Since the teams practice and play games before and after the Christmas holiday, the athletes only have four or five days at home to spend with friends and family. Of course, the athletes said, they would love to get to spend more time in their hometowns, but they understand that staying on campus is a commitment that is a part of representing Dartmouth in athletics.
"I would rather have more of a break than four days at home, but being a division one basketball player was what I always wanted to be, so you take the good with the bad and live with it," Dan Biber '09, a forward on the basketball team, said.
Not only do hockey and basketball players not sleep in their own beds over break, often they're not even in their own residence halls. Over break, the men's basketball squad had to travel to Princess Anne, Md., to take on the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and the women's team traveled to Mt. Pleasant, Mich., to take on Central Michigan University.
Since the majority of the student body is not on campus during interim, the campus can feel very deserted and lonely, athletes said. The lively social scene that can usually be expected on campus is gone, and there is not much to do around Hanover.
"It is somewhat annoying that there is nowhere to eat on campus and there is never much going on...but it hasn't been as lonely and boring as I thought it would be at first," said Betsy Williams '10, a member of the basketball team who graduated from Hanover High School.
The interim athletic schedule plays an important, positive role in the teams' development, as it provides student-athletes with an opportunity to play and practice unencumbered by academic expectations that some of their competition might have to worry about, since there is no schoolwork over the break because of the Dartmouth Plan.
Even though the campus is much less vibrant than usual, practice during interim is a great opportunity for the teams to get to know each other better and develop team chemistry, according to Williams.
"Practices and games take up a lot of time but other than that, we just have a lot of free time to eat, hang out, go to movies and get to know each other better," Williams said.
