Under lock and key: Love Sacs removed from lounge for safety reasons
The Love Sacs, once in the Taggart Student Center Juniper Lounge, have been relocated after students were caught using them as a landing pad for scaling the rock wall.
Risk Management Services could not allow the Love Sacs to stay because of the possibility of injury, said Les Essig, Associated Students of Utah State University president, adding he is not pleased that they have been moved.
“They are meant to be for comfort. It’s kind of like taking care of kindergarten kids,” he said. “I wish the Love Sacs could still be there.”
Kyle Petersen, one of the jumpers, said, “I feel kind of bad, but it was a lot of fun. I would do it again.”
The whole thing was videotaped with narration, said Petersen, an undeclared sophomore. He was the first to try, and reached the top of the 25-foot wall.
Petersen’s roommate, Jeremy Rogers, also participated. “Landing was so soft. It’s better than dropping off a cliff into five feet of powder.” he said.
Two Love Sacs were stacked on top of each other with another behind. The person on the ground also held another Love Sac in case the climber fell, Rogers said, a junior majoring in liberal arts and science.
Jeremy said he was a little scared.
“Letting go was the best part,” he said, “I looked down, looked back up, yelled and went.”
Petersen and Rogers rock climb often and said they wore climbing shoes and chalked their hands before climbing in the TSC, said Rogers. A crowd of five or six students previously studying watched along with the girls that came to witness, Rogers said.
“There’s no way we would’ve done it without girls there. We had to do something to show off,” said.
Petersen said they had wanted to climb the wall for a long time. “I love climbing,” he said. “I saw the wall and I thought, ‘I can’t pass that up, I have to climb that,'”
The boys were caught by “some guy in a tie” Petersen said, “he asked us to stop and he told us that the Love Sacs were getting ruined.”
The Love Sacs are now being kept in the new student center behind the auditorium, which is not yet opened. Essig said he is working on getting the Love Sacs back in the Juniper Lounge.
“It’s been exciting seeing the lounge become a relaxing place for students to come between classes to relax, study or sleep if needs be. I want to get the Love Sacs back out there,” Essig said.
“If they were here I would come here more often,” said Ryk Heiner, a human nutrition and food science sophomore found studying on the couches in the Juniper Lounge.
Essig said many students have been asking about where the Love Sacs went.
“I feel like the Lounge is my sanctuary and now that they’re gone, a part of my inner peace is gone,” Tristin Taylor, a senior in political science said.
Taylor also expressed frustration in the reason the Love Sacs were removed.
“What are we, in high school?” she said.
International studies senior Ryan Anderson said he used to like sitting on the Love Sacs.
“[Climbing and falling onto them] sounds fun, but it makes me mad that they had to be removed,” he said.
Other students did not use the Love Sacs very often.
“I never sat on the Love Sacs because I was worried about what was on them. There are way too many DTR’s on those Love Sacs that I don’t want to be a part of,” she said.
Essig said the covers are taken off and cleaned every other month.
-ashschiller@cc.usu.edu