Basketball event helps Parkinson’s research
■ ‘Shooting out Parkinson’s disease’, organized by sports
marketing students, combines business savvy with a
social conscience to help fund the search for a cure
By Simone Ripke
Oregon Daily Emerald
In an effort to give back to the
founder of the Warsaw Sports
Marketing Center and to find a
cure for the disease he suffers
from, sports marketing students
are hosting the third annual James
Warsaw Classic 3-on-3 Basketball
Tournament on Sunday.
The tournament, which will be
held under the theme “Shooting
out Parkinson’s disease,” will
start at 8 a.m. at McArthur Court.
Teams of three, high-school age
and older, are eligible to play and
have to register on-line by today
at 5 p.m. The fee for each team is
$40 and every team is guaranteed
at least three games in the first
rounds, which will be played us
ing a round robin format.
Winners of the round robin will
advance to the single elimination
rounds.
The proceeds of the basketball
tournament will be donated to the
National Parkinson Foundation
and will be used for research to
find a cure for the disease. War
saw was diagnosed with Parkin
son’s disease in late 1993.
“The opportunity he has given
every student who goes through
the program is incomparable,”
said Andy Koper, a second-year
masters of business administra
tion student and co-director of the
tournament. “This is the best way
that the students can give back to
Jim.”
Warsaw said he is proud that
students take the initiative and or
ganize the tournament for the
third year.
“Words alone cannot express
Planetary alignment
won't be seen on Earth
By Matthew Fordahl
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Next month,
the sun and six of the planets will
line up like cosmic billiard balls in
a configuration doomsayers warn
could shift the Earth’s poles, trig
ger earthquakes, ruin the stock
market and usher in the Age of
Aquarius if anyone survives.
Astronomers are bracing for the
May 5-16 alignment, too, but not
out of fear their observatories will
crumble.
They will be busy debunking
the end-of-the-world predictions,
just as they did when the planets
lined up in 1982,1962 and about
every 20 years before that. They
will have to do it again in 2020,
too.
“If people are determined to be
anxious about something, I think
it would be a lot better if they were
anxious about their driving on the
freeways,” said E.C. Krupp, direc
tor of the Griffith Observatory in
Los Angeles.
The alignment will involve the
sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn, and comes just
when you thought it was safe to
ditch those Y2K survival kits.
The May show won’t even be
visible because it will be obscured
by the sun’s glare. So if there is to
be any earthly excitement, it will
have to come from all those
quakes, tidal waves and volca
noes.
On Thursday, in a celestial pre
view, three planets — Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn — will appear
close in the sky as they march to
ward the grand alignment. The
crescent moon will be crammed
into the same area.
“It’s very pretty,” said Dennis
Mammana, astronomer at San
Diego’s Reuben H. Fleet Science
Center. “I think that’s the limit to
the significance of this thing.”
There’s no risk of a collision:
The moon is 239,000 miles away;
Mars is 216 million miles away;
Jupiter is 543 million miles away;
and Saturn is 927 million miles
away.
Each one of these planetary
alignments brings a new round of
doomsday predictions.
A book called “The Jupiter Ef
fect” received wide attention with
‘---•its- prediction- -that ‘California
would be rocked by a major earth
quake indirectly caused by the
1982 alignment of the planets. It
turned out to be all wrong.
Another book ominously titled
“5/5/2000: Ice, The Ultimate Dis
aster” predicts the alignment and
increased solar activity will un
leash a complex chain of events
causing the Earth’s crust to slide
and poles to shift.
“Quite frankly, it would be a ge
ological Armageddon,” said au
thor Richard Noone. “You’d have
volcanism going on globally.
Earthquakes beyond the scale any
thing Richter ever dreamed of.
Tsunamis hundreds of feet high,
sweeping hundreds of miles in
land.”
The 390-page book uses “pole
shifting” to explain everything
from the disappearance of the civi
lization that built the pyramids to
why woolly mammoths appear to
be flash-frozen in Siberia.
Noone has moved his family to
safety in Georgia, but astronomers
say he and everybody else have
nothing to worry about because
the extra pull and stretching from
the aligned planets is a small frac
tion of the moon’s tidal and gravi
tational strength.
Astrologers, though, say the
planetary alignment signals a
change from the Age of Pisces to
the Age of Aquarius. And that’s
not a good thing.
The “pileup of energy” is going
to lead to “some very serious re
versals in the stock market,” said
astrologer Norman Arens. He also
predicts cataclysmic quakes,
floods and volcanoes as well as a
movement away from 2,000-year
old Christian principles.
Mammana countered that no
body has ever been able to explain
how rocks in space can influence
lives.
“It’s a shame that they have to
fall into the traps of things like
this,” he said. “The universe is a
grand and wonderful place, and
the fact that we can understand it
and predict the way it behaves is a
wonderful testament to our intel
ligence and our ingenuity.”
And besides, Krupp said, if the
end of the world is near, so what?
“There’s no reason to get upset
about it. If it is the end of the
world, there’s very little you can
do,”he-said. * • - ..
how grateful and honored I am to
see the tournament every year,”
Warsaw said. “It’s so heartwarm
ing.”
Not only does the tournament
make Warsaw feel he is not alone
in the battle against Parkinson’s
disease, but it also incorporates
social responsibility into stu
dents’ education, Warsaw said.
He said it has always been his vi
sion to combine a formal business
education with “street smarts”
and a sense of social commit
ment.
“To me, this is an expression of
what higher education is all
about,” he said.
Koper said $5,000 was raised at
last year’s tournament and he ex
pects to raise more than $15,000
Tom's
Tea Hoik
40 yeoo cull nay expedience
in Joulh East Asian ur.me
• Whole M $>6.50
• Noodle roup bowl $>2.75
• Dinnerr from $>3.75
Tofu, vegetarian,
seafooa chicken,
beef, lamb
Dinner hourr: 5-9 Wed-5un
Dim 5um lunch: 5at & 5un
Healthy
Inexpen.is
this year.
Phil Richman, a first-year MBA
student, said the event gives
everyone in the community an
opportunity to learn more about
and support a good cause, while
having a fun day on the basketball
court at the same time.
“The tournament is great be
cause it gives Parkinson’s disease
a human element for people that
do not know anyone who is af
flicted with the disease,” Rich
man said.
For Warsaw, the tournament
will bring his dream of finding a
cure for Parkinson’s disease a lit
tle bit closer.
“We’re not going to lose this
battle,” he said. “We’ll win this
battle.”
Sunday’s event
WHAT: James Warsaw Classic 3-on
3 Basketball Tournament
WHEN: Sunday, April 9,8 a.m.
WHERE: McArthur Court
WHY: To raise money for research
on Parkinson’s disease
WHO IS ELIGIBLE: Everyone high
school age and older
COST: $40 per team
HOWTO REGISTER: Register online
at www.warsawcenter.com or de
liver check to the Warsaw Sports
MarketingCenter at 212 Gilbert
Hall
008755
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