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The Behrend Beacon
Aeropostale to clothe University
of Pittsburgh's coaches, athletes
by Teresa F. Lindeman
Knight-Ridder Tribune
When Pitt football Coach Walt
Harris strides along the sidelines
at Heinz Field this fall, take a
minute to check out what he's
wearing. No, not the headset.
The clothes.
"He's going to look much hip
per than he did in previous
years," promised Chris Finazzo,
senior vice president and general
merchandising manager for Aeropostale
No offense, but this clothier to the teen market is
confident its fashions will re-make the man.
Aeropostale (pronounced: Air-O-Post-Al), a New
Jersey-based chain that operates more than 240
stores, has become the tailor of choice for Pitt's
coaches on the sidelines and athletes in training. That
means several hundred University of Pittsburgh's
athletes -- from running backs to gymnasts -- will
get practice gear bearing the Aeropostale label.
The mall-based chain, which targets the 13- to 22-
year-old crowd, knows the value of partnering with
sports teams. It has been building collegiate relation
ships for the past couple of years, sponsoring events
and scholar programs with conferences such as the
Big East, Big Ten and Conference USA.
Students on campuses already wear the retailer's
clothes -- a line heavy on sweat shirts, sweaters and
casual pants. But Aeropostale hadn't done an official
collection for a school before getting the call from
Pitt.
The Oakland school's contract with the Champion
brand expired this year, so Pitt decided to talk to other
vendors, said Rex Hough, assistant athletic director
for corporate marketing. Aeropostale had done some
work with the university last year.
There wasn't much time to design the Pittsburgh
styles. As Aeropostale Chairman Julian R. Geiger re
members it, Hough called in March and the new lines
were to start arriving last week.
As part of the development process, the retailer
held a focus group with a panel of student athletes.
"We basically left the room," said Pitt's Hough.
One thing they wanted was clothes styled for
women. In the past, female athletes got by with men's
sizes, usually cut too big. The new batch of clothing
includes both men's and women's styles.
Other changes are more subtle. Instead of screen
printing logos, Aeropostale might use full-line em
broidery. Fabrics may be softer, colors adapted a bit
to fit fashion trends.
Coaches got to preview the results, Hough said,
but students had the most input.
Geiger said Aeropostale had already learned a lot
Family of Penn State student who died of liposuction in May speaks out
by Susan Fitz Gerald
and Marian Uhlman
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Colleen Fledderman was getting anx
ious as she sat in the doctor's waiting
Her daughter Amy, 18, had gone in for
liposuction surgery shortly after 9:30 a.m.
It was past noon, and she still wasn't out.
Fledderman thought back to the ap
pointment a week earlier when her
daughter signed up for the surgery that
would suction fat from her chin and stom
ach.
The plastic surgeon had been reassur
ing about the popular procedure,
Fledderman recalled.
"This is liposuction," Fledderman, of
Newtown Square, Delaware County (a
Philadelphia suburb), said the doctor told
her when she inquired whether anything
bad could happen. "She is zero risk. She's
a textbook case. She's young, healthy.
She's the kind of patient everyone would
want to operate on."
But by the time Fledderman's wait fi
nally ended on May 23, her active, ath
letic daughter was being rushed off by
ambulance, struggling to breathe.
Forty-eight hours later, Amy
Fledderman was dead from a complica
tion of liposuction surgery.
Liposuction is now the most common
cosmetic surgical procedure in the coun
try. It is estimated that anywhere from
377,000 to 673,000 procedures were
done last year -- far outpacing face-lifts
and nose jobs. A precise number is hard
to know because many types of doctors
perform liposuction.
Because liposuction is rarely covered
by insurance, patients must pay -- on
average about $4,000, according to the
American Academy of Cosmetic Sur
gery.
The procedure entails a tube inserted
under the skin; fat is tl)ien broken up and
"As part of the development process, the retailer
held a focus group with a panel of student ath
letes. "We basically left the room,"
-Rex Hough, assistant athletic director for corporate
marketing at PITT University.
through a program in which it gives university-ap
proved gifts such as polar fleece pullovers to 23,000
student athletes around the country.
"When you give an athlete a gift, you want to make
sure the athlete wears that gift," said Geiger. It doesn't
help the company nearly as much if the clothes show
up on a younger sibling or even a parent.
Sports-related apparel is a big market. Total sales
this year are projected to reach $11.57 billion, up 4.5
percent from last year, according to the National
Sporting Goods Association.
And for a company hoping to dress young people,
an association with college athletes can be very valu
able. Just ask Nike and Adidas.
Aeropostale is looking for exposure from the Uni
versity of Pittsburgh connection, even if it's not go
ing to be part of official team uniforms. Its logo will
be on all the clothing, although much smaller and less
obvious than the dominant Panthers presence.
It also has signed on as a major sponsor whose ads
will be up on the sign boards at Heinz Field during
Pitt games. Financial details of the arrangement
weren't released.
Besides building its local presence, the clothier
could get respectable sales from Panther fans. The
new line will be available at the University of Pitts
burgh bookstore on campus, game-day stores at Heinz
Field and certain Aeropostale stores. Officials had
planned to put more in the company's area stores, but
the university outlets ordered more than they ex-
pected.
If the trial program works out, Aeropostale may
eventually take its services to other universities.
What will Coach Harris be wearing at that first
Heinz Field game Sept. 1? He'll have a variety of
styles to choose from, depending on his mood and
the weather.
Perhaps a chest-striped pique polo shirt with a Pan
thers logo on the chest and khakis designed specially
for him. Or he might grab the new jacket with the
Panthers logo on the back and doff a soft baseball
style cap done in navy and gold.
"He will," said Hough, "look good on the sidelines."
vacuumed out. Though safe for most pa
tients -- who end up delighted with their
thinner thighs and flatter bellies -- seri
ous complications, even death in rare
instances, can occur.
As with any operation, there are risks
associated with anesthesia, infection,
bleeding and blood clots. But there is also
the rare and potentially fatal complica
tion of fat clots. During the suctioning
process, fat globules can escape, get into
the bloodstream and travel to the lungs,
leading to respiratory distress.
"Liposuction is not trivial surgery,"
said Dr. Rudolph H. de Jong, a former
professor at Thomas Jefferson Univer
sity in Philadelphia who, for a study,
counted 95 deaths nationwide from
liposuction between 1994 and 1998.
"It should not be taken too lightly."
The story of Amy Fledderman's
death is based on interviews with her
family, friends and patient records citing
Richard P. Glunk, a King of Prussia doc
tor, as her surgeon. The family initially
was reluctant to talk about their daugh
ter, and only recently agreed to do so.
Glunk, referring to doctor-patient con
fidentiality rules, said that discussing any
patient would be unethical. "I can't even
discuss whether she is or is not a patient,"
he said in an interview.
Glunk, 44, said he has been in prac
tice 14 years, carefully selects his pa
tients, and runs an office equipped to
handle emergency situations.
He said he is certified by the Ameri
can Board of Plastic Surgery, a member
of the American Society for Aesthetic
Plastic Surgery, and has admitting and
operating privileges at Lankenau, Bryn
Mawr and Paoli Memorial Hospitals on
the Main Line outside Philadelphia.
Amy Fledderman was home from
Pennsylvania State University for Christ
mas break when she told her parents she
wanted to have the liposuction procedure.
At 5-foot-5 and 128 pounds, she
wasn't overweight. She had lost 25 to 30
NATIONAL CAMPUS
NEWS
Friday, August 24,2001
pounds over several years, chipping
away at her weight through sound eat
ing and exercise.
At Penn State, she ran at least three
miles most days, impressing her friends
with her speed. In a poem for her fresh
man English class, she wrote whimsi
cally about her workouts with her room
mate and their determination to stave off
the legendary weight gain of new col
lege students: "They run together every
:?;14,710 is zero risk. She's a textbook case. She's
"Pb&rig, healthy. She's the kind of patient every
one would want to operate on."
day; So back off, freshman 15."
Still, she couldn't shed a small stom
ach bulge and one under her chin.
Colleen Fledderman, a reading spe
cialist, checked out some plastic-surgery
sites on the Internet and watched a TV
show about liposuction. She found noth
ing alarming, and her daughter's request
didn't seem extreme to her and her hus
band.
After consulting with family doctors,
Amy had had surgery when she was 16
to correct a developmental abnormality
involving her breasts. Glunk had been
the surgeon and the operation had gone
well.
Amy Fledderman, the middle child of
three, was a sensible girl who worked
hard at everything she did. She was an
honors student at Marple Newtown High
School. She co-captained the tennis team,
and her French-horn skills earned her a
spot on the Pennsylvania Music Educa
tors Association All-State Orchestra.
At Penn State, she was pursuing a
major in bioengineering, with an eye to
ward genetics. She had taken on a heavy
Student engineers earn ride, chance
to experiment, on NASA plane
by Holly Stepp
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Faure Joel Malo-Molina had
dreamed of conducting research in
Late last month, he and three other
students from the University of Mi
ami got to do the next best thing.
For two days at Houston's
Johnson Space Center, Malo-Molina
and his classmates experienced
weightlessness aboard NASA's KC
-135A aircraft, a military version of
a Boeing 707 that simulates low
gravity.
While the plane is known by some
less-hearty passengers as the "Vomit
Comet," it was the "Weightless Won
der" for the UM students, dubbed the
Space Canes.
"I felt like I could do that forever,"
said Malo-Molina, 24, a senior aero-
space engineenng major.
It was the first time a team from
UM has participated in the Reduced
Gravity Student Flight Opportunities
program. They were one of 35 uni
versity teams selected. More than
300 teams applied.
Sponsored by NASA and the
Texas Space Grant Consortium, the
7-year-old program holds annual
competitions during which college
undergraduates propose, design,
make and test experiments for a low
gravity environment. The winning
teams spend two weeks in Houston,
undergoing training and preparing
their experiments. Two days are
spent flying on the KC-135A and
running their experiments.
The UM project focused on ana
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load of science and math courses, earn
ing about a 3.3 average. She also made
the equestrian team.
"When we do tryouts, one of the things
we look for is smiling faces. And she cer
tainly was one of them," equestrian coach
Malinda Grice said.
Amy Fledderman followed the fam
ily tradition in choosing Penn State and
enjoyed spending time with her brother,
Joseph, a senior. Renee, now 13, the
-one doctor's remarks to Colleen
Fledderman, mother of Amy Fledderman
Fledderman's younger daughter, idolized
her sister.
The Fleddermans were the ever
present parents, attending concerts and
chaperoning school trips. Daniel
Fledderman, who has an engineering
consulting business, sometimes drove
four hours to Penn State just to lunch with
his daughter.
Amy's closest friends at home and col
lege said later that they had no idea she
wanted the operation. They said she was
cheerful, fun-loving, adventurous, and
down to earth, not fixated on appearance.
Kristen Shehab, a college friend who
earned her karate yellow belt with Amy,
said: "It completely baffled my mind ...
because she was always the kind of per
son who was very secure with herself."
The number of serious complications
and deaths caused by liposuction is not
known, in large part because it is per
formed outside the review of insurance
companies and many states do not re
quire doctors to report cases that go awry.
There also have been few studies.
lyzing how liquids slosh about in the
aircraft fuel tanks in a zero-gravity en
vironment
While most university teams are
formed by professors and are con
nected to and funded by existing re
search programs on campus, UM's
team was completely student-orga
nized and led.
The other members of UM's team
included Pastora Valdez, 30, psychol
ogy graduate student; Jorge
Icabalceta, 25, a senior mechanical
engineering major; and Mariela
Aguilar, 20, a biomedical engineering
junior. Only four students were al
lowed to fly; five other engineering
students also worked on the project,
but did not travel to Houston because
of the cost.
Malo-Molina said the experiment
has practical applications on how fuel
is stored during flight.
"When fuel moves around it be
comes more difficult to pump out of
the tank," he said. "But if we know
how it moves in zero-gravity, we can
figure out how to best contain it."
That could mean lighter tanks and
lower costs
"Right now, most aircraft put fuel
in separate chambers to control the
movement, but in a space shuttle, you
are talking about hundreds of extra
pounds," explained Icabalceta.
The team constructed a Plexiglas
box to hold a simulated fuel tank at
different angles, the outside rigged
with cameras and a VCR to record the
movement. A portable pump was used
to study how the fluid moved about
the tank.
The students spent roughly $4,000
The 95 liposuction-related deaths be
tween 1994 and 1998 came to light in a
survey of 1,200 members of the Ameri
can Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
De Jong, who did the survey, used the
95 deaths to calculate that the mortality
rate was about 20 for every 100,000 pro
cedures. By comparison, the death rate
for hernia repair was 3 per 100,000.
A leading cause of liposuction death,
de Jong found, was pulmonary embolism
-- a clot made of blood, or in rarer in
stances fat, that can damage the lungs.
Other fatal complications of
liposuction included perforations of the
abdominal wall, anesthesia problems and
cardiorespiratory failure, de Jong and a
co-author wrote last year in the journal
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
More common problems are skin irri
tation, pain and swelling.
On May 15, home for summer break,
Amy Fledderman went with her mother
to see Glunk at his office near the King
of Prussia mall.
Amy Fledderman explained to Glunk
that some pockets of fat wouldn't go
away, Colleen Fledderman recalled. She
asked whether there was anything she
could do to lose them.
"Absolutely not. It's genetic fat, and
the only way to lose it is liposuction,"
she said Glunk told Amy.
Fledderman said Glunk explained that
he wouldn't have to take much fat out.
The procedure would involve five tiny
incisions in the abdominal area and one
under the chin. He would use an ultra
sound device to help break up the fat and
a tiny tube to suction it out. She would
be asleep.
On the liposuction consent form Amy
signed, Glunk listed risks: "infection,
bleeding, scarring, pain, numbness, loss
of skin, injury to surrounding structure,
facial-nerve numbness, facial-nerve
weakness, residual deformity, facial
nerve paralysis." There was also an an
esthesia consent form.
behrcolls@aol.com
on the project -- "Thanks to Visa
and Master Card," Malo-Molina
joked. UM paid for the students' re
quired medical examinations and
will reimburse the cost of the stu
dents' airline tickets to Houston. The
group also expects to receive some
support from B/E Aerospace, a
Wellington, Fla., company that
makes cabin interiors for airplanes.
The study was the brainchild of
Malo-Molina, who had participated
in similar projects as a student at
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univer
sity in Daytona Beach. But because
he wasn't a U.S. citizen yet, he
wasn't able to participate in NASA's
student flights with those university
teams. So this mission was a dream
come true for the aspiring astronaut.
The experiment worked despite a
few equipment problems. All stu
dent projects had to pass a test readi
ness review before take-off.
"There were a few late-night runs
to the Home Depot," said Aguilar,
who decided to change her major
from biology to biomedical engi
neering as result of her experience.
Because the experiment was
largely self-contained, the team had
time to turn somersaults and float
about the 60-foot cargo bay during
the short sessions of weightlessness.
The plane flies arcs at an altitude
of 34,000 feet to create 25 seconds
of zero-gravity alternating with pe
riods of two G-forces.
None of the Space Canes got sick.
"It was so amazing, to just feel
your body become light and float,"
said Valdez. "It felt really natural."
beh=lls@aot.com
The worst thing that could happen,
Colleen Fledderman recalled Glunk say
ing, was that Amy could end up with a
drooling problem because of the
liposuction below her chin, but that that
could be fixed with a stitch.
Fledderman said she asked about the
dangers of a blood clot, and whether the
procedure was safe to do in his office.
She said Glunk indicated everything
would go smoothly.
Glunk told the Fleddermans that he
normally charged $6,500 for the surgery,
but because Amy was a previous patient,
,he would charge $5,000, Fledderman
said.
New Jersey adopted rules several years
ago for office surgery, requiring doctors
to report deaths and serious complica
tions, and to post a written emergency
back-up plan.
In Pennsylvania, the state Health De
partment issued rules in 1999 to bring
some oversight to the growing business
of office-based surgery. The rules require
doctors' offices that have a section set
aside for surgery to be registered or li
censed as an "ambulatory surgical facil
ity," meeting the same standards required
of larger non-hospital surgical centers.
The state Health Department said Fri
day that based on a complaint, it is in
vestigating whether Glunk's office is an
ambulatory surgical facility operating
without the necessary license. Deputy
Health Secretary Richard Lee said the
Pennsylvania Department of State, which
oversees licensing of doctors, is also in
volved.
Glunk, in a recent interview, said he
is in compliance with state rules.
The Fleddermans have set up a schol
arship in Amy's memory. They're also
consulting lawyers about their legal op
tions.
"We never would have let her do it if
we knew she could have died," Colleen
Fledderman said. "It wasn't supposed to
be a big deal."