Much like their non-athletic peers, Big Green student-athletes spent their six-week break scattered around the girdled earth. While some opted to cross time zones and oceans in pursuit of perfect training locales, others took advantage of the chance to rule campus in deserted Hanover to prepare for the season.
As finals drew to a close, the Big Green women's basketball team remained in Hanover, training for a long run of games that would see them play eight contests between Nov. 24 and Dec. 20. The contests included tough non-conference matchups against Syracuse University, Marquette University and Old Dominion University.
"We had a huge stretch of games," Captain Faziah Steen '13 said. "When we weren't playing, we'd have morning practice, weight lifting, shooting practice and film sessions, but we really only had a couple of days in between games."
A string of road games brought the Big Green to, among other locations, Miami, where the women's basketball team took on Florida International University and found time to enjoy the beach-worthy weather. The Big Green had also been scheduled to play the University of South Florida, but that game was canceled due to South Florida's recent decision to switch conferences, according to Steen.
Although members of the women's basketball team did not return home until a brief break around Christmas following their last game, they found ways to bring holiday cheer to an empty campus on Thanksgiving.
"We normally go to a restaurant in Norwich, but this year we decided to cook on our own," Steen said. "Everyone cooked, including our coaches, and we had dinner in Occom Commons. Hopefully it's a new tradition."
Returning from Christmas break, the Big Green hosted Delaware University, Duquesne University and Villanova University for the Blue Sky Classic Tournament in Hanover and celebrated New Year's Eve with bowling and a team dinner in town, according to Steen.
Steen said interim was a great time for team socializing.
"We had a lot of team dinners in town, and movie nights," Steen said.
Unable to train in Hanover for obvious weather-related reasons, the men's lightweight crew team took a vastly different approach to its use of winter break. They returned home for Thanksgiving after finals and then flew to Austin, Texas, for its usual winter training trip. While the Big Green rowers at one time traveled to Miami, for the past four years the team has trained in Austin, according to co-captain Joshua Konieczny '13.
"Surprisingly, we don't have access to rowing facilities [in Austin], just open water," Konieczny said. "But it's not frozen."
Despite the new academic calendar, the team kept the same training dates it has had for the past four years and rowed in Austin from Dec. 5 to Dec. 12. This meant, however, that the team could no longer travel down to Austin as a group.
"In the past we haven't done that, but this year we had independent flights," Konieczny said.
Traveling much farther, the women's lacrosse team crossed the international date line en-route to Australia, where they spent 14 days training, competing and taking in a foreign culture.
"[The trip to Australia] happens every four years," co-captain Courtney Bennett '13 said. "We play their national team, many of whom play in the states or [have] played in the states during their careers."
Although the women's lacrosse players did get to return home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the difference in time zone between the United States and Australia made it difficult for team members to communicate with family members, according to Bennett.
Like many Dartmouth students on trips abroad, the women's lacrosse team blogged about their experiences in the land down under, discussing their games against the Australian National Team, the picturesque wildlife they encountered and their day-to-day schedule.
"We created the blog to keep our supporters, fans and families alerted to what we were doing," Bennett said. "Also, since they gave us some financial support, we wanted to let them know about how were growing and bonding as a team and about the opportunities we were getting on the trip. Everyone on the team wrote one post."
Although the women's lacrosse players traveled the farthest of any Big Green team, many other teams stayed active during the break. Both the men's and women's hockey teams faced off against difficult opponents, and the men's and women's swimming and diving teams trained in Florida, a popular location with Big Green Athletic teams.
Finding similar weather on the opposite coast, the Big Green sailing team trained for a week in Palo Alto, Calif.
"It was nice not to be in freezing weather," Emily Petno '16 said. "There wasn't a lot of wind, though, so we mainly worked out and had team strategy sessions."
Despite the longer break, there was no increase in the number of student-athletes requesting interim housing, according to Director of Undergraduate Housing Rachel Class-Giguere. But there was a spike in double interim requests, as teams played games over break in December that would have typically fallen at the end of Fall term, returned home for Christmas and then came back to Hanover early to continue training, according Class-Giguere.
Student-athletes have gotten used to having Hanover to themselves, Steen said.
"We're so used to it being a ghost town, it's kind of a culture shock to have everyone back," Steen said.
