May 3, 1993 — LION'SEYE — Page 5 Opinion The Freshman Zone Closing the Door And Starting the Journey Anew By Mike Jamison “This is the end, my only friend, the end.” : The Doors, 1967 I feel the darkness engulfing me, the icy grip of twilight intruding upon my world. This is the end. The school year, as you now read this, is all but finished. When the last exam is taken and the cheat sheet is safely eaten and swallowed, the 1992-93 academic year will be history. How was your year? What did you learn (or what didn’t you learn) from this school year past? As we open the door to the FRESHMAN ZONE for the last time, let us race through the annals of time, whisking ourselves back to those warm August days, when this whole shebang got rolling. “Everybody had a hard year, everybody had a good time.” The Beatles, 1970 Yes, August, I remember it like it was only eight months ago. I remember waking up the first day of my college career, silently cursing my family members as they slept fitfully, air conditioners humming. After a brief struggle with my student parking permit, I found myself on the road and full of doubt. What would it be like, I asked myself. Visions of John Belushi and “Revenge of the Nerds” danced in my head. Freshman Orientation helped to alleviate some of my fears. I found friends from my high school to congregate with and, to my complete surprise and delight, discovered new acquaintances and comrades. Still, my first full day of classes loomed ahead, and all my fears and uncertainties were raised anew. “I smile and grin at the change all around me....." - The Who, 1971 All right, all right, I'll shorten it. Readers, I have just been informed that I will not be able, as planned, to present my thoughts on every day of the past school year. Seeing as we are on a tight budget and the cost of newsprint has gone up, I will offer you a brief synopsis of my thoughts on my first college year. Well, it was different. Longer classes, more homework; still hung over, HA!, skip French class; feeling wild, wear those new leather bellbottoms. Freshman year both blew and opened my mind. I found that my preconceived notions were both true and false. College was, for me, both a reflection of the media image, such as “Animal House” and “Class of 96”, and my own personal image. I was truly an adult, I realized, and I controlled my own destiny. I was in college now, and I had the power to make or break my future. Now, some would have surely cracked from all the pressure, but me, I simply cut a few classes and hung out at the mall, and everything seemed fine. “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” The Beatles, 1969 So this is the end. I am no longer a freshman. I can no longer blame my stupidity and vacant stares on freshman jitters. I have completed the first leg of my long journey. Many new roads and roadblocks lie up ahead, and hopefully, I will have the courage and inclination to follow the roads and hurdle the roadblocks. So we close the door on th FRESHMAN ZONE for the final time. We must realize that this is not the end, but the beginning. The end of our initiation and the beginning of the rest of our lives. Let us close the door now. Watch your fingers; dry your eyes. Have a great summer. See you next time, not in the FRESHMAN ZONE, but as a sophomore, ready to continue my journey. Yoto Feats Dr. Angela Gillem, a popular lecturer in psychology. She will be leav- ing Delco to assume a position at Beaver College in Glenside. Photo by: DIANA MICERI Jimmy, a student here at Delco, sits and dreams of his upcoming summer vacation. Sports Coverage Photo by: DIANA MICERI Men Still Get the Lion’s Share By Wes Tomlinson With the exception of the Olympic Games and a few other sports in the United States such as professional tennis, male sports receive the “lion’s share” of media coverage. Women's sports are often relegated to a small squib on the back of the sports section of most newspapers. A prime example of unequal sports coverage was exhibited in our own February 22,1993 issue of "What's Happening?" Our men’s basketball team (They won 25 straight games.) rated 20 lines of a front-page spread proceded by a large-print headline: “BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS!” The only mention of our women’s basketball team appeared in three lines on the fourth and last page following more news about our men’s basketball team. The men’s team outscored the women’s team 24 lines to 3 in the news department. Did the men’s team deserve eight times more coverage? Since the women practice just as hard and play with just as much enthusiasm and spirit as our men, shouldn’t they receive equal press coverage? Both teams were headed to the regional finals in Reading to play the same night on the same court. The only difference was that our women were also playing their game for the Pennsylvania state championship, which they won in a thrilling come- from-behind, three-point shot at the buzzer by a 33-52 _ score. (Congratulations, this is a Penn State Delco first.) Several Penn State students said that they noticed that women’s sports were usually "short-changed" in the local newspapers. : Comments taken during a recent informal survey of Penn State students were mixed: Amy McCarthy, incoming SGA President, said,”Men and women's sports should be given equal coverage”. . Karin Hamalak, guard on Penn State’s championship basketball team, commented, “Women work just as hard as the men trying to accomplish the same thing, but they get little recognition.” Tracy McLoughlin, SGA President, responded, “I think it's unfair to give more coverage to the men-both deserve the same amount of coverage”. Leslie Dawson, center and high scorer on the women’s basketball team, added, “Women work just as hard and deserve equal coverage so that people can know about them as the men". However, Brian Schia, center, Penn State’s men’s basketball team, disagreed “Guys deserve more press attention because their sports are more entertaining and followed throughout high school, college, and pro sports”. Mark Lindsay, guard, men’s basketball team, agreed with Brian, “Women are not as competitive as men and therefore should not get equal media coverage”. David Vita, guitarist music major, had another point to make, “Reporters should not be allowed in locker rooms until the athletes are finished doing what they are doing. There should be an office where male and female reporters can have an equal chance to get a story.” On the official side, Dr. Karen Hill, Assistant Professor of Exercise and Sports said, “They (women) should have proportional coverage”. Tiz Griffith, Athletic Director, commented, “I am pleased that at the Delco Campus, we have equal opportunity for men and women in sports”. In a look beyond opinion here at Delco, the Nielsen TV rating service reported in a telephone interview that, “The Women’s Basketball Finals were observed by 5.5% of the nation’s population in a Sunday afternoon non- prime time game, while the Men's Basketball Finals rated 23% in a prime time game on Monday night”. Another viewpoint came from Mel Greenberg, women's sports writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and national correspondent for the Associated Press told me that just before the women’s basketball game between Rutgers and Virginia at Rutgers, he wrote an article predicting that the winner of that game would be “the East Coast Champs”. He said, “Prior to the game, attendance for home games at Rutgers for women’s: basketball had been about 100 fans, but after the article appeared, attendance jumped to over 4,000 fans. Media publicity for sports pays big attendance dividends.” What do you think? Should women’s sports be given equal press coverage? If not, why not? ie SHY PW RRC NL PORE bE ua
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers