Learning, too
Student life more than school spirit

Less than 400 students were at Tuesday’s Fall Convocation, yet more than 4,000 students are expected at the football team’s home opener on Saturday.

Athletes often feel better playing on their home turf, but senior tailback LaDainian Tomlinson will not run faster because more fans are supporting him, sophomore quarterback Casey Printers will not complete a higher percentage of passes based on the number of people wearing purple in the stands and senior defensive end Aaron Schobel will not get credit for any sacks the fans make for him.

More importantly, what will the students in attendance gain from being part of the TCU football atmosphere?
Through his or her support of the TCU football team, a student can gain enhanced school pride, a bigger spectrum of friends to choose from and/or a darker sun tan.

But this is supposed to be a place of cultural and high-level learning.

By no means do we want to keep students from going to the football game. Instead, we want students to also take advantage of the culturally and academically challenging events on campus in the coming week.

Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar, will give a free public lecture at 7:30 p.m. next Thursday in the ballroom of the Student Center. Funk taught at Harvard University and has authored several books.

Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel will deliver TCU’s third annual Gates of Chai Lecture at 8 p.m.

Wednesday. Wiesel’s speech, entitled “The Seduction and Dangers of Fanaticism,” is free to students.

On graduation day, your fondest memories may still be based on school pride or your friends. But a few years down the road, a look back at TCU should remind you of something else — all that you learned.

On Aug. 8, Siamese twins known only by the pseudonyms Jodie and Mary were born joined at the abdomen in a London hospital.

Today, three judges sitting on the bench of the Court of Appeal in the Royal Courts of London are being asked to play God in deciding the fate of Mary and Jodie, who share lungs and a heart. Doctors say Mary and Jodie will survive only a matter of months if they remain joined.

Mary and Jodie’s parents are devout Roman Catholics who have feverishly ignored their doctors’ wishes to operate.

The court must now decide the fate of the children. If the court grants permission to the doctors, they will perform an operation that would certainly end Mary’s life, but may enable Jodie to live a normal life.
This case is unprecedented throughout the world. Never before has a court been asked to make such a decision.

Does this mean parents have never been faced with such a dilemma? Most likely not.
Usually, however, these decisions are made in the privacy of hospital rooms. So why is it we even know about Jodie and Mary?

Well, it’s because their parents refuse to be steamrolled by authoritative, hot-shot doctors trying to murder their infant child — doctors, who stand only to gain by doing such an extraordinary operation.

When the parents of these very special little girls return to their native country, they are going to return home with a loss. Whether it is the loss of one child or two, it will be felt for the rest of their lives.

The doctors, on the other hand, will move on to other cases, other operations and more fame.

So, what are the courts to do? Grant the doctors the right to kill a child or do as the parents do and leave the children’s lives in the hands of God?

There is not enough evidence to support the idea that it is “God’s will” to have these children die. Could it also be “God’s will” to have these doctors save the life of a child?

This case is a race against time like no other case ever before. With each day that passes, the chance of Mary and Jodie’s survival diminishes. Also, with each passing day, these children are becoming more and more loved by their parents.

The courts are faced with a decision that will not only affect the lives of the children, but the lives of an entire family. In a time when not every child is given the unconditional love of a parent, it is sad to see that a handful of doctors are trying to take that love away from not only the children, but the parents as well.
Mary and Jodie’s parents are doing what they know to do based on their parental instincts: protect their children at all costs.

Parents should not have to worry about whether or not doctors are going to try to convince them to murder their children. They should not be forced to choose between the lives of their children. While the rest of us sit here and debate whether or not the doctors should murder Mary, the parents should be spending time with their children. No matter how long these children will be with them, they deserve to love them just as your parents love you.

For any non-parent this is a hard concept to grasp — killing one of your children to save another. Perhaps we should all give our mothers a call and ask them what they would do in this situation.

James Zwilling is a sophomore news-editorial journalism major from Phoenix, Ariz.
He can be reached at (james_zwilling-@usa.net).

Recognition, tuition not enough for college athletes

I went to the bank yesterday. Nodding at a poster of LaDainian Tomlinson on the wall, the teller commented that she had watched the TCU football game last weekend. I asked her if she had enjoyed the thrashing we gave the sorry Nevada Wolf Pack, and she confessed that she wasn’t really “much of a fan, but, with all the excitement, (she) felt like (she) should watch.”

Frog Fans, welcome to big-time college sports.

What Lee Nailon couldn’t quite manage and what Royce Huffman could’ve done (if anyone really cared about college baseball), “L.T. For Heisman” has accomplished: TCU athletics have garnered national buzz.
Sure we’ve won two straight bowl games. Sure we’re moving on up to that “dee-luxe apartment in the sky” known as Conference USA. Sure we’ve got a coach that any college program, not to mention a few NFL ones, would bend over backwards to whisk away from us.

None of that really matters. What has brought TCU to national prominence this season is the campaign to get L.T. that coveted statue with the textbook stiff arm.

People have raised eyebrows at the money spent by the athletics department getting the word out about L.T.’s massive game. Sports Illustrated, though they wouldn’t name the source, jumped all over the “fact” that TCU has spent $90,000 and developed a CD-ROM bragging our boy up to the media. If anyone has offered any controversial opinions on the matter, they have been of the nature that the school shouldn’t be spending such large amounts to promote one student for his athletic, not academic, achievements.

But let’s get real for a second. There’s nothing controversial about a sound investment. Ninety thousand is a bargain for the millions this administration can get from the expanded television coverage for the football team. And after all the hot air from the sports information director’s office has cleared, the expanded coverage can only be attributed to having a Heisman candidate on our squad.

There’s more money to be counted when TCU’s expanded exposure in athletics results in increased enrollment. And, as anyone who has driven up University Dr. lately can tell you, all the “excitement” due to L.T.’s skills in the backfield has translated to massive sales of season tickets for TCU home games. More season ticket sales means even more money on top of the media exposure and increased tuition money.

You can see that L.T.’s ability to run the ball is generating some serious cash for the university, and you can bet that some portion of that money will be siphoned off to benefit the upper echelons of the TCU administration.

Hmm … I remember hearing about another “peculiar institution” around these parts where the fruits of black people’s labor went to benefit only the white elite, only then it went by the less euphemistic name of slavery, not sports.

I’m not saying that the NCAA or the TCU athletics department is openly racist in this regard — surely the star white athletes generate cash without compensation just as much as the black ones. I’m only trying to dramatically illustrate that this system is incredibly unfair. The people directly responsible for creating the cash flow don’t get to see any of it.

LaDainian Tomlinson, and hundreds of college athletes just like him, rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year with their talents, and get nothing more for it than free tuition. It’s not enough.

The term “student athlete” has become obsolete, for surely these men are more athlete than student. They spend more time in practice than in class. Some of them spend hardly any time in class! College athletes live the lives of professional or semi-pro athletes — indeed some of them display talents well deserving of professional status, yet they are not compensated nearly as kindly.

While under-the-table benefits from alumni or “booster associations” remain a force in today’s NCAA, the fact remains that the payment of college athletes should not have to be under the table at all. Sports stars create huge sources of revenue for their schools, and their schools happily exploit them for that revenue. Penny-pinching athletics directors have hidden behind the myth of the “student athlete” for far too long.
It’s time to give these guys, and girls, what they deserve.

If L.T. breaks his leg next week, his chance to make a career of his abilities will disappear faster than he can cutback a toss sweep, but if he goes on to be recognized as the greatest college football player in the country by season’s end, he’ll receive little more than an ugly trophy and lots of kind words from the people who have profited off of his talents. It’s time that college athletes started getting the money they deserve ...

I’m sure L.T. needs a paycheck a lot more than a poster.

Daniel Bramlette is a senior radio-TV-film major from Ogden, UT.
He can be reached at (d.c.bramlette@yahoo.com).