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On Friday, April 11, 2008 athletes from around the country converged on Athens for the 2008 Bulldog Decathlon at the Specs Town Track in. Here are some pictures from the event.
David Schiedt carries two hammers across the track during the Bulldog Decathlon at the Specs Town Track Friday, April 11, 2008.
Georgia’s Tommy Barrineau launches a javelin during the Bulldog Decathlon at the Specs Town Track Friday. Barrineau threw the farthest distance of the day at 52.34 meters.
Although there was no joke in the print edition of the newspaper, the staff shared great laughs in the newsroom on April Fools Day.
The recruitment editor, Phillip, has an aversion for all things sour. The joke began in January when I began bringing sour Starbursts to our weekly staff meeting. Each week thereafter, other desk editors brought bags of sour Starbursts and other sour candies to the Monday meetings, until we called a truce with Phillip in February. The sour candy disappeared from the office … and also from most Athens stores.
For the past few days, most of the desk editors have been looking at convenience stores, drug stores and grocery stores around town for the sour Starbursts. It turned out that during the past month, most local stores took the sour treats off their shelves because they weren’t selling, so a manager at Wal-Mart told me. I finally found the candy at CVS and purchased every bag in the store.
Today I cleaned off Phillip’s desk — hid papers, stapler, phone. It was all replaced with hundreds of sour Starbursts, sour Skittles and sour Airheads. The office reeked of the sour candy. When he came into the newsroom this afternoon, and saw his newly decorated desk, of course he freaked out and began a 10 minute tirade about the prank.
For the rest of the semester we likely will have our lips puckered as we eat the sour Starbursts, but it was well worth the laughs.
— Juanita, jcousins@randb.com
Happy Weekend UGA,
Spanish will no longer be offered as a minor if a bill which passed through the Curriculum Committee of University Council passes through the Executive Committee and the general body of University Council. Despite heavy student resistance (presented by Student Government Association), several faculty members who spoke against the bill, and Vice President of Instruction Jere Morehead’s disapproval, the Committee voted to deactivate the Spanish Minor… Wow. In response Nicki and I wrote a letter to President Adams expressing our concern and opposition to the measure. You can find our letter and the resolution on www.uga.edu/sga.
If you are opposed to the idea, please let us know ASAP! Send an email to Amrita Veliyath, the Student Government Association representative for students on the committee at veliyath@uga.edu. We have already received notes from current minors, parents of current minors, alumni of the program, and parents of prospective students intending to minor in Spanish, but these were clearly not enough to sway the opinion of the committee.
In happier news, if you would like to apply to be the student on the Athletic Association Board of Directors, please find the application at www.uga.edu/sga. Graduating seniors may also apply to be the commencement speaker by downloading the application at www.uga.edu/sga.
This week we are holding interviews for our committee chair positions, and will soon have more feet on the ground to accomplish our initiatives. Also, keep an eye out for senators from your school attending your club and organizational meetings. Rather than being huddled up in the office, our senators are reaching out to their schools–as they well should!–to make sure they are best serving you. Please use them as a resource to report anything of interest to you and to stay updated on how we are hoping to serve you.
Finally, as a follow up to Ruckus, we wanted to let you know how the “Do It Legally” campaign is serving our school. On Monday and Tuesday the campaign will visit classrooms and sorority chapters to deliver its key talking points. On Tuesday evening (3/25), it will hold its “main event,” Face the Music: A Panel Discussion on Digital Media Downloading (7:30 p.m. in SLC 248). They have panelists from the administration, faculty, student body and the music industry. It’s a blue card event, and they’ll be offering lots of information and some free giveaways. The campaign will be on the Tate Lawn on Wednesday, at Snelling on Thursday and at both the Young Joc (University Union) concert and two other concerts downtown on Friday. You can find them on Facebook or online at www.uga.edu/doitlegally for more information.
Stay classy UGA, and don’t forget to let us know how you feel about deactivating the Spanish Minor.
Best,
Connor and Nicki
The Diamond Dogs beat Western Carolina Tuesday, with preseason All-American Gordon Beckham hitting his 10th homer of the year (I know I said he’s not going to keep hitting .500 all season, but, hell, he’s right on the mark a fourth of the way through the season) and his 35th as a Bulldog, tying him for fourth all-time.
Afterwards, he had a few heated things to say about the home run and the “chirpiness” of the Catamounts:
“It’s very frustrating to play a baseball game when you have guys on the other team just constantly just chirping like a softball team. This is not softball it’s baseball. I was very frustrated with it because that’s not the way you play baseball in my opinion. Some people believe that that’s the way you play but I was just very frustrated. When Michael (Demperio) got on that inning I was like if he throws it anywhere near the plate I’m gonna hit it as hard as I can, and that’s what happened. He left a fastball right down the middle and I crushed it. It’s very frustrating playing baseball teams like just because it’s Mickey Mouse stuff.”
Wow. A rare show of emotion from the reigning SEC Player of the Week.
Photo from Georgia Sports Comm
So last year was a pretty bad experience for everyone involved with the Diamond Dogs, as made clear by a 23-33 record replete with poorly-timed errors and late-inning meltdowns. But honest to God, I think this team is going to be pretty good in 2008.
Ten games into the season, they’re averaging close to eight runs per game (7.7), and that’s in series that include those against the No. 1 team in the country and the two-time defending champs.
Baserunning is still a concern (”worst baserunning team EVER” is a very common phrase thrown around by Diamond Dave Williams in the press box), and there have been some walks and unearned runs; the Diamond Dogs have lost all three of their Sunday games by one run, and all were games they could have (if not should have) won, but it hasn’t felt the same as it did in 2007…..
Gordon Beckham and Rich Poythress aren’t going to continue hitting a combined .505, but the offense looks to be solid and appears like it will stay that way (the addition of Michael Demperio, a transfer from Texas, has been huge at the top of the lineup, and freshman Lyle Allen has played well).
“Coach Perno always stresses seven runs a game and we’ll win,” Demperio said last week. The Diamond Dogs are doing that.
Last season got to the point where it was all mental, but I don’t see that type of weakness in the Diamond Dogs this season. They’re not going to be a top-10 team by any stretch of the imagination, but the demons are exorcised and I think this team has a chance to surprise some people and challenge for a trip to Omaha…….
Last weekend over 40 brothers from Chi Phi traveled to Alexandria, VA by car and plane to attend the memorial service of Wiatt Farrar, a truly beloved brother of Chi Phi. The service was held at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Wiatt’s alma mater and the place people knew him best.
Wiatt was always easy to spot because his red hair stuck out of the crowd, but that’s not why everyone noticed him. People noticed his smile, laugh, and of course his feet, as they always seemed to be sliding across a dance floor.
Sitting in the chapel waiting for the service to begin, tears rolled down the faces of women and men alike, as people from all over the world entered to mourn Wiatt’s death. It seemed like there were several reoccurring themes throughout the service. Speakers told old glory stories about his days on the football and lacrosse fields and basketball court. We also heard about his friendliness and how he always made it enjoyable to hang around him. Listening to these stories, family and friends alike both switched from tears to laughter with ease.
Wiatt’s death is not just a loss to the Chi Phi brothers, but to his family, high school classmates, and anyone who was ever touched by his adorning smile or laugh. At the reception, Wiatt’s dad, Scotty, left me with some words of advice as I had trouble controlling my strange mix of emotions; I had the biggest smile on my face as tears rolled from my eyes. He wiped a few teardrops from my check and told me that every time we smile, it brings us closer to Wiatt.
by Samuel J. Pouns
One half of the puzzle is in place. President Bush is in the process of endorsing Senator McCain as I write this. Now, who will he run against? The answer is almost certainly the junior Senator from Illinois. Mrs. Clinton had a very impressive showing last night in Ohio and Texas, but she still seems to be a day late and a dollar short. From almost every mathematical delegate projection the race appears to be wrapped up. Even assuming Clinton were to win every other race, she would not make up the deficit.
How long will she persist? I am not questioning her intenions nor suggesting she get out, but at some point it has to be considered that this long fight in the Democratic Party is helping only Senator McCain. When will the moment of realism take over and Senator Clinton realize that she is in a losing position? Will she be willing to take this to the superdelegates? Will they be willing to overturn the will of the people? Regardless of outcome, will Democrats be able to unite behind the winner, or will there be too much bad blood? Again, the funny thing is that the math says this is all but over, but you will hear everything but that over the next few weeks.
And now they are over. What appears to be the final debate of this landmark Democratic presidential primary season has come and gone… and it looks as if nothing has changed. Barack Obama still appears to be leading in national polls. The gap is still tightening in Texas and Ohio. The media is still all over the freshman senator. It looks like the wheels are loosening on the Clinton train; if she loses either Texas or Ohio they will have completely fallen off. Things are not looking up for Mrs. Clinton. Her campaign was run almost entirely on the premise that she was the most experienced - the hard worker that fought the good fight. The kink in the plan is that she never REALLY proved that point. As much as she tried to paint Senator Obama as all talk and no substance, it never really stuck. During debates Mr. Obama fielded question after question over a variety of policy issues and differences with Mrs. Clinton. He has now done so repeatedly for weeks. The American public finally lost interest in the inevitability of another Clinton. I will be here to eat crow if need be, but this one is about all but done. Now, where are all the people who guaranteed us Clinton vs. Giuliani six months ago?
So Josh Fields is back in Athens after being drafted by the Braves last year, and now he’s not only a closer, but a DH, and dude is pretty good at both. In last Friday’s opener against No. 1 Arizona, he had a bunt single (something he said he hadn’t done since high school), a home run and, of course, a three-strikeout save. That’s pretty impressive. Both Fields and his Diamond Dogs started off pretty poorly last season (dropping a three-game series to Oregon State, with late-inning collapses galore), so you would think Fields would have that on his mind upon taking the mound Friday.Wrong.
“I thought about that a little bit before, but once I went out there on the mound my mind was just blank and all I was thinking about was throwing strikes and going after hitters,” Fields told reporters.”But it was on my mind a little bit before. That first game last year, it was tough to start like that at the beginning of the season, and I guess we kind of felt like we had an uphill battle after that and this year I know just the guys that remember that last year just want to relax and not put so much pressure on ourselves.”Fields wasn’t the only one preaching that the Diamond Dogs have put their 23-33 2007 behind them, but it will be interesting to see if they make good on the promise.
As I was sitting in the press box at Sunday’s rubber game, the Diamond Dogs squandered a 4-0 lead going into the seventh, and proceeded to give up nine runs in the following two innings. In the eighth, an Arizona runner tried to steal second with two outs. Bryce Massanari’s throw went into the centerfield, and the runner rounded third, and proceeded to unnecessarily truck right on over Massanari, despite the fact that the transfer from Las Vegas didn’t have the ball. And, to me at least, he didn’t make a particularly strong effort to touch the plate. Georgia third baseman Ryan Peisel proceeded to have a near heart attack, flying down the third base line to come to the defense of his teammate. Benches cleared, big bad college athletes pretended as if 65-year-old men could really hold them back and stop them from getting to the other team, etc., etc.I’ve seen a lot of baseball on TV and been to a lot of games, but that was the first bench-clearing near-brawl that I’ve witnessed live, and I must say it was pretty cool. (Although a couple people didn’t particularly appreciate it— Arizona coach Andy Lopez was still screaming at his team when I left Foley about half an hour after the game, and Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans saw it too, and didn’t look too stoked).
The Diamond Dogs played an exhibition with the Braves on Wednesday, and as one that’s been to a Braves spring training and a lifelong, bleeding heart Braves fan, I just have one thing to say.How cool is that…
In other, severely unrelated news, a colleague of mine, Red & Blacker Kevin Copp, sent me this quote from Georgia gymnastics coach Suzanne Yoculan talking about Nikki Childs, one of her gymnasts.I realize a lot of people aren’t particularly fascinated in gymnastics, but I thought the quote was pretty funny and had pretty good insight into Yoculan’s personality (she’s what I like to refer to as, lovingly of course, a crazy person). And plus, you don’t see a coach just straight up vent about one of his/her players very often:”Nikki….aaaargh…I want to ring her neck. She drives me crazy. I love her, but she’s just aaaaah. She’s a big competitor. You put her in the big meets, under the lights, championships, she’s on the money, but in the little meets it’s almost like she’s playing with me and making me mad on purpose. I’m like, ‘Nikki, what are you doing?’ She’s a gymnast that can age you for sure because she’s so good and you have to love her…It just looks like she has a hit routine and all of a sudden she wants to torment me. You can’t even see a technical mistake leading up to her wobbles. It’s like all of a sudden she wants to bend over.”
Tonight was supposed to be the night. The gloves were to be thrown down; the fight was to be fought. This was Hillary’s last stand after losing eleven straight caucuses. Somehow though, the reaction of the audience in early scuffles discouraged the two opponents from continuing on throughout the night. Instead, a civil, and what seemed to be almost friendly discourse evolved throughout the night. After the healthcare explosion, the mood lightened and issues were discussed. Could it be that politicians saw a real glimmer of what America wants in this brief 90 minute debate? Do we really care about the pointless issues that are drawn out all day long on the ten different news networks? Do we REALLY think Michelle Obama has been anti-American for the majority of her adult life? Do we really think Bill Clinton is a racist? For the majority of this campaign, the media has made it about anything but the issues. Finally tonight we got what we wanted. We heard the differences in their plans on healthcare. We heard their differences on withdrawal from Iraq. We heard their immediate plans of action for the mortgage crisis Americans are facing. For once, the coverage was not about whether Barack Obama is a plagiarizer, or if Hillary Clinton is desperate. Kudos to the candidates tonight, especially when they took control and continued to debate the issue of healthcare heatedly though professionally and without unfair or personal attacks.
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