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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Watch out for the schools where the athletes have their own dining facilities, gym and/or mostly take up their own dorms. At small schools, if the athletes are so sequestered together, it makes the school seem so much smaller to non-athletes.

We toured two SLACS where they specifically highlighted how they are trying to fight this problem. [/quote]

This is true. I do not understand why some schools do this. The student athletes already spend too much time together for practice, games, and travel. They should be encouraged to get to know a wider world through dorm living and dining.[/quote]

I didn’t understand the dining hall thing until I had an athlete in college. Particularly for male freshmen and sophomore athletes, one major risk is that they cannot keep weight on during the season. They train so much and so hard that it is hard for their bodies to get enough calories in. So what the athlete dining halls do is focus on very high-calorie foods so that athletes can be efficient. I had never realized just how hard this is for the kids, but it was a major issue for the boys on my kid’s team.

Meanwhile, dining halls for the non-athletes are geared towards the exact opposite. They do not want kids gaining weight, another serious health issue. So, their food is often less calorie-dense. High-calorie foods that the athletes could consume quickly were considered problematic at the non-athlete dining hall.

My son would go to the non-athlete dining halls, but it meant taking longer for dinner because he had to go back for multiple plates, and the food wasn’t as protein-focused. He had to actively decide if he wanted to take the time and energy to put together a high-calorie dinner at the non-athlete hall.

I agree there is a social implication but I didn’t understand just how big of an issue the weight loss (and subsequent lethargy, fainting, injury, etc.) was for the athletes until my kid was in it himself. [/quote]

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