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(03/06/00 10:00am)
From Cila Warncke's, "Bigmouth Strikes Again," Fall '00 From Cila Warncke's, "Bigmouth Strikes Again," Fall '00According to The New York Times, current media-darling John McCain has just put his foot in it -- big time. All because he had the gall -- the audacity -- to suggest that maybe Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are not in fact directly related to God the Father. Oh bless. The image of a lonely, chubby McCain figure standing on a platform flinging handfuls of slop at an overdressed granny is almost unbearably funny. But that isn't the point. Was Ms. Marion J. Fisher -- or any of the tiny-minded conservatives who are currently gathering wood to incinerate the political ambitions of the heretical McCain -- actually paying attention to what he said? Has anyone had the courage to point out that, if anything, McCain was far too easy on the so-called Christian leaders he took a swing at? McCain merely called them "agents of intolerance" when he would have done well to point out that their entire faith is founded on intolerance. He called them an "evil influence" on the Republican Party when he should have said they were an evil influence on society. When, pray tell, did Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson do anything good for America? As much as the religious right would like to convince itself that America's current host of social problems is a direct result of our collective straying from the fold, they are pointing the finger in precisely the wrong direction. Fundamentalism, a throwback to our embarrassing Puritan ancestry, is a ball-and-chain around the ankle of American social and political life. When we should be concentrating on improving public education, fundamentalists start quarrels over posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. When we should be seeking to improve social services for single-parent families, they rant on about the evils of unwed motherhood. And so it goes. My most vivid memory of Robertson's aspirations for our country is his suggestion that we build a wall along the southern border of the U.S. to keep all those damn foreigners out. Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority recall Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads, whose drive for moral purity in 17th century England resulted in terror, regicide and a ban on dancing. I'm sure God was impressed. In short, these are not good guys. They would happily drag America back to Puritanism for their own personal gain, and apparently a lot of people love them for it. This is enough to give any free-thinking citizen serious pause. Imagine life under the religious right. First of all, women could forget about reproductive rights. Secondly, we could look forward to children being indoctrinated at school, the tenets of Christianity being crammed down their throats. On the agenda for their education would no doubt be the evils of sex, a primer in xenophobia and a long list of who God disapproves of and why. And if you're gay -- just move to Canada now. The ultimate drive of the religious right, after all, is not for spirituality, but for hegemony. If all they really cared about were their God and their faith, they would shut up and take themselves off to a prayer meeting. But that, heaven forbid, would be letting all us nonbelievers get away with it. Because the Christian right, you see, demands not just individual devotion but zealous proselytization, too. It isn't enough to "walk humbly with God" -- they have to make sure everyone else is goose-stepping along as well. This is where the ordinary, anonymous zealots get their wires crossed with the big-name zealots such as Falwell and Robertson. The rank and file, I reckon, sincerely believe that the prominent leaders of the religious right are their best chance for the mass reform of America, while Robertson, Falwell and Co. are -- I would wager -- more interested in power than in redemption. They found a niche in the market and hope that if they stick with it -- convincing the faithful of the impending demise of Christianity at the hands of Catholics, Jews, homosexuals, atheists, immigrants and women -- then maybe one day their domination fantasies will come true. But don't tell the true believers that, or you'll be making the same cock-up that McCain did. Which is to say, you'll be giving people -- particularly the religious right -- credit for more wit than they are actually able and willing to exercise.
(02/18/00 10:00am)
And perhaps no two stories could be more dissimilar. First, there was the end of the Penn Students Against Sweatshop protest against the University's use of sweatshop labor that ended Monday. And next there was the story that held top billing on both the front and back pages, the tale of the Penn men's basketball team's 55-46 defeat of Princeton on Tuesday. On one hand, there is the so-called sweatshop story, a situation that attracted national exposure. It was an example of Penn undergrads reaching out to the world beyond our Ivy walls. On the other hand, there was the basketball game. For many, Tuesday's painted faces and vulgar chants were examples of the ebullience of Ivy League life, examples of how sheltered Penn students are. There was, however, one point in time in Penn history where these two worlds colorfully collided -- the College Hall Sit-In of 1978. In the late '70s, the University's finances were not as rosy as they are today. So on Thursday, February 23, 1978, Penn admitted to a slew of forthcoming budget cuts, the most visible of which came from the office of then-Athletic Director Andy Geiger. Even though the Penn men's hockey team still had four games left on its schedule, Geiger shockingly admitted that the University was terminating its 12-year-old varsity hockey program effective the next year. The reaction was immediate and furious. Then-DP Sports Editor Dan Rosenbaum gave hockey coach Bob Finke the unhappy news in his office that day, and the Penn head man was livid. "The idea that you [the DP] would know before I would is what upsets me. It's gotta be someone in College Hall. That's what I want to find out. You people at the DP stand up for truth and honesty, right? All right, I want to know who did this," Finke said. "I've got 10 freshmen kids who would have gone to a lot of different places. Now they're asking, 'What the hell is going on here.'" Those connected with the hockey program were understandably enraged, but even more objective voices howled at the University's surprise decision. DP Managing Editor Steven Marquez lambasted Penn for its desire to keep important decisions "as clandestine as possible for as long a period as possible." The indignation over the demise of a team that had managed just four winning seasons in its 12 seasons continued to build throughout the following week. Although the budget cuts had also nixed the women's hockey club, the men's and women's gymnastics teams, the badminton team, the golf team and a host of other University programs, the ire of students on campus seemed to focus on the departure of men's hockey. The anger reached its fevered pitch on the following Thursday when a one-hour Undergraduate Assembly-sponsored rally turned into an all-night sit-in, as 800 angry students stormed College Hall. It would be 87 hours -- nearly a full four days -- before the students would leave. The sit-in of '78, even if it did come at the end of the "Me Decade," made the recently concluded PSAS protest look like a den meeting, and, more importantly, provides today's Penn students with a glimpse of a bygone era where protesters didn't need to look overseas to find an issue to rally around. Ironically enough, when the students spent their first night in College Hall, then-Penn President Martin Meyerson was vacationing in Barbados. But his absence didn't prevent the protesters from getting creative. The sit-in participants carried signs that read innocuous messages such as "Stick with Hockey," but they did go so far as to adorn a golden retriever with a sign that told the world that "I could run U. of P. Better." The University eventually got the joke. The sit-in ended at 3:35 the next Monday morning when 15 students and three administrators signed their names to a document detailing 31 agreements reached in grueling negotiations between students, administrators and Trustees. The compromise, which President Meyerson announced with tears in his eyes, granted the reinstatement of gymnastics, badminton and golf, but left the hockey team out in the cold. Many of Finke's puckmen wound up transferring to other schools, and still others toughed it out without Canada's national pastime for the sake of an Ivy League education. Hockey has never returned, and puck-crazed Penn students still need to settle for a club team. The protesters didn't get everything they wanted, but the '78 sit-in still makes me wonder. The Penn of 1978 is far different from the Penn of today. With soaring admissions numbers and an equally flourishing endowment, it's difficult for us to envision what it would have been like to see a 12-year-old varsity sport with a sparkling new arena sent right down the tubes. In addition, it's hard for us to understand the pure scale of the hockey-induced sit-in. Granted, the administration's initial moves toward an alcohol policy last spring prompted a mob to gather on College Green, but that was about it. There was no sit-in. There was no tearful capitulation by President Rodin. And, yes, the PSAS protest attracted national attention, but its initial 13 participants pale in comparison to the 800 starters in '78. In the final analysis, there's one lesson that I take away from examining the bygone Carter-era protest -- be thankful for Penn sports teams. I would love it if we had a hockey team, but that was taken away from our student body. I implore each Penn fan to take advantage of the opportunities that we have: the chance to watch a basketball game in the glorious confines of the Palestra, the chance to attend Penn Relays and the chance to watch the Penn football team in Franklin Field. With dwindling attendance at football games, it seems as if most of this campus disagrees with this opinion. That's too bad. As the 1978 sit-in demonstrates, being a spectator is not a right -- it's a privilege.
(02/07/00 10:00am)
A computer program can identify plagiarists using a screening test. For more than a decade, Barbara Glatt, a former University of Illinois writing professor, has been catching plagiarists worldwide with minimal effort. Thanks to the help of her three computer software programs, teachers around the world have been better able to identify and deter cheaters. Glatt said she created the programs after noticing that many professors often had difficulty locating the original sources students cited in their papers and that many students did not understand what constituted plagiarism. "While teachers are often right [in suspecting plagiarists], the student is often defenseless in proving his or her innocence," Glatt said. But the screening program lessens the need for debate. The test removes every fifth word of a suspected student's paper and replaces the words with blanks. The student then is asked to supply the missing words. The number of correct responses and the amount of time intervening are considered in assessing the plagiarism probability score. Glatt said the results from the screening are very accurate. "No one has ever been falsely accused, ever," Glatt said. Glatt has also made a teaching program for students to use. It's designed to instruct students about the differences between plagiarizing and paraphrasing, when and how to provide attribution of sources and how to express ideas in their own words. And a self-detection test provides students with immediate feedback regarding possible plagiarism trouble spots within their writing. Teachers and students at hundreds of colleges, universities and high schools in the U.S. and other countries -- including Canada, England and Korea -- are using the programs, which cost $300 apiece. According to Glatt, plagiarism has always been a problem in high schools, colleges and universities, but it is becoming more and more prevalent. "There is a market in plagiarism because of the advent of the Internet," Glatt said, noting that students are able to purchase papers quickly and easily from Web sites. Rikki Tanenbaum, chairwoman of the University Honor Council, said she thinks the programs would not only save time for professors but would also benefit students. "There's a lot of confusion as to what constitutes plagiarism," the College junior said. "What's most common is not willfully deceitful plagiarism." In a survey conducted last year by the Honor Council, 63 percent of the 600 students polled claimed to have cheated, with only 4 percent admitting specifically to plagiarism. "I'm quite sure it is an under-representation of the numbers," Tanenbaum said, adding that cheating is not more of a problem at Penn than at other schools. According to Tanenbaum, the survey did not poll a proportionate percentage of students from the four undergraduate schools. For example, 63 percent of the responses were from students in the College of Arts and Sciences, while only 2 percent were from undergraduates in the Nursing School. In addition, she said she doubts many of the respondents fully understood the meaning of plagiarism. "We want to spell out a lot of the ambiguities about [plagiarism]," Tanenbaum said. She said the Honor Council will unveil a new Web-based survey on cheating in about two weeks.
(02/02/00 10:00am)
The Constable Invitational marked the Quakers' fifth match in two weeks. Sometimes too much of a good thing is not good at all. For instance, after playing six matches in two weeks, the members of the No. 1 nationally ranked Penn women's squash team were pretty much squashed out. Instead of resting their sore bodies this past weekend, though, the Quakers traveled to Princeton, N.J., to play in the Constable Invitational. "This weekend, we didn't do as well as we wanted to do," freshman Runa Reta said. "We were all exhausted." The Constable Invitational is an annual tournament where the top college players in the nation compete to help decide the rankings for the Intercollegiates, which will be played in early March. There are four separate flights at the Constable Invitational -- 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0. Approximately 50 players compete in each flight. "I was seeded second in 6.0," Penn senior co-captain Katie Patrick said. "It sucked that I lost in the semifinals. I lost to the same girl who I beat on Wednesday [Meredith Quick of Princeton]. But at least I beat her when it mattered." Patrick attributed her less than stellar play to "poor strategy and physical and mental tiredness." Among those who fared well this weekend were senior co-captain Paige Kollock, senior Eliza Jacobs and Reta. Jacobs turned in the best performance of any Quaker, finishing a strong third in the 3.0 flight. "I was truly surprised about how easy the first two wins were," Jacobs said. "Even in the match in which I lost, I felt I could have won. At that point I was tired, and it showed. I had played five matches this weekend, in addition to staying and watching my teammates play. I was at the courts for eight hours on Saturday." As if Jacobs did not have enough squash these past few weeks, she will travel this weekend to compete in a tournament in Winnipeg, Canada. Kollock was also impressive this weekend as she placed fourth in the 4.0 flight. She was rewarded with a dandy plaque. "My matches were actually important because I played against two girls from Harvard, the team we will play next," Kollock said. "I beat one player, but I lost to Frances Hollan, the girl who I will probably play on February 12." Before the Quakers head to Harvard, however, they will have a significant amount of time to recover from the tiring stretch of the past two weeks. While the Red and Blue may not have performed as well as they would have liked this past weekend, they will be in much better shape when they next meet the Crimson.
(01/27/00 10:00am)
Princeton put its undefeated record on the line, and the Tigers cruised to victory. When a coach has the painful experience of watching his team get blown out of the water by an opponent, he usually just wants it to be over. He usually just wants to stop the bleeding. Craig Thorpe-Clark might be the exception to that rule. The coach of the Penn men's squash team (2-6, 1-3 Ivy League) had to witness his squad get bested by national power Princeton, 8-1, last night at the Ringe Squash Courts. Undaunted, the first-year skipper was pleased to see how his team continued to persevere as the darkness deepened outside on 33rd Street. In short, he was pleased to see how long it took for the Tigers (5-0, 3-0) to finish off his Quakers. "We got started at about 5:00, and now it's almost 7:00, and we still have one match going," Thorpe-Clark said as he turned down to look at his watch. "When I look at the play this evening, I'm definitely pleased with the way the game scores look. They've done what I asked them to do." Penn No. 8 Ritesh Tilani was the only Quaker to record a victory. The junior from the United Arab Emirates logged a 3-1 win over Princeton senior Brian Spaly. He looked to cruise from the gun against Spaly, sprinting out to a two-game-to-nothing lead, 15-12 and 15-8. Spaly battled back to win a tight third game 15-13, but Tilani sunk back into the driver's seat to bury him, 15-8, for the Quakers' sole match victory. "Usually, my problem is that I'm not able to stay focused on the match," Tilani said. "I was able to focus right in tonight. The third game was really tough, but I had my game together today." Not only was Tilani the only Quaker to beat his Princeton opponent, he was also one of just two Penn athletes to even win a game. Penn freshman Sam Miller was the only other team member to avoid a shutout. He fell to Princeton No. 6 Randolph McEvoy, 3-1. As it turns out, however, yesterday's loss was closer than last year's Penn-Princeton showdown. The Quakers didn't even manage to win a single match in a 9-0 shutout at Princeton exactly one year ago today. The Tigers are a powerhouse squad. The racqueted gentlemen from Old Nassau finished fourth in the nation last year with an 11-5 overall record, all of their losses coming to the top three teams in the country. Even though the Tigers lost two All-Americans to the graduating class of 1999, they are still touted to finish at or above where they ended up last season. The No. 1 and No. 2 players for Princeton not only have similar ability -- they also have the same heredity. Senior No. 1 Peter Yik and his brother, freshman No. 2 David Yik, pace the Tigers. Both hail from North Vancouver, B.C., and were national superstars in Canada before making the move to New Jersey. Luckily for the Quakers, the elder Yik elected to sit out last evening's contest on account of Princeton's hectic schedule of late. Nevertheless, his brother moved up to the first position and beat Penn co-captain Peter Withstandley in straight games, 15-3, 15-10 and 15-9. "I'm getting a chance to play a level of guys that I've never played before," Withstandley said. "What they have that I don't have yet is a level of consistency. I can hit good shots, but they can hit it every time." Withstandley did not start the season playing the No. 1 spot for the Quakers. Junior James White began in the Quakers' top spot but never returned to the lineup after Christmas. According to Thorpe-Clark, White will not return to the Penn depth chart at all this season. He has left school this semester for personal reasons. With the absence of White at the top spot, Withstandley will need to take on players of the highest caliber in the world of squash, and as his coach argues, it's very difficult for the players on Penn's team to challenge those sort of athletes. "The top two or three for a team like Princeton are extremely well-bred players," Thorpe-Clark said. "They very often have represented their country at the highest level of international competitions. They come from well-developed training programs, and Pete [Withstandley] just hasn't been exposed to that. "He's still adjusting to regularly playing those guys." Senior co-captain Andrew Hopkins fought hard at the No. 5 position, losing to Princeton's Harrison Gabel, 17-14, 15-11 and 15-11. Most of those in attendance were struck by the effort put forth by the Quakers from top to bottom. Still, it was obvious to most that comparing these two programs right now is somewhat like comparing apples and oranges. Thorpe-Clark feels that Demer Holleran's Penn women are much more akin to the men from Old Nassau than his own athletes are. "It's their depth that beats us," Thorpe-Clark said. "All the way down they have people with a lot of international experience. If you look at Demer's team, her top four or five players come from the best in other countries." News and Notes Penn freshman Elan Levy has decided to leave the team.
(01/19/00 10:00am)
Freezing temperatures caused some heating problems in both HRS and off-campus housing. Even North Face couldn't help College sophomore Graham Lyles weather the North Pole-like temperatures and piercing gusts of wind that swept across Penn's campus yesterday. "It was miserable. I had to walk to David Rittenhouse Laboratory at nine this morning," said Lyles, who was bundled up in a double-layered parka, fleece hat and waterproof gloves. "My face hurt. My eyes hurt. It was pretty painful. Already sick with a wintertime cold, College senior Joanna Czekajewski, had similar complaints about the freezing weather. "I am layered up and taking NyQuil, DayQuil, orange juice and just waiting for this to end," she said. "I need to go on spring break." Temperatures in Philadelphia dropped into single digits yesterday morning with wind chills falling near zero or below zero, producing a bitter reality check for Penn students who have experienced an otherwise mild winter. Even when the sun poked through in early afternoon, temperatures on Tuesday barely rose above the teens with brisk winds pushing the wind-chill factor well below zero. "It is the first genuine day of winter that we've had this year in the region," said Bill Gartner, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in State College, Pa. "Temperatures this cold make it dangerous to stay outside for long periods of time." However, most Penn students and faculty, who had no choice but to attend their first classes of the semester, ventured outside -- grinning and bearing the arctic temperatures and winds. Though not before they layered themselves in their warmest clothes and hurried along Locust Walk, rushing into the warmer confines of the classroom. "I look like a refugee with a scarf over my head, and I'm walking very quickly," said Meg Jewell, a research manager in the Opthamology Department. Decked out in a long wool coat, scarf and sweater, wind-burned Engineering senior Betsy Hamme was chilled-out enough. "It's freezing cold out here," she complained. "I just wanted to crawl back into bed. My room is nice and warm." But some Penn students didn't have that luxury, as the cold weather caused heating units in a number of off-campus rental properties to shut off. College senior Ali Olshewitz said that when the heat in her apartment did not work for almost two days, she and her roommates were forced to vacate the freezing building and sleep over at their friends' places. "What made it so unbearable was that it felt like it was negative 10 degrees," she said. "One of my roomates left a glass of water and it was frozen. Our toothpaste was frozen, our mouthwash was frozen and you could see your breath inside the apartment." Campus Apartments President Dave Adelman confirmed that some of their properties did lose heat for around four to six hours yesterday when computerized thermostats malfunctioned. "When you get to 12 below, it's a shock to any system," Adelman said. "This is extreme cold that we haven't seen in two to five seasons." On campus, the cold weather left residents of Harrison College House shivering in the shower when a steam pipe burst early Monday morning, Faculty Master John Richetti said. The weather also prompted Philadelphia to implement its Code Blue program, which puts extra police officers and social workers on the street to encourage the homeless to go to shelters, city spokesman Ken Snyder said. However, the cold weather hasn't been bad news for everyone. According to Eastern Mountain Sports Assistant Manager John Clark, sales at the campus outdoor sporting gear store in Sansom Common have spiked over the past few days as students who left their gloves and hats at home attempted to purchase new ones. "Everyone is picking over what we have left," Clark said. "People were frustrated because they couldn't find scarfs, headbands and earmuffs -- which we've been sold out of for days." While the freezing temperatures forced many freshmen girls rushing sororities to walk quickly from house to house, it didn't put a damper on Engineering freshman Jen Portland's rush experience. "I like it. I like the cold," she said. According to the weather service, temperatures are expected to rise through midweek but remain below 40 degrees. Another arctic cold front is pushing out of central Canada and coming this way. Today will be mostly cloudy with scattered snow showers or flurries in most locations. Highs will average in the low 30s. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writers Joshua Liez and Michael Sonsino and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
(12/14/99 10:00am)
New UMC Chair Jerome Byam hopes to educate Penn students about racial stereotyping. Like all Penn students, College junior Jerome Byam tries to be careful when he walks through West Philadelphia's streets at night, staying on well-lit sidewalks and keeping an eye on the nearest blue-light phone. But unlike many of his classmates, the new United Minorities Council chairperson sometimes draws an unusual reaction from other students as he heads down Spruce Street. "I've seen white Penn students cross the road," Byam said. "It's weird to be in a situation where people perceive me as a mugger." Byam said he has dealt with these types of racial stereotypes and prejudices throughout his life -- and it is largely due to these experiences that he wants to work to educate students about stereotypes during his tenure as the leader of the UMC. Born in Guiana, raised in Trinidad and Toronto, Byam has been increasing awareness about minority issues in the political arena since his high school days in Canada when he founded the African Caribbean Canadian Association at his school. "In a school of about 1,000, there were about 20 black students," Byam said. "We just wanted to educate people." While the racial breakdown at Penn is not as severe as it was at his high school, Byam still thinks there is a lack of cultural awareness across the University. As UMC chair, he says he will strive to attack these cultural and racial issues head on. "The way to break down racism is to break down peoples' perceptions," Byam said. Byam has been a member of the Caribbean American Students Association for over a year. And despite his active involvement with the Caribbean American Student Association and the UMC, student government is not his only passion at Penn. A Biological Basis of Behavior major, Byam is interested in pursuing a career in neuropsychology, which he says will allow him to study the relationship between the brain and other aspects of the body. "It allows me the opportunity to deal with patients and do research into the functioning of the brain," he added. But when this pre-med student's brain wears down from cracking the books, he heads to the pool for swim team practice. "During the time you spend in the pool, your mind is completely clear, it helps you re-evaluate the day," said Byam, who swims the 50-meter free-style among other events. And Byam will need a clear mind to survive his upcoming year on the UMC. He is taking up the reins after outgoing Chairperson Chaz Howard's two terms and will have to work with a range of minority groups and other student government organizations on campus. According to College junior Hoa Duong, the outgoing chairperson of the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, Byam is committed to the job and is already working to educate himself about the issues facing various minorities. "I can personally vouch for [Byam's] character and leadership ability," Duong said. Duong added that Byam has "already taken steps to find out more about what's happening in various minority communities," such as meeting with minority student leaders and going to various minority student group meetings.
(12/09/99 10:00am)
City Council votes today on a resolution asking schools to join the Worker Rights Consortium. A Penn T-shirt hung on the podium in the caucus room in City Hall during a press conference yesterday afternoon. But taped in front of the University logo was a sign that read, "retail price $16.00, worker paid 35 cents." The message from Penn students, other local University students and City Council yesterday was clear -- schools need to stop using sweatshop labor. Members of Penn's chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops joined other students yesterday to support a Philadelphia City Council resolution -- sponsored by Council member David Cohen -- that calls on area schools to reject the Fair Labor Association, a coalition that does not guarantee workers the right to join labor unions or receive living wages. The resolution also asks that schools join the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent monitoring system for factories that produce collegiate apparel. Cohen praised the students for bringing this issue to the table and said he hoped this step would push local universities and colleges to take action. "In this case the students are doing the teaching instead of the universities, and we hope this changes," said Cohen, who graduated from Penn's Graduate School of Education in 1934 and the Law School in 1937. Five local labor unions, 11 community and religious organizations and seven university student groups endorsed the resolution. After the press conference, students held a candlelight vigil outside City Hall in support of the resolution, which City Council will vote on this morning. "I think that the support clearly demonstrated that this is not just a student issue," said Penn USAS member Miriam Joffe-Block, a College senior. "It's an issue for members of the community? anyone concerned with social justice." USAS members from Penn have been demanding since September that the University join the Worker Rights Consortium. On November 14, students staged a sit-in in University President Judith Rodin's office, demanding that Rodin meet with them to discuss the University's current sweatshop policy. The social issue has rapidly spurred student activism in schools throughout the United States and Canada. "It has been absolutely exhilarating to see the growth of the issue," Haverford College senior Maria Roeper said, noting that the number of schools involved in USAS has increased from about 30 in 1997 to nearly 180 now. "People are shocked when they hear about the horrible conditions [of sweatshops]," Roeper added. According to Linda Panetta, founder of the social justice group Peacekeepers Action Network and a speaker at the press conference, sweatshop employees in places like Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador work 12-hour days, six days a week, for a wage that falls far below the living wage rate -- the bare minimum needed for the fundamental needs of food, shelter and clothing. Penn USAS member and College sophomore Roopa Gona added, "Women [employees] are forced to take contraceptives?. If they become pregnant, they are sometimes forced to pay themselves to have an abortion if they want to continue working." Joffe-Block said she thought the event would help make the sweatshop issue a top priority for administrators. "I am confident that the University will follow the will of the students in implementing human rights," Joffe-Block said.
(11/19/99 10:00am)
Returning to its roots, Philadanco, an African-American repertory dance company, brought boundless energy into the Annenberg Center's Zellerbach Theatre last night. At home again to perform the world premiere of its ballet "Tribute," the renowned Philadelphia-based dance troupe has gained international recognition for its versatility, unique style and commanding stage presence. The group has just returned from a tour in Canada. Headed by Joan Myers Brown, its founding artistic director, the company dancers live, work and train in the city at their studio at 40th and Market streets. From the moment four female dancers stepped out onto a blackened stage, their heads adorned with candelabras, holding blazing wax candles, the audience realized that this was not going to be a typical dance performance. "'Tribute' truly is a tribute to dance -- our dance," said Vanessa Thomas, managing director of Philadanco. "It is a tribute to dance with an African-American theme, to feeling, to culture, to what Philadanco epitomizes." The first piece, entitled "Shoshana's Balcony," was choreographed by Israeli Barak Marshall. Set to a compilation of traditional Jewish klezmer music, big band sound, a noisy Hebrew conversation between women and at times silence, the dance was an adaptation of the Book of Susan, which is associated with the New Testament. The dancers' staccato movements, especially those executed in complete silence, demonstrated both synchronization and precision. One had to wonder whether the performers' hearts were not also beating in sync. During "Tribute," dancers exhibited their exceptional strength and flexibility to the music of Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International Records. Best known for their production of what has been coined the "Philly Sound," the record company is celebrating its 30th annniversary along with Philadanco. In the piece, Philadanco took the traditional pas de deux -- or dance for two, in which two partners move together -- to a new level, as partners had the audience guessing where one body ended and the next began. Despite some technical difficulties with the sound equipment that delayed the piece halfway through, the performance was highly lauded by the audience. Both Annenberg organizers and Philadanco dancers were happy the dance company could debut choreographer Dwight Rhoden's interpretation of popular music at Penn. Other pieces on the evening's playbill included "Exotica," "Pretty is Skin Deep, Ugly to the Bone," "Ghettoscape," "Soul Saga" and "Gotta Keep Moving." "Annenberg's mission is to provide a performing arts venue for those companies that exist in the surrounding area," Annenberg Center spokesperson Stephanie Grant said. "And Philadanco goes beyond presenting a local group -- they are nationally pre-eminent." The company's visit to Annenberg is part of the ongoing Dance Celebration/Next Move 2000 series presented by the University and Dance Affiliates.
(11/17/99 10:00am)
Kapetanovic had to sit out all of last season after transferring to Penn from Brown, consistently one of the Ivy League's worst teams. As a sophomore at Brown, Kapetanovic averaged 6.9 points and 4.0 rebounds per game. He started 30 of 51 games in his career there and once scored 16 points in 21 minutes against Penn. When the Quakers open their season tonight at Kentucky, Kapetanovic will be seeing at least one familiar face -- he played against the Wildcats' Jamaal Magloire in AAU competition while in Canada. Kapetanovic is officially from Ottawa, but has lived all around the world. He was born in New York, as his father, Goran, was a Yugoslavian diplomat, and has lived in Belgrade and Egypt. Kapetanovic has a strong basketball family background. Goran played professionally in France and Oggie's brother, Vigor, played for Penn from 1994 to 1996.
(11/17/99 10:00am)
Oggie Kapetanovic's life has been shaped by a land he yearns to see again one day. Ognjen Kapetanovic was born in New York to a Croatian mother and a Bosnian father, and spent the better part of his formative years in Serbia. He is part Christian, part Jewish and part Muslim, but is not religious. He has lived on three different continents, attended two different colleges and holds a Canadian passport. He is everything and nothing. He is a citizen of the world. He has many homes, but none entirely his own. Ognjen Kapetanovic is a basketball player. · The story starts on May 16, 1978, the day the Yugoslav ambassador to the United Nations welcomed his second son into the world. One and a half years later, a new diplomatic mission would lead Goran Kapetanovic back to his homeland, with his newborn son Oggie, wife Visnja and toddler Vigor. The Kapetanovics spent the next eight years in Belgrade, broken up by a two-year stint in Egypt. Then, Goran was appointed ambassador to Canada. He took the family, including 11-year-old Oggie, with him to Ottawa. Little Oggie probably never thought that was the last time he would see Yugoslavia. In 1991, war came to Yugoslavia, leaving the Kapetanovic family homeless, cut off from relatives all over the fractured country. Goran, disagreeing with the policies of Slobodan Milosevic's government, resigned as ambassador and applied for Canadian citizenship. · Somewhere in between the Hudson and the Nile, Oggie picked up a basketball. In sports-mad Yugoslavia, there are two things that every child knows -- soccer and basketball. And Oggie was no exception. Although his godfather Velibor Vasovic was a star on Amsterdam's Ajax soccer club, the tall and gangly Oggie stuck to basketball. He was sick of being forced to play goalie. And after all, basketball is a Kapetanovic thing. His father, before entering the world of international diplomacy, played professionally in France and was president of one of the most successful basketball clubs in Yugoslavia, Partizan. He also organized the 1975 European Championships. At the age of seven, Oggie joined Partizan's youth team, following in the footsteps of his older brother Vigor. Like Vigor before him, Oggie traveled Europe playing with against other teams of his age group. He didn't mind all the traveling, even at his early age. Oggie was born a mover. Plus, he had basketball. "Basketball always brings you closer with your teammates and you've always got some kind of friends," he said. · Moving along, to Ottawa and beyond, the places and faces changed, but there remain constants -- family and basketball. Vigor was there, to train with and to play against, for games of one-on-one and for advice about basketball and life. "He was always better than me when we were little," Oggie said. "Especially when we got to that age when I was 15 and he was 18, or 16 and 19. I always tried to beat him in one-on-one and played against him. He definitely beat me most of the time." While Vigor admitted that his early basketball success had a part in Oggie's later achievements, he said that Oggie owes much to himself. "I think I played some kind of a role in him getting to where he is but you also have to credit him a lot because his determination and his will to be good is so great," Vigor said. "I only helped in giving him suggestions and stuff. He really got himself to where he is at this point." After high school and AAU ball in Ottawa, Oggie's brother drew the interest of college coaches in another country. Vigor ended up playing basketball in Philadelphia, U.S.A., at the University of Pennsylvania. "When he left for college, that's when I really felt like I was missing my brother," Oggie said. The one thing that defined home for Oggie -- his family -- was all of a sudden altered. · When the time came for Oggie to leave Ottawa for college, his short list consisted of two schools -- Penn and Brown. Vigor had played basketball at Penn for three years. He broke his foot during his junior year and decided not to continue his collegiate career. "We talked about him coming to Penn," Vigor said. "[But] Oggie wanted to do something on his own, do something for himself." It was a rare opportunity to make a statement about who he was. For Oggie, it was an opportunity to be more than just Vigor's younger brother. "When the decision came to choose between Brown and Penn, he felt like he wanted to build something of his own at Brown," Vigor said. "He felt like I had a little clique established here and he really didn't want to be known as Vigor's little brother." But Oggie also felt compelled to avoid Penn and Vigor for another reason. "My brother was still [at Penn] and I guess I would have been competing with him for minutes and time," Oggie said. "I didn't want that --EI have one brother, one family." Oggie left for Brown in 1996, the year a few optimistic prognosticators picked the Bears to knock off Penn and Princeton. The hard-working basketballer was moving yet again, this time to get in on the ground floor of the rebuilding of Brown basketball. "They seemed to be a team on the uprise," Oggie said. "I guess I wanted to contribute to that." So he packed up for Providence. · "When I got there as a freshman, I was kind of blinded because all I wanted to do was play and start," Oggie said. "Those were my only goals. I was a man possessed." Only 200 pounds and not completely filling his 6'10" frame, Oggie -- who had never lifted a weight in his life -- was embarrassed into bulking up. "The managers are bench-pressing more than me," Oggie said of his first trip to the Brown weight room. "I'm getting cooked in practice. I mean, I'm getting done. I couldn't take that. So I started working." And work he did, starting 10 games as a freshman for the Bears. He was named the team's top freshman and was in prime position to carve out a name for himself in the decidedly thin annals of Brown hoops history. As a sophomore, his drive never stopped -- remember, Oggie was born a mover. But he didn't see his teammates moving fast enough for him. A 4-22 freshman season was followed with a 6-20 campaign in '97-98; the improvement wasn't coming fast enough for someone who moves as much and as often as Oggie does. "I finally got the minutes and started most of the time," he said. "But then I noticed there were really things wrong with the program and with the team. "People didn't care, my teammates weren't committed, the seniors and juniors were beaten down because they've been losing for so long -- that's what they knew." And Oggie hates to lose. In fact, he hates to lose more than he likes to win. "For me, I can recall every single loss like it was yesterday," he said. "We lost a lot at Brown, and I can recall how every game went. I can't do that with every one of my wins." After his sophomore season, with 42 Brown losses to remember point-by-point, Oggie knew that he could not continue to go down with the ship. As usual, he looked to his brother Vigor for advice. The answer was simple -- Oggie was moving again. He packed up for Philadelphia. · Moving means saying goodbye to friends made, leaving an empty room you used to call your own, starting your life all over again. Basketball means never having to look back. Penn guard Michael Jordan said that basketball built a bridge between Oggie and the rest of his teammates. Even though he played a more European style of ball than the rest of the Quakers, it was still good basketball. "Athletics in general brings people together," Jordan said. "We all have a common goal -- to win games and do the best we can, and Oggie fits right into that." Oggie sat out the 1998-99 season due to NCAA transfer requirements but practiced with the team during the week. He also regained a sense of home, a sense of family, that his perpetual motion made necessary. "I had one of the best years of my life last year living with him and we really developed a strong bond," Vigor said. "I really appreciate him being here and I'm disappointed that we only got to hang out and go to school together for one year." "We're more like friends now -- very, very good friends," Oggie said. · The Kapetanovics feel a special sense of urgency regarding their family. With relatives spread throughout war-torn Yugoslavia and all its former parts, keeping in touch takes on a deeper meaning. "Over the years we realized how important it is to have a very strong family bond," Vigor said. "Basically, the traveling has made the bond between us as a family much stronger than anything. We've always had to stick together." Despite the family's rare mix of Croats, Bosnians, Jews, Muslims and Christians, Vigor said there isn't any bad blood among them. "For our family personally, it's not a source of confusion -- it's just the way we've been brought up," Vigor said. "Our whole family is a mixed-marriage family, if you want to put it that way. As a family it doesn't cause any confusion or any problems, but where it does cause a problem is people not understanding what's going on and having to explain it to them." · The story began in New York on May 16, 1978. But not really, because Oggie's story has no beginning. Oggie's story is one of inheritance and division, unity and discord, home and abroad. Oggie's story is Yugoslavia's story -- a story which begins and ends with time. He is everything and nothing. He is mixed-up, put together, torn apart and whole. Oggie is now writing the next chapter of his unending history, a chapter which he hopes will include a visit to Yugoslavia. "Right now, I don't know if that's going to be possible within a year," Oggie said. "But I definitely want to graduate and go back. That's my dream. It's a lot different over there, I just want to see.? A lot has changed, [I want] to go back to my memories." Oggie -- a son, a brother, a Canadian, a Yugoslav, a mover and a basketball player -- wants to go back to collect his fractured memories of Belgrade, to make himself whole once more.
(11/16/99 10:00am)
For the roughly 200 students who orchestrated the University of Pennsylvania Model United Nations Conference, the weekend was not spent cramming for midterms, but rather debating issues ranging from terrorism to the World Health Organization. Over 1,000 collegiate delegates from all over the United States and Canada gathered at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel for the four-day conference, which ran from Thursday to Sunday. The event was conducted by the International Affairs Association which, as the University's largest undergraduate student-run group, boasts more than 300 members. Keynote speaker Stanley Bedlington's speech proved to be one of the highlights of the conference. As a security expert in Islamic terrorism who spent four decades in espionage and international affairs for both the U.S. and the United Kingdom, Bedlington "is not merely a celebrity? He has been in the field and been out there," IAA Secretary-General Josh Einiger said. The College senior added that Bedlington received "a lot of positive feedback," noting the audience members' numerous questions. After Thursday's opening ceremony and keynote speech, delegates spent the weekend analyzing and debating a plethora of internationally important topics, all researched and organized by 16 student committees. Half of those are "crisis staff" who orchestrate and develop model crises for the delegates to solve and discuss. The event, modeled after and conducted much like a real UN conference, required a great deal of time and effort. Einiger joked that "I haven't really slept since last July," explaining that as it came close to last weekend, the group spent 15 to 20 hours a day on the conference. The nine members of the Secretariat, headed by Einiger, acted as the core of the group, but Undersecretary-General of the Economic and Social Council and Specialized Agencies Emily Hoffman, a College sophomore, recognized the staff as a whole for "an absolutely amazing job." "If it wasn't for them it wouldn't have been a success," Hoffman said. Although Wharton senior and IAA Director General Vikas Tandon admitted that it was "an amazingly insane amount of work," the rewards repaid their effort in full. Hoffman added that knowing "that the impact touches the lives of 1,200 people makes it all worthwhile." "It was amazing to see a year's worth of effort" culminate in four days, she said. Indeed, the IAA members' dedication seemed to materialize in an experience that Einiger believes was invaluable. Many of the attendees thought that "it was the best model UN conference they ever attended," he said. Besides the experience of the conference itself, Einiger emphasized that the IAA is also "an incredible way to make friends and meet people," adding that the other Secretariat members "will always be my best friends." "It is a great bonding experience," he added.
(11/12/99 10:00am)
The quotes are real. So are the turbans. Harvard, displaying all of the confidence that a pathetic bunch of hopeless elitists from Cambridge can, then proceeded to continue scheduling un-American opponents. For years, Harvard's schedule was littered with teams like Britannia, All Canada, Ottawa and Princeton. Since then, McGill has washed its hands of the Crimson, something that Penn has not done only because home games against Harvard are great for the goal post-dismantling industry of West Philadelphia. Unfortunately, this year's tilt is on the road so we Swamis decided to take our carpets and fly out for some beers this week. We started in Montreal, at Molson Field, home of McGill and the CFL's Montreal Alouettes, who, incidentally, wear red and blue. We were disheartened to find that Molson Field is only named after Percival Molson, a Canadian war hero who was killed on the Fourth of July in 1917 in France, and not the delectable, frosty lager. Also, our friendly neighbors to the north spoke French, so we hopped aboard our carpets and flew on back to the States in search of beer. It was in Solana Beach, Calif., that we finally found some that was fit for a Swami. In fact, it was a Swami! The Solana Beach Brewery and Pizza Port, a brewpub, names its delectable alcoholic concoctions after the surf breaks in the area. "It's a strong ale, really hoppy," manager Ono Senteno said of Swami India Pale Ale. "Really good, if you like strong ale. Someone that's a beer drinker likes that style of beer." Swami has been brewed and enjoyed for almost five years now. Unfortunately, we can't go over 3,000 miles on our carpets every week. We get awfully hungry on those long flights, and there's no snack service. Fortunately, the Pizza Port had a cure for that too -- Swami pizza. "We try to keep it real with the location," Senteno said. "[Swami pizza has] olive, mushroom, onion, bell pepper, shrimp and clams. That's a pretty popular pizza." Of course it is. With 47 years of tradition, we've earned our popularity. The Crimson, meanwhile, do not have a beer or a pizza. Maybe it's going out on a limb, but a fine establishment such as the Solana Beach Brewery and Pizza Port would know better than to associate itself with a squad of Canadian-battling Cambridgians, as bland as their fellow alumnus Al Gore, who have been captained by the likes of Cleo A. O'Donnell, Jr., Theo N. Metropoulos and Arthur J. Cumnock. Just ask Ono. "Penn 14-3." Thanks, and if we could get some more pizza and beer to go, it would be even better.
(10/13/99 9:00am)
One of the key tactics in bringing change to South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s, and ending the hateful system of apartheid, was divestment -- the decision by large institutional investors to terminate their shareholdings in companies culpably doing business in South Africa. But given the difficulty of determining culpability, divestment was controversial in some quarters. Such a policy, it was argued, forced companies to withdraw from South Africa, thereby ending their chances of working to improve, if only incrementally, economic and social practices. People argued in good faith on both sides of the issue. The world of Western investment faces a much less ambiguous situation in contemporary Sudan, geographically the largest nation in Africa. Here there is a fierce moral clarity and urgency to the need for a rapid divestment from the singular North American corporate presence of significance -- Talisman Energy Inc. of Calgary, Alberta. For Talisman, one of Canada's largest corporations and its largest oil and energy concern, has allowed itself to become partners with the National Islamic Front regime, which dominates the government of Sudan. What this means is that Talisman is an economic ally of a radical Islamic regime that is engaged in a brutally destructive civil war with the people of southern Sudan, who are largely animist or Christian in religion. This is the same regime that the U.S. Congress recently declared to be "genocidal" in its conduct in the long-running civil war; a war in which, exemplifying a truly terrifying inhumanity, two million human beings have perished, the vast majority civilians in the south. It is a conflict that has created almost five million refugees, the largest crisis of its sort in the world. It is a war that as recently as last summer's famine brought more than two million people, mostly children, to the edge of starvation. The Khartoum regime -- which came to power by coup in 1989 -- has systematically used humanitarian food aid as a weapon of war, has regularly ordered the bombing of civilian hospitals, has encouraged a merciless trade in human slavery and has recently accelerated an intense scorched-earth campaign to clear the oil fields and oil pipeline areas -- this last effort in evident service of Talisman's billion-dollar capital investment in the oil project and Khartoum's hopes for revenues from the impending flow of oil. Talisman has, along with its investment partners in China and Malaysia, agreed to send 5 percent of its revenues to Khartoum. Estimates of the amount of oil that will flow now range up to more than 250,000 barrels per day. This is an extraordinarily significant source of income for the cash-strapped Khartoum regime, which spends about $1 million per day on the war, much of it borrowed against anticipated oil revenues. How will these new revenues be spent? One answer was provided recently by Sudanese Parliament Speaker Hassan Turabi, the most influential member of the NIF regime. He declared publicly that oil revenues would be used to build factories for missiles and tanks -- which of course would better effect a final military solution to the racially and religiously driven conflict with the people of the south. This destructive war effort, in which casualties would likely be more than 90 percent civilian, will be fueled by Talisman-generated oil money. Indeed, the bombers that frequently target clearly marked civilian hospitals will continue to fly on the oil that Talisman has provided. The tanks that destroy villages throughout the south will run on oil that flows because of Talisman. What is Talisman's response to the numerous and painfully consistent accounts of human destruction that come from the press as well as the most respected humanitarian and human rights organizations working on the ground in the south of Sudan? In the main, Talisman doesn't respond or responds only to snippets of news or responds dismissively. Most shamelessly, Talisman declares itself to be a beacon of benign Western influence, investing for the economic development of all of Sudan. But this self-serving claim ignores Talisman's role in the oil-driven devastation of the south. There exists nothing like a sustained rebuttal or response to the enormous and rapidly growing body of reports on the desperate situation there. Talisman's disingenuous and distorting pronouncements on the greatest humanitarian crisis of the last half-century must not obscure the terrible spectacle of human suffering that is before American and Canadian Talisman shareholders. In such circumstances, it would seem especially incumbent upon those in positions of moral and educational leadership to consider the consequences of their shareholding in this corporation. For the American professoriate, this will entail reflecting on the fact that the College Retirement Equities Fund -- the primary retirement investment vehicle for American higher education -- holds 262,000 shares of Talisman. No doubt this in not widely known, nor its consequences generally appreciated. But that must change and those who understand the implications of this large shareholding must pressure CREF to divest, even as they must inform colleagues and urge further divestment pressures upon CREF. Students also can make known -- to one another, to their teachers and to CREF (at feedback@tiaa-cref.org) -- their dismay at the role of Talisman in their teachers' retirement investment portfolio. Collectively, students and teachers can force a presently unyielding CREF to sell its significant stake in Talisman. Only by refusing to own, in any fashion, shares in a corporation that has so clearly revealed its willingness to trade in genocidal oil, can investors be free of complicity in Sudan's agony. For if South Africa demonstrated the power of divestment, Sudan demonstrates a human suffering that gives to divestment the force of an unambiguous moral imperative.
(10/13/99 9:00am)
Wilt Chamberlain, one of the best players in NBA history, passed away yesterday from an apparent heart attack. The Associated Press LOS ANGELES -- Wilt Chamberlain, a center so big, agile and dominant that he forced basketball to change its rules -- and the only player to score 100 points in an NBA game -- died yesterday at 63. Chamberlain's body was found by authorities who were called to his Bel-Air home shortly after noon PDT, said John Black, a Los Angeles Lakers spokesperson. There were signs that Chamberlain might have had a heart attack, fire department spokesperson Jim Wells said. Chamberlain was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat in 1992, and his agent, Sy Goldberg, said the Hall of Famer was on medication. Known as ''Wilt the Stilt'' and ''The Big Dipper,'' the 7'1" Chamberlain starred in the NBA from 1959 through 1973, when he played for the Philadelphia (later the San Francisco) Warriors, 76ers and Lakers. He later stirred controversy with boasts of his sexual exploits. Chamberlain scored 31,419 points during his career, a record until Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broke it in 1984. Chamberlain, who never fouled out in 1,205 regular-season and playoff games, holds the record for career rebounds with 23,924. ''Wilt was one of the greatest ever and we will never see another one like him,'' Abdul-Jabbar said. Chamberlain, who began his professional career with the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958, was one of only two men to win the MVP and rookie of the year awards in the same season (1959-60). He was also MVP in 1966 through 1968. He led the NBA in scoring seven straight seasons, 1960-66, and led the league in rebounding 11 of his 14 seasons. He was such a force that the NBA changed some of its rules, including widening the lane to try to keep him farther from the basket. One of his most famous records is the 100 points he scored in the Philadelphia Warriors' 169-147 defeat of the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pa. ''I spent 12 years in his armpits and I always carried that 100-point game on my shoulders,'' Darrall Imhoff, the former Knicks center, said yesterday. ''After I got my third foul, I said to one of the officials, Willy Smith, 'Why don't you just give him 100 points and we'll all go home?' Well, we did.'' Chamberlain also holds the single-game record for rebounds, 55, against Boston in 1960. He averaged 30.1 points a game in his career, including a record 50.4 in the 1961-62 season with Philadelphia. He also was one of the most versatile big men ever, leading the league in assists with 702 in 1967-68. He led his team into the playoffs 13 times, winning two world championships. The first came in 1966-67 with the Philadelphia 76ers, the second in 1971-72 with the Lakers, who won a record 33 straight games. His teams lost in the finals four other times and were beaten in the conference finals six times. Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics almost always seemed to be the nemesis of Chamberlain-led teams, beating them twice in the championship series and five times in the conference finals. Three times, a series was decided by a seventh game that Boston won by either one or two points. ''Wilt Chamberlain had a great deal to do with the success of the NBA,'' said Red Auerbach, coach of those great Celtics. ''His dominance, power, demeanor and the rivalry with Bill Russell says it all.'' Long after his career ended, Chamberlain made news by claiming in an autobiography that he had had sex with 20,000 women. ''The women who I have been the most attracted to, the most in love with, I've pushed away the strongest,'' the lifelong bachelor said in a 1991 interview with the Associated Press. ''There are about five women I can think of I could have married. I cared for them a lot but not enough to make a commitment.'' Before his death from AIDS in 1993, tennis great Arthur Ashe was critical of sexually promiscuous athletes like Chamberlain, saying the behavior reinforced racist stereotypes. Ashe added that he didn't believe Chamberlain's claim, concluding, ''I felt more pity than sorrow for Wilt as his macho accounting backfired on him in the form of a wave of public criticism.'' Wilton Norman Chamberlain was born on August 21, 1936, in Philadelphia. He didn't begin playing basketball until he was in the seventh grade. He grew four inches in three months when he was 15, and was 6'11" when he entered Philadelphia's Overbrook High School. After leading Overbrook to three public school championships and two all-city titles, Chamberlain became one of the most recruited players ever with over 200 colleges interested. He chose the University of Kansas and Hall of Fame coach Phog Allen. In his first game against the Kansas varsity -- freshmen weren't allowed to compete against other teams then -- he scored 50 points before a packed Allen Fieldhouse crowd of more than 15,000. The next year, Chamberlain scored 52 points against Northwestern in his first game, a total he never surpassed in college, partly because of zone defenses designed to keep him from getting the ball. As a sophomore, he led the 1957 Jayhawks to the NCAA tournament finals, where Kansas lost to unbeaten North Carolina in triple overtime. Disgusted by being smothered by the zone defenses, Chamberlain left Kansas after his junior year and joined the Globetrotters. Chamberlain, extremely agile for his size, ran cross-country in high school and was an outstanding high jumper and shot-putter at Kansas. He remained active after his NBA career and was considered an outstanding volleyball player. He also ran in the Honolulu marathon recently and competed in a 50-mile race in Canada. ''We've lost a giant of a man in every sense of the word,'' NBA commissioner David Stern said. ''The shadow of accomplishment he cast over our game is unlikely ever to be matched.'' In January 1998, Chamberlain made his first official visit to Kansas since his college career ended. His jersey was raised to the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse. ''I've learned in life that you have to take the bitter with the sweet, and how sweet this is,'' Chamberlain said at the ceremony. He seemed genuinely surprised at how much he was loved by the rabid Kansas fans, especially after staying away for 40 years. ''Forty years ago I lost a heartbreaking battle, losing to North Carolina by one point in triple overtime,'' he told the crowd. ''It was a devastating thing for me because I felt like I let the university down, I let KU down.'' The crowd interrupted, yelling, ''No, no,'' before resuming another standing ovation. His huge hand brushed his cheek as he paused again, drowned out by more applause.
(09/17/99 9:00am)
In Proverbs 17:9 the Almighty advises that "He that repeateth a matter separateth very friends." The lesson that aphorism is meant to teach is simple. If you are audacious enough to try to capture an Ivy crown two seasons in a row, you're bound to stir up some chunky karma. Thankfully, our loyal band of gridiron brigands has previous experience with this sort of gravity. Baggy Bags and his Funky Bunch were able to duplicate Ancient Eight perfection in both the 1993 and 1994 seasons. Still, this current set of Quakers is attempting to win its fourth title of the decade, a feat which has gone unachieved since Dartmouth did it in the 1970s. This is a task not meant to be taken lightly. Despite their heavily varnished exteriors, the other seven schools that comprise the Ivy League are capable of unimaginable treachery and they now have all of their blue-blooded tentacles aimed right at our beloved warriors. The Quakers cannot be expected to overcome this sort of danger without some assistance. So here we come to save the day. We Swamis, Penn's Pontiffs of Prognostication for nearly half a century, decided to give our magic carpets an impromptu lube job and journey throughout the Northeast in order to identify the forces of evil assembled against our beloved Red and Blue. We aim, of course, to do much more than identify our enemy. We aim to annihilate their puerile plotting and make the world safe for a Penn football repeat. We aim to make the world safe for Penn hegemony. We first brought down our trusty rugs on the green pastures of Harvard University, the haunt of the last of our inferior Ivy brethren to momentarily hold Ancient Eight supremacy. Our search for sinister plots was, as you can imagine in a hamlet as villainous as Cambridge, rather short-lived. As we maneuvered our dual-cam carpets around the third sub-basement of Widener Library, past the room where Harvard burns their money, we happened upon a meeting of the Harvard coaching staff. Coach Tim Murphy and his pencil-necked Crimson staff, appropriately outfitted in tweed and seersucker, were in the midst of a jolly good belly laugh when we Swamis entered their chamber. They were too busy chuckling at the picture of Penn coach Al Bagnoli they had doctored-up to look like Che Guevara to notice our theft of their playbook. A quick glance through their playbook let us know that the Harvard backfield will probably be more concerned with the post-colonial implications of ethnic-sounding names like Germino and Puzio than with the hurting that these Penn defenders can inflict. Confident that we had nothing to fear in Beantown, we marched further into the New England abyss until we reached the frothy town of Hanover, New Hampshwhere. Luckily, we arrived just in time for practice. Much to our surprise and delight the only player that bothered to show up was, well, no one. After all, this is Dartmouth, in the middle of that worthless filler between Boston and Canada, and classes had not started yet. While we half expected to see placekicker Alex Csizinsky attempting to split uprights under the watchful eye of former Melrose hunk and Dartmouth alum Andrew Shue, all we saw were cows. And a Wal-Mart. Our sneaking suspicion that the Green With Envy would improve on their 1-6 1998 campaign was put to rest after visiting this sleepy little hamlet. We Swamis, still confident that danger must be brewing somewhere, pushed on to ever-insignificant Providence, R.I., and to Brown. Here we were sure we would encounter an impressive array. Penn's sole 1998 defeat came in the form of a 58-51 barnburner at Brown. We were pleased as punch, however, to find out that the administration of the most pliable of Ivies had gone beyond simply abolishing all academic requirements and had forbidden weightlifting. It seems as if the Brownies see pumping iron as merely a tool for the perpetuation of patriarchy. Well, thanks to their brilliant leaders, not a single member of the Bears D-line is strong enough to even hoist their personal copy of Fleur du Mal. Looks like another safe stomping ground for the Penn juggernaut. After the laughable display we found in Providence, we Swamis had gained a healthy confidence about our heroes chances this fall. We had visited those usually suspected of Ivy treachery and had found nothing but a bunch of dandies, a throng of high-elbowers and a rag-tag bunch in sore need of academic rigor. And besides, we were starting to get rug burn in some unmentionable areas. So we zipped on back to our beloved West Philadelphia. Granted, we had seen much of our future opposition, but we still had a nagging worry that a real threat might still be lurking. To seek guidance, we most sagacious of handicappers, knocked on the door of the College Hall office of President Judith Rodin, who with her extensive research of Ancient Eight football wiped away any doubt we had about Penn's chances for a conference repeat. "Penn, 7-0. Dartmouth, 1-6." Madame President, you are a Swami through and through.
(09/08/99 9:00am)
He also knows that he will need more experience against the world's top fencers to improve upon his first-round exit from those Games. The question is, will he be fully prepared by the time he heads to Sydney next September for the XXVII Olympiad. In order to get as many bouts under his belt as he possibly can, Bayer is taking the year off from his studies at Penn. Penn coach Dave Michanik expects that there will be some impact on the Quakers. He does not, however, expect the defending Ivy League champions to fall apart, especially since Bayer's only action last season came against Princeton, as the 22-year-old was busy with United States Olympic Committee action. "I won't tell you that it doesn't matter because that would be silly," Michanik said. "But the team is still very good, and one man can only win three bouts at a 27-bout meet." While Bayer knows that he will always be able to go back to school, he realizes that now is the time when he must capitalize on the opportunity for Olympic glory. "There was really no worse feeling in my life than stepping up into the Olympics and losing," Bayer said. "I was pretty young back then and feel like I'm now in my top shape, and that if I can't do it now, I'm definitely not going to be able to do it later, so I want to give it the shot. As far as school, it'll be there next year." Bayer's preparation for Sydney started off well this summer. In May, he was honored as the USOC's Male Athlete of the Month for his bronze medal performance at a World Cup event in Espinho, Portugal. He was also featured on the cover of the July/August issue of Olympian magazine. Bayer, a foilist, continued his summer at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Canada, where he took home the silver medal in August. In Sydney, Bayer will try to become the first American man to win an Olympic medal in fencing since 1984 and only the second since 1960. Bayer followed up his earlier performances by becoming the first American ever to win the gold medal at a World Cup event. The New York City native defeated Ukraine's Sergei Goloubitsky by an impressive 15-6 margin in the quarterfinals in St. Petersburg, Russia. Goloubitsky is the defending world foil champion and is ranked No. 1 in the world. "[Goloubitsky] -- he's the man," Bayer said. "To beat the world champion, that was one of the best wins of my career." Bayer then defeated Russia's Dimitri Chevtchenko in the finals. The victory raised Bayer's worldwide ranking from No. 23 to No. 14. "It's a great advantage to be in the top 16 because you get a bye automatically into the second day of competition and you then get to fence someone who's a lower seed," Bayer said. Bayer's top goal going into the Olympics is to raise his ranking as much as possible, "so that I go in with a good chance not only to compete, but to have a good shot at a medal." Bayer's next chance to garner points to raise his ranking will be at a World Cup event in October, in Haifa, Israel. Bayer plans to compete in all of the World Cup events leading up to the Olympics. While this means that Bayer will have to travel quite a bit -- the closest World Cup event to home will be in Venezuela -- he knows that there is great importance in fencing actual bouts and not just practicing. "You can see how much different the intensity of the competition is," Bayer said. "In '96, there were nine World Cup events, and now there are five extras, and they're all going to be really intense." Through all of this competition, as well as a two-a-day practice schedule, Bayer will have to try to remain injury-free. In 1996, Bayer tore a knee ligament which hampered his performance in the Games. It won't be easy for Bayer to make the leap from the cover of Olympian to the Olympic podium, but with a year dedicated strictly to training, he's on track to realizing his Olympic dreams.
(08/05/99 9:00am)
Demer Holleran has assured herself of at least a silver medal in the Pan American Games. The Penn women's squash coach reached the finals of the individual squash tournament in Winnipeg, Canada, after knocking off fellow American Latoshya Khan in the semifinals, 3-2 (10-8, 9-2, 5-9, 0-9, 9-0). The final match, with Holleran taking on Canadian Melanie Jans, began last night at 7 p.m. at the Winnipeg Winter Club. Holleran, who won silver in the individual and team events four years ago in the Pan Am games, had no trouble advancing to the semifinals. She beat both El Salvador's Ana DeMiguel and Mexico's Teresa Osorio without losing a game. In fact, she did not give up a single point against Osorio in her 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 win. The United States team, of which the Penn coach is a part, will start competition today against Canada. Holleran and the rest of the Americans finished second in the 1995 Pan Am Games. Fellow Quaker Cliff Bayer did not fare quite as well in the individual foil competition. The Penn junior fencer lost to eventual second-place finisher Elvis Gregory Gil in the quarterfinals, 15-14, on Tuesday at Maples Complex. Bayer defeated Mexico's Gustav Simont, 15-10, to advance to the quarterfinals after winning two of his five matches in the preliminary round.
(08/05/99 9:00am)
The Associated Press WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Cuban high jump great Javier Sotomayor was stripped of his gold medal at the Pan American Games yesterday after testing positive for cocaine, the biggest drug scandal to hit track and field since Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Pan Am officials said it was up to track's international federation, the IAAF, to determine further penalties against Sotomayor, including his eligibility for the Sydney Olympics. They said they would not make a recommendation on a punishment. Although all sports have prescribed drug penalties, they are not always applied on recreational drugs that are not taken to enhance performance. He is the third athlete, all gold medalists, and the second high jumper to test positive at these games. Steve Vezina, goalie for Canada's in-line roller hockey team, was caught using Nandrolone, costing the team its gold medal. Juana Rosario Arrendel, winner of the women's high jump and the only gold medalist from the Dominican Republic at the games so far, was stripped of her medal for using stanozolol. In addition, Ray Martinez, a member of Mexico's baseball team, refused to take a drug test, which was tantamount to a positive test. Sotomayor was seen in Cuba on Tuesday night at a rally for the gold medal-winning baseball team and stood beside President Fidel Castro. On Friday, Sotomayor became the first person to win four Pan Am track and field titles in the same event Friday when he cleared 7'6.5''. Sotomayor, considered Cuba's most popular athlete, won the 1992 Olympic gold medal, the 1993 and 1997 world outdoor championships, and the 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1999 world indoor championships. He was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1988-89, 1992-95 and 1997-98. It was a further embarrassment to Cuba's team at the Pan Am games. Eight Cubans have left the delegation, including one journalist, with authorities saying at least seven plan to defect. The finding against Sotomayor marked the biggest scandal in track and field since Johnson was stripped of his 100-meter gold medal and world record in Seoul for using the performance-enhancing drug stanozolol. Johnson later returned to competition, but he again tested positive for drugs in 1993 and was suspended for life. He is appealing that second ban and has asked for reinstatement by the International Amateur Athletic Federation. The IAAF Council will meet at Seville, Spain, on Aug. 17 to decide the case. Sotomayor's case was the third involving big-name track athletes in the past two days. On Tuesday, Dennis Mitchell, the U.S. 100-meter champion and 1992 Olympic bronze medalist, was banned for two years by the IAAF after a drug test showed high levels of testosterone. Earlier yesterday, Britain's Linford Christie, 1992 Olympic 100-meter gold medalist, was suspended by the IAAF after a drug test showed the possible presence of Nandrolone. Christie insisted he was innocent and intends to defend himself against the charges. Sotomayor assured his place in sports history by soaring 8 feet at the Central American Championships at San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 29, 1989. He improved that record to 8'0.5'' at Salamanca, Spain, on July 27, 1993. He set the world indoor record of 7'11.5" on March 4, 1989. He has cleared 7'8.5" a record 88 times and 7'10.5" a record 21 times.
(07/29/99 9:00am)
Penn women's squash coach Demer Holleran and junior fencer Cliff Bayer are competing at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, this summer. The Pan American Games started July 23, but Holleran and Bayer will not begin their competition until next week. Holleran will represent the United States in the squash singles and team events starting on Sunday at the Winnipeg Winter Club. She earned silver medals in both events four years ago. Now in her eighth season at the helm for the Quakers, Holleran has led Penn to four consecutive third-place finishes in the Women's Intercollegiate Squash Racquets Association. The Princeton graduate earned All-American honors four consecutive years with the Tigers, leading them to a national championship in her senior season. Bayer will begin competition in the individual and team men's foil events on Tuesday at Maples Complex. A 1996 Olympian, Bayer was named Male Athlete of the Month for May by the United States Olympic Committee after earning the first-ever U.S. medal in a senior men's foil World Cup. The Pan American Games, which conclude on August 8, feature more than 5,000 athletes from 42 countries in the Western Hemisphere. The 1999 version will be the third-largest multi-sport event ever held in North America, behind only the 1984 and 1996 Summer Olympics, which were held in Los Angeles and Atlanta, respectively.
