Wabash's new Communications and Marketing Specialist, Kim Johnson, ran into classmate Marcus White recently, which she details on the FYI blog. Here's him pictured with fellow alum Keith Hall '90. They competed in the Disney World Marathon weekend. Here's his result for the Half Marathon on the 12th, and the Marathon the next day. Way to go, Marcus!
So this week is the rescheduled swim meet against the Dannies. Over the past few years, I have sent e-mails to swimming and diving alums to pass along recollections of the rivalry. This year, they’re posting them on the Lanelines blog. (Be sure to add your own; it doesn’t have to be about swimming.)
Talk about the never-ending rivalry with DePauw started me thinking.
Some of my favorite sports stories—Wabash and otherwise—I like to tell involve bad behavior at sporting events. (See sidebar for some of my favorites.)
Now I have to tell you that I’m in this particular mindset after returning from the NCAA Convention in Nashville, where I was doing some work for my new company. Some 3,000 attendees met to discuss initiatives in all levels of the organization.
Division II is spearheading an initiative to create more positive “game environment.” Beyond just sportsmanship, which connotes behavior of athletes, coaches, and officials on the field of play, game environment tries to encompass the full atmosphere, particularly the behavior of fans.
And, yes, the first stone I cast would definitely boomerang to hit me in the back of the head. I have definitely had my moments of bad behavior at sporting events. As have we all.
I’ve remembered bad drunks and bad fans heckling at games since I was a little kid. Not any particular one. But just how uncomfortable I felt when they were yelling at an official, a player, or a team in general. I felt uncomfortable even if we were rooting for the same team.
Now, contrary to the current conventional wisdom of shielding our delicate and impressionable children from bad influences, I am very confident that these incidents didn’t scar me for life.
Still, that doesn’t make it right.
Maybe it’s also a product of getting older, but it seems to me that bad crowd behavior has gotten worse. Perhaps it’s disseminating from the ranks of our pro sports where fans are expected to don the jerseys of their team and often identify strongly with the athletes on the field.
With regard to Wabash, sometimes it’s that yin-yang of the Caveman vs. the Gentleman battling it out in an open arena of personal responsibility. Sometimes the Sphinx Club at football games or the “Chadwick Crazies” can be unbelievably supportive, singing “Old Wabash” or chanting “Wabash Always Fights” even when our team is down. Other times our students, parents, or alumni can become the center of attention, embarrassing themselves and our school.
So part of me really applauds the growing movement to provide a positive game environment for our athletes, coaches, and officials. In addition to the NCAA, Wabash’s North Coast Athletic Conference is promoting it. After all, hostile environments often work against the home team, fueling their opponents and reflecting poorly on its hosts. I know it did for me when I competed.
In the end, the battle will take place on the field of play.
And let our victory on Friday be the story that we tell.
In order to keep my accompanying blog entry tight and on message (good luck, right?), I farmed out my favorite sports stories and observations here. I think the statute of limitations is up on most of them. Other than my brother, I’m not naming names. But they are now successful Wabash alumni, and they know who they are…
The inevitable joke that went around after the Pacers-Pistons brawl a couple of years ago went, “Hey do you know why Ron Artest left the game early? He wanted to beat the crowd.”I was up on campus yesterday to help with a recruiting visit and did some "drive-by shooting" of campus. Most of the exterior on the new Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion is completed with major work on the entrance. You'll recall that this is being built where Kingery once stood.
It's been bitter cold in Indiana over the past few weeks, but crews are busy working on the Teke's new house where the old Sigma Chi house once stood. Yeah, the Tekes are integrating with the rest of campus on the corner of Wabash and Crawford.
I just read with great sadness that Susan Cantrell has died.
Susan was the director of public relations when we were in school. In my various roles working with student publications, I interacted quite frequently, and she was always helpful in providing us with information and pictures for the Bachelor, the yearbook, and such.
Susan was a wonderful person with a delightful spirit, and I will always count her as a wonderful mentor. She had been in ill health for some time. In the past few years, I'd see her on campus at an alumni event, and she was just as bubbly and excited to hear about how we were doing. Her adulation and indomnible spirit belied by the oxygen tank she had in tow.
Steve Charles wrote a very apt tribute upon her retirement last year, which is worth reading and reflecting. Kenneth Barker and Jim Amidon also wrote very wonderful tributes.
It wasn't until I read her obituary that I realized how much media experience Susan brought to Wabash. She worked for WCBS Radio in New York City and WBBM Radio in Chicago. She worked for a senator in Washington, D.C.
But it's those little things she did at Wabash that are equally impressive. She launched Wabash's first parents' newsletter, "A Letter Home." She wrote speeches for our presidents. She wrote the text of our honorary degrees, citations, and awards. In the time of a writer's strike, I think the world is beginning to realize the impact of good writing in all its forms. Susan did it all, and Wabash is better for her service.
...the High Court, that is. As reported in an earlier post, Indiana’s Solicitor General and classmate Tom Fisher finally presented his arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. (Wabash story) The question: Does a law that requires voters to present either a state or federal photo identification unduly burden citizens’ right to vote? You'll remember that Tom helped out when Wabash students argued this very question in this fall's Moot Court.
If you want to learn more about the controversial and thought-provoking case, check out the New York Times story. If you want to look over the transcript of the case, click here. When the audio is available, it will be posted here. And just for fun, we found an artist rendering of his appearance!
Because the Indianapolis Star keeps stories online for only a week, I'm reprinting it here. We'll see if we can get Tom's impressions of his performance and post the justices decision later this year.
WASHINGTON -- Some Supreme Court justices questioned Wednesday whether Indiana could fashion a voter identification law that would help prevent fraud but be less burdensome than the law the state passed in 2005.
But the justices appeared reluctant to throw out the law, considered the toughest in the nation, that requires voters to show a photo ID issued by the federal or state government.
"You want us to invalidate a statute on the ground that it's a minor inconvenience to a small percentage of voters?" asked Justice Anthony Kennedy, a frequent swing voter.
Challengers, who include the Indiana Democratic Party, say the law places substantial practical and financial burdens on voters, particularly on the poor, the elderly, minorities and others who might be less likely to have a driver's license or passport and more likely to vote Democratic.
Kennedy asked whether there are ways "the central purpose of this law can be preserved but it could be less stringent." Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked whether it would work to take photos of voters at the time of registration.
Indiana Solicitor General Thomas M. Fisher responded that the system chosen by the Indiana General Assembly has been proved effective and that a government-issued ID is accepted worldwide as identification.
"It's worth bearing in mind that this form of identification is necessary to do so many everyday activities," Fisher said. "And it's not as if the state of Indiana went out and created an entirely new system."
Those without a driver's license or passport can get a free photo ID from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles if they have a birth certificate or a certificate of naturalization plus another document that shows their name and address.
Paul Smith, the attorney for the plaintiffs who argued before the court, cited the Lafayette Urban Ministry, which tried to help 150 lower-income people get photo IDs. About half could not complete the "bureaucratic maze" because they did not have the photo identification needed to obtain a birth certificate.
Smith said the court's job is to weigh the burdens on voters and decide whether they're justified in preventing people from impersonating others at the polls.
Unless the benefits outweigh the burdens, Smith argued, the court must throw out the state's law.
The justices wrestled with whether there's sufficient evidence to either show Indiana has a problem with voter-impersonation fraud or evidence that the burdens on voters are too great.
Ginsburg pointed to the November municipal elections in Marion County, where the Election Board said 34 people needed provisional ballots because they did not have the proper ID. Only two completed the provisional balloting procedure by bringing proper identification to the county clerk's office later so their votes would be counted.
"It does give you some confirmation that it isn't mere speculation that there are going to be many people whose vote will not count," Ginsburg said.
Fisher, however, said it's not known why the Marion County voters didn't complete the voting process.
"For all we know," he said, "those may have been fraudulent ballots."
Although there's no record of people impersonating others at the polls in Indiana, the state argued it could have been happening because Indiana has one of the most inflated voter registration lists in the country. Indiana has admitted to federal officials that it hadn't been adequately purging ineligible voters and is under a consent decree to do better. But Fisher said local authorities are under no requirement to cancel the names of duplicates and deceased voters identified by the state.
"Are you making the argument that you can place a heavier burden on voters to identify themselves because your state officials refuse to follow the law?" asked Justice David Souter.
But Chief Justice John Roberts was sympathetic to the state's argument that in-person voter fraud is hard to detect and therefore it's hard to know how often it occurs.
Smith countered: "Many kinds of fraud do get caught, and they are no more easily detected than this kind of fraud. But this kind of fraud is not being caught. No one has been punished for this kind of fraud in living memory in this country."
Justice Antonin Scalia questioned whether the law even could be challenged by the Democratic Party, rather than by a voter.
"Why can't the people injured by this law appear themselves?" he asked.
Smith said the challenge was brought before an election was held, so the plaintiffs do not include a voter who was unable to cast a ballot.
The case, which is the first big election law dispute heard by the Supreme Court since it decided the 2000 presidential election, is expected to be decided before the 2008 general election.
A survey released Wednesday by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management found that more than two-thirds of registered voters in Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland would trust the election system more if voters had to show an ID. About 1.2 percent of those surveyed lacked a government-issued photo ID, which the center's co-director said shows the photo ID requirement is not a serious concern.
Co-director Robert Pastor said ID requirements have given the false impression that they disenfranchise voters because they have not been implemented uniformly and gradually.
"States could transform what was perceived as a problem into an opportunity by sending mobile units to actively register voters and provide them free photo IDs," he said.
INDIANA'S ID LAW: WHAT'S AT STAKE
A little double-blogging from the swim team's Lanelines blog. Enjoy.
On Wednesday, we were driving one of the vans down I-95 to Deerfield Beach, Florida, where the team had spent its past three holiday training trips. It was an excursion encouraged by Coach John Weitz to see Peter Casares, whose Bates team was training where we used to. (Coach Weitz gets to see his old team, Johns Hopkins, when we “scrimmage” with them on Friday.)
With 15 upperclassmen in tow, we took one of the vans to visit the former Wabash swim coach and his new team. Senior co-captain John Kasey was maneuvering around the stereotypical gauntlet of pokey retirees in late model Cadillacs, erratic blondes on their cell phones, and hip hop kids speed racing their tricked out Cameros down the HOV lane.
Those of us in the front started a discussion as sophomore Paul Wilson played a well-selected and eclectic array of songs on the radio from his iPod. At one point, Kasey turned to me and said, “You know, Hugh, you’re the Wabash swimming griot."
Unfamiliar with the term, I asked for clarification. Kasey explained, “It’s the member of an African tribe who is the keeper of the oral tradition and history. After learning about it in C&T, [Robert] Fozkos said, ‘That’s Hugh!’
“It’s a position of great respect within the tribe.”
Humbled, the comment managed to shut me up well past the point of our exit onto Hillsboro Blvd.
This season has been one fraught with change and transition that it seemed almost surreal to drive back into our old haunts. We pulled into the Deerfield Aquatic Center and filed into the gate. Peter stood on deck with his Bates zippered hoodie, his hair a little longer. Just like any reception, one by one, the guys came up to Peter and each gave him a big hug. He then told us to hang tight while he finished running his team through dry land exercises as Davidson finished up their practice.
The weather was ideal…for a mid-October Wabash football conference game, that is! That morning, we had already put the guys through some very vigorous dry land training. We had twenty minutes to kill, so instead of watching them loiter, I had them lie on the deck and ran them through a sped up version of mental training. The relaxation tape was a staple of my Florida training experiences with Coach Gail Pebworth, and I replicated it from memory the best I could. My voice became placid and deliberate as I coaxed them to monitor their breathing and slowly relax themselves. I then guided them through a mental scene of a confident swimmer plowing through the water and anticipating the pain to produce an ideal race.
With a great deal less zeal than a Polar Bear Club member, our guys slipped into the bracing water with their Bates counterparts as Peter ran them through a familiar warmup. As you would expect, Peter had been keeping up on the guys and was very impressed with Craig Vetor, who had turned in some impressive times in the December TYR meet. He stopped Nick Rockefeller and corrected his stroke as the rest of the guys worked in with the Bates squad. He grinned as senior co-captain Aaron Spolarich updated him on team and campus tidbits between sendoffs.
We curtailed the main set due to the frigid water and air, with our guys glad to hit the hot showers but concerned about the reduced yardage. Such a team attitude to commitment just made me grin.
Back at the Carriage House Resort, some of the guys took to the newly painted shuffleboard court, challenging Peter to a game in the dying light. I could sense some awkwardness in the coach, like a time traveler running into his former self. You could tell as he slipped into the easy banter with the guys that Wabash had had a great affect on him. And he on these swimmers. He asked sophomore Jordan Extine about his family with great interest. Jordan reported that his dad, a member of the Indiana National Guard, had just left for Iraq.
Soon, it was evident in the unseasonal evening chill that we needed to head back. Another impromptu line formed as Peter hugged and encouraged each of his former swimmers. When he reached me at the end of the line, I said, “John, again, wanted me to tell you ‘Thank you so much for this team.’”
Peter looked at me silently, with a smile creeping across his face.
On the way back I thought about how pleased I was with how our guys have adapted to all that has been thrown at them. And the mishaps and headaches on this trip thus far—the van trouble, logistics of a new place, unique encounters with locals—are very minor compared to year’s past. [Knock on wood for no ER visits.]
I know, I was there. Or at least I know the stories...
I'm once again lucky to accompany the Wabash Swimming team (and divers for the first time) to Florida for a portion of their training trip. We're getting ready to head off to practice, but you can catch up on their trip on the Lanelines blog.
I just wanted to wish everyone a very prosperous new year. I will resolve to keep providing interesting posts to this blog to keep you up to date.
