Monday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com
Innocent
until proven guilty
*
Pacing the sidelines
of the court, the
coach grimaces and
flashes looks of
anger. Every play is punctuated with
a shout to one player or another. The
coach’s pointer finger is in the air,
screaming direction to a player.
After losing a game, the coach
yells some more off the court. The
players need to find the strength in
side themselves. They need to not
be so weak, so worthless. They
need to prove what they yell back
at the coach, that they have what it
takes.
Is there something inherently
wrong with the above, fictional
scenario? Not necessarily.
Oregon women’s basketball
coach Jody Runge has taken a lot
of heat in the last week—in The
Register-Guard, over the office
water coolers and at bars all over
town. In'some cases, it’s been
i more than just heat Runge has re
i ceived, it’s been the very fires of
hell. The Emerald editorial board
'suggests that maybe not all the
criticism is fair, at least not yet.
Certainly, the stories — heard
both publicly and privately — of
player mistreat
—- ment at the
^ hands of
Runge is
\j\ worri
Giovanni Salimena Emerald
Coaches need to push; athletes,-espe
cially younger athletes learning what it
is to play sports, need to have their lim
its tested and their weaknesses ex
posed so they can fight past it to excel
lence.
But it is plain wrong to suggest that
coaching is somehow a license to treat
someone as less than human. Simple
human respect demands that athletes,
no matter their age or their skill level,
be treated with dignity. That doesn’t
mean that a coach should be soft and
yielding with players. It does mean
that there is a line of love and decency
that cannot be crossed, especially by
someone in a position of authority and
influence, such as a coach.
The problem, though, is that no one
except the players (and they’re not
talking on the record) really knows
whether or not that line has been
crossed. Certainly, the fact that players
felt the need to meet with Athletic Di
rector Bill Moos to vent their frustra
tions indicates that Runge is doing
something wrong. But we don’t know
which players went to Moos (as least
not on the record), we don’t know how
many of them had such strong feelings
or how many of them were there sim
ply present as a show of support. And
we don’t know how reliable their testi
mony is.
Really, the public knows very little,
yet a healthy chunk of that public
seems to want to lynch Runge now,
rather than wait for more information
to be gathered. And that’s not treating
her with respect. One can’t help but
wonder if there aren’t other issues
causing such immediate bad vibes to
be thrown at Runge. No matter what it
is she thinks she’s doing with her play
ers, perhaps Runge is going about it
the wrong way.
Maybe her methods, not her pur
pose, are what prompted sports
columnist Ron Bellamy of The Regis
ter-Guard to say Runge’s already as
good as gone. Reading Bellamy’s col
umn last week, there was a feeling that
perhaps he hopes the Runge era is over
more than it actually is over.
On the other hand, Runge’s win-at
all-costs approach to revitalizing the
University’s women’s basketball pro
gram may have led her to mistreat her
players. And that may not be all her
fault, but also the Athletic Depart
ment’s and college sports’ fault more
generally.
So perhaps the next meeting that
should take place is between the
players and University President
Dave Frohnmayer. Maybe they
should complain to Frohnmayer that
college athletics’s focus on winning
above all else has resulted in mis
treatment of them. This is a college,
after all; where is the focus on devel
oping these women into well-round
ed human beings? In all of the discus
sion of Runge, her ability to produce
a winning team has been trumpeted
above most everything else. What
about her ability, or lack thereof, to
nurture athletes and to develop
young women into adults? And what
of the pressure to perform or be fired?
Surely Runge’s often-contentious re
lationship with the Athletic Depart
ment has upped the ante on winning.
All of the information isn’t in yet,
folks. The verdict on Runge should be
stayed until more evidence can be pro
duced. Unless there’s a total meltdown
in the situation, the verdict is stayed
through at least Saturday’s NCAA
Tournament game against Iowa.
On Wednesday, the Emerald will
comment more on Runge’s position in
the community and her role as a fe
male coach, to examine some of the
other issues that determine if she’s re
ally so bad or if she deserves the bene
fit of the doubt. Until we all know
more, the University community
should offer her some human under
standing.
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be
sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu.
Poll Results
Every week, the Emerald prints the results of our online poll and
the poll question for next week. The poll can be accessed from the
main page of our Web site, www.dailyemerald.com. We encour
age you to send us feedback about the poll questions and results.
Last week's question
Do you think the ASUO election process has been
fair and equitable?
Results: 102 total votes
Yes—23 votes, or 22.5 percent
No — 51 votes, or 50 percent
Don’t know—7 votes, or 6.9 percent
Don’t care — 21 votes, or 20.6 percent
Well, exactly half the voters say “no fair.” It seems likely that way
more than 50 percent of the key players in the election would
scream out loud, “not stinkin’ fair!” Students need more focus on
issues, less focus on scandal.
This week's question
How many copyrighted songs have you downloaded
from Napster in the last month?
The choices:
0-10
11-20
21-50
More than 50
Letters to the editor
Oliver encourages knowing
the facts
A letter by Brian Carlson (“Bailey
makes empty promises,” ODE, March
8) was printed which unfairly target
ed my running mate, Eric Bailey, and
I. Carlson asserted three unsubstanti
ated points, all of which ignored the
truth.
Yes, Bailey did go to the Kappa
Delta house and express the concern
of immunizing all students who enter
the University. Carlson says this is
not within the power of the ASUO,
but it is. This is our student govern
ment, and we have the voice to make
change. Sitting on your hands gets
nothing done.
Next, Carlson claims that both of us
are resident assistants. First of all, I
don’t even live in University housing,
and Bailey is a programming assistant.
We knew the rules of this election, and
the people in the residence halls who
have displayed our campaign signs
made the choice to do so. Claiming that
you don’t know the rules doesn’t give
you the authority to break them.
Finally, my grievance was not filed
as a strategic tactic. It was filed because
I felt someone broke the rules that are
intended to make the ASUO election
fair and equitable to all. I must also re
mind you that my grievance wasn’t the
only one claiming that Bret and Matt
broke the rules.
Throughout my time on this cam
pus, and especially during this cam
paign, I have been a strong advocate of
increasing student debate on campus. I
encourage any student to express their
concerns, but it is important that you
know the facts before you do so.
Jeff Oliver
ASUO Executive candidate
junior
journalism /political science
Beware of OSPIRG’s
McActivism
OSPIRG is working feverishly to as
sociate itself with environmental well
being. The group has crafted the opin
ion that a vote for OSPIRG is a vote for
Mother Earth. I am compelled to ad
dress you as an environmentalist who
will vote not to subsidize OSPIRG.
OSPIRG defines itself as a “grass
roots,” community public-interest
group, but an obscene amount of the
group’s funding, totaling $144,426 of
our incidental fee, leaves Eugene. The
group, formally OSPIRG Foundation
Inc., is a distant political action cor
poration or, as I like to call it, McAc
tivism. The McActivists use our mon
ey to pay rent in the StatePIRG
buildings, supply and decorate of
fices and salary their lobbyists and
lawyers.
One of many problems with McAc
tivism is that while technology blessed
each McDonald’s drive-thru with a cost
display of our purchase, we students
receive no such convenience from the
McActivists. It is simply not in OS
PIRG’s interest that students are made
aware of how this money is spent.
Our money should be made avail
able to campus organizations, not just
the local McActivism franchise. The
possibilities are endless for us to use
our money in a way that directly af
fects our environment and our lives, if
we let the lawyers and lobbyists pur
chase their own recycled paper.
OSPIRG succeeded in appealing to
our maternal emotions of environmen
tal protection. Allow me to appeal to
your logic. We can do better than
McActivism. Do not “super-size it,”
work to change the menu.
Dayna Phillips
senior
history