The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 24, 2005, Image 1
Tight end
►. & t. i
implicated
in larceny
■ Brian Brownlee is sixth
charged in Nov. 22 theft
from Williams-Brice
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Former USC student and tight end Brian
Brownlee was charged with grand larceny Friday.
Brownlee, who allegedly took two laptops and
two video projectors, became the sixth Gamecock
football player charged in the Nov. 22 thefts.
^ Five other USC players were arrested and
arraigned Thursday, the result of a two-month
investigation stemming from the Nov. 22 theft of
laptops, video equipment and framed
photographs from Williams-Brice Stadium.
Woodly Telfort, Dondrial Pinkins, Syvelle
Newton, Freddie Saint-Preux and Rodriques
Wilson were all charged Thursday.
Inc o-root->incn, z^/-pound Brownlee
totaled five catches for 48 yards last season while
playing in every game. The redshirt senior had his
best outing against Clemson, catching three
passes for 41 yards.
University officials said in Friday’s news
release that all the computer and video equipment
had been returned and that most, if not all, of the
framed items had been returned.
Fifth Circuit Solicitor Barney Giese told The
State newspaper that any player who was a first
time offender would be eligible for pre-trial
^ intervention. The charges would be cleared from
the player’s record upon completing community
service and possibly counseling.
The State also reported that Telfort went
through a pre-trial intervention program in
Florida following his arrest for grand-theft auto in
2001, and would likely be ineligible.
USC law enforcement officials and the S.C.
Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s office will review the
remainder of the file to determine whether
additional charges should be filed.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocknnvs@gwm.sc.edu
Mock-trial
^competitors
to battle for
national bid
By LIZ SKELLY
THE GAMECOCK
The USC Mock Trial Team will travel to
Furman this weekend to participate in a regional
tournament in hopes of getting a bid for national
competition.
Although some schools have up to three or
four teams competing at the event, USC has
entered just one.
“Our big competitors are Furman and Bob
Jones,” team treasurer Kat Knaak, a second-year
English student, said. “Furman is a big player in
the mock trial world. They send out four teams,
^ and we send out one.”
Last year, the mock trial team did well at
regionals and got a bid for national competition
in St. Petersburg, Fla. USC’s team succeeded at
nationals as well.
“We had a really good time,” team member
Michael Patterson, a third-year broadcast
journalism student, said. “We placed in the top
half of the 30 teams.”
Last semester the team traveled to several
tournaments in preparation for this semester’s
regional and national competitions, going as far
away as Rhode Island’s Brown University to
compete in the Ocean State Invitational.
“We were the furthest team away at that
tournament,” team member Mac McQuillin, a
fourth-year political science student, said.
The Mock Trial Team has always had trouble
getting recognition around campus.
“Not a lot of people know about us,
Patterson said. “We’re pretty low-key around
^campus.”
♦ Please see MOCK TRIAL, page 3
JON TURNER/THE GAMECOCK
Residents of Maxcy College said the leak originated in the maintenance room after the sewer line backed up Friday.
Sewage leaks in Maxcy
Wastewater backup from city line seeps into students closets
By JON TURNER
NEWS EDITOR
The sewage came seeping underneath the
walls at Maxcy College on Friday morning.
When first-year Maxcy resident Gwyn Pauley
opened her roommate s closet, it came pouring
out.
USC Housing Director Gene Luna said
Sunday that the leak was the result of a
blockage in the city sewer line that backed up
wastewater into Maxcy’s basement.
The incident was the latest in a series of
recurring plumbing problems there.
“The first two incidents were related, and
then the third was a random incident,” Luna
said, referred to the two broken water pipes last
week.
First-year business student Sasha Noorani
said that when she returned from class, she
immediately felt something was wrong.
“I was walking down the hall, and I could
see the wet carpet all the way down, and then I
saw Gwen hauling stuff out, and I was like, ‘Oh
man, this is gonna be the worst day ever.’”
“It was like this deep,” she said, holding her
thumb and index finger about half an inch apart.
Although the leak caused very little damage,
it was a near-miss for Noorani.
“I usually keep my laptop in my closet, but I
just had this random feeling like it shouldn’t be
in there,” she said.
The damaged items included shoes soaked
in sewage and a box of records where Noorani
stored all her warranty information.
“They were like, ‘Maybe you should throw
this box away,’” Noorani said, “and I was like,
‘I can’t, I need this box,’ so I just, I kind of
toweled it off, and now I’m going to have to go
wash my towel.”
“We would do laundry, but we can’t,”
Pauley said. “We have no water.”
“Oh, that’s right/ Noorani said. “There’s no
water, so we’ll just sit around and smell bad.”
Noorani said she and her fellow Maxcy
residents have learned to cope with such
incidents.
“Yeah, it’s like every time a fire alarm goes
■5MHBI
off now, it means water’s coming in
somewhere,” she said. “It’s a water alarm.”
“It was a tremendous distraction for
students,” Luna said of the Friday sewage leak.
He said that throughout his years working in
university housing, certain dorms “will seem to
have a rash of incidents.”
Pauley said she missed an English quiz as
she worked for about an hour to save her
♦ Please see LEAK, page 3
JON TURNER/THE GAMECOCK
First-year business student Sasha Noorani and first-year exercise science
student Naomi Schmalz were forced to empty their closets.
USC students happy to see sunshine
By TAYLOR SMITH
STAFF WHITER
According to various news broadcasts, the
. U.S. Northeast and Midwest are receiving
record amounts of snowfall and temperatures
“that could kill,” conditions USC students
from those areas are happy to be away from.
Marti Hause, a third-year electronic
journalism student, doesn’t live in Maryland
anymore, but she often hears about harsh
weather from friends back home.
“I talked to some of my friends up there and
they are going to see 8 to 10 inches (of snow),”
Hause said.
During her morning walks to class, Hause
said she has noticed less students walking to class,
weathering the cold. Columbia’s climate, she
said, was a factor in her choosing to attend USC.
I looked at other schools around New York
and Maryland, but this works,” Hause said. “I
guess every now and then, I miss the weather at
home around Christmas time because I feel it
should be colder here, but I don’t mind.”
With the Palmetto State’s traditionally mild
winters, the recent cold snap has deadened the
already slow pace of this Southern city,
With other friends back home who attend
schools in upstate New York, Hause said
universities in those areas accommodate
students with underground tunnels and
encouraging them to “bundle-up.”
She said she can’t complain about her
residence hall, East Quad, because during the
winter, it provides a geographic safe-route to
classes around campus.
“I have a really good friend at Penn State,
and she had the heating shut off at her dorm,”
Hause said. “She had ice on the inside of
windows. Basically, she was screwed.”
JASON STEELMAN/THE GAMECOCK
First-year psychology student Lexie
Smith, back to USC from Virginia, still
has ice frozen to her car.
Unlike Columbia, it often snows in Kate
Edward’s home city of Cincinnati, which has
received record snowfall this season.
Edwards, a third-year hospitality, retail and
♦ Please see WEATHER, page 3
so soon.
“I think it’s up in the air,” she said. “Most
people don’t want to align themselves just yet.”
Scott said this year’s race could be a big one.
“I’ve worked these past two years to bring the
visibility of SG up to where it should be,” he said.
“I would expect more to turn out from hearsay.”
Preston said he’s heard of eight candidates for
president.
Students can file for candidacy today and
Tuesday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. in the SG
office in the Russell House.
Candidates will submit their platforms
Tuesday and Wednesday and have their photos
taken for the SG Web site.
Executive offices candidates — president, vice
president and treasurer — pay $50 for the
election but will be reimbursed $45 if they clean
up their campaign signs within 48 hours after the
election. Senate candidates pay a nonrefundable
$5 fee.
While students can run for the senate within
their respective majors, executive office
♦ Please see ELECTIONS, page 3
Storm wracks
Northeast with
152-mph winds
By THEO EMERY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON - A howling blizzard slammed the
Northeast on Sunday with more than 2 feet of
snow and hurricane-strength wind gusts, halting
air travel for thousands of people, keeping others
off slippery highways and burying parked cars
under deep drifts.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rhode
Island Gov. Don Carcieri both declared states of
emergency. -
Up to 31 inches of snow fell north of Boston,
parts of New Hampshire got 2 feet, New York’s
Catskills collected at least 20 inches and 18 inches
fell on parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode
Island and the eastern tip of New York’s Long
Island. The weather system had earlier piled a
foot of snow across parts of Wisconsin, Michigan,
Indiana and northern Ohio.
in addition to tne snow, temperatures were
expected to reach zero in some areas Sunday
night, with wind chills dropping as low as minus
15. The wind was fierce across much of the East
Coast, with a top wind gust of 152 miles per hour
recorded on Grandfather Mountain in North
Carolina.
At least nine deaths were linked to the
weather, three in Ohio, three in Wisconsin, one
in Maryland, one in Pennsylvania and one in
Iowa.
Wind gusted to 84 mph on Nantucket, and
the entire island off the southeast coast of
Massachusetts was plunged into darkness Sunday
as 9,400 utility customers lost power. On the
mainland, some 18,000 customers lost power, the
utility NStar said. Smaller outages were reported
elsewhere around the Northeast.
Nantucket firefighter Robert Bates said most
island roads were drifted over and some pans of
♦ Please see BLIZZARD, page 3
IN THIS ISSUE
♦ THE MIX
Jesus and ‘The
Joshua Tree’
How an on-campus Christian
group is using U2 for
reflection and inspiration.
Pagt< 6
♦ SPORTS
USC continues
road struggles
The Gamecock Sports
Staff examines Carolina’s
weekend loss on the road
to the Mississippi State
Bulldogs.
i
Page 9 '
WEATHER
♦ TODAY
High 4 6
Low 2 9
♦ TUE.
INDEX
Comics and Crossword..8
Classifieds.12
Horoscopes.8
Letters to the Editor..5
Online Poll..5
Police Report..2^
Hopefuls start
annual filing
for SG offices
By ALLYSON BIRD
THE GAMECOCK
As election hopefuls begin filing for Student
Government offices today, neither Elections
Commissioner Stacy Rainey nor Student Body
President Zachery Scott would say whether any
rumored candidates are standouts for the offices.
“Stacy and I try to remain impartial,” Scon
said. “I don’t want to seem like I’m passing the
torch on to someone else.”
But Science and Math Sen. Sonam Shah said
the buzz around SG is that Liberal Arts Sen.
Steven Byrd and Business Sen. Ben Havird will
run for president. Liberal Arts Sen. Tommy
Preston said that Randy Dargan, former co
chairman of the College Republicans, is also
expected to run for president, and Vice President
Yvonne Miller might run as well.
Shah said Liberal Arts Sen. Ryan Holt will run for
vice president, and Preston has heard Cabinet
member Damion Robbs will also run.
Preston is planning to run for treasurer.
Shah said SG members aren’t picking favorites