David Ambler hates walking on treadmills. Ambler also hates imposing gymnasium walls. And most of all, he hates how the walls stare at him as he fights that mindless machine.

Ambler would rather exercise outdoors, where he can walk away from the problems of his life. It’s a place where his mind is clear. So, when Chancellor Robert Hemenway told Ambler at a holiday reception in December that the Student Recreation Fitness Center would be named in his honor, Ambler was shocked.

“I was speechless,” Ambler said. “Frankly, I said to someone later, ‘I almost fell in the punch bowl!’”

Though Ambler is not personally fond of exercising indoors, when he was vice chancellor of student affairs, Ambler was committed to providing a building for students to exercise in.

“I think a recreation center can really impact the climate of a campus,” Ambler said. “You give students alternatives to going downtown and drinking. Our University needs to help students develop good lifestyles.”

The idea of building a center at the University that would be used only for recreation was first discussed at a University Governance meeting in 1995. Because Robinson is also used for academics, it can only be used for recreation between 5:30 p.m. and midnight. The University wanted to provide students with a place where they could exercise during the day as well.

In 1996 the University presented a referendum to students that used student fees to build a recreation center.

The proposed center would have been located near 23rd Street on West Campus, where the soccer fields are located. When the referendum failed because of its inconvenient location, Mary Chappell, former director of recreational services and current director of the recreation center, said Ambler didn’t give up on the center’s creation.

“I remember when he called me to tell me that it failed,” Chappell said. “He just said, ‘The sun’s going to shine tomorrow.’ He always had a plan to move forward.”

The sun Ambler spoke of came in the form of Kevin Yoder, who was elected as Student Senate president in 1998. Ambler said the day after Yoder was elected, he came to Ambler and told him he would make sure there were concrete plans to build a student recreation center before he left office.

“I tried to slow Kevin down a bit,” Ambler said, “I was worried about trying to pass it so soon after the first vote, but he was very single-minded. To his credit, the proposal passed.”

Ambler said Yoder’s proposal passed because it called for the creation of a smaller recreation center, but left room for future expansion.

Ambler also said Yoder designed the student recreation fee so future students, the students who used the center, paid for it.

When the creation of the recreation center finally became a reality, Ambler chaired the planning committee. Construction began in 2000 and was completed in 2003. Ambler retired in the spring of 2003­ — only a few months before the recreation center opened.

Chappell said plans were in the works to name the recreation center after Ambler since 2002. She said she and other student leaders thought it was only fitting to name the center after the man who made its creation a reality.

Chappell said she hoped to have the center named after Ambler when it opened, but when she first presented the idea to the Board of Regents, it was rejected. She said she was told a building could only be named after a faculty member after they were retired for at least five years. This spring, after the expansion of the recreation center is completed, Ambler will reach this mark.

Ambler said it was still hard for him to accept that the recreation center will be named after him. Ambler said the center should be named after Kevin Yoder because Yoder convinced students to approve the proposal.

Yoder, who is now a state representative, said it should instead be named after his mentor, Ambler. He said the recreation center is symbolic of Ambler’s achievements at the University.

“I think David Ambler was the inspiration for this idea and 100 other ideas at KU,” Yoder said. “His legacy of leadership facilitated the actions of students like myself in academic projects like the recreation center.”

The recreation center’s name will be changed to the David A. Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center when the expansion is finished. The construction is expected to be finished this spring.

­—Edited by­­ Nick Mangiaracina