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TTi • , Quote,Unquote \ I ~l /^\XX TT^V /^\~ t /~n* ‘In Canada it’s not about the size of turkey or the \l I »—“ \/V/ I l| I II football games. It’s about togetherness.’ n f J_\y ▼ f V_>/_l_ Mark Hartney, USC sophomore Page 6 ITIlC (BaiUCCOCk Monday, October 4,1999 Whe (Bamecoclt. Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Editorial Board Sara Ladenheim • Editor in Chief Kenley Ypung • Managing Editor Emily Streyer • Viewpoints Editor Corey Ford • Assistant Viewpoints Editor Brad Walters • Editorial Contributor Kiki McCormick • Editorial Contributor Preventive actions curb crime problem College is the opportunity for students to explore freedom from their parents and from high school. The new- found freedoms of collegiate life raises justifiable concerns about students’ safety and welfare. The safety of the students must be the top priority for any ad ministration of a university, yet the students must also realize and adapt to the dangers of their surrounding environment. Safety concern has become a perpetual issue here at Carolina. The administration continually addresses the problems and how they can improve the situation. candidates tor student Government place tms issue at tne top of their campaign agendas. The Gamecock also discusses the problems by informing students on methods to protect them selves. And the latest wave of crime in or near parking garages here on campus brings the issue back into the limelight. Last week, a USC student was held up near the Bull Street garage. While the administration must make every effort to curb crime, the students also have to understand that the campus lies . within an urban area. An urban environment certainly possesses the greatest crime rates compared to suburban and rural regions in the country. Going out of your way to protect your automobiles or person al belongings will only help to prevent future break-ins or theft. Of course, crime will always exist in an urban area like Co lumbia. Yet education and crime awareness provide a start in checking the wave of crime that has gripped the university. All students able to socialize with Palms On Wednesday, Sept. 22, Horseshoe residents had the oppor tunity to join USC President John Palms and his wife for a picnic. Some students question the invitation of only Horseshoe resi dents to the get-together, citing that all students pay the same fees to the school and should get the same opportunities to eat with the Palmses. What these students might not realize is that other chances abound to socialize with the president. The Palmses have invited students to breakfasts, football tailgating parties, receptions and other events, all in the past several months. And President Palms has been known to get out and interact with students, whether it’s popping in for lunch at The Grand Marketplace or making snow angels at 7 a.m. Inviting all of the more than 5,800 on-campus residents to a gathering at the president’s house would be impossible. This par ticular event, much like you’d see in a typical residential commu nity, was a way for the Palmses to get to know their Horseshoe area neighbors. We encourage students to keep their eyes and ears open to op portunities to meet the President. And when you do have that chance, take advantage of it. About Us The Gamecock is the student newspaper of The University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer with the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of The University of South Carolina. The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is xmnmtlnn The ftamernrlf k snnnnrtpd in nart hv student activities fees. Address The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia, SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Student Media Area code 803 Advertising 777-3888 Classified 777-1184 Fax 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803 Editor gckeddsc.edu 777-3914 News gcknewsdsc.edu 777-7726 Viewpoints gckviewsdsc.edu 777-7181 Etc. gcketcdsc.edu 777-3913 Sports gcksportsdsc.edu 777-7182 Online www.gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Sobmbsion Policy Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome from all members of the Carolina community. Letters should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be ar opinion piece of about 600-700 words. Both must include name, phone number, profes sional title or year and major, if a student. Handwritten submissions must be personally delivered to Russell House room 333. E-mail submissions must include telephone number for confirmation. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub lished. Photos are required for guest columnist and can be provided by the submitter. Call 777-7726 for more informat' i. The Gamecock Sara Ladenheim Editor in Chief Kenley Young Managing Editor Emily Streyer Viewpoints Editor Kevin Langston Brock Vergakis News Editors Clayton Kale Associate News Editor Rachel Helwig EtCetera Editor Todd Money Jared Kelowitz Sports Editor Kristin Freestate Copy Desk Chief Sean Rayford Photo Editor Rob Lindsey Encore Editor Student Media Ellen Parsons Director of Student Media Susan King Creative Director Kris Black Julia Burnett Betsy Martin Kathy Van Nostrand Creative Services Will Gillaspy Online Editor Corey Ford Asst. Viewpoints Editor John Huiett Asst. News Editor Ann Marie Miani Asst. EtCetera Editor David Cloninger Asst. Sports Editor Greg Farley Asst. Photo Editor Casey Williams Asst. Online Editor Brad Walters Graphics Editor, Copy Editor, Editorial Contributor MacKenzie Craven Charlie Wallace Philip Burt Senior Writers Lee Phipps Advertising Manager Sherry Holmes Classified Manager Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Jonathan Dunagin Graduate Assistant College Press Exchange Campus Issues University of Second Choice One of the first things a USC freshman and child of a USC professor said to me was, “I can’t believe I ended up here.” ^ Idi*,Vn; Michaei derstand it, but 1 assumed that this DiPr8S*° student was dis- a senior appointed with fnaj°r the prospect of and writes every staying in Co- other Monday. He lumbia for anoth- can be reached er four years. It via The wasn’t this that Gamecock at: was bothering the gckviews@sc.edu student, but at tending USC was. This student really wanted to go to a dif ferent school. I found this attitude again in a young lady I dated my freshman year. One cool, sunny, autumn day we took a stroll through the Horseshoe, and she kept going on about how she thought the USC campus is ugly and how much beautiful she thought the College of Charleston is. I had a feeling that she really didn’t think USC is ugly, but would rather have attended the Col lege of Charleston. During my stay here at USC, I have met many very talented students. Most were somewhat unsatisfied with their at tendance here. Usually they had offers from other schools, but lacked the fund ing to go to their first -choice school be cause of a lack of funds. USC provided them a university ed ucation without having to go into tens of thousands of dollars into debt. They still become successful students, but they would have rather been successful students some where else. USC surely wasn’t my first choice. The application just appeared in my mail box one day, and because there were no essays and the fee was only $25,1 applied. A few months later, 1 get a letter telling me that USC would give me a scholarship that would reduce the cost of education and housing to only a couple of thousand dollars. My first-choice schools in Boston al so offered me scholarships. After four years of college, this would only mean shaving $30,000 offofa$120,000debt. This doesn’t mean that USC’s a bad school. 1 could have gone to one of the schools of SUNY (State University of New York), but these schools are bachelor’s de gree factories with a physical atmos phere akin to a Soviet steel factory. Even worse are the options open to stu dents in New Jersey (the biggest contrib utor of out-of-state students at USC). Princeton is a long shot for anyone, and Rutgers ... well, who wants to go to high school for another four years? USC isn’t a bad school. There are good facilities, a competent and eager faculty and a large student population. These are all attributes of a really great institute of higher learning and one that can offer a lot of opportunities. The only problem is a demoralized student body. Who’s demoralizing them? They are. If there was even a presence of pride in being a USC student amongst the ma jority of students, the atmosphere here would be that found in the most of the high ly prestigious universities. Sure, the football team would still lose, Five Points would still be a thriving cesspit and the highly religious would create a In quisition-like atmosphere unmatched by any non-secular university, but a lot of good things would rise out of USC. To the university (faculty and admin . istration), I have a request. If you are look ing to motivate more students to get in volved in the university (anything from joining organizations to simply voting in student elections), keep in mind that for many of your students, USC doesn’t mean what you think it to mean. For us, it is the “University of Sec ond Choice.” Letters Article falsifies truth about Carolina mascol To the Editor This letter is written in reference tc historical inaccuracies found in the Oct. 1 edition of The Gamecock. Specifically, the article titled “Alumnus proposes mascot change” and advertisements funded by Ken Scarlett promoting the alteration of Car olina’s mascot to the Jaguar contain sever al false or misleading statements. In the ar ticle, it is stated that, “According tc university folklore, the [chicken] curse be gan when former S.C. Gov. Ben Tillmar was rejected for a position.” The article al so reports that Tillman was a president o: Clemson University. The latter statemem is entirely false. He was, in his role a< governor, decisively influential in the found ing of the university and the ex-officio heat of the Boards of Trustees of all state-sup ported institutions of higher learning. He was also an avowed enemy of Carolina. Five years before becoming governor, he pub lished an article in the Nov. 19,1885, edi tion of the Charleston News and Courie suggesting that the university belonged t< a “ghastly heap of skeletons at the foot o the professional ladder.” However, as car be ascertained in appendices of Wrigh Bryan’s 1979 monograph, Clemson: An In formal History of the University 1889-197$ he was never a president of Clemson Uni versity. As regards the former, the assertion tha Tillman was once denied a position at Car olina cannot be corroborated by any sec ondary source familiar to this writer. It i mentioned neither in Daniel Hollis’ de finitive 1956 history, University of Sout, Carolina, nor Francis Simkin’s widely re spected biography entitled Pitchfork Be. Tillman. In speaking to both Dr. Hollis, a retired USC professor who specialized in the university’s history, and John Heiting, di rector of university archives, on Oct. 1, 1999,1 was told by both that there is no substantiation for the allegation that Till man ever applied for a position at USC. Finally, in reference to the university’s first mascot being the jaguar, I can find no substantive proof of this claim. It is found in many secondary sources, including John Griffin’s The first hundred years: a histo ry of South Carolina football and Kamon Simpson’s Gamecock Handbook: Stories Stats and Stuff About South Carolina Foot ball. However, as related to me by Mr. Heit ing, who has access to the entirety of sources contained in the university archives, there are no primary documents that he has ever seen or heard of that authenticate the claim that the jaguars were the univer sity’s first mascot. Also, Dr. Hollis informed me that he did not mention the jaguars as a mascot in his text because he could not find any documentary evidence to sub stantiate the claim. In fact, the picture of the 1899 football team which is labeled in Scarlett’s adverti 1 tisement as “the USC jaguars of 1899” was taken from the athletics section of the 1900 Garnet and Black yearbook. In that source, it is captioned simply as the “Team of ‘99.” Actually, no mention is made in that ' yearbook or in any Carolina yearbook, from that time period, of the name “jaguars.” The simple fact of the matter is both the article and the paid advertisements are filled with historical falsehoods and unsubstantiated misrepresentations of the truth. Howev er, I welcome any information that can shed light on this topic. i Jacob L McCormick BducationDoctoral student i Changing mascot is pointless, outrageous To the Editor Hardly ever am I more outraged by the news page than I am by the editorial page, but somehow, as I ate my Grand Market place breakfast on Friday, I became out raged. Mr. Scarlett, suggesting a mascot change, says that the jaguar is a proud and dignified animal. He then questions the dignity of the Gamecock since it is an animal bred for gambling. He also proposes an idea of the “Chicken Curse” which is an absurdity in itself. I remember growing up on freezing No vember nights at Williams-Brice Stadium watching the Gamecocks beat Geoigia Tech and burning my tongue on too-hot hot chocolate. My parents met here, scream ing ‘Goooo Cocks’ at sporting events and other pivital moments in their dating ca reer. My first crush was on Cocky; no joke. Dignity is a nonissue. Ask your av erage college student if they’d rather have a “dignified” mascot or a pretty dig nified mascot with a sense of humor and a history. There would be no market for bumper stickers bearing “You can’t lick our Jaguars.” It just isn’t catchy. Say whatever you want about our mas cot. We don’t want it changed. It is our mas cot, and we need to be true to it. As for your arguments, Mr. Scarlett, frankly, I don’t give a damn. Jessica Clary Honors College Journalism student Social Issues Pro golfer structures career with alcohol Professional | I golfer John Daly has un- j veiled an impres- ; sive, ambitious game plan for the \ rest of his career — it’s called drinking lots of alcohol. Daly, one of the longest Kenley Young drivers on the writes every tour, has been on Monday. He can * and off the bottle be reached via for several years, The Gamecock at but it seems he’s gckviews@sc.edu fallen off the wagon for good this time. “It’s in my blood,” he told Golf World magazine. Yeah, John, we know. That’s how alcohol works. Callaway Golf, Daly’s sponsor, was nrpnarpH rn chpll nut ahnnf $ 1 millinn fn the beleaguered golfer, had he made a successful attempt at sobriety. But Daly said claiming that money would’ve been too easy. “It was either golf and drinking, or no golf and no drinking,” Daly told The Associated Press, citing the tremen dous pressure to stay sober as the main force that drove him to drink again. “I’m 33 years old. It’s a decision I have to make,” he said. Both inspired by and a bit in awe of Daly’s candid declaration, I decided to follow his lead and map out my very own “strategy of honesty” for the rest of this week. Here’s my grocery list of things to do: Sunday: First things first. Mom, I’m dropping out of school. In fact, as soon as I’m finished with this column, I'm going home to crack open a case of Bud Light so I can get it “in my blood.” I’m going to throw away all my textbooks, bum all my assignments for the rest of the year and then tear up my Roommate Contract (which prohibits me from smoking or drinking in the living area). Then, it’s back to the beer and, eventually, the side of the commode. Monday: I plan to sleep until 4 p.m. After I’ve called all my professors and told them where they can put my home work, I’ll make a mad rush for Happy Hour in Five Points and see what kind of trouble a 20-year-old can get into. (Men tal note: Borrow, steal or make an I.D.) Tuesday: I’ll have to quit my job at The Gamecock. I’ll be forced to give Sara, my editor in chief, an ultimatum: “Look, it’s either writing AND drinking, or no writing and no drinking.” That’s sure to get me good and fired. Yippee! I can then spend the rest of the day plan ning my keg party for Thursday night. Wednesday: I won’t have time to sleep late today. I’ll have no source of income at this point, so I’ll have to hold an early-moming yard sale on the Horse shoe. Other than beer, I won’t have any thing anyone would want to buy, so I’ll have to raid my roommates’ closets and private trunks. By the end of the day, I should have enough for a keg of Killians. (Mental note: Borrow, steal or make a keg tap.) Thursday: I’m having a keg party, and I’m not even going to notify Hous ing. How about that? I’m going to orga nize a game of strip poker, with the mor. ey I got for my roommate’s PlayStation, and I'm hiring a live deejay and an exotic dancer with the last of my scholarship excess. Friday: Today, I’m going to turn down a $3,000 scholarship on the grounds that claiming the money will be too easy: “I’m 20 years old. It’s a deci sion I have to make.” Saturday: I’ll play a round of golf. (Mental note: Bring a cooler.) Basically, John Daly has decided to be a bum who might occasionally play a mediocre round of golf. Sounds a lot like my dad. But at least Dad’s decision is an honest one. Daly’s not kidding himself into be lieving he’s okay; he’s just too stubborn to seek help on other people’s terms. But as foolish as his decision proba bly sounds to overachieving bootlickers everywhere, I’ll bet Daly is articulating a message many mild-mannered pushovers have wanted to tell their supervisors for years: “If it means I have to follow your rules, I don’t want your stupid money. I’ll use my own and blow it on beer.” What a concept.