year ago for finishing in the Top 20 (OK, No. 20, but still) in Men's Fitness magazine's annual Fittest Colleges poll, has, in this year's just-released poll, ballooned up the top of the list of America's Fattest Colleges.

The university's students have, to put it with a bit more brutal frankness, gone from buff studs sporting chiseled six-packs to a horde of mammoth, criminally obese slobs who wallow between classes in an orgy of Moonpies and deep-fried Oreos, dipping their greedy, meaty paws into engorged backpacks and emerging with billowing gobs of custards and cream pies.

How does an entire student body let itself go to hell so quickly? The easy answer is, it doesn't. BYU, which finished No. 1 last year, doesn't show up in this year's top 20, and nothing ever changes at BYU. Did they allow beer and Coke on campus all of a sudden? UC Santa Barbara, which was the runner-up in '05, is also off the chart this time out, though the similarly partying campus of UC Santa Cruz replaced it as the fittest California school, though it finished farther down the overall list, at No. 13.
Which brings up another point: How does California in general do so poorly on a fitness list? We will not cavil with every entry in this year's rankings. In fact, we will stipulate that Pennsylvania's Dickinson College, being far enough away from Philadelphia, could very well be nice and fit, in the absence of anything better to do. It is in a town called Carlisle, sometimes known, we're guessing (by looking at the map) as "The Gateway to Wormleysburg." And we will similarly let slide others in the top, including Colgate, Boston College, Wheaton College in Illinois, the crazily healthy U. of Vermont and even No. 6, the utterly fabricated entry "Gustavus Adolphus College," in "Minnesota."

But then we get a couple of Texas schools (Texas Christian and Baylor) and here's where we get the feeling that Men's Fitness somehow lost all its data and started pulling these school names out of a caboose. We checked out the Dining Services section on Baylor University's Web site and found that the Waco campus is offering, on Wednesday, three dining special events: a breakfast burrito feed, a Mexican buffet and an outdoor barbecue. Between huge face-stuffing events, America's ninth-fittest students can bounce around the Baylor food court, which includes a Seasons Creamery ice cream shop, Quiznos, Sbarro and a Shipley's Donuts.

We're not saying that Baylor students aren't in better shape than Cal State Long Beach students. We're just saying the list is wrong.

FREE FITNESS: OK, but let's say the list is right. Then what does a 49er do?

Obviously, this is going to lead to Justin Rudd, the fittest guy in all of Long Beach (when we stand next to him we look HUGE!). He says he actually has seen "bigger people" these days. "And, anyway," he says, "it's not just about your weight, it's also about how capable your heart and lungs are."

Rudd keeps himself and others in shape with his weekend Sand Challenge Beach Boot Camp. From now till Christmas, he's opening camp up to all CSULB students.

"It's a challenge for students to have to work and pay for classes and still come up with enough money to join a gym," says Rudd.

The one-hour sand-workout classes are held every Saturday and Sunday at 9 a.m. on the beach at the foot of Granada Avenue (Meet at the wall between the parking lot and the bike path, next to the boat launch ramp). You do not need to RSVP. Wear athletic shoes and bring your ID, plus a towel for your ab work and a water bottle for your thirst. For info, check the Web at www.SandChallenge.com.

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