As a distance runner for the cross country and track teams, I realize I represent only two of Cornell’s many sports teams . But I’m fairly certain I can speak for all student athletes when I say that after practice—sweating in September and freezing outside in November—I’m hungry.
I’m craving a five-course meal; not in the gourmet meaning of the phrase, but in the I-need-a-lot-of-food sense. Hot soup, baked potatoes, chicken cordon bleu, and a glass of Pinot Grigio set against sheets of rain sliding down the window panes of Willard Straight would be quite lovely. I mention the trusty Straight merely because it is the closest locale to Uris and Olin libraries, where I routinely pass the nights procrastinating to avoid my reading and my eighteen-minute walk home to State Street.
However, there’s no five-course meal waiting for me after my nine-mile run. The reality is, every dining hall on central campus is already closed. The National Collegiate Athletic Association allows varsity coaches to schedule twenty hours of practice a week for their teams. All athletes must also have at least one day of rest a week. Given these requirements for practice and rest, the University has kindly persuaded professors to refrain from holding classes after 4:30 p.m. So Cornell professors, thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Dining halls —we need to talk.
Twenty hours of practice over the course of six days calculates to approximately a little more than three hours a day, in English major math. Consequently, athletes leave practice no earlier than 7:30 every evening.
While I realize the University is unable to serve me wine, unless I enroll in Hotel Administration 443 – Introduction to Wines, and while I understand ham wrapped with chicken is unrealistic, I’m willing to settle for food of any kind. But Oakenshield’s closes at 7:30 p.m., and if you’re not in line by 7:15 p.m. forget a dinner other than cereal. Trillium has extended its hours until 7 p.m., West Campus doors are shut by 8 p.m., and even the new Synapsis is done serving students at 5 p.m. The Ivy Room is open late, but that dungeon in the winter is pretty dismal, no offense. The only solution left for on-campus dining is on North Campus, and in a town that supports “green” means of transportation what upperclassman is going to relive the clueless freshman days and hike to the pasta line?
The Cornell athletes that get out of practice late, live far from campus, and reside with too many people to study at home, are hungry. Please, dining halls, I and the many other students leading double lives as athletes are pleading you to stay open a little later.
— Aeriel Emig ’09