Quick Questions: What’s With the Jerseys in Val?

When you returned for your first meal at Val this fall, you probably looked up and spotted them. Hanging high above the dining hall tables, a new collection of Amherst sports jerseys now lines the walls. These jerseys, which appeared over the summer, have left students curious: Where did they come from, who do they belong to, and why jerseys at all? In a space already marked by Amherst’s well-worn student-athlete divide, their arrival has sparked more questions than answers. 

According to the Office of Student Affairs and Dining Services, the installation is part of a broader attempt to make Val feel more communal in its final year as Amherst’s dining hall. “One of the primary purposes of the dining hall is to bring the entire campus together over enjoyable meals, to promote community, and to promote Amherst College spirit,” the offices explained in a Sept. 18th joint statement to The Student. “Displaying memorabilia and other visuals is one way to do this.” 

The jerseys themselves were obtained at a tag sale hosted by Athletics and the Office of Sustainability on April 24th in the Alumni Gym. The offices did not intentionally curate the collection — they simply purchased the jerseys that were available. The administration says it is still working with the athletics department to determine the history of the pieces, including which teams and years they represent. For now, they stand as a grab bag of Amherst athletics’ past.

The jerseys, currently, do not have descriptions near them, which the office acknowledged, noting they are “happy to see if [it’s] possible [to add labels].” Though the majority of the jerseys are men’s jerseys, the lack of descriptions made it unclear to some students whether the jerseys represented women’s teams at all. However, in the email, the office clarified that the wall does include both men’s and women’s jerseys, but they “ ... would like to include more jerseys from the women’s teams as they become available … ”

Administrators will continue adding decor to Val in what they call a  “memorabilia program” that runs through this academic year — Val’s projected last — and eventually carry the idea into the new Student Center and Dining Commons (SCDC). That program, Dining says, will not be limited to athletics. Pictures and other memorabilia from student groups across campus are slated to join the jerseys as part of the effort to make the dining hall feel like a shared campus hub.

Still, in a place where the student–athlete divide is made tangible by seating patterns in Val, the choice to begin with jerseys as decor stood out. However, the administrators stressed that the display is meant to grow beyond athletics, describing the jerseys as only an initial step in a larger effort to include memorabilia from across campus. They encouraged students to share ideas for future displays at valentine@amherst.edu. For now, though, the jerseys remain suspended above Val’s tables, awaiting a fuller story of how they came to represent the past and present of Amherst athletics.