Tight squeeze: Recreational facilities running out of room

Think your schedule is crammed? Take one look at the recreational facilities on campus and then decide who never gets a break. Especially during the winter, Dillon Gym can get cramped with basketball and indoor soccer games going on.

"The bleachers can become a hazard," sophomore Cody Sonntag, an intramural manager for Forbes College, joked.

Admittedly, the University is usually generous when it comes to freeing venues for use by intramural events. Dillon Gym, Poe Field, West Windsor fields, 1952 Stadium and even Baker Rink are opened for various sports. All are relatively well kept by maintenance.

"They take pretty good care of [Poe Field]," Sonntag said. Considering Poe handles only IMs, he said, the University is pretty good in opening up the needed facilities.

The only problem is that there just might not be enough.

"There weren't enough basketball courts [in Dillon]," said one former intramural manager. It was just one of the various issues that came up when informally discussing facilities at intramural meetings.

Additionally, Poe Field keeps dwindling. New construction in and around it has reduced the size of what was once the largest open field on Princeton's main campus. Poe is symbolic of the ongoing competition between construction of newer and better academic buildings and the size and presence of athletic facilities.

The University has tried to make the best of it. According to one athletic department official, there are plans to install permanent bathrooms and an irrigation system on West Windsor field. That way, teams can fill up water bottles on site and will not have to resort to using the outhouses currently set up.

The athletics department acknowledged that these improvements won't do much to remedy the problem of Poe, but expansion of the IM program to distant locales is not an option. The department does not want to force kids to trek to the other side of Lake Carnegie, and West Windsor is too far from campus to be of use for intramurals.

The size of the facilities is one problem, but there is only so much space on campus. The University can, however, make up for the lack of quantity by providing the highest quality. Athletic department officials say there could be plans to upgrade some of the fields which currently have artificial turf to the new NexTurf, a softer turf that more accurately simulates the traits of real grass. The department would like to see this new turf on Poe, along with lights so that games can be played in any weather and at any time of day.

Additionally, Stephens Fitness Center in Dillon was recently renovated in 2000. It was so state-of-the-art that Governor James McGreevey chose it as his daily workout spot.

Stephens has improved, but its new equipment and furnishings lie in stark contrast to the rest of Dillon.

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"Dillon is nearly 60 years old and it's tired," Director of Facilities Eric Stein said. He added that Princeton, and the Ivies in general, lag behind the rest of the nation's schools in fitness and recreational facilities.

But Stein pointed out that the University is taking steps in the right direction. The school has formed the Task Force on Health and Well-Being to investigate not only what must be done to improve Dillon, but what can be done to better the University's ability as a whole to provide for the well being of its populace.

If the students want to see something accomplished, however, Stein and others said they must pressure the administration. It is one thing to read a report outlining the inadequacies of the facilities. It is a different thing to listen to students expressing their aggravations.