Five burning questions for Stu Orefice

Recently, Daily Princetonian senior writer Rachel Cecil sat down with Stu Orefice for a quick chat.

Daily Princetonian: Can you explain your job on campus?

Stu Orefice: I'm the Director of Dining Services at Princeton, which oversees Frist Campus Center, the Residential Colleges and the concession stands at games, which is actually convenient because I can help with that, too, at the games if they need it.

DP: What do you do with the basketball program? How long have you been doing it?

SO: At the games I control the scoreboard and the possession arrow — I've been doing it for 12 years.

DP: How did you start becoming involved?

SO: When I was at Cornell, I was the Assistant Director of Dining and operated the board there for 10 years. When I came to Princeton, Coach Carril and I were already friends — in the coaching fraternity all the coaches in the Ivy League knew each other. It actually used to be a student position, but it was hard to get students to come out and actually do it. I went to one game, and there was an empty seat at the table, so I asked if I could sit down and work it for the game. It was my first year at Princeton, and, oddly enough, the first game I worked was Cornell versus Princeton. I used to be a high school basketball coach and have always been very involved in the sport.

DP: Can you talk about your relationship with the team?

SO: It's one of my volunteer efforts for the athletics department here, and I get to know players and coaches, naturally. Everyone has their own volunteer efforts, and this appears to be mine. I'll continue to do it for the rest of my career here — it's tough to fire me because I volunteer, so I guess I'll be staying there for a while.

DP: Any thoughts on the rest of the season?

SO: Now here comes the Million Dollar Question. One of my old coaches used to say, "Getting knocked down is not a disgrace; staying there is." It's kind of been my philosophy in life, not only in basketball, but in the real world, too. You need to pick yourself up when times are tough. I think the team understands that, and they're starting to rebound, too. I mean, hey, even we've had a bad meal every once in a while.