opinions "editoiiql opin ion . , Playing it straight For some coaches and student athletes at Penn State, the first weeks of this semester have been ones of anxiety and waiting. Are they worried about a big game or match coming up against a tough team? Are they thinking about a tournament that could put them in the running for a national championship? Things should be so simple. The source of their anxiety lies with the University's waffling over the fate of grants-in-aid for 10 teams. Using various criteria, including partici pation in these sports on the high school level in Pennsylvania, the University Inter collegiate Athletic Strategic Planning Com mittee recommended in November that athletic scholarships for three athletic pro grams men's volleyball and men's and women's lacrosse squads should be fro zen and these teams should not continue recruiting. The committee also recommended that men's and women's fencing should not receive scholarships in the future, even though these sports have not received schol arships since 1981. Softball, men's and women's golf and men's and women's tennis programs will also receive grants for the first time since 1981, under the committee's recommenda tions. However, these recommendations have yet to be approved. In fact, no further information on the status of the recommendations was pro vided until last week when University Vice President for Financial Operations Steve Garban said, "We kind of discussed the matter and we agreed that we should imple ment the new priorities or at least give the coaches notice that we are thinking about it:" The committee's recommendations were sent to Athletic Director James I. Tarman, who then sent them to Garban for approval. deify Collegian Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1986 01986 Collegian Inc. Anita C. Huslin Editor William G. Landis Jr Business Manager The Daily Collegian's editorial opin ion is determined by its Board of Opinion, with the editor holding final responsibility. Opinions ex pressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of The Daily Collegian, Collegian Inc. or The Pennsylvania State University. Collegian Inc., publishers of The Daily Collegian and related publica tions, is a separate corporate insti tution from Penn State. Board of Editors Managing Edi tor: Jeanette D. Krebs; Opinion Edi tor: Doug Popovich; Assistant Opinion Editor: Alan J. Craver; News Editors: Ron Yeany, Bob King, Patrick Collier; Copy/Wire Editors: Anita Yesho, Sue Graffius, Lori Goldbach, Tim Eyster, Denise Weav er; Town Editor: Phil Galewitz; As sistant Town Editor: Lori Heller; Campus Editor: Amy Fellin; Assis tant Campus Editor: Celeste Mc- Cauley; 'Sports Editor: Mark Ashenfelter; Assistant Sports Edi tors: Chris Raymond, Carol D. Rath, Plymouth Rock: Let's talk about a rock Plymouth Rock. The one you learned about in the fourth grade when you spent the three weeks before Thankgiving learning about Pil grims. In fouth grade, they told you that Plymouth Rock was the boulder that the Pilgrims first stepped out on when they finally made it to the New World. 1 AtcA As far as rocks go, it's a pretty famous rock what with being a historical land mark and all. But let's face facts here, a granite boulder is a granite boulder even if this one does have the year 1620 chiselled on the side. It's just not that impressive, espe cially if you're looking for something mean ingful in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Doug Frank; Arts Editor: Pat Grand- Jean; Assistant Arts Editor: Victoria Jaffe; Features Editor: Kris Sorchil la; Science Editor: Nan Crystal Arens; Business Editor: Rich Dou ma; Graphics Editor: Tony Ciccarel- Ii; Photo Editor: Gregg Zelkin; Assistant Photo Editors: Jeff Bus traan, Cristy Rickard. Board of Managers Assistant Business Manager: Amy R. Norris; Accounting Manager: Lori A. Spos sey; Office Manager: Gretchen A. Funk; Assistant Office Manager: Aileen M. Stickley; Sales Manager: Susan Shamlian; Assistant Sales Manager: Michael Kutch; Layout Coordinator: Nancy George; Market ing Coordinator: Cathy Jones. Letters Policy: The Daily Collegian encourages comments on news coverage, editorial policy and Uni versity affairs. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced, signed by no more than two people and not longer than 30 lines. Students' let ters should include semester stand ing, major and campus of the writer. Letters from alumni should include the major and year of graduation of the writer. All writers should provide their address and phone number for verification of the letter. The Collegian reserves the right to edit letters for length and to reject letters if they are libelous or do not conform to standards of good taste. Because of the number of letters received, the Collegian cannot guar- Realizing the importance of history without the facts being processed, memorized or recite. The recommendations will ultimately be acted upon by University President Bryce Jordan. Garban sent them back to Tarman who will resubmit them to the committee with comments from the coaches. The only indication on a final decision came from Garban, who merely said he hopes it will be in the next month. However, some of the committee members said they were unaware of a timetable for a decision. Meanwhile, the coaches of these sports are left wondering whether or not they should start recruiting. Some of the teams were told that they should start looking for prospective recruits while others were told to stop their recruiting efforts. Since the recommendations to alter the scholarship system became public last No vember, no official decisions on them have been made. Two months later, the lack of resolutions to these proposed changes have left the future of these sports up in the air. As a result, potential recruits for the three teams who are interested in coming to the University for the 1986-87 academic year are wondering if they will be offered scholarships. These individuals and the teams need to know what kind of money they will or will not have in the future so they can get on with preparing their teams for competition. Deciding which teams receive schol arships and which teams lose them is a difficult one and not everyone can be pleased. - However, once a decision has been reached, the administration must not allow itself to get caught in the shuffle of papers and red tape paper and tape that current ly keeps some University sports programs from moving. It is time for the administration to ease the minds of at least some coaches and athletes on campus. The people in Plymouth try very hard to keep up the rock's reputation. The whole town is very rock conscious piles of t shirts, bumper stickers, little rock key chains and pencil sharpeners are stocked in every store and restaurant. They're very sensitive about what you think of the rock, and the first question out of every waitress's mouth is "so, have you seen the rock yet?" They keep the rock in a especially con structed pit right on the bay. It's sheltered from the elements by an ornate, psuedo- Greek classical building, complete with granite pillars making it look a lot like a temple. There's a railing around the pit to keep the fawning tourists from touching it. The whole set-up is very nice with a lot of landscaping and strategically placed park benches and gift shops. At any given time during the right seasons of the year, the whole area is crawling with tourists trying to get close enough to the rock to get their picture taken. But there's just one problem. The rock looks fake. I mean it looks like you'd expect a granite antee publication of all the letters it receives. All letters received be come the property of Collegian Inc. Mail letters to: The Daily Collegian; 126 Carnegie Building; University Park, Pa. 16802. Names may be withheld on request. Letters may also be selected for publication in The Weekly Collegian. Complaints: News and editorial complaints should be presented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints should be presented to the business manager. If a com plaint is not satisfactorily resolved, grievances may be filed with the Accuracy and Fair Play Committee of Collegian Inc. About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are published by Collegian Inc., an independent, non-profit corporation with a board of directors composed of students, faculty and profession als. Students of The Pennsylvania State University write and edit both papers and solicit advertising material for them. The Daily Colle gian is published Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the semester, and Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday dur ing the summer. It is distributed on the University Park campus. The Weekly Collegian is mailed to Com monwealth campus students, par ents of students, alumni and other subscribers who want to keep abreast of University news. boulder to look, but it also looks like some thing your mother would surround with other rocks and shrubs and call a rock garden. From looking at it, you can picture your dog lifting a leg over it not exactly the stuff of which national landmarks are made. The people in Plymouth must realize this. The National Park people are always on guard, ready to answer the inevitable smart aleck who asks "how do you know that the Pilgrims stepped on it? "Was anyone really paying attention to the rocks when they got off the Mayflower?" They give "rock talks," a droll little lecture delivered in a monotone voice by some person who probably has several advanced degrees in anthropology and his tory. They have an annual Rock Day with a parade, and they decorate the rock with a garland of flowers. The whole fiasco is a little pathetic and you can sense the struggle for credibility and dignity. It strikes a lot of people who see the rock that the only interesting thing about it is the fact that it has been dropped twice, and both reader opinion Class act Often on college campuses many positive aspects of your University are over-looked or, worse yet, taken for granted. On behalf of the University of Oklahoma March ing Band, I would like to express to the entire Penn State community how well the Penn State Blue Band rep resented your University and state at the Orange Bowl. In my seven Orange Bowl trips at Oklahoma, we have met every extreme in fans and marching bands. Needless to say all memories are not all positive. We found the Penn State Marching Band staff and membership to be extremely professional. Our students totally enjoyed their relationships with members of the band and only wish we had the opportunity to mix more during our stay in Miami. Penn State University has numerous things to be proud of and the Blue Band is certainly one of them. The band's performance and representation of your University was exemplary you are a "CLASS ACT" and we salute you! Gene Thrailkill, director Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band For life Coverage of the abortion issue is difficult by its very nature it is quite difficult to remain impartial on such a controversial issue. However, after reading The Daily Collegian 'scoverage of the issue, it isn't difficult to deduce where some of the reporters stand. For example, in the Wednesday issue of the Collegian, Megan O'Matz wrote a article on the "debate still raging after 13 years." In her article, O'Matz devoted four paragraphs to the pro-life groups and 12 paragraphs to two members of the pro-choice group. In short, O'Matz gave the pro-choice people three times the amount of space to vent their views as the pro-life members. Obviously, evaluating an article's merit solely on emperi cal data is foolish but this three-to-one ratio can hardly be deemed "objective." The next day O'Matz covered the March on Washing ton, D.C. ; she was more impartial but still disappointing. As a member of a pro-life group on campus, I attended the it. A A times by the same people who make such a big deal over it. The irony is hard to resist. Here's a town so proud of their rock that they wanted to move it to a better location. Somebody goofed and the old rock got dropped practi cally right in the middle of Main Street. Then some years later, they were moving it to another place and they dropped it again. This time it broke in half and had to be cemented back together. Truthfully, the rock is looking pretty shabby. But the rock lives on, and thousands of people file by every year to look at it. They drag their kids (who are much more inter ested in the hot dog stand, the gift shop and the pigeons) over and make them look at the rock. This is it, they're saying, this is a part of history that I can grasp and understand. The kids are a lot more realistic. Stand by the rock long enough and you'll hear the adults rhapsodizing about the Founding Fathers, the Colonists and Freedom. Listen to the kids and you hear that the rock is broken, dirty, or just plain boring. The kids know it's just a rock a granite boulder with some numbers on the side just like the Liberty Bell is just a mis- The Daily Collegian Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1986 march and was amazed at the diversity of poeple that protested: Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Moslems, femi nists, the young, the elderly and people from across the country were there. Despite the extremely eclectic group, Ms. O'Matz manages to quote a Catholic nun, four men and a group of high school girls who "just wanted to get out of school." So much for diversity. Coverage of the local protest was equally dolorous. Nancy Funk writes "45 men and 16 women protested a pro-choice celebration banquet on campus." In the couple of years I've been reading the paper I never saw an exact count by SEX of any protest group. Perhaps I am being hyper-sensitive, but it seems like Ms. Funk is covertly displaying female-chauvidism. One gets the impression from her statistics that the group was primarily old-world men trying to oppress women. I don't understand Funk's data because women outnumber men . in our pro-life group. There was another article that dealt with pro-life clinics that was so asinine I won't even bother to comment on. However, I would like to congratulate Valerie Bailey on her column; in her column, Bailey raises an excellent point many people want freedom of choice yet they refuse to deal with the "choice" in moral fashion. I'd like to further point out that the medical community has made (and is making) quite a lot of blood-money from the over 20 million abortions that have resulted from the Supreme Court decision. I guess what bothers me the most about the media at large is how they stereotype the pro-life group. Penn State Students for Life are not reactionary abortion-clinic bombers. We are a non-religious group (I am agnostic) who believes that life is sacred before and after birth. W believe that the retarded and the physicaly impaired have just as much right to live as those that society deems "normal." Throughout this year we have supported the hungry (via the CROP Walk), runaway teens (throughout Covenant House), and retarded children as well as the unborn. If anyone is interested in what we are doing, we are meetng this Wednesday, Jan. 29, in 319 Boucke Building at 9:30 p.m. Mark Kirby, secretary-Penn State Students for Life shapen mold of metal with a crack in it Maybe it has something to do with age, but the older you get the more you think history is something that you can hold onto. It's the adults who trek off to Philadelphia or Plymouth or some such place looking for a rock or a bell that they can point at saying "there, that's history." But it's the kids who know that history is way beyond anything that can be touched. The kids don't need the past processed into bits and pieces that they can memorize and recite like so many facts on flashcards. Even if their parents aren't, the kids are willing to accept history without the bells and rocks and things that the historical societies and park commissions insist on pinning to it. Now, back to the rock. I have nothing against it or the people who make money from it. I went, I looked at it, I even bought postcards. But I wasn't all that impressed to every tourist her own attraction. Karen Melchar is a senior majoring in English and is a columnist for The Daily Collegian. Her column appears every other Wednesday. C) 1986 Collegian Inc opinions AN Minit mart Emo Always Open 24 hrs. for your convenience •Soda •Groceries •Chips •Hot-n-Cold Deli Specials • Gasoline •Diesel •K-1 Kerosene Dry Gas 3 / 1.00 2 liter Pepsi 1.09 •Keg. Hoagie .79 w / coupon Corner of College Q Atherton & W. College by O.W. Houts inkle *44** ii* * flit ** '' * le *Plc *lc* ii -I+ KAPPA PHI 1. 33- Christian Service Sorority -* 4+ invites all women to the 4i. 4+ Rose Rush Tea • 4* 7:oopm, Thursday Jan. 30 44' Kappa Phi Suite in the Wesley Foundation * 4* 256 E. College Ave. * LVI--441 EVeME i lti aiMV-Di ---,, Italian FiPi PIZZA & RESTAURANT VIIN C ' ;•• ;41 - 2 LARGE CHEESE PIZZAS -, II) I And a 6-Pack of Pepsi ,it i t: only $ 10 99 illliti so-a !: '..g' All You Can Eat - llam-6pm 0 Monday: Pizza $2.59 4e 410 Wednesday: Spaghetti $2.99 ,i,..., 'IOY 4filk Offer Expires Jan. 31st ) t 7 FREE DELIVERY AFTER 5:00 PM 10 222 W. Beaver (Under Beaver Plaza Apts.) 238-5513 , 'IC ON 14)1Ig 6 ;'&611423! ID 3 ''' - t.l7sedl ENTREPRENEURS! . I.C.E. is "Launching a Megatrend" Wed. Jon. 89 Bp.m. 365 Willard Premiere meeting with guest speaker DOUG MELUNGER, owner, Vision Enterprises USR Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs We are a full service hair and skin care center for men, women and 1~1 Nexus and Sebastian products, free hair analysis, home maintenance plans, cuts, perms, and colors, pedicures, manicures, convenient hours, and much, much, more!! 237-9811 I!! children 512 E. College Ave,. across from South Halls f 4744", Ar- reader opinion Not surprised My hat is off to the 200 or so students and townspeople who had enough courage and mindfulness to voice their opinion on Saturday con cerning apartheid in South Africa. It does not surprise me one bit that the Board of Trustees still voted to main tain the University's holdings. Here we are, living in a society where equal rights and brotherhood are' preached from city hall to the pulpit, and yet organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society still operate openly and carry on their business, practically free from reprisals. I wonder how many people realized that Monday was a national holiday? It was just good old Martin Luther King Day. You remember Martin Luther King Jr., don't you? He's that black guy who . . . oh, never mind, he never did anything for this University anyway so why should we observe a holiday in his name, right? No, it doesn't surprise me one bit. My trousers are down to the 2,000 or so students and townspeople who had a high level of brain death to show their support on Saturday to the Penn State football team. Now there's a cause we should all support. What better way to rid the world of oppression!? Well, for some people, maybe that's their twisted way of showing support for equal rights. There are Blacks on the football team, right? No, it doesn't surprise me one bit. Joseph A. Cipollina, graduate chemistry Jan. 21 The Daily Collegian Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1986-9 Immaturity To the immature, foolish mob at the bus stop in Parking Lot 80 on Satur day night (Jan. 25): We three girls in the front of the line would like to voice our complaints concerning your stupid behavior at the bus stop. In all your impatience, did you ever think that someone could have been pushed beneath the wheels of the bus and killed, or that someone could have been suffocated or just plain trampled from your pushing and shoving? You acted like grade school chil dren, and for what? To go to a party? Is a party so important to your social lives that you'd kill to get there? One of the three of us in the front was a weekend visitor from Shippensburg University, and she was thoroughly appalled at the behavior that all of you displayed not a favorable impression of Penn State. Another one of us (the author of this letter) was the brunt of obscene re marks, degrading comments and physical abuse. We wanted to let you know that we found your conduct rash, stupid and unbecoming to the students of Penn State. You ruined our weekend very effectively. Kira Billik, junior-English Donna Lenzo, sophomore-math Heidi Mehrholz, Shippensburg Jan. 28 Who are you? Who does David M. Silverman think he is Nipsey Russell? Henry C. Patschke, senior-film Jan. 28
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers