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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 9, 2004)
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com Online: www.dailyemerald.com Friday, April 9,2004 Oregon Daily Emerald COMMENTARY Editor in Chief: Brad Schmidt Managing Editor: Jan Tobias Montry Editorial Editor: Peter Hockaday Picture Jeter catching flies with the girls "Quick Quacks" is the newest Emerald feature, a spontaneous Q&A session aimed at giving readers an expedient look at campus and community members' thoughts. "Quick Quacks" will run every Friday this spring. Please send suggestions regarding possi ble interviewees to letters@dailyemerald.com. Kathy Arendsen sits down for our questions this week. Arend sen is the Oregon softball team's head coach and has led the Ducks back to glory. Oregon is ranked 14th in one national poll this week and made the NCAA Tournament last year, coming within one win of the College World Series. Emerald: Why should students go to softball games? Kathy Arendsen: Fast-paced ac ... - - - tion. The game's always got some Q UAC ICS thing going on in it. And being out - side in the beautiful weather, just getting to be outside. Emerald: If you could choose a pro baseball player to join the Ducks, who would it be? QUICK IACKS KA: Current? Nolan Ryan was always my favorite player because I was a pitcher. I like Derek Jeter because he's cute; of course, that's not a good enough reason. Let me figure out which one I like the best... probably Derek Jeter because he's committed to winning. He'll do anything within the rules to win. The way he bases his personal success is on whether his team is winning. I'm not sure there's many players like him who are so gifted, so talented and willing to give up personal glory just to win. I admire that tremendously. Emerald: Who's tougher, No. 1 Arizona or No. 2 UCLA? KA: Traditionally, UCLA because of the tremendous tradi tion they have. I would say this year Arizona because of their speed factor. I would say Arizona, but neither of them are easy. There's no simple thing there. Emerald: Who's your favorite coach in the Athletic De partment? KA Oh, that's mean! That's a hard one. Golly, oh boy, oh boy. Probably Bev Smith, because I admire how she dealt with things as she came into Oregon. Her decision about Shaq Williams, although I don't know the circumstances, I have nothing but admiration. 1 could have easily substitut ed Ernie Kent Nils Schyllander, Chuck Kearney, Mike Bel lotti, so on and so forth, because I consider all of the coach es great. Emerald: What's your favorite sport other than softball? KA: To watch on television, football. To play, golf. Emerald: If you could choose one to be on your team, would you choose (recently-graduated) Andrea Vidlund or you, back in your playing days? KA: Two different players! Me, because I totally know how much I love to play. With Viddy, I was spoiled to have her for a year. She can hit and I can't. Emerald: What do you like most about Eugene? KA: I like the atmosphere. I like the kind of people who are here. I love the diversity, I love the humor, 1 like how pas sionate people are. The natural beauty goes without saying, but the atmosphere I just love. Emerald: What do you think about the decision to post pone the new basketball arena? KA: Disappointing. Really disappointing. That arena ben efits all of us, every Duck fan, every athlete, every student. Ob viously, it had some ramifications for us as far as Howe Field. Ultimately, if we stay at Howe Field I'm a very happy person, but the arena desperately needs renovation here, and this team deserves to have an Oregon-type facility to play in. Re ally, we're about the only one that doesn't have that. Emerald: Other than its current site, what would be the best place near campus for a new Howe Field? KA: Probably out by Autzen somewhere so that we're by the (Moshofsky) Center if we have to be indoors. I love ei ther being in the center of campus or at least in the same area as other Oregon facilities. I wouldn't want to be stranded somewhere else in the city, by ourselves. If we ever brought baseball back and they wanted to do a baseball-softball area, I'd be into that. If the new arena goes somewhere else and they want to put softball with that, I'm fine. But if it's not Howe Field, and that would be my first choice, it would be please put us by football and other practice facilities. Emerald: Finally, where can we find Kathy Arendsen on a Friday night? KA Hmm. The Vet's Club, at least once a month. Having some dinner, listening to music and maybe even playing a littlepool. i , Vandals' acts prove cowardly Steve Baggs Illustrator CowmemW CLiCUts of ffcAurs reu vision I have to say I largely agree with Tyler Grafs comments on vandalism and dis course ("Box-dumpers show intellectual cowardice," ODE, April 7). Since I have ar rived on campus, I have personally experi enced acts of intolerance and vandalism. -—— I've watched CS U E STT t*1® unfolding of COMMENTARY SSSV^ Johnson Hall sit-in over hate mail in an online discus sion group and the subsequent racist dia tribe espoused in the winter 1999 issue of Oregon Quarterly alumni newsletter. The free Sociology Department Film Series fliers are consistently removed. 1 have also been targeted personally through a not-so-veiled death threat by e mail and the constant vandalizing of the bulletin boards outside my office. Just in the last week, I have had to update the bul letin board three times. Unlike the case of the Commentator, in which the culprits left no trace, these "intel lectual cowards" have left calling cards. In one instance, the perpetrator(s) wrote "Go Republicans" over the picture of an elderly man carrying a dead child. 1 realize these acts are committed by a small minority of extremely reactionary people who fit the profile of the ignorant bigots described in the film "Racism 101." (In the film, a group of student newspaper writers targeted and harassed an African-American professor.) Censorship is a means to attempt to si lence other views, and it varies in its effec tiveness depending on the size, political power and financial resources of the censor. In this case, censorship works momentari ly, and I have even began taking pictures of the bulletin board to facilitate replacing the lost and defaced fliers. What the perpetra tors may not know is that my friends and I are quite humored by the silly quotes left behind, and enjoy devising humorous re sponses to these ineffective acts by "intellec tual cowards." Paul Prew is a graduate student in the sociology program. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Chief llliniwek mascot divides athletic community I'd like to be among the many who commend the Emerald on its support of a Chief-free University of Illinois at Ur bana-Champaign ("Emerald Board right in criticizing Illinois mascot Chief Illini wek," ODE, April 7). As half Cherokee and half Euro-American, my heritage may be conflicted, but my stance on Chief llliniwek is not. Growing up under the shadow of the University of Illinois in Urbana, I've always known the use of the Chief mascot is a hotly debated issue. Only recently has the movement against this deplorable mascot received the na tional media attention it deserves. Even if one refuses to believe the Chief — displayed by a white student who hops around during halftime in ceremo nial Plains dress — is degrading to Na tive Americans, surely we can agree the Chief has failed as a mascot. As stated by many commentators on the issue, a mas cot's job is to unite a university's com munity. The Chief divides not only the , University of Ijliqoi? students but the administration, faculty, alumni, the Champaign-Urbana community and the collegiate sports world as a whole. A re cent vote on the Chief by the UI student body was divisive. I hope the UI trustees stop dodging the issue and grow a backbone like UI Chan cellor Nancy Cantor and the Emerald. Elizabeth Wages graduate student art history Emerald's dismissal of fliers trivializes rape I know that it was important for the Emerald to establish that it had no con nection with the flier (alleging rape) that was distributed on campus before spring break ("Fliers distributed irresponsibly," ODE, March 9), but I wish the issue of the inappropriate placement of the flyers would have been left at that. The tone of the article was incredibly dismissive and trivializing concerning a crime that most often silences its victims. We live in a society that does not encour age women to talk about the issue of rape and, in fart, often punishes the women who do report it by not believing them or ostracizing them, sometimes using a woman's sexual history against her. Most women who are raped never report it. When rape involves an institution or group, women need to get the message out to each other about it, because the victim is very likely not to. Instead of sending a trivializing mes sage about the possibility of rape, the Emerald should have at least taken it se riously enough to send the message that if a rape did occur, women need to re member it is never their fault. When a woman is violated against her will or without her consent it is not because she was, as people might say, "silly enough to put herself in a bad situation," or be cause she was "asking for it." Rape is nev er a woman's fault. To the staff of the Emerald, I say please, do your job as reporters and, rather than condemning someone who is trying to get the message out to his or her sisters, get out into the community and investigate rape on campus, in Eugene, in Oregon or in the United States. Colleen Young senior english
