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AMECOCK
EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITOR
Michael LaForgia
NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
the mix editor
Jennifer Freeman
ASST. VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Patrick Augustine
SPORTS EDITOR
Jonathan Hillyard
DESIGN DIRECTOR
Chas McCarthy
COPY DESK CHIEF
Steven Van Haren
IN OUR OPINION
Justin, take advice,
names during tenure
Dear Justin,
First off, The Gamecock congratulates you for your win in the
Student Government presidential runoff. You won a hard-fought
and extremely close election, and both you and your supporters
should be proud of the work and dedication you put in to make it
thus far. However, the hard part begins now, as you put together a
cabinet and structure an agenda that will guide the decisions you
make and the priorities you push on behalf of the more than
15,000 students you represent. Each SG president has had a
unique focus and leadership style, and in sitting down with you
during the election cycle, we got
Here are a few a glimpse of yours and would
suggestions for the like to offer the following sugges
new SG president. tions.
Your experience at the helm of
AAAS and your personality underline your managerial style, and
this coupled with a cabinet unafraid to voice suggestions should
serve USC s students well. Among the nine candidates for the
position, you were the only prospective president who emphasized
a need for students to take personal responsibility for safety in logi
cal and common-sense ways. USC’s urban campus will always
have problems with crime, and students can protect their posses
sions by making good decisions, as you said. Furthermore, if you
accomplish nothing more than eliminating the penalty on students
taking more than 16 class credit hours per semester, your adminis
tration will have been a success.
While this will be a difficult change considering the support this
policy has among the administration, it is a matter of fairness for
the many students who must take more than five classes a semester
to graduate in four years.
Pushing USC police to institute a roadside-assistance program
would be a waste of their time and resources, so we urge you to
abandon this idea as you transition to a legislative program. Most
importantly though, surround yourself with leaders committed to
change and willing to work hard for Carolina.
IT'S your right
Exercise your right to voice your opinion
Create message boards at
www.dailygamecock.com
or send letters to the editor to
gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu
GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS
In Monday’s editorial, The Gamecock editorial board erroneously stated
that USC staff members get days off for spring break.
A picture in Monday’s Sports should have been credited to Jason Getz of
The Tuscaloosa News.
The Gamecock regrets the errors.
If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at
gamecockopinions@gwni.sc.edu.
ABOUT THE GAMECOCK
EDITOR
Michael LaForgia
design director
Chas McCarthy
COPY DESK CHIEF
Steven Van Haren
NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
asst, news editor
Kelly Cavanaugh
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
the mi* editor
Jennifer Freeman
asst, the mi* editor
Carrie Givens
SPORTS EDITOR
Jonathan Hillyard
asst, sports editor
Stephen Fastenau
senior writer
Kevin Fellner
photo editor
Jason Steelman
SPORTS PHOTO EDITOR
Katie Kirkland
PAGE DESIGNERS
Jillian Garis, Staci
Jordan. Jessica Ann
Nielsen, Megan Sinclair
COPYEDITORS
Jessica Foster, Bnndy
McNair, Daniel
Regenscheit, Jason
Reynolds, Katie
Thompson, Shana Till
ONLINE EDITOR
Ryan Simmons
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Jane Fielden, Katie Miles
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toDDie ^
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CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
SEC drains fun from celebrations
■ Unecessary apology
betrays victorious spirit
of fans’ rushing court
When USC beat Kentucky over the
head with a stick last Tuesday, fans who
just hours earlier had been the first to crack
a Gamecock joke were flooding the court
to celebrate.
For me, it’s one of the most beautiful
moments in sports — a win-starved crowd
storming the court to hug the players who
just made their day a little better. Too
many times I’ve stood in an empty
Colonial Center, raising my toast to
Carolina with a few other students while
the dejected team members stood at half
court looking like children just caught
stealing from a candy store.
But last Tuesday was different.
Students celebrated on the court with the
players, the same players they see walking
to Gambrell Hall sipping soda from a
Styrofoam GMP cup. When time finally
ran out, the students felt like all of them
had beaten Kentucky. It was magical.
But the magic was lost on the SEC.
They think it’s not proper sportsmanship
to enter the court or field to celebrate a
win that wasn’t supposed to happen. As
soon as I heard about the $5,000 fine, I
was all ready to blast the conference for
penalizing students for having a good time.
But the next day Student Government
passed a resolution the to pay for the fine.
Let me type that again. Student
Government decided to take our money,
the money we have to pay them, and give
it to the SEC to cover some ridiculous fine.
That has to be
one of the most
outrageous things
the Student
Senate has ever
done, and I
couldn’t be more
excited about it.
This is what
ADAM being young is
BEAM about. Go ahead,
SEC, impose
FOURTH-YEAR your stupid fines
JOURNALISM on us' We re
STUDENT gonna celebrate
anyway and pay
your stupid fine
with our own money. To us, it’s worth
$5,000 to celebrate with you on the court.
We’ll pay the fine if it means you’ll keep on
giving us reasons to celebrate.
But when I read SG’s news release, my
hopes fell faster than an Alabama 3-point
er. SG wasn’t paying the fine to stick it to
the SEC — they were trying to suck up
to the administration. In the news release,
Sen. Adam Piper, who sponsored the bill,
said, “We all got caught up in the mo
ment, thus on behalf of the student body,
we would like to help the athletics depart
ment with the consequences of our ac
tions."
The consequences of our actions? Help
the athletics department? Caught up in
the moment? What? It’s about enough po
litical correctness to make me puke. To
make things worse, Piper also urged stu
dents in future games to “leave their cele
bration and spirit on the sidelines."
We already put up with the athletics
department giving student tickets to non
students who show up to the game late
and get softie usher to move us out of our
seat so they can sit down and complain
about all the students standing before leav
ing early to beat the traffic. We already put
up with the athletics department not guar
anteeing every student a ticket to football
and basketball games. We’re not about to
be told to how to party.
Notice there were zero injuries/van
dalism/Mace during the post-game cele
bration last Tuesday. Also notice that when
the football team miraculously beat
Alabama in 2001 and the students tore
down the goalposts, there were no stories
about trampled fans and stampeded po
lice officers. No, those stories only come
from Clemson when their students and
their Ians storm the field and don’t know
how to celebrate without hurting each oth
er.
College sports is the last time that we, as
students and fans, have the chance to be
close to the athletes we scream and cry for.
It’s the last time we have to hug the person
who won the game and celebrate with
them on the field.
The SEC seems determined to snuff
that spirit. They don’t let visiting bands
play more than two songs after a game.
They don’t let mascots come over and
roughhouse with the other mascots and
cheerleaders. And they don’t let students
celebrate on the court because, God for
bid, it might hurt the other team’s feel
ings.
So, Student Government, it was a great
idea to pay the fine, but it’s hard to tell
whose side you’re on.
IN YOUR OPINION
Writer Thompson
left impact on USC
That was a great epitaph for
Hunter S. Thompson that was in
the paper ("Fear and loathing in
America without Hunter S.
Thompson," Tuesday). Thompson
was actually at USC for an hour
during the Thanksgiving break in
the fall of 1975.
He showed up an hour late and
appeared to be badly drunk. He
opened his session by stating that,
“I have nothing to say, and nothing
to sell. But if this university is
stupid enough to pay me $1200
dollars to show up for an hour, I’m
smart enough to take it."
We thought we were in the
presence of a titan who wrestled
with the gods and beat most of
them senseless.
For those of us who came of age
during that era, Thompson was our
Steinbeck, our Hemingway. He was
the Big Daddy Rabbit with the
Long Fuzzy Tongue, as we say in
the music business. Anything he
wrote was at least entertaining, if
not providing a permanent warp to
our perspectives. He was to
journalism what Jackson Pollack
was to art, something savagely
beautiful or beautifully savage.
Say a prayer for him and his
family.
TERRY CORCORAN
Class of ‘76
Faith does not need
scientific evidence
Although Scott Currier is
probably right when he asserts that
many Christians “made their peace
with evolution decades ago," other
Christians should not acquiesce
their creationist views because of an
unfortunate belief held by the
majority ("Creationism fails in
countering Darwin," Monday).
Creation science seeks to explain
what we already know as truth and
does not claim to be the basis of
Christianity or creation.
My “improvable ancient beliefs”
do not come from anything
Geology 101 has taught me or from
a lecture on evidence of creation.
Rather, they come from the inerrant
word of God as outlined in the first
chapter of Genesis. My confidence
in the truth of creation, considered
foolish by many, is based on my
faith in God and complete trust in
his revealed word.
The veracity of a six-day
creation, or even the existence of
God, does not hinge on whether
man can prove it through science.
Ask science to explain water
changing to wine, a virgin birth or a
resurrection from the dead and you
will have scientific impossibilities.
The very foundations of
Christianity are not based in things
we can explain with our human
logic, but on what the Bible teaches
us about God.
Jesus declared after his resurrection,
“Blessed are those who have not seen
yet have believed." If I must ignore
supposed scientific facts that
contradict what I know to be true,
then so be it. I cannot explain this
evidence, but with faith, I don’t need
to.
EMILY WARDLAW
First-year public relations
student
Submission Policy
Letters to the editor should be less
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and major, if a student. E-mail letters to
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will be edited. Anonymous letters will not
be published. Call the newsroom at 777
7726 for more information.
Kung-fu
moves lack
sufficient
manliness
m Leave sophistication
to unskilled girly men
and Hollywood movies
Anyone else notice Hollywood’s
strong tendency to implement unrealistic
ninja moves in their choreographed fight
scenes? If you’re like me, you probably
□ miss ii ic guuu ui
days, where fights
were fights and
not these sissy
dance grooves
we’re presented
with today. So
Neo knows kung
fu and can fly —
so what?
CURTIS I’ll bet he’d
CHOW cower in terror at
the thought of
FOURTH-YEAR • . ,
ECONOMICS receiving a good
STUDENT ol’ fashioned
“one, two, punch
to the groin." It’s
practical, and it
works without all the superfluous
froufrou ninja moves.
Seeing as how our generation of men
is one step away from becoming pretty
princess ballerinas, I’ve decided to help
everyone out by writing a guide to
“fighting like a real man."
This rule shouldn’t even need to be
mentioned, but just in case, “Real men
don’t use girly moves." That’s right. This
means no scratching, kicking of the shin,
slapping or anything else indicating that
it might be your time of the month. Any
of the aforementioned moves will result
in the immediate forfeit of your man
card.
Real men never assume a fighting
position with a double knife-hand." This
position is a dead giveaway that you’ve
either taken “American karate” or that you
are merely pretending like you’ve studied
some sort of martial arts. Either way,
you’ve just telegraphed your ineptitude at
fighting, and your bluff will be called.
“Real men block with their faces."
We don’t dodge or deflect blows.
Blocking a punch or a kick with your
face is the ultimate mark of manliness.
Sometimes, just to prove that I am extra
tough, I’ll even strike with my face.
“Real men use head-butts." There are
many schools of thought about how to
master this technique. I submit that the
proper way of implementing the head
butt is to bend at the waist so that your
torso is perpendicular to your legs, and
then to charge. Your arms can be either
pinned to your side, or for extra style,
you can make fists and flail them in a
circular motion while you run.
“Real men throw haymaker
punches." The real man has no regard
for effectiveness or strategic value of his
strikes. The haymaker punch is executed
by cocking your fist all the way behind
your head, charging and letting loose in
a flail of fury. This move is typically
executed when intoxicated or in cowboy
saloon fights.
Real men wear flannel shirts while
they fight." Nothing is more
intimidating or manly than the flannel
shirt. It flies in the face of conventional
dress attire, and moreover exudes a “you
want to make something of it?" attitude.
The flannel shirt is like a modern-day
coat of arms. Display it proudly in
battle.
“Traditional martial arts moves look
silly in real fights." Traditional martial
arts rarely look cool outside of martial
arts studios and movies. You might be a
kung-fu master, and you could be an
incredible fighter; however, in a real
fight, you’ll probably look silly executing
traditional movements.
So now that you know how to fight
like a real man, you’ll probably want to
go out and practice your newly acquired
skills. I would recommend starting with
the elderly, as they rarely put up much of
a fight. Try head-butting grandpa a few
times before moving on to children, and
eventually to friends and loved ones of
equal stature.
And remember, your new powers are
to be used only in self-defense or to
impress the ladies.
m m
WINNERS AND SINNERS
SOUTH CAROLINA The Palmetto State has become
a focal point for the 2008 presidential election, with
visits by Rudy Guiliani, John Edwards and Min
Romney.
DARREN WILSON S.C. state nooper wins National
Trooper of the Year award for saving another.trooper.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Offers $100 to
students who keep their dorm rooms clean for tours.
SEC Fining universities for student celebrations takes
even more fun out of college athletics.
GOV. MARK SANFORD Fails to identify top S.C.
agricultural product, chicken, on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”
AHMED OMAR ABU ALI Virginia man and U.S.
citizen arrested for coordinating with al Qaeda in Saudi
Arabia to assassinate President Bush.