Column
Drug-testing
policies lack
real penalties
By Steven J Keith
■ The Parthenon
Marshall U.
What's wrong with this picture?
A Marshall U student athlete
must test positive for drug use four
11nies before he or she is permanent
ly suspended from the team and rec
ommended to no longer receive an
athletic scholarship. Four times!
What school would have a drug
testing program allowing an ath
lete to be caught using drugs four
times before anything “major” is
done? Well Marshall does, and I
don’t think that’s something it
should be proud of.
With today’s increasing problem
of drug abuse and the tendency for
some athletes to use drugs for
“enjoyment" or to better their bod
ies te.g. steroids), many schools
have adopted drug-testing pro
grams. These programs are
designed to test all students
involved in athletics to try to elim
inate the use of drugs. Marshall
does have such a policy, which even
includes educating athletes on the
effects and consequences of drug
abuse. Hooray for Marshall for
adopting such a program, but uni
versity and athletic department
officials need to sit down and decide
if the policy is serving its intended
purpose.
The lack of strict penalties is a
major problem. On a first offense,
the athlete’s coach is told and the
player is recommended for counsel
ing. That’s it. A second offense calls
for the same “penalties,” plus two
closed-group sessions, notification
of parents, suspension for five days
and one game, and additional test
ing throughout the year. The only
additional penalty for a third
offense is suspension for 10 days
and two games. Finally, on a fourth
offense, the player is suspended
from the team.
I’m all for giving individuals a sec
ond chance, but when it comes to
something as serious as drug abuse,
I think four chances is a bit much.
These students are representing
other students, the university and
the entire community, and it is nec
essary that they convey a positive,
clean image. And if an athlete eon
See TESTING, Page 21
COACHING
On the sidelines
Not many people know that graduate assistants make up
the backbone of university athletic coaching staffs across
tht> country
Page 19
VOLUNTEERS
‘Bad News Bears'
Two students at Western Washington U. volunteered as
coaches for a Little league baseball team and encourage
other students to do the same.
Page 19
Walk-ons: Are they forgotten athletes?
By Clint Riley
■ The Easiern Progress
Eastern Kentucky U.
They are the forgotten athletes
They sit on the benches and stand on
the sidelines.
They put their bodies on the line at
practice, even though they may never get
to play in a game.
The college walk-on athlete is usually
the high school athlete who was over
looked during the college-recruiting sea
son.
It's either a love of the sport in which
they participate or just the fact that they
believe they are good enough to play col
lege sports that drives them to give col
lege athletics a try.
But no matter what makes them
decide to give college athletics a shot, cut -
backs in some college athletic scholar
ships and implementation of Proposition
4b requirements are making the walk
on athlete more important to college ath
letics.
At Eastern Kentucky l' , limited schol
arships in some sports has made the
walk-on athlete a necessity. 'Today it is
a must in baseball, it's a must in track
and in golf and tennis It's a must to have
walk-ons," Eastern Athletic Director
Donald Combs said.
Combs also said walk-on athletes
because of the process m which they
make a team may be better prepared
lJU'rii
mentally than other athletes. "The non
scholarship athlete comes in because
nobody chose him, so he comes in with a
scrappy, mentally tougher attitude as a
freshman,” Combs said.
According to women’s basketball coach
Larry Inman, it is difficult to get walk
ons to stick with a college program for
long
“As a general rule, your walk-on people
don’t stay with the program long enough
to help vour program,” he said. "The
unfortunate thing about walk-ons is, for
CHARLES LISTER. ’HE EASTERN PROGRESS EASTERN KENTUCKY l;
the kind of work we require, it takes a
very special athlete." Inman said.
What type of reward does a walk-on
athlete get from the sacrifices lie must
make? “I’ve been doing this my whole
life. 1 don’t know anything else,” said
freshman football walk-on Brantley
Mitchell
Paul Jones, a 5-foot-9, 160-pound
freshman walk-on said, "People tell me
I'm too little to play football It keeps me
going ”
See WALK-ON. Page 21
Students war with sandman during lectures
By Ann Rakestraw
■ The Cavalier Daily
U. of Virginia
Your head drops and spastically snaps
back. Your pen hangs limply in your
hand. It is only 10 minutes into the class
but you are already struggling to keep
your eyelids open.
Any minute you'll probably start
drooling and hating yourself for not
having gotten more sleep.
If you're like most students, this sce
nario is probably a little too familiar for
comfort. It is a nightmare of a problem
and 1'. of Virginia students have differ
ent methods for fighting the temptation
to nap in class.
George Kazzmarskyj, a second-year
engineering student, said seating is a
key for him. “If you sit right in front of
the professor, you'll stay awake. If you’re
in his peripheral vision, you’re doomed
to fall asleep.”
Kazzmarskyj has another solution for
dealing with classroom exhaustion —
not going to class.
Although some students advise avoid
ing 8 a m. classes, others said falling
asleep is not so much a problem in the
morning as it is in the afternoon.
Students start curling up for noontime
naps in kindergarten, and for many it is
a hard habit to break.
“I fall asleep every day after lunch,
about two. It doesn’t matter what it is or
how interesting it is." said fourth-year
student Sandy McClung. “Usually I uike
Vivarin or drink Cokes caffeine.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it
doesn't.”
Robert Mayfield, a second-year stu
dent, said he has problems staying
awake in large classes. “There is not
much interaction between me and the
professor, so once 1 start drifting off. I’m
gone,” he said.
First-year student Alexander Johnson
said he uses “sheer force of will” to keep
from drifting off "1 just keep thinking
MATTMAEUS S7UMANSKI,tHE CAVALIER DAILY, U OF VIRGINIA
how embarrassing it would be to fall
asleep because I snore.”
Teachers sometimes mistake a stu
dent's efforts to remain conscious as gen
uine interest in the subject matter.
Robert Daguillard said he had a problem
with one class where the professor was
exceedingly dull. “I forced myself to look
him nght in the eye; that’s the reason 1
not only staved awake but got an 'A' in
See SNOOZE. Page 21