Monday, June " 1999
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Today Tuesday
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OSPIRG ruling expected
The Constitution Court may rule
today on the grievancesfiled in this
year’s general elections/? AGE 16
Changing the rules
Wrestling coaches call the changes to
ways college wrestlers can lose weight
positive and neccessary/ PAGE 17
An independent newspaper
Volume 100, Issue 168
University of Oregon
www.dailyemerald.com
Respected
professor
leaves UO
African-American historian
Quintard Taylor's departure
leaves the University reeling
By Ryan Frank
Oregon Daily Emerald
Quintard Taylor throws his head back,
looks toward the ceiling and lets out a deep,
chest-shaking chuckle. It’s his nervous
He’s unsure if he wants to open his child
hood memories for a virtual stranger.
But he does. _
Since joining the University m 1990, Tay
lor has reached success like few others be
fore him. In a history department where the
study of the western United States is the pri
ority, Taylor, 50, is the nation’s leading his
torian of African-Americans in the West.
His success has now led to his leaving tor j
Minority faculty
M More coverage of the
faculty of color who
will be retiring from
the University
PAGE 15
uit; uinvtu&iiy ui
Washington at the
end of the month.
Growing up in
rural west Ten
nessee, Taylor
picked and chopped
cotton on the farm
his father managed at a time when “African
American history was made every day.”
“We lived behind the veil of segregation,”
Taylor says. “There were some folks who
had made peace with that. We actually
wanted to compete to see if we could com
pete with the best and brightest.”
Competing meant gaining an education.
“We wanted to see how far our education
would takes us beyond the segregated world
of Brownsville,” Taylor says.
By his early teens, Taylor’s relatives were
active in the Civil Rights movement in Hay
wood County, and he wanted to join Martin
Luther King Jr. and the March on Washing
ton in August 1963.
“You’re too young,” his mother told him.
He wasn’t deterred.
The challenges to the racial and social
norms in the South pushed Taylor toward
learning how the country reached that point
and where it was headed.
He studied history in high school and had
the opportunity to integrate an all-white
high school when he was 16.
Why waste time, he thought. Transferring
would mean an extra year in high school.
Instead, he graduated and moved to North
Carolina to attend St. Augustine’s College.
From St. Augustine’s, Taylor took the ad
vice of a recruiter from the University of
Minnesota and moved to Minneapolis,
where he succeed largely because of a tight
knit group of African-American students.
After earning his master’s degree in 1971,
Taylor was convinced he wanted to teach.
After teaching stints at Washington State
University and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
and earning his doctorate at the University
of Minnesota in between, Taylor chose to
follow the leads of W. Sherman Savage and
Kenneth W. Porter, two founders of African
American history in the West at the Univer
sity of Oregon.
Turn to TAYLOR, Page 16
,* tit M
At Oregon
and across
the country,
men s
basketball
programs
are losing
players at an
alarming
By Tim Pyle
Oregon Daily Emerald
No program is immune to the epidemic
plaguing Division I-A men’s basket
ball this off-season.
Not Duke.
Not Kentucky.
Not Arizona.
And not Oregon.
From coast to coast and conference to
conference, the transfer bug has affected
almost every team.
In fact, 76 players have left their teams
in search of another this off-season, ac
cording to ESPN.com’s most recent trans
fer listings.
At this University alone, four players
left in about three months this spring,
boosting the total to seven in head coach
Ernie Kent’s two seasons.
In February, Mike McShane departed,
citing playing time and a personal con
flict with Kent. Eight days later, Donte
Quinine followed, saying he no longer
had the desire to play for Oregon.
After meeting with Kent, Yasir Rose
mond announced in late April he would
not return for his senior season. In early
May, a week after undergoing surgery on
his right ankle, Skouson Harker decided
to transfer to ensure playing time in his
senior season.
Although the reasons for transferring
vary nationwide, coaches are alarmed at
the implosion.
“It seems to be growing, and you don’t
ever want to lose a player out of your pro
gram, both emotionally and physically,”
Washington head coach Bob Bender said.
“There’s definitely more movement than
ever before.”
And many coaches believe the trend
will not subside any time soon.
“You find the same thing being said by
all the coaches,” Kent said. “That it is in
credible where this is all headed.”
The numbers show that college basket
ball is becoming more of an individual af
fair, as even key contributors for winning
Turn to TRANSFER, Page 11