Volume 92 Issue 10

APPLICATION INCREASE BODES WELL FOR FORDHAM - PAGE 7 INVISIBLE CHILDREN SCREENING - PAGE 3

VOLUME 92, ISSUE 10 APRIL 28, 2010

SERVING THE FORDHAM UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY

FOR OVER 90 YEARS1918-2010

Point-counterpoint: MGMT as the Spring Weekend band.

Opinions PAGE 5 Culture PAGE 13

Conan O’Brien switching networks to TBS.

Sports PAGE 24

Arizona Cardinals draft Rams quar-terback John Skelton.

INSIDE

Irish President to Give Commencement AddressMary McAleese, Eighth President of the Republic of Ireland, Will Speak to Class of 2010 in 165th Commencement Ceremony at Keating Hall on May 22

By PATRICK DEROCHERNEWS EDITOR

Th e speaker for this year’s com-mencement will be President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Fordham announced on April 21. McAleese will also be receiving an honorary doctorate of laws.

McAleese, president since No-vember 1997, is both the second woman to ascend to Ireland’s high-est elected offi ce and the second Irish president to speak at Ford-ham’s commencement ceremony. In both cases, Mary Robinson, who was president between 1990 and 1997 and spoke at Fordham in 1995, precedes her; a paver on the Keating Hall steps bears Rob-inson’s name.

McAleese, a lifelong Roman Catholic, was born in Belfast in 1951, making her the fi rst Irish president born in Northern Ire-land.

Brought up in Catholic primary and secondary school, she stud-ied law at Queen’s University at Belfast and Trinity College Dub-lin before joining the bar in both Ireland and Northern Ireland and becoming the Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College. Inci-

dentally, she followed Robinson into this position as well.

Apart from her academic and legal pursuits, McAleese had a career in journalism, working at RTÉ, Ireland’s national radio sta-tion, for several years before enter-ing politics. From 1987 to 2004, she was a member of Fianna Fáil, Ireland’s center-right-wing party, before going independent for her reelection in 2004.

As a public offi cial, McAleese served in numerous positions, in-cluding a delegate for the Catho-lic Church to 1984’s New Ireland Forum, a Catholic delegate to the Northern Ireland Commission on Contentious Parades in 1996 and att ending 1995’s White House Conference on Trade and Invest-ment in Ireland; this last position led to a place at the next year’s Pitt sburgh Conference, which dis-cussed the same matt ers.

Additionally, before her elec-tion, McAleese served as director of Channel Four Television (a British public TV station), North-ern Ireland Electricity and the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust, in addition to being a member of the Irish Commission for Prison-ers Overseas at its founding.

McAleese, whose political po-

sitions include an opposition to abortion and divorce, has been married since 1976 to Martin McAleese, with whom she has three adult children.

Since her election, McAleese has joined the Council of Women World Leaders, which is an associ-ation of current and former female presidents and prime ministers and been largely concerned with “building bridges” and making connections in her presidency.

In particular, she has reached out to her homeland of Northern Ireland, regularly making visits to the country and welcoming Northern Irish delegates to Áras an Uachtaráin, the Irish presiden-tial residence. In all cases, she has been working to improve relations between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

In May 2005, McAleese spoke at Villanova University’s com-mencement ceremony, and at the University of Notre Dame the fol-lowing year. She is now the lon-gest-serving elected female head of state, following the retirement of Sri Lankan President Chan-drika Kumaratunga in November 2005.

Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University, said

COURTESY OF ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN

In offi ce since 1997, Mary McAleese is the second female president of Ireland. Her predecessor, Mary Robinson, spoke at Fordham’s 1995 commencement.

in a University press release that he is “deeply honored” that Presi-dent McAleese will be speaking at commencement.

“In her leadership, integrity and

scholarship, President McAleese is the model to which our gradu-ates should aspire,” he said. “We look forward to bringing her into the Fordham family.”

PHOTO BY STEPHEN MOCCIA/THE RAMSponsored by the Fordham University College Republicans and Finance Society, entrepreneur Steve Forbes spoke at Fordham Prep’s Leonard Theater on April 27 to a packed auditorium of students, staff and guests.

Steve Forbes Lectures on Fiscal Policy, Free Market Businessman and Executive of Forbes Media Empire Delivers Fordham University College Republicans’ Second Annual Spring Lecture at Fordham Prep

SEE FORBES ON PAGE 3

By SAMMIE LAZARSTAFF WRITER

Th e enthusiasm for Steve Forbes’ arrival to the stage was palpable, as students poured into the Fordham Prep Leonard Auditorium. College Republicans from not only Fordham, but also other local schools like John Jay, NYU, Columbia and St. John’s were waiting to hear the man who calls himself and other staff ers of his magazine “tools for capitalism” speak on how the free market is the only way that the American people can be saved from our current crisis.

Forbes is known for being one of the most reputable voices on capital-ism, helming Forbes magazine, which holds the lists of the most successful people in the world in addition to be-ing a beacon for capitalists to turn to.

Forbes is not merely a famous pub-lishing scion, however. When Forbes att ended Princeton, he founded Busi-ness Today, which is currently the largest student-run newspaper in the world. His expertise in the maga-zine world, especially in the fi nancial magazine sector, has made him an icon for capitalists, and his views on the fl at tax and gold standard led to

two campaigns for President, in 1996 and 2000. He is still politically active, with donations to various Republican candidates totaling over $7 million in the past 15 years.

Students were unsure what to ex-pect exactly from Mr. Forbes’ speech.

“I expect an intellectual conversa-tion on capitalism and the current state of the economy,” Chris Gold, CBA ’13, said.

“I look forward to an insightful discussion on the benefi ts of capital-ism,” Dominick Capolarello, CBA ’13, said.

Non-business-oriented students, however, were slightly more skepti-cal, wondering what a man who had made his fortune from the legacy of his family’s publishing empire could say that would be relevant to the aver-age student.

Following introductions from Fordham College Republicans Vice-President Joe Th eriault, FCRH ’11, and President Katie Poedtke, FCRH ’10, Forbes took the stage to deliver that message.

Right off the bat, Forbes delivered the reason for writing his most recent book, How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are

the Best Answer in Today’s Economy, the considerable misunderstand-ing regarding democratic capitalism. He explained the unfair tactic taken toward capitalism, where critics de-mand that capitalists “give back,” as though what they have gained was not earned.

“Giving back implies that you took something that wasn’t yours,” Forbes said, reminding listeners of the stereo-type of the evil capitalist, out to make fi nancial gain from others’ ruin.

He stated that the only way to truly succeed in a free market is to provide a service or a product that people want, and that capitalism is not, by defi ni-tion, an allocation of scarce resources. He used examples of successful capi-talists who gained more by distribut-ing to all classes than by pandering to the rich, like Henry Ford and his cre-ation of the assembly line and Steve Jobs’ contributions to the personal computer.

“Capitalism is about creativity,” Forbes said.

His main point was that capitalists stand to win by the success of their products and services.

To refute those who called for

NEWSPAGE 2 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010

SECURITY

BRIEFS

April 21, E. Fordham Road and Elm Street

An alumna reported that she was walking eastbound on the south side of Fordham road when she was approached from behind by an 18-year old male who grabbed her cellphone out of her right hand while she was talking on it. She walked onto campus and reported the incident to security, who canvassed the area with negative results.

April 21, Off-Campus, 8:30 p.m.

An unidentifi ed male threw rocks and a bott le at the guard booth near Lorillard Place. Security responded to the incident, and the male fl ed the scene.

April 23, Faculty Memorial Hall, 2 p.m.

A student entered a classroom during class and tried to convince a person whom he knew to leave the room with him. Th e person in question refused to accompany him and called security. Th e fi rst student fl ed, while the student from the classroom fi led a report.

April 22, off-campus, 8 p.m.

A student reported that she was receiving texts, phone calls and e-mails from an ex-boyfriend, whom she had told repeatedly to stop contacting her. Security was notifi ed and contacted the individual, instructing him to cease all further contact or risk police involvement.

April 25, 2426 Lorillard Place, 8 p.m.

A male, approximately 15 years old, threw rocks at the guard booth, breaking two windows. Th e guard called for assistance while NYPD was notifi ed and is now investigating a complaint.

April 25, Martyr’s Court, 2 a.m.

An unknown person entered an unlocked dorm room in Goupil Hall sometime between 3 and 11 a.m. and removed a fl atscreen television, a camera and an alarm clock. Security and the police are investigating and a police report has been fi led. Th e television has been recovered. Security recommends that students lock their doors

April 25, Walsh Library, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

A student left his denim jacket hanging on a chair for several hours in Walsh Library while he was studying. When the student went to retrieve the jacket, he found $150 missing, though he was uncertain if the money might have been in the pocket of the pants he had worn the previous day.

New USG Board Holds First MeetingIn First Meeting After March Elections, Kugel, Meyer and Other New Members of USG Make Appointments, Set Agenda

PHOTO BY PATRICK DEROCHER/ THE RAM

As announced at the most recent USG meeting, Dagger John’s, Fordham’s sit-down dining establishment, will be com-bined with the Annex to provide a new takeout food experience for Fordham students.

Fordham to Facilitate Donations to GoodwillDrop Boxes Outside Dormitories Will Provide Repository for Unwanted Items as Students Clean Out Dorms at Year’s End

PHOTO BY PATRICK DEROCHER/THE RAM

Recently placed outside all dorms, Goodwill donation boxes will prevent waste and support Goodwill, with profi ts aiding in environmental projects.


Goodwill donation drop boxes

have been placed in front of all on-campus residence halls on April 27.

Th ese boxes, emblazoned with the ubiquitous smiley-face logo of Goodwill Industries, essentially look like uncommonly large mail-boxes.

However, the boxes will be used for what Bob Freda, director of cus-todial services at Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, calls a “green initia-tive.”

Custodial services encourages students to use the boxes through-out the time they are moving out of residence halls. Students will place their unwanted items in the bins for collection by Goodwill repre-sentatives.

Aft er collection, Goodwill will sell the items at its widespread chain of discount retail stores, with the profi ts going toward environ-mental projects.

Freda said that the boxes were placed near to Fordham’s residence halls in an eff ort to increase their visibility and usage amongst stu-dents in addition to cutt ing down on the amount of waste that takes place as students decide what they will take home with them and what they no longer need.

He also said that a representative from Goodwill Industries with the job title donated goods manager will be visiting Fordham on a daily basis to assess whether or not the boxes are being used and to take any donated items to be sold in the retail locations.

Students can donate new or gently used clothing, shoes, linens, small working appliances and elec-tronics, household items, computer equipment and books.

Any Fordham student wishing to donate via the Goodwill boxes need do nothing but drop any items into the box nearest to his or her dormitory, which will be avail-able until all students have moved out aft er Commencement.


For the fi rst time since United Student Government Inauguration on April 16, new executive presi-dent Sara Kugel, FCRH ’11, and executive vice president Caitlin Meyer, FCRH ’12, presided over the organization’s weekly meeting on April 22. In att endance at the meeting were the incoming mem-bers of the USG executive board and summit, in addition to candi-dates for the positions of vice presi-dent of information technology and vice president of athletics.

As neither is an elected position, the executive president appoints a candidate for athletics and a can-didate for information technology, aft er which the Senate questions the candidates and votes on their appointment. In both cases, there were several students who applied for the position, but only one who was voted upon by the senate. Mi-chael DiTanna, FCRH ’13, was approved for the position of vice president of information technol-ogy aft er much deliberation, while Johanne Sterling, FCRH ’11, was confi rmed by unanimous vote.

Aft er the appointments ended, Brian Poteat, general manager of Hospitality Services, gave a presen-tation on the changes that Sodexo and Fordham’s Hospitality Ser-vices plan to make in the upcom-ing months. As a result of student surveys on both the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses, Poteat said that time-sensitive meal plans (those that do not allow students to enter the Ultimate Dining Mar-ketplace except during a certain span of time) were “not working” and would be phased out in favor of plans that give students a particular number of swipes per week, plus declining balance.

Th ese swipes, he went on to say, would have expanded uses, includ-ing at a renovated facility in the current location of the Annex and Dagger John’s. Th is new dining

option, which was described as a quick-service takeout facility, will allow students to use their cafeteria swipes to get meals, which will be on a rotating menu, to go.

An additional use for the swipes will be a new quick-service area in the front of the Ultimate Dining Marketplace, which Poteat said will debut with cold food in the fall semester before hopefully serving heated dishes later in the year. Th e brand-new Campbell Café and its much-discussed Starbucks were also mentioned, with Poteat con-fi rming the Café’s relationship with the Seatt le coff ee giant.

“It will look like a Starbucks and have the same menu,” he said, go-ing on to say that, because of licens-ing fees, it will in fact be a location that “proudly serves” Starbucks products.

Th e fi nal major change in Sodexo services that Poteat announced was the introduction of a MooBella ice cream machine in the Student Deli. MooBella, which off ers users some 96 combinations of ice cream and

mix-ins such as M&Ms and cook-ies, will provide ice cream to stu-dents in single-serving portions. Fordham’s will be MooBella’s sixth location, following machines at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., the State Uni-versity of New York at Albany and hospitals in New London, Conn.; Providence, R.I. and Worcester, Mass.

In other business, the USG ex-ecutive board and senate set two major agenda items for the organi-zation’s next meeting.

Th e fi rst was the appointment of vice president of the College of Business Administration class of 2011, as there was no one who ran for that position in the election in March. A coalition between the executive board and the current members of the class of 2011 sen-ate will take on this appointment.

Th e second was the approval of fi ve new clubs, which will have hearings in front of USG execu-tive board and senate at the next meeting. Th ese clubs are Young

Americans for Liberty, a Libertar-ian political organization; Opera-tion Dream Catchers, a charitable organization that raises money to provide medical supplies to under-developed nations; Model United Nations; 12th Man Club and Right to Play, the Fordham chapter of a philanthropic organization that promotes sports development in underprivileged countries.

Finally, USG liaisons to the Res-idence Halls Association, Com-muter Student Association and the Lincoln Center campus’s USG were appointed. Elisabeth DeBeus, vice president of FCRH ’11, and Donald Borenstein, president of FCRH ’13, will take turns serving as liaison to RHA, while Eva Dec-esaro, president of FCRH ’12, will work with Lincoln Center USG and Laura Kelly, secretary/treasur-er of FCRH ’12, will be the liaison to CSA.

Th e next meeting, which may be the last of the semester, will take place on April 29 at 6 p.m. in the McGinley Center faculty lounge.

NEWS APRIL 28, 2010 • THE RA M • PAGE 3

Student Groups Collaborate to Host Invisible Children ScreeningDocumentary Opens Students’ Eyes to Tragedies in War-Torn Uganda; Invisible Children Organization Encourages Student Involvement and Awareness

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIAStarted by a group of three teenagers who made a documentary of their travels to Uganda, Invisible Children strives to improve the lives of children in war-ravaged Uganda through sponsoring and promoting education.

By VICTORIA RAUASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Several student groups, includ-ing Progressive Students for Justice and its Invisible Children subcom-mitt ee in addition to Film & Tele-vision Production, provided the Fordham community with an op-portunity to view Invisible Children, hosting a well-att ended screening of the documentary on April 21 in Keating First Auditorium.

Children walk miles from their homes each night to sleep in de-serted bus parks and cramped out-door plazas with litt le food and no adult supervision in war-ravaged northern Uganda, a reality that three young American men found shocking enough to make a docu-mentary about.

Since then, Invisible Children has developed into a worldwide organization dedicated to fi ghting the injustices that many African children face, oft en unbeknownst to the rest of the world.

Th e documentary chronicles the experiences of three young Ameri-can men, Bobby, Jason and Larren, who had no previous fi lming skills, no source of funding and no orga-nization when they began, yet they traveled to the Sudan and northern Uganda, where many Sudanese refuges fl ee, hoping to bring the stories of the people there back to America.

“Once one has been to these challenging, terrible places they’re always strangely drawn back,” the fi lm quotes Dan Eldon, an Eng-lish photojournalist, in its opening credits.

Indeed, meeting and hearing the stories of so many children who live in fear of abduction and att ack by rebels prompted the

documentary’s creators to form an organization whose mission is to raise awareness of the situation in Uganda.

“I really hope that people under-stand the severity and the gravity of the situation,” Kristin Guerin, FCRH ’12, who has worked with the Invisible Children organization since she was in high school and began a chapter at Fordham, said of the club’s objective in showing the fi lm. “It is such a humanitarian crisis that no one knows about. I feel like Fordham students care a lot, but they just don’t know about the ways they can give their time, money and eff ort, so maybe now that they know they’ll help out.”

Following the screening, a rep-resentative from Invisible Children discussed the failure of the media to address the magnitude of the crisis in Uganda, where 640 people have died and 2,000 have been ab-ducted throughout the course of this war.

Children, especially, must be fearful because Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army that opposes the Ugandan government, seeks out children between the im-pressionable ages of eight and 14 to use as soldiers.

Th e documentary followed many children who are considered “night commuters,” meaning that they travel miles away from their homes and their families every night because they cannot sleep at home for fear of abduction. Invis-ible Children seeks to help these children both by increasing aware-ness and by raising funds to provide them with education that would be otherwise unatt ainable.

“Coming from a country where the youth are so highly valued, we never thought there was a place

where so many could go unseen, where so many beautiful faces could be invisible,” the documen-tary’s narrator said at the conclu-sion of the fi lm.

Representatives from the orga-nization fi elded questions from the audience and Innocent, a sur-vivor of abduction in Uganda and recipient of Invisible Children’s Legacy Scholarship, spoke about the opportunities that his educa-tion is providing him. Aft er barely escaping from a camp of Kony’s child soldiers at great risk to his life, Innocent will take the fi rst step toward his goal of becoming presi-dent of Uganda when he enters Parliament next year.

Additionally, Invisible Children is proposing legislation that would compel President Barack Obama to create a plan to end the confl ict in Uganda and get guns out of the hands of children and urged stu-dents to contact their representa-tives in Congress. Currently, the United Nations gives money to the rebel forces in times of peace talks, which Kony then uses to purchase weapons, according to an Invis-ible Children representative in re-sponse to a student’s question aft er the fi lm.

Although Uganda is experienc-ing a relative amount of peace now, the event’s organizers encouraged students to continue spreading the word and working for the cause of education in Africa, saying that “with education, change can hap-pen.”

Invisible Children representa-tives sold merchandise, such as T-shirts, bracelets and copies of the DVD, and solicited donations before and aft er the event, but they recognized that college students are on a limited budget, urging

students to make non-fi nancial contributions to the cause, such as spreading the word.

“We are a social, political and global movement using the trans-formative power of story to chang-es lives,” reads Invisible Children’s mission statement on its Web site.

Students generally found the event to be engaging and the docu-mentary inspiring.

“What’s inspiring to me is that it’s the youth helping the youth,”

Guerin said. “It gives hope to other kids.”

“Th e reason why we are not them is just by chance,” Catherine Paul, FCRH ’13, said of the chil-dren depicted in the documentary. “So many of us are going to leave tonight and just think ‘oh, that’s re-ally sad’ and move on. I hate that feeling that I can go a day without worrying about it. Th e fi lm is a good reminder that there are big-ger things to be worried about.”

THISweek at

FORDHAMWed., April 28Student Life CouncilFinal Meeting of the YearO’Keefe Commons, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.Wed., April 28Sustained Dialogue SeriesTaking Haiti Back: Revolution, U.S. Imperialism & RebuildingMcGinley Faculty Lounge, 4-6 p.m.Th urs., April 29Suarez Lecture:Autonomy of KantJerome B. Schneewind of JHUFlom Auditorium, 4:15 p.m.Fri., April 30Spring Weekend Free LunchRodrigue’s Coff ee House, 2:30 p.m. Fri., April 30Spring Weekend: DJ EarwormA-Lot,10 p.m.-12 a.m.Sat., May 1Spring Weekend Concert: MGMTMartyrs’ Lawn,12:30 p.m.Sat., May 1Spring Weekend: Under the Tent DanceMartyrs’ Lawn,9 p.m.

PHOTO BY STEPHEN MOCCIA/THE RAM

FORBES, FROM PAGE 1

Speaking to assembled Fordham students and guests, Steve Forbes shared his thoughts on trademark topics such as a fl at income tax while peppering the speech with amusing anecdotes and words of advice.

more stringent restrictions on capital-ism due to the recent scandals, Forbes reminded his audience that we do not cancel elections due to things like election fraud, but rather, we make the system bett er. Th e answer, he said, was not to change the “rules of the road,” as he called them, but rather to ensure that those rules are enforced more strictly, as in the case of the real estate bubble, reinforcing his adage that “the free market works where it’s allowed to.”

He cautioned against a weak dol-lar, saying that it would lead to a weak recovery, and added that taxes are not just revenue for the government, but are also “the price for working and price for profi t” among other things, and that raising taxes will also weaken this country’s recovery process.

Th e lecture then turned topical, with Forbes’ views on healthcare. He said he believes that our current system is broken, but not because the government has not intervened, but rather because most healthcare transactions are performed by third parties, not patient to doctor. He said that if real competition of healthcare were to arise, in a capitalist fashion, Americans would really see prices start to drop on their healthcare costs, as opposed to the controlled rates of government-run programs.

Following a rousing standing ova-tion aft er the conclusion of Forbes’ speech, the question-and-answer portion kicked off with an NYU Col-lege Republican brandishing a copy

of tax code from 1981. Th e student wanted to know why that tax code (which has since been amended over 14,000 times, Forbes noted) was not how Americans were paying taxes. Forbes answered that with the incred-ible amount of amendments to the tax code, it was a “monster,” and as such, Americans should “take that monster [of a tax code], kill it, bury it and start all over” with a fl at tax. Forbes is a huge proponent of the fl at tax, using it as his main platform in his presiden-tial runs.

Forbes’ answers to the next two questions brought him back to capi-talist roots, saying that our economy and our citizens can only benefi t from this mode of production.

“In the free market, those who start out with the least end up ahead,” he said.

He said that the central bank should have two goals: a stable currency, pref-erably backed by the gold standard and an institution that deals with pan-ics, which are inevitable in our system. In order to get Republicans back in the White House, he said that they need to lower tax rates, take control of the healthcare issue and force their Democrat opponents to denounce their tax policies, which he believes are going to cripple out economy.

Forbes was well-received by his au-dience, many of whom immediately lined up following the event to get copies of his book signed.

“Where he really got me was when he talked about the gold standard,” William Hosinki, CBA ’11, said.

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PAGE 5APRIL 28, 2010

Point-Counterpoint: MGMT Plays Martyrs’ Lawn

MGMT and its brand of psychedelic synthpop delights many students, and may seem more appropriate for Spring Weekend than Guster or Ghostface Killah, while others prefer a mainstream headliner.

No Congratulations for MGMT, CAB Must Cater Toward Fordham’s Hipster EliteMGMT is the Perfect Band to Appear during the Spring Weekend Festivities

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA

By CHRISTOPHER LETTERIICONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Who is MGMT?” the band’s Web site asks. Several years ago, this would have been a reason-able question, but now it is largely unnecessary except to reveal the band’s preference for using singular verb forms with collective nouns.

Over the past few years, MGMT has gone from CMJ buzz to MTV airplay (just kidding, obviously MTV no longer plays videos). Th e band’s début LP Oracular Spectacular has sold well over a million copies worldwide, and its sophomore eff ort Congratulations recently en-tered the Billboard charts at No. 2, behind only the inexplicable teen phenom Justin Bieber. So does this mean that Fordham has fi nally got-ten it right by selecting a timely, popular Spring Weekend headliner? Not quite.

Th e Campus Activities Board does seem to have learned from last year’s Guster incident and at least booked a band that is still in what might reasonably be called the prime of its ca-reer. Th at’s good, but it is not enough. In order for Fordham to advance its position signifi cant-ly among the country’s top universities we must adopt an aggressive strategy regarding Spring Weekend bands. We must eschew totally the Top 40 in favor of those bands whose music has not yet reached the ears of the masses. We must, in short, become hip.

“Hip” has become a loaded term, and I wield it here with all due caution. No longer is hipness an unequivocally positive att ribute. Indeed the adoption of this new strategy will require sac-rifi ce. Does anyone really want to talk to Todd P, ever? Could anyone actually enjoy the music of bands like Th e Beets and Turbo Fruits? Of course not, but this is the culture into which we must submerge ourselves if we are ever to appeal to that most particular, elusive and de-sirable demographic: the “artistic” 17-year-old with wealthy parents.

Consider Fordham’s current advantages. Th e Jesuit tradition, already well-exploited by admissions, must be creatively rebranded, emphasizing the Society of Jesus’s essential hipness. St. Ignatius of Loyola: son of Basque nobility, renounced material wealth in favor of a life in service to God, eventually creating the religious order that would be his enduring legacy. Replace “Basque nobility” with “upper-middle-class Ohioans,” “God” with “creating art,” “religious order” with “artist collective” and “enduring legacy” with “excuse for asking his parents for money” and you are describing everyone who has moved to Bushwick in the past two years. Once that connection is clear Fordham can expect an applications increase of at least 15 percent.

Another advantage is location. Our section of the Bronx is one of the few remaining ungen-

trifi ed areas of New York City, which is enor-mously important for the discerning hipster seeking “realness.” Equally important, of course, is protection from too much realness. Here the prospective matriculant delights in the gated campus and public-transit-avoiding Ram Van. Clearly, our school has, at least subconsciously, considered the needs of the hippest percentile of the applicant pool. We are uniquely situated to become the preeminently hip university in America, and we need a Spring Weekend band that will serve us in our drive to the top.

No doubt many will consider MGMT to be just that band. Th ey are incredibly successful and in demand; tickets for the band’s last New York City show commanded up to $85 each in the resale market, but the mindset that these facts indicate that booking MGMT is some sort of coup for Fordham is exactly what will bring us down in our noble drive toward a hipper fu-ture. In reality, those selfsame facts ought rightly to have placed MGMT near the bott om of our list, just above Kings of Leon.

Th e road to greatness is a winding, narrow, potholed one, with neither a guardrail nor a median nor even much of a shoulder in case the car of progress gets a fl at or maybe you just want to pull over and take a quick break and gaze at the vista of possibility. What I mean is that if we want to be cool, we have to suff er though some bad Spring Weekend bands, but not bad like Guster and Yellowcard – we need the right kind of bad band. Booking Guster is like eating a Tootsie Roll – awful-tasting and not even re-deemably healthy. What we need are bands that are like liver and onions: admitt edly unpleas-ant to stomach, but ultimately benefi cial due to massive amounts of iron(y).

Of course this won’t be easy; nothing worth doing ever is. Th e only fun thing about writing this article was gett ing to e-mail the opinions editors that I would “do the PCP.” However, the future of Fordham depends on what we do now. So no matt er how boring and unknown Ólöf Arnalds or Mountain Man may be, they are on Brooklyn Vegan far too frequently for us to overlook; even though Sleigh Bells will be insuff erable by summer’s end, we need to book them because Sasha Frère-Jones put them atop his year-end list. Th ese are the criteria that mat-ter in the eff ort to make Fordham the hippest university in the country by 2016. Call it Ex-celsior | Th e Campaign for Fordham (Washed-Out Remix). You’ll notice I took out the “Ever Upward” part of the slogan. Th at’s because hip-sters know Latin and hate redundancy.

Christopher Lett erii, FCRH ’11, is a Spanish language and literature major fr om Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

By ANDREW DOMZALSKICONTRIBUTING WRITER

MGMT’s performance at Spring Weekend 2010 will go down in history as one of the best concerts Fordham University has ever hosted. I say that without hesitation. Th e neo-psyche-delic duo from Wesleyan University is a rather rare type of band for this era of music: synthpop with lyrics that make you think and chord pro-gressions that make you move, but the band’s appropriateness for appearing at Fordham digs deeper than its catchy songs.

Before we were all “fated to pretend,” MG-MT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Gold-wasser were your average Wesleyans, experi-menting with sound on a synthesizer. Despite their success, they are not far removed from where we stand as college students now, and this adjacency to standard college life enables MGMT to capture some of the essence and in-tegrity of our age.

I believe that many students at Fordham can emulate the messages that MGMT deliver in its lyrics. On its debut studio album Oracular Spectacular, the band’s messages ranged from sarcastically sociological on “Time to Pretend” (“Th e models will have children, we’ll get a divorce / We’ll fi nd some more models, ev-erything must run its course”) to ecological on “Kids” (“Control yourself / Take only what you need from it”). While many of MGMT’s tracks on Oracular Spectacular dealt with how intrinsi-cally absurd these rock-star visions they craft ed were, the polished rhythms egged listeners on to fantasize, too.

Th en, MGMT “made it” – and with that fame came somewhat of a disillusionment, culminat-ing in the recently released album Congratula-tions. Th e band made a point of affi rming how the new record would be assembled: there are no “Kids,” “Electric Feel” or “Time to Pretend” sounding tracks off this album. Instead, what you will fi nd are more musically mature songs, deeper (albeit sometimes overreaching) lyrics and tributes to other bands and musicians like Brian Eno. While Congratulations’ cryptic lyrics and less-radio-friendly beats seem a divergence from Oracular Spectacular, the album does seem to jibe well with MGMT’s inherent skepticism surrounding fame and success.

Th at is what makes me so certain of MGMT’s suitability to play at Fordham. I’ve been asked on several occasions whether I think MGMT will play the classics of Oracular Spectacular or will it be more of a Congratulations tour to coincide with the new release. My answer is that I neither know nor really care. Either concert would fi t in here well. Th e band’s musical repertoire speaks to a young adult audience to be cautiously en-amored by the prospects of whatever we as in-dividuals consider success and stardom to be,

while at the same time being careful of what you wish for. Success could happen at any time, as it did to MGMT, though it may not be as glamor-ous as you think.

As for the music scene at Fordham, I think MGMT is a perfect fi t, being well liked and well known. Th e duo has been nationally recognized since the explosion of Oracular Spectacular, gar-nering two nominations at the 2010 Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Pop Per-formance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for the song “Kids” in addition to the 2009 Grammy Award win by Justice for their remix of MGMT’s “Electric Feel” in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category.

I think the student population of Fordham would be overreaching if it expected the Cam-pus Activities Board to sign a more relevant band to play at Spring Weekend. MGMT has become a powerhouse in the music industry, and the choice by CAB to bring them here was brilliant. MGMT’s contributions to modern music have spanned across several genres, including collab-orations with Kid Cudi on the single “Pursuit of Happiness” and Th e Flaming Lips on their song “Worm Mountain.” As such, CAB has done an excellent job in att racting a signifi cant band that has relevance in multiple genres of music, from indie to rap, instead of marginalizing students with a band that works within a single genre.

Comparatively, MGMT ranks at the top of re-cent artists that Fordham has brought to Spring Weekend. In recent years, Fordham University has played host to Guster, Yellowcard and Ghost-face Killah. None of these artists carry messages so pertinent to the students at Fordham, and none of them were as relevant as MGMT is in the music industry at the time of their perfor-mances. CAB has allowed the students at Ford-ham to benefi t from having a band quickly ma-turing in popularity that speaks so directly to a collegiate audience. So, I do think that MGMT’s performance will go down in history as one of the best ever performed at Fordham’s campus. U2 notwithstanding, Fordham has never before had the privilege of hosting a band at the height of success that MGMT has att ained, with lyrical lessons so down-to-earth. I hope that being able to att ract a band like MGMT to Fordham will enable CAB to bring similarly signifi cant bands here in the next few years.

So, I am eagerly awaiting the performance by MGMT on May 1. Whether it be primarily Con-gratulations or an Oracular Spectacular throw-back, MGMT will surely put on a performance few will soon forget. CAB “had the vision” of bringing a stellar, nationally-acclaimed band of collegiate relevance to this campus: “Now let’s have some fun.”

Andrew Domzalski, CBA ’12, is an applied accounting and fi nance major fr om Philadelphia, Pa.

Staff Poll: When the staff of Th e Ram was polled, 13 were in favor of MGMT playing Spring Weekend, while four were opposed.

OPINIONSPAGE 6 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010

From the Desk of Nick Carroll, Sports Editor

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By CHRISTOPHER KENNEDYSTAFF WRITER

“Amen I say to you, whatever you did for one of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

This is a passage from the Bible, Matthew 25:40. Jesus is instruct-ing his followers that whatever they do for those who, for what-ever reason, cannot help them-selves in some circumstance, they do for God. A simple theological interpretation to be sure (this is where you glance to the end of the article and sigh as you read what my major is) but one that is nevertheless appropriate for a wide variety of situations.

This is, I believe, a message that should be taken to heart by all those in the administration at this Jesuit institution. However, there is one major instance on this campus where Jesus’ teaching could be much better heeded.

I could be speaking about many issues (Mt 25:42; “For I was hun-gry and you gave me no food” comes immediately to mind. However, in this case, I’m speak-ing of handicap accessibility to some of Fordham’s facilities.

The biggest problem exists at Collins Hall, home to the phi-losophy department, Collins Auditorium and other offices. The building is in no way handi-capped accessible. This, I must say, is a travesty. Philosophy is one of this University’s strongest departments, yet professor’s of-fices and other physical resourc-es remain out of reach for anyone unable to climb flights of stairs.

Any physically disabled student who comes to Fordham wishing to major in philosophy is at a dis-advantage. He or she misses out on the opportunity for easy ac-cess to philosophy faculty.

Not only that, but philosophy classes make up two of the under-graduate core requirements. Wait, you say; this is easily remedied. These students could simply meet with professors elsewhere. It’s not that simple, of course.

Think of quiet, easily accessible meeting spaces on this campus. Keating basement? Noisy, hec-tic. Walsh Library? You wouldn’t want to disturb others working in silence. An empty classroom? This could involve an hour-long wild goose chase across campus.

Further, professors have many more resources at their disposal in their offices (yes, books are still useful in many cases). In short, physically disabled stu-dents deserve as much access to the Philosophy offices as any other student.

Also located in Collins Hall is an auditorium, a setting for many on-campus theater groups’ per-formances. While some can relo-cate, others, most notably anyone looking to put on a play (FET, Mimes and Mummers, etc) have no where to go. Collins has the best theater facilities on campus. In fact, the University is planning renovations to the auditorium, as noted at last week’s USG meet-ing. It was at this meeting, in fact, that USG passed a resolution in support of getting Collins to meet Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility standards.

One reason so many people come to Fordham is because of the multitude of cultural activi-ties available. It is in this tradi-tion, especially considering our location, that so many groups on campus put a lot of time and ef-fort into putting on shows to be enjoyed by the Fordham popu-lace.

What is the point of such ter-

Fordham Fails to Accomodate Students’ Disabilities

Collins Hall possesses poor accomodations for students who use wheelchairs.RAM ARCHIVES

Recently, I like all students, had to go through one of my least-favor-ite experiences, course registration. Unlike my previous experiences, this time it did not go poorly: how-ever, I am still reminded of my past registration experiences.

Looking back, I really question the way some things are run here.

I am prett y sure it is safe to say that we are all in college to help ourselves later in life. Another ob-vious factor in that is that college should be helping us prepare for a potential career. So, now, tak-ing those obvious statements into consideration, why do I feel like I may not be qualifi ed to pump gas for a living? Aft er two years and more money than I will probably make in my 20s, I now detest the core curriculum. I have heard the arguments about the values of both a Jesuit and liberal arts education, but I am not buying it. For a pleth-ora of reasons, I feel that the core curriculum does much more harm than good.

Th e most obvious reason for this is because none of these core classes really apply to the real world, unless you plan to teach them to the next generation of poor saps. Looking back, I think I gained more valu-able life experience in eighth grade

cooking and sewing class .Really, a requirement for me to

get to a profi cient level of a lan-guage? Th e chances I ever use said language are virtually zero, and, in all likelihood, I will probably end up forgett ing everything within the year I fi nish. As someone who regularly questions the move all the way from Philadelphia to New York, this is a total waste of my time. Th ere may be some students who want to pursue these fi elds, but there is no reason to apply them to everyone.

Meanwhile, I could be taking classes that could apply toward my major, or, I know it is a crazy con-cept, pursuing some intellectual interests. Instead, I am locked into taking classes I really could not care less about. Th anks, Fordham.

I remember being told before going to college to explore mul-tiple majors. I was told that at 18, I should not be locked into a par-ticular career, but, as it turns out, I am. Instead of exploring diff erent fi elds and seeing what really works for me, I have basically been forced to blindly pick a major and go with it.

Aft er four semesters, I have tak-en two classes that will go toward my major. With that being the case,

I really do not have much leeway to explore any diff erent subjects. I basically am locked into a boatload of classes toward my major and minor. If I decide I want to change my path, it would most likely re-quire summer courses. Could I re-ally be gett ing less value out of my money?

It really all comes down to the lack of fl exibility. Fordham has such a deep core and so many required classes that it limits the amount of classes students can choose for themselves.

Now, a person could argue that these classes are a part of the core for a reason, and that they can play a role in our intellectual develop-ment. However, I do not think that is the case at all. I think most stu-dents look at these core classes as an annoyance, something they just have to get through before taking classes that are more meaningful to them.

Considering this, are classes that students really do not care about going to have an impact on them? I think students would get much more out of classes that they are able to choose, classes in which they are actually interested. I un-derstand the Jesuits’ philosophy is for well rounded individuals,

but do these classes make us well-rounded if we do not care?

Maybe this just makes too much sense. God forbid we go to college to learn for ourselves, rather than go through a fi ft h and sixth year of high school. I much prefer be-ing told what I need to know, even though it will most likely never help me in life.

Maybe I am just bitt er aft er go-ing through pointless day aft er pointless day, but I defi nitely feel as if there is some merit to my rant. If I ever decide I want to make some money in life and give up writing, will I have time to ever change paths? Did I even have time to come to this realization?

Hopefully the next two years are more fulfi lling. Hopefully I learn a skill I want to and am capable of using in the real world, but with this all-in approach, pumping gas does not seem like a far-fetched scenario.

rific and varied entertainment being performed in Collins if a handicapped student with an in-terest in any aspect of show pro-duction cannot participate? This is (to use a word that I don’t like to throw around except in the most serious cases) de facto dis-crimination.

Every student with an interest in making Fordham an institu-tion where those with physical disabilities have the same oppor-

tunities as people without physi-cal disabilities (and hopefully this is every student) should let the administration know their support for USG’s resolution to finally make Collins Hall acces-sible to anyone who wants to take advantage of its resources in phi-losophy and the arts.

Christopher Kennedy, FCRH ’12, is a theology major from Mys-tic, Conn.

Countless Campus Buildings Lack Adequate Handicap Accessible Entrances and Interior Modifi cations for Wheelchairs

OPINIONS APRIL 28, 2010 • THE RA M • PAGE 7

Libertas et Veritas

Capitalism is Cool

CHADWICK CIOCCI

A Look at the WorldOutside of Fordham from

the Perspective of Professional News

Bloggers

Arizona Bill

Karen Bass,

The Huffi ngton Post

“The outrageous law just signed by Governor

Jan Brewer hearkens back to the days of apartheid South Af-

rica and the pass cards Blacks had to carry

in that country. What Arizona politicians have done is unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

Clarence B. Jones,

The Huffi ngton Post

“We have the most sophisti-cated surveillance technol-

ogy and the most formi-dable military, yet we are

unable to stop the intrusion of illegal immigrants. The bill

to prevent the continued infl ux of illegal immigrants appears more like an act of desperation than racially

motivated legislation.”

A Look at the WorldOutside of Fordham from

Issue of the Week:Issue of the Week:

See what commentators from the Left and the Right have to say about the Arizo-na Immigration Bill requir-

ing proof of citizenship.

Th is week, the Fordham commu-nity was treated to a lecture by entre-preneur and two-time presidential candidate Steve Forbes. Th ose who att ended could learn about the vir-tues of capitalism and the follies of command economies. Forbes’ latest book How Capitalism Will Save Us is a must-read for those who doubt the economic system that made America the most prosperous nation in his-tory as well as for those who support capitalism but could use a more nu-anced understanding of it.

Forbes does not write in the philo-sophical or academic traditions of Adam Smith, Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman but admitt edly adopts a more conversational tone. In this, way Forbes’s work is refreshing and approachable and much needed, considering the bipartisan hyperbole spewed at capitalism by our media, politicians and even many of our professors.

It is exactly this hyperbole, or what Forbes calls “the drumbeat against ‘greed’ and ‘free markets,’” that dis-torts our entire conversation about capitalism and precludes a clear and true understanding about what a free market actually is. When we talk about greed and the economic prob-lems capitalism (supposedly) creates, the entire American dialogue occurs under the assumption that our econ-omy is actually operating under free markets and therefore needs more regulation.

Rather, Forbes correctly contends many of our economic woes are caused not by a lack of regulation but either wrong or too much regulation. Yet the hyperbole that dominates our conversations forces us to assume the existence of free markets. Th is, in turn, precludes us from actually understanding what free markets are, as well causes us (in a too oft en bi-partisan way) to believe that what we need is regulation, rather than what actually results: more regulation.

Many objections against capital-ism, especially moral objections, center on the word of our day: greed. However, as Forbes pointed out, to say that our current crisis is caused by greed is as helpful as saying grav-ity causes airplanes to crash. It is not gravity that makes planes crash but either pilot or mechanical failure. Gravity is not such a system that it randomly chooses to pull airplanes out of the sky. If a plane crashes then it is not gravity’s fault (capitalism) but the pilot’s (government) and/or me-chanical failure (regulation). Rather than blame gravity, we need to exam-ine and change the pilot’s training or make sure the plane’s mechanicals are bett er suited to keep it in air.

Yet this is precisely what critics of capitalism (for equivocate capitalism and greed) do when they att ack it as the cause of the current recession. Th ey blame gravity for plane crashes. Rather we need “rules of the road,” or sensible rules that don’t overly bur-den the system with excessive man-dates or render the system useless with excessive restrictions. Th e road, at the moment, is looking very long.

Chadwick Ciocci, FCRH ’10, is a philosophy major fr om Trumbull, Conn. He can be reached at [email protected].

By CHRISTINE BARCELLONAOPINIONS EDITOR

It is rankings season. As publi-cations like U.S. News and World Report and The Princeton Reviewrelease their lists of the best and worst schools in the country, straggling high school seniors send in their final decisions about where they will spend the next four years. As Fordham an-nounces its changes in the rank-ings, it also declares its steep increase in applicants. Fordham has been one of many schools that saw an enormous applicant pool this year.

Another school with a huge applicant pool was Harvard. Ac-cording to a Washington Post ar-ticle, the school saw over 30,000 applicants competing for a fresh-man class of 1,600 students, which means that one in 50 ap-plying seniors sent applications to Harvard. Of course, only 6.9 percent of applicants are ac-cepted into Harvard. For those students who do not make the cut, applying to Harvard was a long shot, and ultimately a waste of money. It is not a coincidence that many of the most selective schools have high application fees.

The 93.1 percent of appli-cants that Harvard rejects must apply to other schools, schools

with low or no application fee and easy-to-complete applica-tions, like Fordham’s. As admis-sions rates sink for such selective schools, nervous high school se-niors tend to apply to more and more schools, and Fordham has been one of the institutions to benefit from the Ivy League’s re-jection of most applicants.

According to the Fordham Web site, applicants to the Uni-versity have skyrocketed from 20,000 students last year to 27,000 students this year. The enormous increases in appli-cants to many colleges across the board does not nullify Ford-ham’s achievement. For the past 19 years, applications to Ford-ham have increased. This year in particular, high school seniors from across the country have taken notice of Fordham.

This increase in students from Texas, California, the West and Midwest are especially indicative of an improvement in Fordham’s national image. Though the Uni-versity is still working on craft-ing a nationally known brand image through successful athlet-ic programs, word is spreading somehow about Fordham.

This increase is reassuring for the University; it has been a few years since Newsweek named Fordham the Hottest Catholic School in America, and since

then, some things have changed. The College of Business Admin-istration has slipped some in the rankings, and Fordham’s endow-ment has dropped by almost a quarter.

However, thousands of stu-dents have shown confidence by applying to Fordham despite lowered rankings and resources. After all, only 3,000 fewer stu-dents applied to Fordham than Harvard last year.

This bodes well for next year; so far this spring the rankings changes have been mixed. Ford-ham’s Law School has dropped from No. 30 in the nation to No. 34 in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, and on the bright side, the Executive MBA program has been named No. 25 in the nation.

The Fordham Web site re-ports that this year’s applicant pool is more diverse regionally, nationally and ethnically, and that the SAT and ACT scores of this year’s applicants are a little higher than before.

Based on this, the University should continue to try to target students from out of the tri-state area; the commitment to in-creasing geographic diversity is not just to make the school look good on paper. Untapped mar-kets of students lie in places like my home state of Texas, where

almost none of my high school friends had heard of Fordham. The University’s New York City location and its lower selectivity than schools like NYU are assets. As more selective schools tight-en their acceptance percentages, Fordham aims to attract the 90-something percentages of wor-thy students who are rejected by Ivy Leagues.

Fordham has its work cut out for it: there are students all over the country who want to go to Ivy League schools or other pri-vate institutions in the north-east. Students apply to these private northeastern schools be-cause of their high name recog-nition, which is partially a result of high rankings and successful sports teams. Fordham has fall-en in some rankings, but it now attempts to spread its name by revamping programs like men’s basketball and by customized recruiting methods. The Uni-versity should keep fighting to make itself known to the huge numbers of out-of-region kids who would apply, if only they had heard of Fordham. Having great rankings is less important than having a name people can recognize.

Christine Barcellona, FCRH ’12, is an English major from Dal-las, Texas. She can be reached at [email protected].

Increasing Applications to FordhamThis Year, Record Numbers of Prospective Students Applied to Fordham, Better Name Recognition Can Draw Even More

RAM ARCHIVES

This year, over 27,000 students applied to Fordham, an increase from last year’s 20,000 applicants. This corresponds with a nationwide trend of increased applica-tions, but suggests that many prospective students see Fordham as a desirable school despite changes in rankings.

OPINIONSPAGE 8 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010

By BRIAN KRAKERASSISTANT OPINIONS EDITOR

Th e college application process is more painful than Charlie chomping on your index fi nger. With a slew of numbers and fi gures coupled with essays and recommendations, high school students are forced to con-dense their four years of high school into a single transcript. Th e admis-sions offi ce is then put to the task of evaluating applications. Like pacing on a treadmill, the staff tediously sift s through the decimal points that separate applicants, determining those who adequately meet the uni-versity’s criteria.

With the technological boom, the Internet has revolutionized the application process. Th e amount

of required application paperwork dropped as the common app Web page shortened students’ workloads from mountains of forms to a single submission. However, some colleges are off ering students a new applica-tion option by permitt ing students to upload videos onto YouTube as an optional portion of their applica-tion.

Tuft s University is infamous for peculiar application options, off er-ing students essay prompts from “Are we alone?” to “Gorillas or Guer-rillas?” Now, the applicants can turn on their Webcams and camcorders and produce one-minute videos, demonstrating why they are worthy to grace the halls of Tuft s. Some ap-plicants composed raps about their lives, played beloved sports and pre-

formed interpretive dances about favorite calculus topics.

Fordham should take Tuft s’ lead and permit applicants to upload short videos to a YouTube account or att ach video fi les to online sub-missions. Th ese videos provide ap-plicants with a unique way to pres-ent themselves that an essay or SAT score cannot. Turning teens away from producing viral videos to appli-cation productions, YouTube allows students to introduce universities to their creative side in a personal set-ting.

Some may fear a mass infl ux of videos, however only 1,000 of the 15,000 Tuft s applications provided a short. Rather this option will promote more creative students to apply. Instead of completing mo-

YouTube Enlivens Students’ College Applications

Potential students upload personal videos onto YouTube, the video Web site, as part of their Tufts University application.COURTESY OF YOUTUBE

notonous application essays about a university’s stellar academics, a video submission would prompt students to pick up their cameras and send Fordham an application check.

Most importantly, a video option provides students without a perfect GPA or SAT score to even out their application with their creative side. A teen’s talents may not fi t into the rigid categories of math a critical reading, but their particular gift s are highlighted through personal vid-eos.

Fordham’s traditional canon re-quired essays and test scores has served the University well, but these measures also fail to provide the whole picture.

SAT scores are an unfair measure of a student’s intellect because they only demonstrate parents’ willing-ness to write a check for their child’s preparatory class. With programs such as Kaplan teaching high school students how to beat the test, col-leges are basing admission on a person’s deductive reasoning and logical guesing rather than strictly intelligence.

GPAs are not a reliable standard either. Most high schools have forms of grade infl ation, with students writing more extra credit assign-ments than required assignments. Other schools weigh AP classes the same as base-level classes, hurting the GPA of overachieving students, while other’s cruise through with straight “A”s.

Neither are the required essays on the common application help-

ful. Th is portion of the application is meant to evaluate a student’s ability to demonstrate writing skills while expounding upon a personal topic. However, aft er rigorous rough draft s and editing sessions with teachers and parents, these personal essays are so convoluted by collaboration that they are mere skeletons of a stu-dent’s original prose.

Video portions of an application would not simply be a gimmick, but a legitimate tool to evaluate students. Like an interview, the video shows an applicant’s poise and charisma, with the creativity and personal touch of an essay. Th ere are few out-side sources to turn to, as most high school teachers are still amused by PowerPoint presentations with animated text. If the admissions of-fi ce wishes to know applicants, how bett er to do it than to peer into their rooms, hometowns and lives from behind a computer screen.

Fordham should not allow its ap-plication process to become the next casting for the “Real Life,” but shoud allow a YouTube clip to highlighter a student’s merit. With countless fl aws in the application process, permit-ting teens to att ach a minute long clip of them enjoying their favorite hobby only benefi ts the entire pro-cess. Th e admissions offi ces should begin to evolve like dance and evalu-ate not only numbers and fi gures, but also a YouTube clip or two.

Brian Kraker, FCRH ’12, is a com-puter science and English double major fr om Pompton Lakes, N.J. He can be reached at [email protected].

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By MARTY MERCADOSTAFF WRITER

Conan O’Brien has moved on. Yes, months aft er his bitt er depar-ture from NBC’s “Th e Tonight Show” franchise, Conan fi nally found himself a new home. Sur-prisingly, it is not one of the net-work giants rumored to be fi ghting over him like FOX and ABC. Co-nan has decided to take his show to basic cable, beginning as early as November, with TBS.

His unnamed show is set to

take an 11 p.m. timeslot that airs Mondays through Th ursdays. Th is means that George Lopez’s “Lopez Tonight” will be pushed back to midnight to accommodate the new show. Alarm bells immediately sounded, as it seemed too reminis-cent of the Leno-Conan timeslot fi asco that only happened early this year.

Many feared that Conan was do-ing the exact same thing that Leno did to him (which led to Conan’s departure). Th ese concerns were quickly quelled as George Lopez

Coco’s Comeback on Cable Brings Plenty of Expectationshimself welcomed Conan to TBS with open arms. Reports also cir-culated that Conan did not want to accept the off er because of Lopez’s time change. Conan fi nally agreed when Lopez personally invited him to join TBS and assured Co-nan he did not mind moving back to midnight.

It makes sense. Lopez is up against cable giants “Th e Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and “Th e Colbert Report” with Stephen Colbert (both with Comedy Cen-tral). Having Conan on at 11 will give TBS a legitimate challenge to Comedy Central’s dynamic duo and will give Lopez’s modestly suc-cessful show a strong lead-in and less competition in the midnight timeslot.

Th is move will give TBS the potential to become a legitimate ratings giant when it comes to late-night television. Lopez already has a strong core following which will only grow now that he does not have to compete with Stewart and Colbert, while the addition of Co-nan’s new show may take viewers from Comedy Central to add to O’Brien’s already fi ercely loyal and vocal followers.

Conan will also be given a lot more freedom than he had dur-ing his short tenure with “Th e To-

night Show” as he now broadcasts from cable. He will be allowed more freedom to express his edgy comedic brand, which made him popular during his years hosting “Late Night.” He will not have to compromise his comedy for the older audience who watches “Th e Tonight Show” because he will now be catering mostly to a much younger audience.

Th is will allow characters like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and other controversial characters to make their return (depending on who owns the intellectual rights to these characters).

Another advantage Conan may gain from moving to TBS is that he will not have to compete head-to-head with his network counterparts Jay Leno (“Th e Tonight Show”) and David Lett erman (“Th e Late Show”). Conan will enjoy a 35-minute head start and will avoid having to contend directly against two already established shows.

With his show set to begin in November, Conan is now focus-ing on his 30-city tour around the U.S. His aptly named Th e Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour is a massive suc-cess both in sales and with the crit-ics. He has been able to try out new bits as well as revive older favorite

routines that were too risqué to air during his tenure on “Th e Tonight Show.” Not surprisingly, his fans are loving every moment of it. He is close to hitt ing one million follow-ers on Twitt er, crushing Jay Leno’s measly count of over 41,000.

Conan’s challenge now is deliv-ering on the expectations. He has been given a good timeslot on a big cable network. With that comes a lot of freedom when it comes to what he will present. His fans have been behind him 100 percent throughout his struggles on NBC, and they will surely be tuning in when he makes his return.

He is raising expectations even more with his live tour. His creativ-ity and humor will surely be pushed to its limit since he has to contend with Stewart and Colbert. He must also show George Lopez that mov-ing “Lopez Tonight” to midnight was the correct decision.

Conan has a great opportunity to show NBC what it lost and net-works like FOX what they passed on. He has plenty to prove on two fronts: content and, of course, rat-ings. Only time will tell how he will do, but one thing is for sure, Coco is back and November can-not come soon enough. Th is could potentially be the start of an even bigger late-night war.

ROB KIM/LANDOV/MCT

Conan O’Brien is returning to late-night TV after the CBS debacle.

By ABIGAIL FORGET AND PATRICK DEROCHERMANAGING EDITOR AND

NEWS EDITOR

Th e Ram: Much att ention has been paid att ention to your unoffi -cial moniker, “Th e Capitalist Tool.” When you say that you and other entrepreneurs are tools of capital-ism, how are you defi ning your role in the global economy?

Steve Forbes: Well, everyone who tries to start a business and expand a business or keep it going in the face of changing times and circumstances is part of a global economy. You may be working for a local market, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be using services or products or goods from another part of the world.

So in that sense globalization has been going on since the caves. Ex-panding communities and expand-ing supply chains, we get various products from around the world.

TR: In the 1996 and 2000 elec-tions, did you run with the inten-tion of winning and gett ing into the White House or did you run more to make a statement? What was your frame of mind going into those?

SF: I knew in both that the candi-dacy was a long shot, but I thought that lightning might strike, but it turns out that the message was bet-

ter than the messenger. Flat tax has been enacted in some 25 countries. And eventually we’ll get it here. You’ll live long enough to see it.

TR: What do you feel Forbes Magazine has over other competi-tors, such as Fortune and Business Weekly?

SF: I think one of our distin-guishing characteristics is that we have a mission. We believe in free markets, free people. We believe that capitalism is the best system. We are, as one editor put it, the equivalent of drama critics; we love it when production is done right and we get angry when it’s not done right, so we’re also very real critics.

We believe in this system and those who practice it we praise and those who don’t we criticize. It goes back to my grandfather who said that the purpose of business is to produce happiness, not to pile up money. Th at’s our motivation.

TR: You were heavily involved in creating former N.J. governor Christine Todd Whitman’s fi scal policy and have endorsed political fi gures such as Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Do you see yourself playing such roles in other cam-paigns in the future and if so, are there any other campaigns in par-ticular that you might like to join?

SF: I have not made a choice yet

for 2012; I’m looking over the fi eld. But last year I did work with and endorse Chris Christie who won the Republican nomination and then won the general election in New Jersey. He’s doing very serious work in gett ing the state’s dreadful fi nancial condition put right.

TR: What is the best advice you have received from your father or grandfather?

SF: Well, my father always said the best way to get ahead is to pick parents who already own a successful business, as he put it, there’s nothing wrong with nepo-tism as long as you keep it in the family.

But I think the best advice was from my grandfather who loved to—it is in each and every maga-zine–quote from Proverbs which is, “With all by gett ing, get under-

standing.”

TR: What advice would you give to young people who want to be politically involved?

SF: Well get interested; with the Web, it’s easy to help out. Get your-self the tools while you’re studying so that you can be a productive citizen or have the time and the means to help out politically.

The Ram sat down with Steve Forbes to discuss his election bid, his magazine, capitalism and advice for aspiring politicians.PHOTO BY STEPHEN MOCCIA/ THE RAM

Th e Ram Sits Down with Steve ForbesLeading Magazine Mogul Talks Economics, Inspiration and Poltical Involvement

By JONATHAN GILLISSTAFF WRITER

Th e menu says that it is between Prince and Pring Streets, but don’t be fooled – Pring Street doesn’t really exist. Cubana Café might not be the best at proofreading its menus (it’s safe to assume that Pring Street is really Spring Street), but the cozy litt le barra is prett y good at being Cuban, and prett y excellent at making Cuban food.

Tucked nicely in Soho, Cubana is cheap, relaxed and a litt le cheesy. To be honest, it feels a bit like the set of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, but in an endearing way. With pictures of old shiny cars on the wall and bouncy salsa music in the background, the restaurant seems to invite hairy chests, open shirts and swinging hips. A good place to discuss the global economy? Prob-

CULTUREPAGE 14 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010

MARY PORPORA

Th at’s So Po Dining Out: Soho’s Cubana Café

Overall

Location

Food Quality

Atmosphere

Hospitality

Price

(Out of 4 ’s)

$$$$

Editor’s Pick: McDougall’s Born to Run

Week 10: Electrical Fires

Last week I wrote a column about my many near-death experi-ences. Ever since then, out of slight paranoia, I have been very careful with everything that I have done (I did not want my acknowledge-ment to become ironic). Th e day before my next column was due, I experienced a rather frightening near-death experience.

On the aft ernoon of Friday, April 23, I was hanging out alone in my room. I knew that I had time to kill, and I certainly was not go-ing to do homework, so I decided to straighten my hair. I plugged in the straightener and put on an episode of “Th e O.C.” (which I am currently re-watching). Since I have a lot of hair, aft er about 35 minutes, I was just about done. I was just about to straighten my last section of hair when it hap-pened.

All of a sudden, there was an explosion. Light, smoke and small fl ames were shooting out of the connection between the exten-sion cord and the surge protec-tor in which my straightener was plugged. All I could hear were the sounds of Rice Krispies: snaps, crackles and pops. All I could think to do was stand there screaming, “Oh My God! Oh My God!” One minute I’m straighten-ing my hair and enjoying the wit of Seth Cohen, and the next, fi re. (It is important to note, that I, like Frankenstein’s monster, am death-ly afraid of fi re).

Aft er about fi ve seconds, the explosion dwindled down to a small fl ame. My fi rst thought was “water!” and thankfully my next thought was “electricity, water, bad!” So I did what I think most people would have done: I ran. I ran down the hall to my friends’ room and told them what hap-pened. We all ran back to my room to fi nd that the fl ames had been replaced with gray smoke. As I stood in the hallway shaking and wondering why my smoke alarm had not gone off (turns out my smoke alarm does not/never had batt eries in it), my friends sur-veyed the situation and opened the windows. All that remained of the horrifying fi re was a melted ex-tension cord and surge protector, and an ashy wall.

Th ings started sett ling down, and I decided it would be a good idea to call facilities. Curiously, the outlet along the same wall of the outlet in which the extension cord was plugged was no longer work-ing, while the outlet which housed the extension cord was fi ne. Aft er about fi ve phone calls, I was fi nally transferred to the boiler room and was able to talk to someone who was willing to help me.

Aft er everything was over, I realized how fortunate I was that the fi re was so small and that I had cleaned up the papers that used to be on the fl oor right next to the ex-tension cord. Unfortunately, this incident only served to heighten the comparison between my life and that of Devon Sawa in Final Destination.

Electrical fi res: that’s so Po!

PHOTO BY JONATHAN GILLIS/THE RAM

By KELLY CAGGIANOWEB EDITOR

Born to Run, writt en by Christo-pher McDougall, begins with a sim-ple question, “How come my foot hurts?” From this simple question, McDougall began a quest of epic proportions to ultimately answer this perplexing question that no doctors were able to satisfactorily answer.

If you are looking for the next good read you must pick up a copy of Born to Run. McDougall craft ed one of the most interesting, inspir-ing and page-turning books that I have ever read. As McDougall wrote, the journey to solve his simple question, “…led [him] to a photo of a very fast man in a very short skirt, and from there it only got stranger.

Soon, [he] was dealing with a murder, drug guerrillas and a one-armed man with a cream-cheese cup strapped to his head.”

While on an assignment to Mex-ico, McDougall stumbled upon a picture of, “Jesus running down a rock slide” in a travel magazine. Al-though this was not actually Jesus, the picture did show a man running in a skirt and sandals.

Th e article was about an ancient

tribe of peoples called the Tarahu-mara. Th e Tarahumara live in the deadly Copper Canyons of Mexico and are rarely seen by outsiders. McDougall would later return to Mexico to track down the Tarahu-mara who were legendary for their ability to run extreme distances with no formal training and litt le more than thin stripes of rubber tied to their feet.

As he was looking for the legend-ary Tarahumara, McDougall came across an American expatriate living in Mexico who went by the name Caballo Blanco.

Caballo Blanco was one of the few outsiders who had met mem-bers of the Tarahumara and was one of an even smaller number to have been accepted and adopted by the tribe. Caballo Blanco would turn into McDougall’s key connection to gett ing to know the Tarahumara ways.

Ultimately, Caballo Blanco would organize “the greatest race the world has never seen” that would pit Amer-ica’s top ultrarunners against the an-cient running of the Tarahumara in a 50-mile race through the Copper Canyons. (Ultrarunners are people who run extreme distances, for in-stance the 100-mile race held annu-ally in Leadville, Col.) McDougall’s

Though the décor is cheesy, the food at Cubana Café is worth the trip.

Enjoy Cuban Food Ranging from Breakfast to Meat Dishesably not. Just read the writing on the wall – literally. No cerveza, no trabajo. No beer, no work.

When you fi rst sit down, look for the funky green and red sauces in the center of the table. I don’t now what they are, but they are delicious on the bread that comes out a second later. Th en, when choosing your meal, skip the quesadillas. Cubana has a whole host of other options, and you can make a quesadilla at home. Instead, take a peek at things you’d never get right, like lechon. Roasted pig is hard enough to cook as it is, but to keep it as plump and tender as Cubana does is just a miracle.

Besides pork, the restaurant also off ers beef, chicken and some shrimp and fi sh options, all spiced with the perfect island fl avors, making them as saucy as Diego Luna in Havana Nights. Th e recipe combinations are prett y clever, blending odd fl avors together with surprisingly pleasing results. Th e picadillo Cubano, which can be prepared with either beef or chicken, has a litt le bit of olive, some yucca and a hint of raisin. Try fi nding that sort of combination outside of Cuba.

Funny enough, Cubana also serves breakfast all day despite the fact that the café isn’t even open for breakfast. Of course, customers won’t be complain-ing. Latin eggs and tortillas are almost always delicious, especially when the tortillas are fresh and the eggs topped with a side of salsa. If you are especially unadventurous, Cu- bana can off er you some American pancakes, too. If you are that boring, though, you might as well at least get a quesadilla.

As is generally the case with Cuban food, you’ll get your fi ll of black beans and rice. Just remember to save room for dessert like tres leche, a litt le sponge cake drowning in sweet coconut milk. You’d do alright with the fl an as well.

Cubana off ers some excellent mojitos for surprisingly reasonable prices. Actually, the whole menu is aff ordable, which makes eating that much more enjoyable. A meal for two with two drinks on the side and some dessert will run you about $50. Subtract the drinks, and you’ve got yourself a fi ll-ing meal and a bill that’s about as much as a 3-D movie ticket. Fortunately, Cubana won’t leave you with a headache, and you won’t have to wear any ridiculous glasses, either.

All in all, Cubana Café is worth the dollar. Th ough it might not be worth the hike downtown alone, it’s right near the Bowery and sits pleasantly in Soho, making it the perfect pre-concert dinner. Something to keep in mind, though: it’s cash only. So if you fi nd a $20 in your wallet that you forgot about or didn’t get to spend at the bar, take it over to Cubana. Th ey’ll be waiting right past “Pring Street” for you to show up.

Cubana Café is located in Soho on Th ompson Street between Spring and Prince Streets.

book may have began as a journey to discover why his foot hurt, but it morphed into a study distance run-ning at its fi nest.

Before you dismiss this fantastic read, you have to give it a chance. I’m not a huge fan of running, but aft er I fi nished the fi rst chapter or two, I was convinced that if some-one could run a 50-mile race under the hot Mexican sun, I could easily run a few miles. Th is book will mo-tivate you to run and eventually en-joy running.

At the beginning of many of

the chapters McDougall included quotes that are inspirational, moti-vational, or intriguing from people and texts ranging from the Tao Te Ching, a sixth-century B.C.E. Chi-nese text, to Herb Elliott , an Olym-pic champion.

Whether you run 100 miles, 10 miles or 10 feet, you have to give Born to Run a chance. Pick up a copy and I give you my word that by the end you will feel motivated enough to either give running a try for the fi rst time, or increase the distance that you already run.

COURTESY OF KELLY CAGGIANO

Born to Run will motivate even the laziest person to try running.

CULTURE APRIL 28, 2010 • THE RA M • PAGE 15

Luckyrice FestivalBowery Hotel

Kick off this year’s Luckyrice Festival with a party at the Bowery Hotel featuring top barkeeps.

VOXSkirball Center for the Performing Arts566 La Guardia Pl.

Th e New York City Opera puts on this free event to dis-play new American composers.

Artists & FleasMcCarren Park129 North Sixth St.

Th is fl ea market will feature DIY and vintage indie art projects.

MGMTMeadowlands Sports Complex50 State Route 120

In case you were busy shopping at Artists & Fleas Satur-day, catch the band during the Bamboozle festival.

Th e Quantum EyeTh eatres at 45 Bleecker45 Bleecker St.

Sam Eaton, a mentalist, uses Victorian-style tricks rather than multimedia to amuse audiences.

FRIDAY

THURSDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

what’sGoing On?

Know “what’s going on” on campus or in NYC?

Send tips, event listings, or comments to [email protected].

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

TO READ THESE REVIEWS IN THEIR ENTIRETY, VISIT THERA MONLINE.COM AND CLICK ON “CULTURE” ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE HOMEPAGE.

Ram ReviewsBOOKPLACE LECTUREACTIVITYMUSIC

BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

CHINUA’S THINGS FALL APART

PURE YOGA WESTLAURA BELL BUNDY INVISIBLE CHILDREN

Th e Big Quiz Th ingCrash Mansion199 Bowery

For trivia buff s, this competition will test your knowl-edge in diff erent categories and puzzles.

PippiCentral Park Swedish Cott age Marionett e Th eatreWest Side at 79th St.

Revert back to your childhood with this musical, which celebrates the 100th birthday of Pippi Longstocking.

Th ere is no denying that Bundy can sing and dance; anyone who has seen her on Broadway can certainly att est to that, but, as I sat down and listened to the CD for the fi rst time, even her top-notch vocals still could not do justice to the ridiculous lyrics of some of the songs.

Bundy’s music feels like a blend of country, pop and show tunes, and while you might expect this unconventional combination to disappoint, somehow, it all works perfectly.

Although she may still have some improvements to make on the songwriting aspect of her mu-sic, Bundy is a country music new-comer on the rise.

If you are up for something dif-ferent, give this CD a listen, may-be even two, and you might just fi nd yourself singing and dancing along.

Upon opening the wooden doors at the entrance of Pure Yoga West, I was instantly whisked away to a world of relaxation. Soothing music and calming aromas fi ll the air, and fl ickering candles can be found in every corner and crevice.

Do not let Pure’s gorgeous aes-thetics fool you though; the yoga classes they off er are no joke. In my most recent class, I had instruc-tors who had just returned from yoga training and teaching in Hong Kong and Australia. Within min-utes of instructors asking us to per-form their complex stretches I was working up a sweat, and that was only in a beginner’s class. Th ere is, of course, always a fantastic medi-tation session at the end to cool your body back down.

Pure West is defi nitely the place for a Fordham student looking to check out yoga or to build upon the skills they already have.

Th e famous New York Botani-cal Garden is, of course, located right across the street from Ford-ham’s campus, but it is not the only garden of its kind in New York City. Located on 52 acres near the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is one of the most beautiful, relaxing places in the en-tire city, and it is defi nitely worth the trip.

Th e BBG features many of the same plants and collections as other botanical gardens, such as a rose garden, a rock garden and a plant conservatory. However, the BBG also includes some more dis-tinctive collections that cannot be found just anywhere.

A favorite of mine is the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, located close to the BBG’s main entrance. Th e BBG’s most famous and popu-lar feature, however, is the Cherry Esplanade and Cherry Walk.

Achebe’s magnum opus astounds with its unwillingness to admit to its topical irrelevance. Published in 1958, Achebe’s fi ctionalized story about the Igbo tribe and its con-frontation with British colonialism was one of the fi rst African novels writt en in English to receive global acclaim. It’s set in a village Ogun-leye says he is familiar with, and initially traces the turmoil and fol-lies of Okonkwo, one of the tribe’s most revered leaders.

Achebe’s fl uid style makes the overplayed themes of family con-fl ict and colonialism come alive. By reading Th ings Fall Apart, the read-er gains a brief glimpse into African culture and imperialist demagogu-ery. What’s more, Achebe’s novel unearths and perpetuates a greater curiosity into African culture, a cu-riosity that promises to richly color and inform an already enjoyable tale.

By MICHELLE HARDYSTAFF WRITER

For budding philanthropists, a recession can be quite a dream crusher, but not for Suzanne Sti-ger’s, who supports needy families by donating her time, scissors and used newspapers.

Manufacturers issue $330 bil-lion worth of coupons each year in the U.S., but less than $4 billion worth are redeemed. Instead of let-ting that remaining $326 billion sit at the bott om of America’s kitchen wastebaskets, Stigers decided the money belonged at community food pantries instead. She started clipping.

Stigers, a Sparta, N.J. resident, had always used coupons for fam-ily shopping and decided to do the same for struggling families in her area. Aft er submitt ing a press release on her “Coupons for the Community” campaign to a lo-cal newspaper six weeks ago, she att racted enough volunteers and coupon donations to raise $8,000 worth of food for over 600 fami-lies.

“Th ese coupons are all out there for us, and it’s like leaving the mon-ey on the table if you don’t take the opportunity to use them,” ex-plained Stigers.

While do-gooders bent on solv-ing world hunger oft en ask how to change governments, institutions and stigmas, Stigers said she be-lieves some of the most important questions can be as simple as, “If we only focused on fi nding things we could get for 29 cents or less, what could we do?”

Th e process is fantastically sim-ple. Volunteers at the Sparta First Presbyterian Church help Stigers collect coupons for their Ecumeni-cal Food Pantry, and for approxi-mately every $10 they put toward grocery purchases, they provide

$100 worth of donations by sup-plementing coupons.

Stigers’ fellow clippers each week come from a large group of friends and community members eager to spread her simple concept of neighborly support.

Aft er just six weeks of work, ABC and NBC local news programs in-terviewed Stigers and her volun-teers to commend their progress.

“Coupons for the Community” couldn’t have come at a more im-minent time of need. A striking six million Americans have incomes consisting purely of food stamps, according to a New York Times ar-ticle this January. While this group had been steadily growing aft er welfare law adjustments, it sud-denly increased by 50 percent in the past two years amidst skyrock-eting unemployment rates. Now, millions of families must survive on stamps alone, a system that is painfully slow and exclusionary.

However, food stamps don’t pay for “non edible essentials,” such as toilet paper, tampons, toothpaste and the like. Stigers especially hunts down coupons for these ne-cessities so that food stamp depen-dant families have more options.

Pantries also restrict which fami-lies qualify to receive non-edibles, in addition to basic food items like meat and milk. Since these restric-tions don’t apply to Stigers’ dona-tions, her program helps these pan-tries be more fl exible with those they serve.

Th e increasing demand for food stamps also creates a fi ve-to-six week wait for many of the families competing to enter this system. Stigers specifi cally tries to accom-modate these families caught in nightmarish waiting periods with her program’s donations.

According to Stigers, college activists, oft en passionate about fi ghitng hunger, but low on cash

themselves do not even need to leave their dorms (or break their wallets) to join the coupon cam-paign. For campus residents who don’t subscribe to publications, Stigers suggests using the Web sites coupons.com and shopathome.com.

“Half of the people served by food pantries are oft en kids,” she said. “So this project is a great way for kids to help kids. Th e concept is very contagious and addictive, and students will have fun if they get in-volved and start a collective eff ort on campus.”

Ever since her local broadcast debuts, Stigers has hit the ground running with plans to spread her program far beyond Sparta. She now visits numerous local busi-nesses in her county, asking them to pledge small donations based on calculations for particular foods, factoring in coupon discounts, of course.

To extend the “Coupons for the Community” mantra that “a litt le means a lot,” Stigers invented a campaign called “Th e 100th Day of School.” New Jersey’s Sussex County elementary schools will ask groups of 100 students to bring in 100 of an item that is worth 100 pennies.

Such a campaign in which in-dividuals sacrifi ce so litt le but the collective achieves enormous results is likely to go far – maybe even to the White House accord-ing to Stigers. She said she plans to write Michelle Obama asking that this concept become an initiative in schools across the country.

Stigers would love to hear feed-back and ideas from any students participating in her projects or interested in gett ing involved. She asks that students contact her by visiting her Web site at: htt p://www.couponsforthecommunity.org/.

Coupons For the Poor Finding Deals Can Feed the Hungry

Ofonyo Innocent has gone from being prisoner of a murderous Ugandan rebel group that brain-washes, arms and mutilates young children, to selling T-shirts for peace at Fordham University.

As a spokesperson for the Invis-ible Children Organization, In-nocent drove cross-country from San Diego with fi ve of the organi-zation’s “roadies” last Wednesday to hold a documentary screening and discussion at Fordham. Inno-cent explained to students that he has come quite far since he was ab-ducted into Th e Lord’s Resistance Army seven years ago.

Th eir visit to Fordham Wednes-day was sobering. Aft er screening “Th e Rough Cut,” the group facili-tated a discussion on the atrocious humanitarian crisis surrounding the Ugandan war. Th ey also ex-plained how students can actively join their fi ght for peace.

CULTUREPAGE 16 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010

WHO’S THAT KID?Steve Hill

A MEMBER OF FCRH ‘10 FROM RED HOOK, N.Y.

MAJORING IN THEOLOGY

By KATIE CATALDOCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Th e sun is shining, the trees are

green and New York is vibrant once again with the sounds, col-ors and life of spring. With a fresh burst of energy fl owing through the city, there is never a dull mo-ment or day without a dozen fun, enlightening and quirky events to fi nd throughout the city. Following are a few of the best events happen-ing this spring.

1. Street Festivals Community street festivals cel-

ebrating all walks of life are part of the New York experience. Artists, craft smen and entertainers stake out a home in the city each week-end to showcase their wares, invit-ing local businesses and organiza-tions to contribute to make sure each neighborhood’s particular

culture and fl avor are represented. While there is a festival almost

every weekend, one of the more notable events is the Greenwich Avenue Festival on May 8, which features specialty goods, clothes from the best boutiques and all of the art that the village has to off er. Another great event is the Upper Broadway Festival on May 9, lo-cated a stone’s throw from Lincoln Center on Broadway between 60th and 65th. One can peruse local art and photography as renowned mu-sicians fi ll the streets with song.

Lastly, the Fabulous Fift h Av-enue Festival on May 16 is a fair dedicated to arts and craft s, hand-made clothes and celebrating re-gional artists.

2. Food Festivals Th ere are few bett er places for

“foodies” than New York. Local craft ers and chefs show off their

COURTESY OF STEVE HILL

Where have we seen you? On Glenn Beck opposing those

“code words.” HA, not! However, you have seen me leading retreats, as an Urban Plunge leader, just walking around campus, and I would like to think in theology classes, but I know that’s a small crowd.

Favorite childhood show and favorite current show?

My favorite childhood show was “Wings,” and now I only watch Yankees baseball.

Who would play you in a mov-ie and why?

Samuel L. Jackson – I think the similarities are obvious.

If you could have a dinner with any historical person, who would it be and why?

Th e Jesuit Martyr Ignacio El-lacuria because I’d be fascinated

to discuss with him how to make Fordham a university that actu-ally lives up to its mission and pro-motes a faith that does justice.

What would your ideal day in Manhatt an consist of?

Going to Union Square, gett ing lunch at Chipotle then shopping at Th e Strand and the farmer’s market before going uptown to the Shake Shack and hopefully gett ing back to Fordham without having a heart att ack.

If you could be anywhere and doing anything right now, what would it be?

Without a doubt, hanging out with my nephew Connor P. Al-though it’s a hit to my ego when he destroys me in Mario Kart.

Favorite class at Fordham and favorite professor?

Texts in American Th eology this

semester and favorite professor is easy–Fr. Michael Suarez, S.J.

Two words from me about Fr. Suarez: “intense dude.” Two words from Jen Kwapisz about Fr. Suarez: “damn collar.”

How do you blow off steam? Picking on Stephen Moccia

[FCRH ‘12] with Mary Young [FCRH ‘10] because he’s so de-fenseless and an easy target.

What is the biggest miscon-ception people have about you?

Everyone thinks I’m angry all the time when I walk around cam-pus. I swear it’s unintentional most of the time.

Besides our GO! Nashville board buddy, who the hell wants to smile all the time?

Stuck on an island, what would you need?

“Bear” Vinny Stracquadanio [FCRH ‘11] because I know if I encountered another person on the island and he/she made fun of my stutt er, Bear would get furious

and go back and give a beatdown.

What is your dream job? Th e senior dean of Fordham

College. It seems like a prett y cushy job

with no prerequisite experience, litt le intellectual rigor and you get a ton of breaks throughout the day.

What is your guilty pleasure? Lung darts of the Marlboro va-

riety, which thanks to Bloomberg cost me an arm and a lung [insert “Late Night” drum roll].

talents at the free Brooklyn Lyce-um Spring Food and Craft Market from May 1-2, where one can sam-ple artisanal cheeses, pick up some handmade jewelry and att end a chocolates making lesson, all while supporting small businesses and sustainability. Vendors range from agave bakeries to organic micro-breweries to bicycle painters and clockmakers.

If you cannot make it all the way to Brooklyn, you can att end the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, from May 15-16, stretch-ing from 37th to 57th streets. Th e ethnic restaurants of the Hell’s Kitchen community come togeth-er to entice your appetite with the best they have to off er from spicy gumbo and jambalaya to alligator tacos. A range of cultural dance troupes completes the festivities on Sunday aft ernoon.

On the socially conscious side, if you are a vegetarian or just a sup-porter, “vive la veggie” at Green-wich’s third annual Veggie Pride Parade on May 11. Join hundreds of marchers for music, speakers and a vegetable costume contest in Union Square Park.

Finally, celebrate Cinco De Mayo at Brooklyn’s Th e Bell House with “Guactacular 2010,” hosted by the blog Nachos NY. Help judges decide from 20 diff erent kinds of guacamole, all made by local res-taurants and amateur chefs. Tickets are $12 if purchased online through nachosny.com.

3. Flea Markets Flea markets are a fantastic place

to fi nd vintage clothes, antique knick-knacks and other hip accou-

trements, all while on a budget. Search out the perfect summer wardrobe at the Hell’s Kitchen fl ea market, every Saturday and Sunday on 39th Street between Fift h and Sixth avenues. Over 100 vendors line the street at this famous mar-ket, which has even been featured in Vogue.

Th e Upper West Side’s Green Flea Market, open every Sunday on Columbus Ave. at 77 Street, off ers similar wares, with more of a focus on sustainable and “green” designers.

Make a day trip out of a visit to the Brooklyn Flea, located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, every Saturday. Th is large outdoor fl ea market is home to dozens of up-and-coming designers, local artists and popular Brooklyn treats, including Kum-quat Bakery cupcakes. Stroll along in the sun and pick up some new shades, jewelry or quirky home goods, but be sure to check online at brooklynfl ea.com for that week’s scavenger hunt item. If you manage to fi nd it, it’s yours for free.

Lastly, visit Union Square’s GreenMarket every Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday for books, music, local art and an or-ganic farmer’s market, the perfect place to pick up delicious fresh fruits and vegetables for a picnic in the park or a homemade dinner.

4. Art and Dance FestivalsTh e art scene in New York is

continually growing and evolving, but can seem inaccessible to those outside of “the loop.”

Celebrate local artists and be a part of the scene at the Aff ordable Art Fair from May 6 to 9. Even if

not a potential buyer, one can ad-mire works from the newest young talent to well-known artists, take walking tours of the galleries or even partake in print-making class-es.

Get your dance on at the fourth annual New York Dance Parade, an amazing event featuring over 70 styles of dance, over 200 dance organizations and over 10,000 dancers all grooving down Broad-way on May 22. All are welcome to join the party, be it through swing, salsa, hula or just a general boogie. Th e parade ends at DanceFest, where you cure your two left feet with free dance lessons and a huge dance party to fi nish the day.

5. Nature Festivals Nothing is more beautiful in the

springtime than the city’s greenery, so refreshingly warm and invigorat-ing aft er the gray and snowy streets of winter.

Delight in the annual Sakura Matsuri, or “rite of spring,” a tra-ditional Japanese cherry blossom festival, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on May 1-2. Programs on Japanese music, drumming, fl ower arranging and tea ceremonies are spotlighted throughout the week-end, or one can just wander through the gardens and relax in the shade of the beautiful pink trees.

If you are a walker, participate in Th e Great Saunter, a 32-mile walk around Manhatt an’s rim on May 1. Take time to experience the city as you’ve never seen it before, begin-ning at Fulton and South, lunching at Inwood Park, and looping back down the east side. Visit shore-walkers.org for more information.

Celebrate the Weather at One of the City’s Fairs

Enjoy the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden on May 1-2.CHUCK KENNEDY/KRT

CULTURE APRIL 28, 2010 • THE RA M • PAGE 17

By CLARA ENNISTSTAFF WRITER

Spring Weekend is quickly ap-proaching and it seems that almost everyone on campus is pumped for the MGMT concert; but can every-one name more than fi ve MGMT songs? Probably not. If you can name more than fi ve songs, then – not to be overly kitsch, but – con-gratulations.

Th e truth is MGMT released Oracular Spectacular three years ago and it contains its three best- known songs (“Time to Pretend,” “Electric Feel and Kids”). For the vast majority of people, myself in-cluded, these three songs are the only MGMT songs. MGMT is a singles band; it releases excellent, one-track anthems, but people do not really know any of their other songs.

I’m defi nitely not judging the hype around the MGMT, and I cannot claim to be an MGMT ex-pert. In 2008 my friend invited me to one of concerts to which I promptly responded “What does M-G-M-T stand for?”

Listen to Congratulations, MG-MT’s newest album. It’s a good album – certainly not great, and it defi nitely does not contain the energy of Oracular Spectacular, but it’s a prett y good listen. Yet if you go on any blog about MGMT and

Congratulations, you fi nd the same thing: the critics and “elite” fans adore the album and argue that regular people just do not under-stand MGMT’s new experimental direction. Th e people who only purchased the album because they liked MGMT’s earlier singles are hopelessly disappointed.

Everyone adored MGMT’s singles, even French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who apparently likes “Kids” so much that he used it without permission in 2008 for his party’s campaigns. MGMT clearly has commercial appeal with its sin-gles, but a concert set lasts longer than just three songs.

MGMT suff ers from the fact that they blew up over blogs and every person who wanted to be cool im-mediately purchased albums and concert tickets; but most of MG-MT’s concert att endees only know three songs.

Additionally, MGMT uses a syn-thesizer for most of its music. Th is might be alright with people who expect nothing more from a live performance than a glorifi ed DJ, but if you are looking for a concert where the musical quality surpass-es the album, then you are in for a disappointment.

Maybe I’ll be surprised; maybe the entire crowd will go insane for “Someone’s Missing” and “Flash Delirium,” but if you have no idea

what those are then I think I’ve proven my point. Th e crowd at the concert will do what has apparently

occurred at the majority of MGMT concerts; the people will relax for almost the entire thing and then go

insane for “Electric Feel,” “Kids” and “Time to Pretend,” and I plan on being one of those people.

By CELESTE KMIOTEKCULTURE EDITOR

Perhaps you already heard, but sexual perversity came – and left – Fordham, at least in the form of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago, put on by the Mimes and Mummers from April 22 - 25. Th e production was almost stalled, however, when the Offi ce of Stu-dent Leadership and Community Development heard of the club’s plans.

Th e debate began last spring, when the club voted on plays for the following year. Th e club had never done anything like this play before, and the debate became heated.

Peter Wallace, FCRH ’10, who was in charge of set design and starred in the play, felt that the play would be a good fi t for the spring production. Made up of short vi-gnett es, lasting roughly an hour, and writt en in the vernacular, the play posed a challenge with its fast pace.

“It’s bam, we’re going and you bett er catch up cause we’re not slowing down for you,” Wallace said.

Th ough the show is laced with expletives and deals with a bevy of sex-related topics, many of them extremely politically incorrect, Wallace said he felt that the play was age-appropriate, as it revolves around four 20-somethings in Chi-cago in 1976 navigating love and relationships.

“It’s something we can all relate

to,” he said. “It’s something the au-dience can relate to. [It] is about sparking dialogue on issues that still occur today.”

Th e play was brought to OSL&CD’s att ention when the club tried to reserve Collins Audi-torium for the production. Wallace said that OSL&CD was upset that the club did not alert them to their plans to put on the play earlier, but says that it did make an eff ort to clue OSL&CD in at each step aft er the process of putt ing on the show began.

Courtney Schiessl, FCRH’11, the current president of Mimes and Mummers, said that OSL&CD was more understanding aft er the club explained that it dealt with produc-tions on a show-by-show basis.

“We think it’s important to stay in contact with Mimes and all our student clubs and organizations on activities, and the Mimes have ac-knowledged that this conversation should have started earlier,” Chris-topher Rogers, dean of students, said. “I know the club had some deadlines it was trying to make in producing the play and only informed OSL&CD very close to those deadlines, so there was some rapid work necessary to work through all the details.”

Jennifer Mussi, Ph.D., assistant dean of OSL&CD, and Regina Fett erolf, assistant director of pro-gramming, met with the club’s for-mer president, Mike Burns, FCRH ’10, and Schiessl to discuss the University’s issues with the play, followed by several more meetings,

including one with Schiessl, Fett er-olf, Mussi, Rodgers and Wallace.

“Th ey were concerned about how we’d go about staging the show,” Wallace said. “Dean Rod-gers seemed to be legitimately lis-tening to Courtney and me.”

“A lot of questions were thrown out to us about the show content, seen as violent towards women,” Schiessl said. “We assured them we would never want to portray the content in that light, our group in that light, Fordham in that light.”

Th e administration was particu-larly worried about the misogynis-tic undertones of the play, and the potential for the play to be misread by the audience as condoning sex-ist behavior.

“My concerns had to do with the use of this same repulsive language to make this point and I made an eff ort to show the Mimes that there were very likely bett er ways to touch on the same themes from the stage,” Rodgers said.

Mimes and Mummers remained adamant that the play is more about relationships, the balance between the repressive 1950s and free-lov-ing 1960s and the women’s move-ment than it is about sex. Th ey said the material was important to raise on campus, despite the school’s Je-suit identity.

“[It has something] legitimate [to] contribute to both the intel-lectual and artistic communities on campus,” Wallace said. “[We] still abide by Catholic faith, so how does that apply to sex? Even if the people who saw it argue for only 20

minutes on the way to Pugsley’s af-ter, we’ve still done our job.”

Tight schedules made schedul-ing meetings diffi cult and with time to buy the rights of the play running out, Rodgers, aft er con-sulting with OSL&CD and sev-eral campus leaders, agreed that although he would prefer that the club choose a diff erent show, he would not stop them. Grateful, the production work began and the club tried to live up to its assuranc-es to the University while staying true to Mamet’s work.

“Th ough the Mimes and the producers made a case that they were up to the task of tackling this diffi cult material, I did ask them to choose another play,” Rodgers said. “Th ey declined to do so, and so the conversation continues.”

“[We] tried to fi nd that very thin line between being true to our company’s artistic vision for this production and abiding by the preferences of OSL&CD,” Wallace said. “It wasn’t easy.”

Th e club also ran into some snags during the marketing cam-paign when OSL&CD took issue with some of their posters and other marketing material. Schiessl said that though the club presented a few out-of-the-box ideas, it ended up with tamer promotions. Th e lack of time also hurt the market-ing, and the club is upset that word of the production was not more widespread.

Nevertheless, the play went on. Mimes and Mummers reports hearing only positive comments

about the performance, and Rod-gers is currently reaching out to the community to determine reactions, but it may be too soon to tell the ramifi cations of the controversial performance. For the meantime, both sides have positive comments about their interactions with each other.

“[Th ere were] some ups and downs–certainly a few disagree-ments and times when lines of communication were crossed,” Wallace said. “[But we were] pleas-antly surprised with their willing-ness to hear our side of the story. Ultimately, they have to do their job–our job is to lobby for what we want to do–and hopefully we can come up with something in-be-tween. Ideally that compromise is satisfactory for everyone involved.”

“I have noticed that some–on both sides of any of these issues–are more comfortable with the sen-sational than the substantive, but I was grateful to Schiessl for keeping our discussions to substance and for making an eff ort to address the concerns we expressed,” Rogers said

“Overall, I think that in the end everything went well,” Schiessl said. “Th ere were times I was nervous about what was going to happen with the show, but every meeting I went into I was happy at the end of it. Th ey treated Pete and I [sic] as adults in the meeting and that was something I was very happy about, because we could have very easily been treated as students who were trying to push their butt ons.”

Mimes and Mummers Stirs Controversy

MGMT Not Great But Will Be a Good Time

OSL&CD Nervous About But O.K.s Sexual Perversity in Chicago Production

MGMT may not be the best band for Spring Weekend, but their classic songs will rouse the crowd.

JAY L. CLENDENIN/LOS ANGELES TIMES


Cool Hand Stew

© 2010 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. All rights reserved. “PricewaterhouseCoopers” refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (a Delaware limited liability partnership) or, as the context requires, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global network or other member firms of the network, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity. We are proud to be an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer.

Stewart Cheatwood saw opportunity, found a mentor and changed his career. Now he finds time to coach others. Every day, he’s feeding his life, his career and his future.

Feed your future at www.pwc.tv

Session I: 1 June–1 July | Session II: 6 July–5 August

Summer Session 2010

Take a summer course that sparks your interest!

Choose from 200 courses available, including:

• Sports Psychology (PSYC 3360)

• Horror and Madness in Fiction and Film (ENGL 3851)

• Sales Management (MKBU 3431)

• Anthropology of Globalization (ANTH 3353)

Think Summer, Think Fordham!

Register via my.fordham.edu

Visit us online at

fordham.edu/summer or call (888) 411-GRAD


PHOTO BY MARK BECKER/THE RAM

PHOTO BY SIMON SULIT/THE RAM

Mineau Throws Another No-Hitter; Softball Extends Winning Streak to 14

Sophomore pitcher Jen Mineau threw her second no-hitter of the season and the fourth of her career against Temple.

By NICK CARROLL SPORTS EDITOR

Aft er knocking off the 31-7

Hofstra Pride on April 20 with a seventh-inning home run by junior shortstop Samantha Pellechio, the soft ball team witnessed some more heroics on its road trip to Philadel-phia to play Temple.

Sophomore pitcher Jen Mineau was able to toss her second no-hit-ter of the season and the fourth of her career.

“Jen’s been great all year,” Head Coach Bridget Orchard said. “Th is is typical for her.”

Th e Lady Rams were able to spot Mineau an early lead with two runs, thanks to some sloppy play from Temple.

Aft er recording the fi rst two outs, Owls junior pitcher Kristen Marris hit junior second baseman Beckah Wiggins. Senior centerfi elder Erin Fisher followed that with a single up the middle before Pellechio walked. the Lady Rams got some luck with an error by sophomore shortstop Kristina Sykora that al-lowed two runs to score.

Fordham was not done there. Sophomore right fi elder Jessica Richards led off the second inning with a home run, making it 3-0.

Aft er sophomore left fi elder Lindsey Kay Bright reached on an error by senior third baseman Danielle Fagan and junior third baseman Jocelyn Dearborn struck out, freshman fi rst baseman Jamie LaBovick hit another bomb for the Lady Rams, expanding the lead to 5-0.

Fordham continued to show off its power in the third inning, when

junior catcher Meghan Shager wrapped up the scoring with her fi rst career home run to make it 6-0.

From there on out, Mineau was the story. Aft er striking out the side in the fi rst inning and continuing to send hitt ers down in order through the fourth, Temple fi nally pro-duced a base runner, albeit because of an error by freshman shortstop Chelsea Palumbo.

However, Mineau was able to retire the next three hitt ers with-out allowing a ball to leave the in-fi eld, keeping the no-hitt er intact through fi ve.

It seemed as if Mineau continued to get stronger as she approached the end of the game, striking out the side in the sixth and then fi n-ishing off the no-hitt er by striking out the side again in the seventh, giving her 14 for the game.

Th is was Mineau’s second no-hitt er of the year, with the fi rst coming in the team’s opener against Moorehead State on Feb. 20.

Th e following day, the two teams met again, and Mineau got the ball yet again for the Lady Rams.

For the second straight day, Fordham struck quickly with two runs. Dearborn opened the scor-ing with a leadoff home run to give Fordham a quick lead.

Th en, aft er LaBovick got hit by a pitch and sophomore infi elder Nicole Callahan singled, Shager singled home a run to make it 2-0.

Once again Mineau was domi-nant, allowing only three hits through fi ve innings, striking out 11 to keep the Owls at bay.

In the fi ft h inning the Lady Rams provided some more run support.

Aft er a LaBovick single to start the inning, Wiggins hit a two-run home run to make it 4-0.

Th e next hitt er, Fisher, walked and then stole second base before Callahan singled her home to make it 5-0.

In the sixth, Fordham continued to pile it on. Richards led off the in-ning with a home run, her second

in as many days. “I think I was successful this

weekend because my parents came out to watch me play so I was really able to relax and have fun, which is when I play my best,” Richards said.

Bright followed that up with a single, then stole second base, ad-vanced to third on a wild pitch and then scored on a Wiggins single to make it 7-0.

Th at proved to be more than enough for the Fordham pitchers. Plimpton came in to close out the last two innings and did so without any issues, allowing no hits and walking one.

Fordham showed off its power in the two games, hitt ing six home runs against Temple.

“We faced a lot of great pitch-ing early,” Orchard said. “When we face average pitching we can really hit the ball hard.”

“Our team is very proud of how hard we work in the weight room and I think all the home runs lately

are just a refl ection of that,” Rich-ards said.

Aft er having a doubleheader against Saint Joseph’s cancelled, Fordham then fi nished off its eight-game road trip by heading to Iona to face the 22-17 Gaels.

Once again, Fordham got off to a hot start, as Fisher hit a three-run home run to give the Lady Rams an early 3-0 lead in the top of the fi rst.

Fordham added to its lead in the fourth. Richards led off the in-ning with a double and then Bright reached on an error. Bright stole second base, leading to an error on the throw which allowed Richards to score and Bright to advance to third. Dearborn then singled to bring home Bright and the Ford-ham lead grew to 5-0.

Fordham later tacked on an ad-ditional run in the sixth on a wild pitch that scored Palumbo, who led off the inning with a double.

In the meantime, Fordham received some more outstand-ing pitching from Mineau (four innings pitched) and Plimpton (three innings).

Th e two combined for Ford-ham’s fourth-straight shutout and allowed only two hits in the game.

With the three wins, the Lady Rams have now won 14 straight and are 40-8 overall and 12-2 in the Atlantic 10.

Th eir next games are back at home on Sunday, May 2 with a doubleheader against 34-13 Char-lott e, starting at 12 p.m.

“Th ey have a great pitcher in [se-nior] Emily Jeff ery,” Orchard said. “If we can score some runs, that will be the key.”

Track Races to Mixed Results at the Penn RelaysBy CELESTE KMIOTEK

CULTURE EDITOR Fordham’s men’s and women’s

outdoor track and fi eld teams went to Philadelphia on Th ursday, April 22 for the Penn Relays. Th e teams had mixed feelings about the re-sults.

“Penn Relays went very well on the women’s side,” junior Sheri-lyn Groeninger said. “Th e 4x100, 4x400 and 4x800 relays all had sea-son best times.”

“Th e relays were prett y much a mixed result,” freshman John Cosgrove said. “Th e SMR [Sprint Medley Relay] ran well. Th e 4x800 did not do as well as expected.”

“Both the men’s and women’s team performed at the levels that were expected of them given the competition,” junior Kerry Kwal-wasser said.

“Since there were only a few of us that went, we knew we would have to run hard to represent our team well and that is what we tried to do,” junior Kerri Gallager said. “I would say we were prett y success-ful, and this puts us in a good posi-tion as we get ready for A[tlantic] 10s next weekend.”

For the men, the 4x800-meter re-lay team of junior Tim Hutchinson, junior Brian Schmidt, Cosgrove

and sophomore Kevin Fitzgerald came in 16th out of 35 teams with a time of 7:40.35, while in the Col-lege Men’s Spring Medley Cham-pionship of America, the team of freshman Sean Atkinson, junior Christopher Lyons, Schmidt and freshman Bernard Moore placed 25th of 38 teams with 3:27.69.

For the women, the 4x100-me-ter relay team of Groeninger, senior Catherine Groene, sophomore Kelly Connolly and sophomore Elisabeth Warren took 72nd of 95 teams with a time of 48.93, break-ing the school record of 49.43 the same team set at the Metropoli-tan Championships the previous weekend. Th e 4x400-meter relay team of Connolly, Gallagher, War-ren and Groene placed 57th of 88 teams with a 3:54.92 and the 4x800-meter relay team of Gal-lagher, Connolly, Kwalwasser and Groene placed 15th of 25 teams with a time of 9:09.70.

Th e only individual competitor, redshirted senior Brigid Moriarty, came in 12th in the College Wom-en’s Championship 3,000-meter race with a 9:51.21, which is sec-ond to only one other performance in Fordham’s history (Lauren Gu-bicza’s 1992 9:12.18) and qualifi es her for the ECAC Championships.

“Brigid was our only individual

competitor and really made a state-ment running against some of the top talent in the country,” Gallagh-er said.

Th e teams are now preparing for the A-10 Championship this week-end.

“For A-10s, we expect to be very competitive in all events, especially the relays,” Groeninger said. “We will work hard this week in prac-tice and will defi nitely be a team to

compete with at A-10s.”“Our misfortune at Penn will

undoubtedly fuel our emotions for the A-10 Championship this week-end,” Cosgrove said. “As far as the 4x8 is concerned, we all are moving to win the relay.”

“I think this was a good lead into the A-10s this weekend,” Kwalwas-ser said. “We are excited to have more personal bests next weekend in the individual and relay races. I

think going into the meet we are just hoping to compete at the level that the other teams are competing at and place higher than we did last year.”

“We’re very confi dent going into A-10s,” Groene said. “We’ve run some times that place us in a great place to compete this weekend.”

Th e A-10s are on Saturday, May 1 and Sunday, May 2 in Amherst, Mass.

Junior Sherilyn Groeninger was a part of a 4x100-meter relay team that broke a school record with a time of 48.93 seconds.

SPORTSPAGE 20 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010



Fordham Loses Tough Series at DaytonBy DANNY ATKINSON

SPORTS EDITOR If momentum truly matt ers in

baseball, do no tell the Fordham Rams team. Aft er recording a nine-run comeback against Iona that in-cluded sophomore shortstop Brian Kownacki’s already famous “Ford-ham Flip,” St. John’s proceeded to blow out Fordham by 11 runs. Th ey then experienced an up-and-down weekend road series versus Dayton, capped by a defeat in which they gave up a fi ve-run lead. Th e Fordham off ense performed bett er in its past few games and proved it could certainly play with Dayton, which is usually one of the bett er programs in the Atlantic 10. Considering the struggles of Ford-ham’s starting pitching and the fact that the Rams lost two of three to a Flyers team who came into the series with a conference record of 5-7, Fordham’s play this past week can be considered nothing but dis-appointing.

No matt er what Fordham does for the rest of the season, the “Kownacki Flip” will be its defi n-ing play. Seemingly memorialized on every media outlet, Kownacki’s astonishing run-scoring leap over Iona catcher James Beck in the bot-tom of the eighth inning was just the capper in the Ram’s nine-run rally against the Gaels in their 12-9 home victory on April 20.

Th e game looked to be over right from the start as Iona was able to score nine runs off of junior John Flanagan and freshman Dan Sorine in the fi rst four innings of the con-test.

Just when things seemed at their bleakest, however, junior James Stone supplied Fordham with 3.1 scoreless innings of work to keep Fordham in the game. Th e Rams tallied single runs in the sixth and seventh innings on an RBI single and a double steal to narrow the defi cit to 9-3.

Everything went Fordham’s way in the eighth, as the off ense both came alive and took advantage of Iona miscues to make a nine-run rally. Sophomore left fi elder Ste-phen McSherry began the inning by reaching on an error and advanc-ing to third on two wild pitches be-fore scoring on an RBI single from sophomore second baseman Nick Martinez. Martinez would score on a double to left center by Ryan McCrann to make the score 9-5.

Anthony Castelitt o was brought in from the bullpen but the Gaels were unable to slow down Ford-ham’s momentum. Senior right fi elder P.J. Como scored on a wild pitch and senior fi rst baseman Mi-chael Taddei smached a single to center that scored McCrann and then freshman Ryan Lee all the way from fi rst to bring Fordham to within one and set the stage for Kownacki’s heroics.

Iona continued going to bullpen to stem the Ram’s run to no avail.

Matt Petro came in and had litt le control, hitt ing Kownacki with a pitch to force Taddei in with the ty-ing run. Junior catcher Chris Walk-er then blasted a single to center that easily scored freshman pinch runner Matt DeSilva and McSher-ry and then was again misplayed in center, allowing Kownacki to

come around all the way from fi rst. Instead of running into Beck’s tag, Kownacki leaped over him and landed with a handstand on home plate, capping the rally and giving the Rams a 12-9 advantage.

Sophomore Jordan Grangard would go on to earn his fi rst save of the season in the ninth for Ford-ham by shutt ing down the Gaels.

At the plate, McCrann was 2-4 with a double and two RBI, while Taddei went 2-5 with two runs scored.

“We showed relentless persis-tence in this game,” Head Coach Nick Restaino said. “We would not let ourselves lose this game.”

Th e Rams proved that momen-tum is a fi ckle muse, as they fol-lowed up their rousing win by get-ting crushed 18-7 at the hands of St. John’s on April 21.

Fordham jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the fi rst, as senior desig-nated hitt er Angelo Ponte hit a bases-loaded RBI single to deliver Kownacki and Walker.

Th e Red Storm immediately came back with six runs in the bot-tom of the inning off of freshman Ryan DeMartino, highlighted by a two-run double from catcher Rob-ert Case. St. John’s extended the lead to 8-2 in the following inning.

Fordham fought back to an 8-7 defi cit with fi ve runs in the third. Ponte continued his outstanding game with another two-run RBI single and was plated on another two-run RBI single from Lee to pull to within one.

One would not have been out of place to think that the Rams were on their way to again pulling off an impressive comeback, but the Red Storm scored four times in the fourth and picked up three more runs in the fi ft h on a three-run home run from shortstop Joe Panik to take a commanding 15-7 lead.

Fordham’s starting pitching was poor for the second straight day. DeMartino (2-2) lasted only 1.2 innings while allowing eight runs.

Ponte fi nished the game 2-5 with four RBI.

Th e Rams had their third-straight poor performance by a starting pitcher on April 23 in their series

opener versus Dayton. Senior J.P. Mack (1-5) allowed seven earned runs on six hits in 3.1 innings. He permitt ed three walks without striking out a Flyer.

Mack, who returned at the be-ginning of the season from injury, is 1-5 with an 8.22 ERA .

Fordham’s only real chance on off ense was in the fi rst. Th e Rams loaded the bases on two singles and a walk before Ponte strolled to the plate. While Ponte was able to work a full count against Bruny Mitchem, he grounded out to fi rst to end the threat.

Dayton scored its fi rst run of the game with the help of an error by third baseman Ryan Maghini. His mishandling of a ground ball al-lowed for an RBI single by second baseman Zach Jacob.

Dayton’s off ense then exploded with four runs in the second, high-lighted by a two-run homer by out-fi elder Zach Blanchett e, his fi rst of the year. Th e Flyers continued add-ing onto their advantage in the next few innings with two runs scored in each the fourth and fi ft h.

Meanwhile, four Dayton pitch-ers combined for a four-hit shutout of Fordham.

Mitchem allowed three runs and three hits in six innings of work. Th e Rams recorded no extra-base hits in the contest and left eight runners on base.

Junior Max Krakowiak was the antidote to Fordham’s starting pitching woes in the series’ second game on April 24. Krakowiak threw an outstanding 10-inning complete game eff ort to help give the Rams an important 5-3 victory.

Fordham opened the scoring in the second inning with an RBI sin-gle from Martinez. Th ey then man-ufactured a pair of runs in the fi ft h to extend the lead to 3-0. Th e Rams put runners on second and third with a Como double and Maghi-ni’s bunt single before Kownacki smacked a single to score Como. Chris Walker’s two-strike single scored Maghini to give Fordham a three-run advantage.

While Krakowiak was able to keep Dayton quiet for six innings, the Flyers tied the game in the sev-

Junior pitcher Max Krakowiak pitched a 10-inning complete game at Dayton.

enth with the help of a two-run double from shortstop Cole Tyrell. Both teams had chances to take the lead in the eighth, but Dayton’s Chris Breesley used two ground-balls to escape from the inning and the Rams turned a 6-4-3 double play to end the threat.

As the contest went into extra innings, Fordham broke a 3-3 tie in the 10th when McCrann and Mobbs scored on a two-run triple by Martinez.

Krakowiak returned the favor by recording a pair of strikeouts in the bott om of the 10th and picking up his third complete game of the sea-son. Krakowiak (3-3) allowed two earned runs on nine hits with fi ve strikeouts. For the season, he is 3-3 with an ERA of 4.12.

“My fastball was strong in the game and I was able to get a lot of ground balls,” Krakowiak said. “My infi eld supported me very well.”

At the plate, Martinez went 3-5 with three RBI. McCrann and Como both stole two bases.

Fordham looked like they were going to be taking the series from Dayton on April 25, as they held a 7-2 lead heading into the seventh

inning, but everything changed in the fi nal three innings when the Flyers scored six runs for an 8-7 victory.

Martinez continued his stellar weekend with a solo home run to right center, tying the game at 2-2 in the fourth. It was Martinez’s sec-ond career homer and fi rst of the season.

Th e Rams then grabbed their fi rst lead in the fi ft h when Jacob dropped a short fl y to the outfi eld, allowing Maghini and McCrann to score and give the Rams a 4-2 edge.

Fordham strung together four straight singles in the sixth for a 6-2 lead, with RBI coming from McCrann and Walker. Finally, Lee capped Fordham’s scoring in the seventh with an RBI single for the 7-2 advantage.

Dayton rallied in the seventh, scoring four times off freshman relievers Joseph Charest and Rich Anastasi. Charest allowed a two-run homer to Roestinger, while Anastasi’s control deserted him. Th e three walks and one hit he al-lowed turned into two runs that made the score 7-6. Th e Flyers’ success on off ense continued in the eighth when Cole Tyrell hit a two-run home run off of Grangard (0-2) that just cleared the left fi eld wall, his seventh of the season.

At the plate, Lee was 3-5 with a double and an RBI.

“Th is Dayton series came down to one play,” Restaino said. “It was certainly disappointing. We need to be more consistent and hit, pitch and play defense at the same time.”

Fordham’s starting pitching was not strong in their fi ve games dur-ing the week and could be a weak-ness for the team down the stretch. While Krakowiak and junior Brian Pendergast are solid starters with ERA s of 4.12 and 4.20, the Rams lack depth in their rotation. Mack has been unable to return effi cient-ly from injury.

Relievers like Ryan DeMartino and John Flangan who have fi lled spots in the rotation have been largely ineff ective. Until the rota-tion fi nds that third arm, it will be a question mark.

Fordham now stands at 14-25 and 8-7 in the A-10.Redshirt senior Angelo Ponte went 2-5, knocked in four runs and scored a run in an 18-7 loss at St. John’s last week.

SPORTS APRIL 28, 2010 • THE RA M • PAGE 21

NFL Draft ReviewBy RICH HOFMANN

STAFF WRITER

For the 75th NFL Draft , league honchos decided to do things a lit-tle diff erently. Instead of having the festivities take up the bett er part of Saturday and Sunday, the draft was spread out from Th ursday to Satur-day.

Th e fi rst three rounds took place where they never have before, in primetime. In addition to the for-mat change, many draft evaluators considered the current draft class as a very deep one, making this a memorable draft . Here are some of the big storylines from the week-end.

Quarterback Controversy Sam Bradford going No. 1 to the

Rams was no surprise, but that’s just about the only quarterback pick that went according to plan. To the surprise of many, the next signal caller selected was not Jim-my Clausen or Colt McCoy, but Tim Tebow.

Th e Florida quarterback went from one of the most accomplished college players of all time to one of the most debated prospects in NFL history.

Although his leadership and intangibles were never in doubt, many question whether he can adapt (and drastically change) his footwork and throwing motion to the NFL game. At the No. 25 pick, many feel that the Denver Broncos took an unnecessary risk in select-ing Tebow.

Clausen and McCoy, considered to make up the second tier of quar-terbacks, had excruciatingly long waits. Clausen, the polished Notre Dame product who ran a pro-style off ense under Charlie Weis, was taken by the Panthers with the No. 48 pick. McCoy, a four-year starter at Texas who set the record for FBS wins with 45, had to wait until the 85 pick to hear his name called by Cleveland. McCoy, whose physical tools are not as impressive as the other quarterbacks, reminds some of Drew Brees in that.

Skelton to ArizonaSpeaking of quarterbacks, Ford-

ham’s very own John Skelton went in the fi ft h round to the Arizona Cardinals.

How rare is having a Fordham player draft ed? While it wasn’t in the days of the Seven Blocks of Granite, the last Ram taken in the draft was Kenny Parker in 1968. In Arizona, Skelton has found a good landing spot to learn how to play the quarterback position at the professional level.

Most importantly, he will have time to learn under off ensive guru Ken Whisenhunt, who orchestrates the high scoring Cardinals off ense.

Th ought of as a bit of a project with great raw tools (including the strongest arm in the draft class), Skelton will have time to develop as a backup to Matt Leinart and Derek Anderson. Th e only negative is that Kurt Warner, who would have been a great guy to learn from, retired in the off season.

Defensive Tackles Go EarlyAft er Bradford, two defensive

tackles promptly followed at picks two and three. Nebraska’s Ndamu-kong Suh and Oklahoma’s Gerald McCoy, widely considered the two best talents in the draft , should make instant impacts for their re-

spective teams. Suh’s coming out party was last year’s Big 12 Champi-onship Game, which he dominated from his defensive tackle position by sacking Colt McCoy 4.5 times.

Gerald McCoy has exceptional quickness which allows him to consistently disrupt plays in the backfi eld.

Th e Bucs hope that he can help anchor their defense like Warren Sapp did when they were consis-tently one of the most feared units in the league.

Dez Bryant Falls to the Cow-boys

Jerry Jones did not want to make the same mistake twice. About a decade ago, Jones passed on a talented wide receiver who many teams felt had character problems.

Th at player was named Randy Moss, and Jones has regrett ed it ever since. When a similar situa-tion arose in this draft , Jones made a quick decision to trade up three spots and select Bryant with the No. 24 pick.

Although nobody questioned Bryant’s talent (Top 10), he has many character issues, including a 10-game NCAA suspension for ly-ing to an NCAA investigator. Bry-ant, who could easily win Off ensive Rookie of the Year, should help take some of the receiving load off of Miles Austin’s shoulders.

Th e real question in Dallas is what Roy Williams’ role will be now.

Seatt le Stocks UpPete Carroll’s NFL experience

has not exactly rivaled the success he had at USC. Now with his third NFL head coaching job, Carroll started off with an excellent haul in his fi rst draft with the Seahawks. With two fi rst-round picks, the Se-ahawks selected hard-nosed tackle Russell Okung and ball-hawking safety Earl Th omas. At the end of the second round, they were for-tunate to have playmaking wide receiver Golden Tate slip to them. Th e additions of serviceable run-ning backs LenDale White, a phys-ical runner who played for Carroll at USC, and Leon Washington, a lightning-fast player coming off in-jury, help solidify that position for the Seahawks.

Th ose are some of the big sto-rylines, but plenty else happened in New York over the weekend. Two teams, San Diego (RB Ryan Matt hews) and Philadelphia (DE Brandon Graham) traded up into the middle of the fi rst round. Ja-son Campbell became expendable because of the Donovan McNabb trade earlier this off season and Campbell was traded to the Raid-ers for a fourth round pick.

Th e two New York teams looked to the defensive side of the ball in the fi rst round and added to posi-tions of strength. Th e Jets added cornerback Kyle Wilson from Boi-se State. He will join a very deep secondary that includes Darrelle Revis, Kerry Rhodes and the re-cently traded Antonio Cromartie. Th e Giants were believed to be eye-ing Alabama linebacker Rolando McClain in the middle of the fi rst round, but the Raiders selected him well before that. Th ey chose on defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, who is unproven, but has great po-tential. He will provide depth for Justin Tuck, Matt hias Kiwanuka and Osi Umenyiora.

Baseball

Fordham 12-9 Iona

Iona AB R H RBI HR

Muccio cf 4 1 1 1 0Rossetti 2b 2 2 2 1 0Passerelle lf 5 0 2 1 0Burke 3b 2 2 0 0 0Beck c 3 1 1 1 0Lyall rf 4 1 2 3 0Dignelli dh 5 0 2 1 0Chiaravall1b 4 1 2 1 0Kriss pr 0 0 0 0 0Capowski ss 3 1 0 0 0Charron ph 1 0 0 0 0

Totals 33 9 12 9 0

Fordham AB R H RBI HR

Martinez 2b 6 6 1 1 0Como rf 3 2 1 0 0Mccrann dh 4 4 2 2 0Mobbs cf 3 0 0 0 0Lee cf 1 0 0 0 0Taddei 1b 5 2 2 1 0Ponte c 3 0 1 0 0DeSilva pr/3b 0 1 0 0 0McSherry lf 4 2 1 1 0Russo 3b 2 0 0 0 0Kownacki ph/ss0 1 0 1 0Maghini ss/3b 2 1 0 0 0Walker ph/c 2 0 1 2 0

Totals 35 12 9 8 0 R H EIona 133 200 000 9 12 4Fordham 001 001 19x 12 9 0

Fordham 5-3 Dayton


Lee lf 5 0 0 0 0Kownacki ss 4 0 1 1 0Walker c 4 0 1 1 0McCrann 1b 5 1 2 0 0Mobbs cf 3 2 1 0 0Ponte dh 4 0 1 0 0DeSilva pr/dh1 0 0 0 0Martinez 2b 5 0 3 3 0Como rf 4 1 1 0 0Maghini 3b 5 1 2 0 0Krakowiak p 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 40 5 12 5 0

Dayton AB R H RBI HR

Blanchette cf 4 0 0 0 0Nelson lf 4 0 1 0 0Jacob 2b 4 1 2 0 0Dunsmore rf 4 1 0 0 0Tyrell ss 4 1 1 2 0Bloesik 1b 4 0 2 0 0Roesinger 3b 4 0 1 0 0Jeff ery c 3 0 0 0 0Castine ph 1 0 0 0 0Gayda dh 3 0 2 0 0Hundley pr 0 0 0 0 0Pfeff enber ph 1 0 0 0 0Hobson p 0 0 0 0 0Beesley p 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 36 3 9 2 0 R H EFordham 010 020 000 2 5 12 1Dayton 000 000 300 0 3 9 0

Softball

Fordham 1-0 Hofstra


Dearborn 3b 3 0 0 0 0Fisher cf 3 0 0 0 0Wiggins 2b 3 0 0 0 0LaBovick 1b 3 0 0 0 0Pellechio ss 3 1 2 1 1Callahan dp 3 0 0 0 0Shager c 2 0 0 0 0Richards rf 1 0 0 0 0Pollack ph 1 0 1 0 0Bright lf 2 0 0 0 0Mineau p 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 24 1 3 1 1

Hofstra AB R H RBI HR

Root cf 2 0 1 0 0DePasquale1b 2 0 0 0 0Senatore pr 0 0 0 0 0Ziemba rf 2 0 1 0 0Michalowsk3b 3 0 0 0 0Galati p 3 0 0 0 0Novatin dp 2 0 0 0 0Hirschbuhl2b 2 0 0 0 0Dreslinskiss 3 0 0 0 0Bigler lf 2 0 0 0 0Valentino c 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 21 0 2 0 0

R H EFordham 000 000 001 1 3 0Hofstra 000 000 000 0 2 0

Track & Field Penn Relays

Men’s 4x800 Relay16. Fordham (Hutchinson, Schmidt, Cosgrove, Fitzgerald), 7:40.35.

Men’s Sprint Medley Championship of America25. Fordham (Atkinson, Lyons, Schmidt, Moore), 3:27.69

Women’s 4x100 Relay72. Fordham (Groeninger, Groene, Connolly, Warren) 48.93

Women’s 4x400 Relay57. Fordham (Connolly, Gallagher, War-ren, Groene) 3:54.92

Women’s 4x800 Relay15. Fordham (Gallagher, Kwalwasser, Connolly, Groene), 9:09.70

Women’s 3000m12. Fordham, Moriarty, 9:51.21

Spring Weekend Weather Forecast

Friday: Saturday Sunday

Mostly sunny, with a

high near 74. clear

overnight, with a low around 61

Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. Becom-ing cloudy overnight, with a low around 62

Mostly cloudy, with a

high near 77. cloudy at night,

with a low around 60.

Source: The National Weather Service

SPORTSPAGE 22 • THE RA M • APRIL 28, 2010


The Smush

Parker Project

MATT MANUSZAK

Part of being a rabid NBA fan is being able to debate, ad nauseam, about where players rank on an all-time scale. Unfortunately, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame does us no favors, as its induction of gratuitous num-bers of coaches, college players and administrators has severely damp-ened its sheen.

Ranking players from diff erent eras is almost impossible: using statistics is extremely diffi cult, con-ditioning has improved immensely and the racial makeup of the league since its inception has completely changed. Finally, the role that championships play in rating play-ers is extremely overrated due to simple bad luck or poor teammates for many worthy players.

Using stats to rank players is extremely tricky, since the pace of NBA games used to be much faster, allowing for more points, rebounds and assists to be generated. On average, teams during that era in the early 1960s averaged about 30 more possessions per game than today’s teams. Further, as much as some ignorant critics try to say that today’s players aren’t committ ed to defense, that’s simply not true. When Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double with 30 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists over the entire 1961-1962 season, only one team – the Boston Celtics – gave up fewer than 116 points per game on defense.

Not coincidentally, that season was the same in which legendary center Wilt Chamberlain averaged a record-sett ing 50.4 points per game. Th ose stats begin to lose their luster a bit when one factors in the pace and poor defense of the era. Yes, there are metrics like John Hollinger’s Player Effi ciency Rat-ing (PER) that take into account pace. PER is incredibly valuable as a catch-all stat when ranking players from the same era, but it penalizes players from earlier eras, as a high premium wasn’t always placed on shooting percentage, blocked shots weren’t recorded until the 1973-74 season and the three-point line wasn’t added until the 1979-80 season. So, for the most part, using stats is valuable for judging players who are contemporaries yet is a fl awed method for comparing play-ers from diff erent eras.

As in all sports, conditioning and nutrition have come a long way since the 1950s and 1960s. Yes, there are certain players who are freaks that would probably thrive in any era. LeBron James and Dwight Howard are largely products of superior genetics and would be absolute monsters when-ever they played. Similarly, the 7’1” Chamberlain, who was a track star in college at Kansas as well as a bas-ketball star, would likely survive in today’s game.

What about a player like Bob Cousy? Th e Cooz stood at 6’1”, 175 lbs. He could really only dribble with his right hand. He

averaged 37.5 percent shooting for his career. He did, however, revo-lutionize the point guard position. Could Bob Cousy guard Deron Williams or Chris Paul? No, it would be a ridiculous matchup with both players; yet, Cousy did help change the position that Wil-liams and Paul lay claim to today. How much does that count?

Furthermore, the racial makeup of the league was far diff erent at that time. While today over 80 percent of the league is black, African-American players were still rather novel during Cousy’s era. Th e fi rst team to have an all African-American starting lineup was the Boston Celtics in 1964-65, and that was extremely drastic for the time. Would players like Cousy (who I’m probably unfairly pick-ing on), George Mikan or Dolph Schayes really have thrived if play-ers like Russell and Chamberlain were more prevalent in the ’50s? Again, comparing players from dif-ferent eras proves to be problem-atic when conditioning and race are involved.

Th e fi nal issue regarding ranking players is championships. Judging players primarily on championships is extremely foolish, since so much is dependent both on a player’s teammates and a player’s era. Take Karl Malone, for instance. Malone, along with probably Tim Duncan, Kevin McHale and Charles Bar-kley, among others, is generally considered to be in the conversa-tion for the top power forward of all time. Yet he never won a cham-pionship during his entire career. His best chances were probably in 1997 and 1998, when his Jazz, led by him and John Stockton, lost to Michael Jordan’s Bulls, and 2004, when his Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, lost to the Detroit Pistons. Much of this was of no fault of Malone’s: he put up remarkably consistent stats and was known for his legendary work ethic, yet his career simply coincid-ed too closely with Jordan’s, among other talented players in the ’90s.

Now, Malone did shrink at times in big games, but how much can he be faulted for simply being un-lucky and having his career coin-cide closely with the career of the greatest player ever? Th at’s just a recent player: how much credence can one lend to the 11 champion-ships of Bill Russell? Even with-out the rings, Russell was a great enough rebounder and defender that his place in history would be secure. In the ’50s and ’60s, there were oft en fewer than 10 teams in the entire league. Further, the tal-ent pool was so diluted that Rus-sell himself played with 10 Hall of Famers over the course of his 14-year career. Russell can’t be faulted for these circumstances – all he did was win. Yet, which were more dif-fi cult: Russell’s 11 championships in the ’50s and ’60s, Magic John-son’s fi ve in the ’80s or Jordan’s six in the ’90s? Further, what if Russell hadn’t had such great teammates?

As you can see, using cham-pionships to compare players in general is tough enough, let alone players from diff erent eras. When comparing NBA stars and debating their relative merits, judging play-ers from diff erent eras is extremely diffi cult and using championships as the main att ribute rather than simply a factor can prove to be problematic.

Senior fi rst baseman Ryan McCrann leads the team in batting average (.351).

Senior Profi le: Ryan McCrannBy DANNY ATKINSON

SPORTS EDITOR

Senior fi rst baseman Ryan Mc-Crann has recorded an impressive baseball career at Fordham since transferring from Boston College aft er his freshman year. McCrann ranked second on the team in slug-ging percentage in 2009 at .503 and is leading the team in batt ing aver-age this season with a .351 clip. He has also hit two home runs for a team that has recorded only 12 on the year. McCrann is a signifi cant off ensive force for a team that lacks in much off ensive pop and served in an important leadership role for his younger teammates. If the Rams have any shot at winning the A-10 Championship fi nal, McCrann’s bat will be key. Th e Ram sat down with McCrann following a grueling baseball practice.

Th e Ram: What made you de-

cide to transfer from Boston Col-lege and come to Fordham?

Ryan McCrann: I was living

at home while at BC and I wasn’t playing baseball there. I just wanted a more normal college experience. Luckily, I had a great opportunity to both come to Fordham and play here. It’s really worked out for me.

TR: What’s been your best

memory playing baseball here? RM: My best memory is defi -

nitely being able to start in the A-10 Championship game as a freshman. I hadn’t been a regular starter most of that year, so gett ing that opportunity in such a big spot was amazing.

TR: How did you fi rst get into

baseball as a kid? RM: I had a brother who played

regularly when I was a kid and that helped. My dad is also a huge Red Sox fan and did everything he could to get me to play and help me career along. It just blossomed from there.

TR: What are your goals for the

rest of the year, both personally and as a team?

RM: As a team our goal is to win

the A-10 Championship. My goal is just to help the team get there any way I can. Whether this is by driving in runs, scoring runs or playing great defense, I just want to do whatever it takes to help the team win.

TR: What do you enjoy about

playing in the fi eld? RM: I enjoy being part of the ac-

tion and having some control over the game. It’s exciting.

TR: You’ve been having a lot of

success on off ense this season and lead the team in batt ing average at .351. What’s been the key to that success?

RM: I feel like I’ve just been

much more comfortable at the plate this year. I’ve tried to stay pa-tient when I’m up at bat and it’s re-ally paid off for me.

TR: Th e Rams have been play-

ing bett er in the Atlantic 10 but have still largely been up and down.

How does the team need to play to take the next step so they can really contend for the A-10 title?

RM: We really haven’t been put-

ting it all together in our games. We haven’t had our pitching, off ense and defense going at the same time. Once we have all three ele-ments of the game clicking we will be in great shape.

TR: What’s been the best mo-

ment of the season so far for the team?

RM: Oh, the best moment has

defi nitely been beating Miami. It’s a memory I’ll have forever. It was a great win against a team that has guys who will go on to be in the majors.

TR: What are your plans aft er

you graduate from Fordham? RM: I’m not sure yet. I’m a busi-

ness major, so I hopefully want to somehow use that for a career in sports.

Rowing Defends Title at Metropolitan Spring TitleBy KIMBERLY ENGEL

STAFF WRITER Th e Fordham rowing team suc-

cessfully defended its title at the Metropolitan Spring Champion-ships Sunday.

Competing against 15 other teams at the Orchard Beach La-goon, N.Y., Fordham scored 122 points overall, ahead of Army at 118 points and Fairfi eld, who placed third at 95 points.

Th e Lady Rams Varsity 8 placed fi rst in its competition, earning a gold medal.

“Overall our racing went very well, even with the conditions,” Head Coach Ted Bonanno said. “We had a very good day. We com-peted in commanding fashion.”

Last year, Fordham won the championship, and set out to do the same going into the day’s com-petition.

Fordham entered its women’s Varsity 8 and Junior Varsity 8 shells into the same event, with the Var-sity 4 and Novice 8 shells compet-ing as well.

Th e Novice 8 race consisted of solely a championship fi nal.

In the race, the Lady Rams won with a time of 7:27, ahead of Fair-fi eld at 7:34 and Iona at 8:04.

Th e other Fordham boats won their respective heats and qualifi ed for the fi nal races.

In the Grand Final of the Varsity 8 race, Fordham’s Varsity 8 shell crossed the line fi rst at 7:06, grab-bing a gold medal.

Binghamton placed second fi n-ishing at 7:18 and Fairfi eld came in third at 7:20. Fordham’s Junior Varsity 8 placed fourth overall at 7:23.

In the Varsity 4 Grand Final, Fordham placed third behind Army and Stonybrook.

“Th is was a good way to start the week off , with the Varsity 8 win-ning the fi nal,” senior co-captain Francesca Andrea said. “Th is week was an evaluation of our team in preparation for the rest of the sea-son. We’re still testing our lineup. Nothing is set in stone.”

With the upcoming ECAC Met-ro Championship and the Dad Vail in the next two weeks, the Lady Rams are continuing to work to-wards competing successfully at each regatt a.

“At the ECAC Metro Champi-onship, there are going to be a lot more competitive teams,” Andrea said. “We’ll have to go aft er them more aggressively. We’re going to be the underdogs. Proving our-selves is our main goal.”

Th e Lady Rams will continue their 2010 spring season in Cam-den, N.J., at the ECAC Metro Championship on May 1.

APRIL 28, 2010 • THE RA M • PAGE 23SPORTS

Upcoming Varsity ScheduleFriday

April 30Th ursdayApril 29

SaturdayMay 1

SundayMay 2

TuesdayMay 4

MondayMay 3

WednesdayMay 5

CAPS=HOMElowercase=away

Baseball

Rowing

Golf

Soft ball

Track and Field

CHARLOTT E12:00 p.m.2:00 p.m.

ECAC MetrosCamden, NJ

MARIST7:00 p.m.

LA SALLE4:00 p.m.

LA SALLE7:00 p.m.

LA SALLE1:00 p.m.

Atlantic 10 Championship Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla.

Atlantic 10 Outdoor ChampionshipsAmherst, Mass.

Golf Finishes Fourth at Spring Invitational

By JOHN DEMARZOSTAFF WRITER

Following a 15th-place fi nish at the Lafayett e Invitational, which took some of the shine off the Rams’ steady improvement, the Fordham men’s golf team traveled to Litt lestown, Pa. to partake in the Mount St. Mary’s Spring Invi-tational, held at Quail Valley Golf Course. Th e fi rst two rounds were played on Monday, April 19, with Round 3 being played on Tuesday, April 20.

Th e Rams bounced right back from the previous week’s disap-pointment, fi nishing fourth out of eight teams with a score of 934. Fordham fi nished just 13 strokes behind the winner, Robert Mor-ris, who carded a combined total of 921. Fordham fi nished within 10 strokes of the second- and third-place teams, Fairfi eld (925) and host Mount St. Mary’s (926).

Leading the way for the Rams was sophomore Devon O’Rourke. He started off slow, posting a 78 and an 80 in the fi rst two rounds, but fi nished strong in Round 3, shooting a 74. His combined score was 232, which was good for eighth place overall out of 42 golfers. Freshman Jason del Rosso mirrored O’Rourke’s fi nal-round improvement, also posting a 74 in Round 3. Combined with an 81 and 76 in the fi rst two rounds, O’Rourke’s total score was 233, which tied him for 10th place.

Sharing 10th place with del Rosso was fellow freshman Brody Nieporte, who improved from a Round 1 score of 81 to shoot back-to-back 76s, giving him a total score of 233. Finishing in fourth place for Fordham was red-shirt senior David Newman, who shot 80-81-78 on the way to a 239, which tied for 20th place, while sophomore Brendan Green shot a 78-82-81 en

route to a 241, which tied for 23th place.

Up next for the Rams was the Northeast Invitational, hosted by the University of Rhode Island at Green Valley Country Club in Portsmouth, R.I on Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25. However, due to a rainstorm that aff ected most of the Northeast, Sunday’s play was cancelled.

Much like the fall season, Ford-ham began to make its late-season surge at this tournament, fi nishing third place out of 11 teams, just four strokes behind the winner and host, Rhode Island. Th e Rams also fi nished just two strokes behind runner-up Sacred Heart.

Del Rosso fi nished fi rst for Ford-ham, shooting a 75 (40-35) to fi n-ish in a four-way tie for fourth place of overall. O’Rourke, Nieporte and Green all fi nished tied for 12 place, shooting six over par, while New-man shot 12 over par.

Coach Paul Dillon lamented the missed chance to win the North-east Invitational, but was also high on his team’s recent performance.

“Th e host school [Rhode Island] cancelled the tournament on Sun-day, but we felt that the course was playable,” Dillon said. “However, the team has been playing very well lately. We are a young team, and our two freshmen and two sopho-mores are playing particularly well. Our captain, [redshirt senior] Dave Newman, is looking to fi nish strong this weekend, as it is his last tournament. We will be up against a strong fi eld in the Atlantic 10 Championship, but we feel ready to give them our best shot.”

Th e fi nal tournament of the sea-son is right around the corner for the Rams, as they will travel down to Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. to play in the Atlantic 10 Championship, which will be held at Mission Inn Resort and Club on April 30.

Women’s Tennis Finishes StrongBy NANCY BUCKLEY

STAFF WRITER

Th e women’s tennis team (2-19) concluded its season on April 24, as the Lady Rams beat the St. Bo-naventure Bonnies in the Atlantic 10 Championship for the team’s second win of the season.

It has been a long and tough sea-son for the team, but in the end, the women overcame challenges and pulled the entire season together into their last match.

Friday, April 23, in the A-10 Championship, Th e Lady Rams fell to fourth-seed Duquesne, 4-1, placing Fordham in the consola-tion bracket for Saturday against the Bonnies.

In their match against Duquesne, seniors Elizabeth Stall and Martina Featherston won third doubles 8-3. Unfortunately the other double sets were not victorious for the Lady Rams, as sophomore Sarah Tremaine and freshman Jennifer Mullen fell 8-0 at fi rst doubles and freshman Taylor Holt and sopho-more Bethany Boyle were defeated 8-2 at second doubles.

Boyle won her single matches in straight sets defeating her op-ponent 6-4 and 6-1. Featherston, Mullen and Tremaine all suff ered

losses in their single sets. “We managed to play hard in

order to get a point against them,” Boyle said. “My opponent was a hard-hitt er, but I was mentally pre-pared, knowing that a great player could be beaten on any day as long as one stays mentally tough.”

With the loss behind them, the Lady Rams entered the fi nal day of competition against St. Bonaven-ture, where Fordham defeated the Bonnies 4-2 to wrap up the year.

Th e Lady Rams were able to win with the points earned in three singles matches and one doubles match.

Boyle, Holt and Stall each won their singles matches, and Feath-erston and Stall were successful in their doubles match, winning 8-0.

“It felt great ending the season on a win,” Boyle said. “Th is season has been tough, so exceeding the tournament’s expectations by fi n-ishing in 11th place was defi nitely exciting. Also, it was a great tourna-ment because not only did we play extremely well to secure such a tough win, but we also got to spend time together and grow as a team. I look forward to playing with ev-eryone who is returning next year and seeing what we can continue to achieve.”

By DANNY ATKINSONSPORTS EDITOR

A Fordham football player was draft ed in the NFL Draft this past weekend at Radio City Music Hall by the Arizona Cardinals. John Skelton was the sixth quarterback chosen; he came out of the Patriot League, no less.

Skelton was praised by NFL scouts and executives for his im-posing size and strong arm. While there is no doubt the Cardinals view John Skelton as a project, he has a solid shot at a productive NFL career. At his best, Skelton is being compared to Ben Roethlisberger. Imagine that: Our own Ben Roeth-lisberger right here at Fordham (I mean the Big Ben of comeback vic-tories and Super Bowl champion-ships, not drunken hook-ups and sexual assault cases).

Evidently, this is not a concept Fordham’s athletic department can wrap its head around. Sure, Frank McLaughlin and Co. did the bare minimum. Th ey infrequently put up news about the preparation John Skelton went through for the draft .

Th e department hosted Skelton’s Pro Day for him during this prepa-ration. Skelton himself periodically appeared on WFUV to talk about the draft process with its sports re-porters, but from listening to the station, I could only recall Skel-ton’s coaches appearing once to discuss the same subject. Basically, Fordham’s athletic department did the bare minimum to advertise the fact that it had one of the top quarterback prospects of the 2010 draft roaming its halls. Fordham treated the pursuit of Skelton as if it was more similar to that of a seventh-round pick or a star busi-ness student, not the program’s fi st draft pick since 1968. We are sup-posedly trying to build towards a bigger football program by adding scholarships, one that can compete for playoff berths and get the best players Division I-AA football has to off er.

But how can the athletic depart-ment claim they are dedicated to supporting a bigger program when they cannot market the most tal-ented player Fordham has featured in almost half a century?

While I do not believe schools should be glorifying athletics or athletes at the expense of academ-ics and academic stars, the fact remains that John Skelton is an

absolute superstar at what he does. Only 255 college football players currently got draft ed by the NFL this year and only 15 quarterbacks. John Skelton was the only Patriot Leaguer to be selected this season and the fi rst league prospect to be draft ed since 1995. A player like this, in a league with minimal tal-ent and without scholarships, at a school with almost no history of success in the past few decades, is a one-in-a-million talent. If Fordham wanted to build its football pro-gram up to a position of strength, its fans and student body would be hearing the name and exploits of John Skelton constantly. Recruits would constantly be told, “Come to Fordham, and be the next John Skelton.” Instead few people, if any, will be reminded of John’s name. It is a shame.

While those of you reading this column may understand the signif-icance of John’s school-record 69 touchdowns, the average student may know litt le to nothing of what he has done. Go up to the average Rose Hill student and tell them we had a quarterback draft ed this past weekend and you were liable to get blank stares or statements of “John who?” I do not expect that all or even most Fordham students would be signifi cantly interested in the football team. I just ask that they understand Skelton’s accom-plishment this past weekend.

Even those students that you hope would be interested in Skelton gett ing draft ed disappointed me. It seems as if the reaction among sports fans on campus across cam-pus is a collective, “Yeah, that’s cool” or “Oh, good luck to him.” Th ere was no signifi cant eff ort by the student body to get other stu-dents interested in this event. It is not every day that a quarterback gets draft ed from Fordham Univer-sity, and while I do not think the lack of a reaction on the part of the student body is mostly its fault, the athletic department should have organized a strong eff ort to interest students and funds in the unique story that was John Skelton gett ing draft ed.

Th ey should have promoted Skelton’s Pro Day workout at Ford-ham and had more people show up as long as it did not disturb the ac-tual event. Th e department should have released more information about Skelton’s draft process and focused upon how the quarter-back felt about the opportunity.

Whether they could have done this by featuring more stories on Skel-ton, publicizing his interviews with WFUV, or having some other type of coverage, it would have been nice to see them do so. Skelton is a unique talent and story, and the athletic department should not have allowed him and their football program to go unpublicized. Simi-larly, Fordham should have had its football coaches publicly discuss Skelton more to the media. Coach Tom Massella was heard from very litt le throughout this entire process and both fans and recruits deserved to learn what made his quarterback great.

Finally, I believe Fordham should have organized a trip for Fordham students, fans and boosters to at-tend the NFL draft on Friday and Saturday. It was a joke that my fel-low Ram staff ers and I att ended the draft at Radio City to cover Skel-ton’s selection on these days and only we were only accompanied by the WFUV reporters. It was disap-pointing and even disrespectful that no one representing Fordham or its athletic department program was present.

Here is an athlete who has done more to advance the cause of Ford-ham sports than any other in de-cades, and neither Frank McLauglin nor Tom Masella, among others, could att end a ceremony honor-ing his accomplishments? While it was bad enough that there were no Fordham football boosters or fans at the draft from what I could see, having no administrators or coach-es at the draft demonstrated that Skelton’s accomplishments will be forgott en much too quickly.

At least Fordham could have organized a group of students to att end the event. If Fordham could have had the 12th Man Club there, cheering on John Skelton and the Fordham Rams, it would have been great. I saw Penn State students do-ing just that and they looked like they were having the time of their lives. I know people who would love to spend time with their friends, rooting for their school at an event like this. But Fordham could not organize even this. John Skelton, who was a regular stu-dent as well as an amazing football player, had not one student rooting him on at the draft , despite what he gave to them and their school. I wish I could feel diff erently, but there may come a time when no one remembers John Skelton.


Skelton Draft ed by Cardinals in Fift h Round


PHOTO COURTESY OF YOUTUBE

Skelton feels he will be a perfect fi t for Ken Whisenhunt’s off ense in Arizona.

By NICK CARROLL DANNY ATKINSON

SPORTS EDITORS Aft er months of evaluation and

speculation, the wait is over – se-nior quarterback John Skelton is an Arizona Cardinal.

Aft er some of the premier quar-terbacks fell deep into the draft , the Cardinals used their fi ft h-round pick, No. 155 overall, on Skelton.

“We moved around, we had an opportunity and we had a high grade on this quarterback, a big guy with a good arm that, in our inter-views with him, has a very good feel for the game,” Cardinals Head Coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “Th at was an area, with only two quarter-backs on our roster, that we felt was important that we address.”

Th e Cardinals traded cornerback Bryant McFadden to the Steelers, from whom they acquired McFad-den through free agency the year

before and for whom the Steelers received a compensatory fi ft h-round pick, for the pick with which they took Skelton. Th e trade had been in the works for days, accord-ing to Steelers personnel.

“I though I would get picked in the fourth round and we were all gett ing a litt le nervous,” Skelton said. “I am just excited it’s kind of over now.”

In the months leading into the draft , there seemed to be a great deal of mutual interest from both the Cardinals and Skelton.

“Arizona was the one team out here the most,” Head Coach Tom Masella said. “Th ey were out here four, fi ve, six times.”

“In my heart of hearts I kind of al-ways thought the Cardinals would pick me up,” Skelton said in a con-ference call with the Arizona Car-dinals. “Speaking with the coaching staff at the Combine and then hav-ing both Coach Millers [passing

Fordham Flip Gaining National Exposure

By DANNY ATKINSON SPORTS EDITOR

Th e Fordham Flip – no matt er

where sophomore shortstop Brian Kownacki plays or goes in the fu-ture, he will always be remembered for his amazingly instinctive leap over Iona catcher James Beck to score the fi nal run in Fordham’s 12-9 comeback victory over the Gaels on April 20.

Th e play immediately became a YouTube sensation within a few hours of its occurrence and had been viewed 1,095,154 times as of April 23, making it the most-viewed video on the Web site for the week.

Kownacki and his head coach Nick Restaino, are still amazed that he was able to pull off the leaping stunt.

“Brian’s leap was great,” Restaino said. “It was purely instinctual.”

“I couldn’t let myself get tagged,” Kownacki said. “I didn’t want to barge into the catcher and get hurt, and I didn’t think I’d be able to slide around the catcher and be safe. It was just an instinctive reaction to leap over the catcher and I was luck-ily safe.”

Kownacki’s leap involved a num-ber of factors. With the throw beat-ing Kownacki, and as he was the play’s fi nal runner, the sophomore shortstop had to fi nd any way he could to score on Iona. Beck was low in a crouch and it appeared as if there was no way Kownacki could avoid the catcher. As silly as it sounds, leaping head-fi rst over the catcher and performing a front-fl ip to land safely at home was the most prudent play, if extremely diffi cult.

“It was a perfect litt le roll and up and into the dugout,” Kownacki said. “It was very casual.” Was that planned or did it just happen? “It just happened. I was happy that it happened, though, because it might

have hurt otherwise.”Kownacki said he only began re-

alizing how big of a hit the video of the play was and in the media when he saw later that night that it was No. 1 on ESPN’s Top Plays.

From there, the video of Kownacki’s fl ip blew up. It was ev-erywhere on the Internet and writ-ten up on a number of Web sites and in newspapers. ESPN showed the fl ip on Pardon the Interruption and Baseball Tonight, while Kownacki was a guest on the channel’s “Fresh Air” program and on CBS’s “Early Show.”

Th e Facebook group “Brian Kownacki Can Fly” holds 1,323 members. In perhaps the odd-est bit of news to come out of the play’s viral craze, the Harlem Globe Trott ers honored Kownacki with a “Trott er Tribute” for his “Globe trott er-esque leap”.

“I was a litt le nervous about all the att ention I was gett ing for the fl ip initially,” Kownacki said. “But I

got comfortable with going on TV and talking to reporters over time. It was nice to get my 15 minutes of fame, and hopefully all this att en-tion will bring notice to Fordham baseball this season and beyond. It might help us land a recruit or two.”

Senior Gregg Caserta is WFUV’s lead baseball announcer and was proud of the chance to call such a moment.

“It was a great opportunity,” he said. “I’m happy to have been there at the right time and described such an amazing play.”

Caserta also realized that he may not have a chance call such a signifi -cant play in his future announcing career. “I’m sure there will be play-ers trying to emulate Kownacki’s play,” he said. “But it will be hard for me to see something like that again.”

Kownacki echoed the sentiment. “I’ve never made such a special

play before, and I don’t think I will be able to again,” he said.


game coordinator Mike Miller and quarterbacks coach Chris Miller] come out to work me out and the meeting we had, in the back of my mind I always thought I would be a Cardinal.”

It seems like Arizona is a perfect fi t for Skelton, going forward.

“What they have done is a lot of shotgun,” assistant coach Bryan Volk said. “A lot of their passing concepts are a lot like what we do.”

“I believe I fi t in well with their system, especially since it’s similar to Fordham’s,” Skelton said.

According to some, Skelton re-sembles another big, strong-armed quarterback who Whisenhunt helped develop.

“I think I play a litt le bit like Ben Roethlisberger, big body, stand tall in the pocket, able to throw the ball downfi eld, able to avoid the rush,” Skelton said. “I think I most mirror someone like Ben Roethlisberger in the NFL right now.”

“Coach Whisenhunt has had a lot of success with Roethlisberger,” Volk said. “John is a lot like Ben physically.”

In terms of when Skelton will be able to get on the fi eld, there is only one consensus – he has to be ready.

“I am thinking of it being a year

or two down the road if [Cardinals quarterback Matt ] Leinart doesn’t pick it up and [Cardinals quarter-back Derek] Anderson doesn’t pan out,” Volk said. “If he is brought into spotlight right away it will be much harder than if he is allowed to develop.”

“It depends on how long it will take him to adjust, how quickly he picks up the terminology and speed of the game,” Masella said. “You can’t rush quarterbacks, you have to develop them. If [Skelton] can make the adjustment, he’ll be fi ne.”

Skelton marks the fi rst Fordham athlete draft ed by the NFL since Kenny Parker in 1968.

Parker, who actually played bas-ketball, not football, at Fordham, was draft ed in the 16th round.

Skelton went ahead of bigger-name quarterbacks such as Cinci-nati’s Tony Pike and Central Michi-gan’s Dan Lafevour. When Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen and Texas quarterback Colt Mc-Coy fell much further in the draft , it looked like it could be a tough day for Skelton.

However, the Cardinals believed in Skelton enough to use a fi ft h round pick on him.

It turned out that Skelton was

not the only Ram to have his NFL dream realized last Saturday, as se-nior tackle Andrew Tyshovnytsky signed with the Indianapolis Colts as an undraft ed free agent.

“Him and his agent felt that Indy was the best fi t for him,” Masella said. “All of their coaches called him.”

According to Masella, Tyshovny-tsky was made a high-priority free agent, and received a signing bo-nus.

“It is unbelievable to be draft ed, but by not being draft ed, he could pick his team,” Volk said.

“You want to fi nd a situation where the position isn’t overload-ed,” Masella said.

What made Tyshovnytsky such an intriguing prospect is his combi-nation of size and speed.

He is listed at 6’4”, 304 lbs., was clocked running a 4.9 40-yard dash and was able to bench press 225 lbs. 33 times.

“Th e biggest issue is the learning curve,” Volk said. “He has the physi-cal tools, he just can’t worry about screwing things up.”

According to Masella, Tyshovny-tsky also received interest from the Atlanta Falcons, New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Skelton expected to go a round earlier in the draft; however, he was lucky he did not fall too far like the other quarterbacks.

With his fl ip, Brian Kownacki quickly became a TV and internet phenomena.

Volume 92 Issue 10

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