Ifopinion
Quiet athletes
deserve praise
This week the University’s crew team will compete
against the most acclaimed, the most organized and the
best-funded rowing teams in the United States at the Na
tional Sports Festival in Indianapolis.
They earned their berth privately, earnestly, rising
before dawn for 5 a m. workouts on Dexter Reservoir and
winning nearly every race with very little fanfare or recogni
tion. They received minimal funding from the University's
club sports program. They rented boats and carpooled to
Dexter.
Now they have a chance to bring national recognition to
the University — something it badly needs in its current time
of crisis.
The Emerald wishes rowers Hugh Watson, Sietske
Fockens, Bryan Andresen and John Bigelow, coxswain
Brenda Thornton and coaches Jim Petrusich and Dick Hersh
the best of luck.
Meanwhile, another University athlete may make his
mark in national competition this summer. Sophomore Glenn
Sanders placed first in the Oregon state bicycle road racing
championships. Sanders is a member of the University
bicycle racing team — also in the club sports program.
His first easily qualifies him to ride in the national bicycle
racing championships, which wHI be held later this summer
in Milwaukie. Sanders will test his oedal mettle against
hundreds of the nation's best riders. Good luck to Sanders as
well.
These quiet accomplishments help bring collegiate
athletics into perspective.
Athletes like Sanders and the crew team are surrounded
by a gigantic athletic department that gobbles more than
$500,000 in student fees, a football team full of coddled,
well-paid losers, and a basketball team with enough new cars
to start up a lot. But these quiet athletes doggedly pursue
excellence for themselves, their team and even for their
school, which gives little enough in return.
II letters
Drunk driving
It’s about time legislatures
nationwide begin enacting
tougher laws against America's
leading menace — drunk
drivers Last year our represen
tatives took a step in the right
direction by passing HB 2010 to
stiffen penalties for irresponsi
ble motorists who endanger in
nocent people
Unfortunately, many who
"live it up" at parties and bars
are college students. These
people who mix drinking and
driving many times wind up
murdering (there’s absolutely
no other word for it) people on
the roads
Their victims include entire
families unlucky enough to be
driving on the same road, and
frequently children and adults
who are bike riding, walking or
jogging
Ironically. Intoxicated in
dividuals usually hit “head-on”
which provides them more
safety than their victims The
person who usually survives is
the one responsible for the ac
cident
This issue concerns all of us
who use the roads for transpor
tation.
Things we can do to help
reduce the problem, besides
supporting stiff penalties for the
criminal we call the drunk driver
are: Drink any beverage but al
cohol. don't let a friend drive
while intoxicated; persuade
them instead to drive with
someone else or hide their keys;
if persuasion fails, get their
license plate number and report
them to the police.
By following these sugges
tions you might not only save
the life of a friend, but someone
else's life as well
Michael Cross
Political Science
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William Kogut
editor’s note
Do Oregonians know about guilt, or are they
too mellow? Being somewhat of a prejud
iced Easterner, I had thought that they didn’t.
But, having talked the subject around. I find
they do know a little about it—at least the "I did
n’t send mom a birthday card, I feel so guilty"
variety.
So they know how to feel it — how to feel bad
from it. But, on the flip side, I suspect they don’t
know how to get pleasure from guilt and how to
lay a foundation for someone else’s guilt trip.
Getting that guilt-giving pleasure is a high,
requiring no ingredients, natural or otherwise
However, one needs to cultivate a sense of when
a situation with guilt potential is developing. Often
months of careful planning are required to take
advantage of such a situation
Take for instance, my brother the doctor and
his son's bar mitzvah My brother loves to induce
guilt almost as much as he does saving the life of a
car wreck victim. Not so much by conscious
planning, but more by instinct, he used that bar
mitzvah as a vehicle for my guilt.
Over Christmas/Chanukah holidays, when I
was visiting the family back in New York, my
brother said he was only having his son. Brad, bar
mitzvahed this June in order to placate his in
laws. It was a good way to keep their approval and
ensure they would continue to shower his
household with furniture from Bloomingdale’s
and an occasional Persian rug.
Brad, having learned the ethics of mater
ialism well at my brother’s knee, told me himself
he was "only doing it for the bucks."
Perfect set-up. Who could feel bad If he had
to miss such a coming of age party? I didn’t
exactly feel like the kid would suffer spiritual
trauma if I didn’t show up.
Imagine my bewilderment when in May I
received a long distance call from my brother and
his wife asking me what I was going to do this
summer. They wanted to make sure I would be in
New York for Brad's "big day.”
"Well," I stammered, "It depends on what I
do this summer Whether I find a job out here . ”
The best defense being a good offense, I tried
to make him feel guilty for not offering to pay my
airfare East. But he didn't bite At least, I thought,
they've been told I might not be able to make it.
Then a formal invitation came in the mail. I
started to get nervous.
In May, I decided to take two law school
summer courses and write for the Emerald. Dur
ing one of my weekly calls to my parents — if I
don't call them every week, I feel guilty — I told my
mother to tell my brother of my plans. That's that, I
figured.
But a few weeks later, during my weekly
parents call, mom tells me my sister-in-law and my
brother the doctor are mad at me because I hadn't
returned the RSVP card from the invitation.
It didn't matter that my brother knew I
couldn't make it. I should have returned the card,
even if I had written them a letter expressing my
regrets in the meantime.
I should feel guilty about not returning the
card.
I did.
And why couldn't I make it?
After all, in-laws were flying in from Los
Angeles, British Columbia, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe),
(Rhodesia, for God's sake).
I should fly in for a weekend? Why not?
Wasn't my nephew's bar mitzvah one of the great
events in the history of the world? If relatives
could fly in from Rhodesia, surely I could make it
from the not-nearly-so-distant Oregon.
As it turned out, my other brother flew in from
Illinois and gave Brad a Radio Shack color com
puter.
I haven't even sent the kid a card yet. I feel too
guilty to do anything.
Bet my brother the doctor feels great. He
knows he's managed to lay a heavy guilt trip on
me
My only consolation is a grievously infected
wisdom tooth I recently had extracted My
mother s convinced she's responsible for it — she
didn't pass on her perfect teeth to me
She’s feeling awfully guilty.
Oregon daily _ _
emerald
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Editor
Managing Editor
New* Editor /Politic* Editor
Photo Editor
Higher Education
Univer wty / AStiO
Feature*
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Harry Eateve
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Sally Ojar
Vicki Koch
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