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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 4, 2000)
Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas Newsroom: (541)346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu Friday February4,2000 Volume 101, Issue 90 Erfierakl Trophies and TRIALS While this University is moving leaps and bounds toward bet ter recruiting classes, athletes all over America are becom ing more violent, and we need to make an effort to make sure our players are good citizens. There are a lot of professional ath letes being charged with violent crimes recently, raising the question of whether it isn't partly society’s adoration and willingness to trade victory in the arena for less civilized behavior. And the problem is proba bly being started at universities who make athletics a big business. Athletes haven’t had a positive reputation for quite some time, but in the present there are a disturbing ly high number of incidents in a very short period of time. The NFL has been particu larly hit by violent crimes. i Directly after the Super Bowl, NFL All-Pro line backer Ray Lewis of the V. Baltimore Ravens was X \ charged with the stab- / ^ bings of two men at a / party following the / game. This comes within 10 weeks of Carolina Panthers receiver Rae Carruth’s charges of masterminding the murder of his girlfriend. Those are just two of the most vio lent and recent incidents of football player violence, but there are plenty of smaller incidents that could be easy to forget yet important to take notice of. Jets linemen Jumbo Elliott and Jason Fabini were in a bar-room brawl in July, and during the season, Steve Muhammad of the Colts was charged with beating his wife, who died days later from labor complica tions attributed to a car accident. It’s hard to prove that today’s players are indeed more violent than their predecessors, but whether they are or not, perception is reality. The appearance is that our sports heroes are more violent than ever, a no tion attributed to the pedestal our victorious got gladiators are raised upon. The process of glorifying athletes as societal heroes begins from the time they are in high school and are recruited to college, where sports are a huge business. The occasions of wrongdoing by coaches to get play ers, such as Washington’s Rick Neuheisel’s infamous breech of a re cruiting quiet period, offer the idea to incoming athletes that it’s accept able to circumvent rules if the end goal is victory. One wonders what kind of prac tices this University uses to get re cruits here. Right now there are a lot of excit ed Duck football fans buzzing about the signing, and all that such an event portends for the future, of ju nior college running back Maurice Morris. In the past, Oregon hasn’t been able to obtain such notable and talented players, leaving cynics to wonder if the athletic program had to make any offers beyond a good education and good education facili ties to land such a talented athlete. While the Ducks haven’t had any big-time recruiting scandals, Eugene loves its football so much that one can see the high reverence football players receive from the community. And a lot of reverence can lead to very little discipline. While discipline and antisocial prob lems can start at the college level, the signs of trou bled individuals show themselves constantly but receive little attention or are dismissed in the name of suc cess. Former Rams, Dolphins and 49ers running back Lawrence Phillips showed violent and irre sponsible tendencies from his days at Nebraska, but teams kept taking the risk —- and getting disappointed — just because they were looking for any competitive edge and they saw a bit of talent. Because many athletes, though of course the minority, are showing more and more tendencies to act out their aggressions and violent tenden cies, it is important to make sure they keep level heads and their feet firmly on the ground. While the de sire to elevate sports heroes to an ever-higher stratosphere grows, the best way our University can help prevent athletes from becoming vio lent is to take seriously the signs they show early on and deal with those issues through discipline and counseling. So while we all cheer for our ever improving teams, we should all ex pect our-athletes to be responsible and safe citizens. This editorial represents the view of the Emerald editorial board. Responses may be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu. Giovanni Salimena Emerald Letters to the editor LGBT should be more inclusive Molly McClure’s letter (ODE, Jan. 31) indicates a desire to “... create new ways to make our commu nity even more inclusive.” By “our community,” she’s referring to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) community. In general, the way to make any community more inclusive is to include those who have been previously excluded. Thus, the best and most thor ough way to make the LGBT community more in clusive is to include those who have been exclud ed: heterosexuals and asexuals. Who else is there to include? One may argue that the LGBT already welcomes these groups. But if that’s the case, then why are their first initials not included in the LGBT acronym? Aren’t they likely to feel marginalized and excluded by this .omission? By discriminating , | | * i i » « * • I * * * * » < ‘ ‘ ' * 1 ‘ * 1 ' * 1 * 1 M 1 against heterosexuals and asexuals, isn’t the LGBT community engaging in a form of the very practice it tries to eradicate from society? Inclusive communities include everyone. Thus, it would make more sense to create an organization that explicitly includes all sexual orientations not just the non-heterosexual. Perhaps we could call some generic name and open it to everyone who does or doesn’t have sex, independent of their gen ders or the genders of their partners, whether real or imaginary. Common sense dictates that the more divisions created in our society, the more divisive it will be come. A group that states a desire to be inclusive but that engages in exclusionary activities and poli cies is being counterproductive to its stated desires and to the fostering of peaceful, inclusive commu nities. Mark Stevens , . . . , graduate,in communityand regional planning Art misrepresents life I am outraged and sickened by the artwork that was used for the perspectives article entitled “Dorm Defenders” (ODE, Feb. 1). It was a very racist depiction that only continues to perpetuate stereotypical images of native peoples and is not re ality. This type of imagery is harmful and unneces sary. The artwork used had nothing to do with the story, and I question why the Emerald found it ac ceptable for print. When this mostly white Univer sity and state continuously tell everyone that we are accepting of diversity, here is just another ex ample that “we” do not practice what “we” preach. It may seem like just a way to catch the readers eye or have a little fun, but why is it being done at the expense of people of color? I have to say I’m gradu ating in June, and it makes me ashamed to know that I’m getting my degree from such an intolerant and racist institution. Julie Love * .. ..ethnic studies* Thumbs To underdogging it Both major party front-running can didates faced seri ous competition from their under dog opponents in Tuesday’s New Hampshire prima ry, with Senator Bill Bradley post ing a very close showing against Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, destroying the front-runner George W. Bush by a margin of 18 per cent. To handling a crisis the best they could Alaska Airlines faced a human tragedy with excel* lent public rela tions and a sincere attempt to explain the crash of Flight 261’scrash into the Pacific Ocean on Monday. The attempt to gather information and console the vic tims’families was more helpful than the delayed reac tions of some oth er recent crashes. To the judge with poor judgment Judge AlbinNorb tand was arrested for drunken dri ving. The Marion CountyCircuit Court judge will be arraigned in his own courthouse and cannot hear DUtl cases until his own is concluded. To bad water for workers Inspectors found thatthreeoutof five water systems that serve nearly 10,000 migrant workers in Wash ington fail to meet public health stan dards. Nearly 20 percent of tested camps found dan gerous levels of a dangerouschemi cal.
