THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 10, 1996 TAG: 9607100035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 84 lines
``STRENGTH! STRENGTH!''
Carrie Moranha exhorted her charges, coaching them on their stances for proper balance and power, correcting their footwork, even adjusting one woman's finger positions just so for optimum leverage.
These young men and women from all around the country were heading to the Olympic Games in Atlanta. There was a lot of work to do.
``Rest a while and try again,'' Moranha told the struggling woman.
As the group worked out around her, Moranha preached again and again about properly bending knees, protecting backs, using the correct muscles to avoid injuries. The quadrennial summer Olympics are the biggest sporting event in the world, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most. She didn't want anyone to miss their chance with an untimely pull or a sprain. Practice, practice, practice was the key.
So around and around the dining room they went. Nine men and nine women. Balancing trays of glasses on their fingertips, or larger trays of dinner plates on their hands and shoulders. Serving imaginary drinks and meals to imaginary guests at empty tables at the Norfolk campus of Johnson & Wales University, the culinary-arts school.
``Which direction do I move?'' Moranha asked, a tray of glasses perched on her left hand's fingertips.
This group's Olympics would be played out not on a track or in a pool, but beneath such trays, or behind a stove or a grill or a bar.
``To the right,'' the group chorused.
Some go to the Olympics to compete. Some go to watch.
``And I put this down above the what?'' Moranha continued, holding out a glass in her right hand.
``The knife,'' came the answer in unison.
These guys are going to work. And that's cool by them.
``It was just too incredible to believe,'' said Debbie T. Bundy, a 35-year-old Portsmouth homemaker, mother of three and, this fall, first-year student chef at Johnson & Wales. Only recently she was watching the United States gymnastics team trials on television.
``My husband is just a sports fanatic. And he's just real excited.''
Bundy is one of 250 incoming Johnson & Wales freshmen who took weeklong cram courses here and at the university's three other East Coast campuses, preparing to work for a month for the Marriott Corp. at the Olympics. They were chosen from 1,600 applicants - through transcripts, experience, essays and even security checks - to serve about 5,000 meals three times a day at the Olympic's Media Village, where the world's reporters and broadcasters will be housed for the Games.
The student-chefs will live in dormitories, get two free meals a day, cook and serve for 60 hours each week, make $9 an hour and, at the end, receive $1,000 scholarships from Marriott for their studies in the fall. Not to mention a stockpot full of professional experience.
A handful of South Hampton Roads students were among the 33 training here. Some are right out of high school. Some have worked in other jobs. Most have some cooking experience. But for almost all, the lessons delve into the unknown: formal dining-room service, managing a storeroom, working in large kitchens, portion control, ``knife skills.''
``You'd be surprised how many people don't know the difference between a radish and a beet,'' said Art Elvins, a chef instructor watching students in the room-sized pantry fill trays with raw ingredients.
The students began training July 1, and finished Tuesday. Then they're off to Atlanta, where they'll start work Thursday and continue through Aug. 7.
``I think it's awesome,'' said Gina L. Marconi, 21, who moved this year to Virginia Beach from Wisconsin. ``It'll be a great experience for me.''
Sean R. Johnson, 17, graduated a few weeks ago from Portsmouth's Churchland High School.
``I needed, actually, to do it, to afford to go here this fall,'' he said. ``I think it'll be a pretty good experience. The money's pretty good, and it'll put me in touch with Marriott.''
Johnson and the others earlier had grunted under a tray laden with eight empty dinner plates as instructor Moranha had them pass it around to experience the weight.
``Now, think about carrying that about 50 times,'' she said. ``Things start to hurt.''
Marconi, a recreational and school soccer player for 10 years, hopes she'll have strength - and time - left to attend some competitions. ``Just something, anything.''
Johnson, however, was looking forward to exploring the city, not the Games: ``I'm pretty much an idiot when it comes to sports.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by VICKI CRONIS, The Virginian-Pilot
The student-chefs crammed in a week's worth of training at Johnson &
Wales. by CNB