People. Rush. Crowding. People-sweaty people. For a fast-moving passerby, a walk through the hallway has never seemed so…challenging.
After school, the surge of busy students transforms into a swarm of track and field runners and a particularly immovable bunch of crew athletes. These two teams warm up and exercise in the hallways before practice begins and, together, they make the first floor of Langley nearly impossible to meander.
“It’s usually funny to see people trying to navigate their way through the sea of people in the hall,” said Jonathan Ledesma, one of the Varsity Boys’ Track and Field Captains. “Even more so is watching athletes clear a path just so a faculty member can roll a cart through the mob.”
Some hallway strollers have not been so lucky. “The track team was doing leg lifts while in push position, and I tried to move over one kid,” said senior Neil Patil. “His leg swung up and hit me, and the athlete got mad at me.”
While these athletes push themselves to improve day by day, the hallway itself gets a workout done as it survives the season training schedule. Try being the hallway and getting trampled and stomped upon incessantly, without even a chance to catch its breath.
“We really beat that hall up,” said junior Ryan Anger, a track member. “I feel bad for it, to be honest. And I really feel bad for the people trying to walk the halls after school. There is just nowhere to go.”
With new state laws limiting training hours in high school sports, some might call what the hallway is experiencing illegal. Unfortunately, it would probably have a difficult time winning that one in court. Not to mention finding a lawyer.
After all, the hallway catches the sweat that these athletes pour into their exercises and carries an odor that lingers well into the next day. And just when the hallway gets a chance to relax, 7:20 a.m. rolls around and it gets to see the same 2,000 kids it saw yesterday. And every day.