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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