In this week’s Off the Field, sailing captain Margot Benedict ’12, basketball guard and lacrosse midfielder Alfonso Costa ’11, lacrosse defender Phil Gross ’13, golfer Harriet Owers-Bradley ’11 and rower Rosie Tormey ’13 discuss beaches, training, homework (possibly) and other spring break topics.

1. Ideal destination: Beach, mountains, city, or both?

Benedict: Mountains for some great spring skiing

Costa: Miami, Florida

Gross: Definitely the Mountains. There’s nothing like a little spring skiing out in Vail, Col.

Owers-Bradley: Beach

Tormey: Definitely beach, and definitely Waimea Bay when I can get up to the North Shore (of O’ahu), otherwise Makapu’u is always a standby.

1. Where is your team training or if your team isn’t training, what are your plans?

Benedict: For the first week we are training in St. Petersburg Florida at the University of Florida’s training center. We are then spending the rest of the break in Maryland in Annapolis and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Costa: My lacrosse team is training in New Haven, and we have home games against Lehigh and Cornell, two very talented teams.

Gross: (See Costa response)

Owers-Bradley: We’re training in Jupiter, Florida for a week before our first spring season tournament the last weekend of spring break.

Tormey: Training in the lovely tropical and temperate Niu Haw’in! aka New Haven, with no plans to leave to boathouse or campus.

1. Are you doing school work during vacation or taking a break?

Benedict: I am going to try to do a bit of both. I have a bunch of reading but some of it is novels which will make it somewhat enjoyable.

Costa: I am going to have to work on my senior thesis for political science.

Gross: Sure, I might dabble in some school work. Nothing too crazy.

Owers-Bradley: I wish I could take a break, but I will definitely have to do some work.

Tormey: The first week I’ll do no work other than arts and crafts; the second week I’ve got to hit the book to make up for some lost time.

1. Do you prefer to spend spring break with family or friends?

Benedict: I prefer to spend spring break with a combination of both but won’t get the chance to see my family over break.

Costa: I prefer to spend breaks with family and friends, but my lacrosse teammates are both of those things, so I don’t mind being in New Haven at all.

Gross: Spring break is one of those holidays I like to spend with friends.

Owers-Bradley: I’ve always spent spring break with the golf team… so never had the choice; however, if I did, it would definitely be friends.

Tormey: I absolutely prefer to spend it with family, because I don’t see my family that often and when I do it’s always a ball.

1. Craziest/most fun/most meaningful spring break memory

Benedict: Last year after a long trip from Charleston, South Carolina to Maryland, including numerous flight cancellations, we grabbed a luggage cart and pushed people around on it while waiting for our rental car. We had a blast spinning people in circles and greatly appreciated some laughter after a long frustrating day of travel.

Costa: My most fun spring break memory was going to Virginia last year to play Presbyterian in lacrosse, we won 14-5, followed by several days of training. My teammates and I enjoyed the nice weather.

Gross: Building a new house for a family in Tijuana, Mexico

Owers-Bradley: Pranking and being pranked by my coaches in Hawaii freshman year. It all started after pushing our coach into the pool, who got revenge by pie-ing one of my teammates (which actually ended up giving her hives) so we put cheerios in her bed… and it just continued like this the whole trip.

Tormey: Last year I distinctly remember the when our team got Girl Scout Cookies that we had ordered from our coach’s daughter. One by one, we noticed that the boxes were disappearing from right beneath our noses. After some supreme detective work, we discovered that the lightweights, who had been rationed two cups of chicken broth and one olive oil shot for the day, were swiping our cookies and cheating their diets. You heard it here first.