Flying into the postseason

Washington — After a 71-60 loss to Massachusetts on Feb. 11, the women’s basketball team knew it needed to win its next five games to have a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament.

And following Sunday’s 59-49 victory over George Washington, that’s just what the Owls did – and against four of the Atlantic Ten Conference’s top five teams — No. 16 Xavier, Charlotte, Richmond and George Washington — at that.

“All season, once we started conference play, we’ve only had one game we’ve dominated from start to finish and that was probably the Rhode Island game,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “We would get up 10, get down 10, but we’d find a way to pull it out. The seniors, this is their last go-around, and I think they want to finish on a good note.

“Our backs were up against the wall after the UMass game. The way we were playing at the time, we were probably hoping to get a bid to the WNIT. The last five games we had to win. It was against the top teams in the conference. The fact that we just went 5-0, I think we definitely put ourselves in the NCAA Tournament.”

The Owls haven’t clinched one of the 64 NCAA Tournament bids yet, of course. The A-10 Tournament still needs to be played this weekend in Charlotte, N.C. With an 11-3 conference record and the tiebreaker over Charlotte, though, they hold the No. 2 seed, meaning they get that all-important first-round bye.

“The No. 2 seed is huge,” Cardoza said. “That bye is key. You don’t want to have to play four games to win the Championship. I was looking at the brackets, and that fourth seed plays at 8 p.m. and then turns around and plays at noon. It was great for us to get that No. 2 seed because that gives you a couple extra hours. And, it’s a different path, and it just hopefully works out better for us.”

What Cardoza didn’t say outright is that Temple can avoid another matchup with either Xavier or G.W. until the A-10 final Monday, March 9. Instead, the Owls will face the St. Bonaventure/Saint Joseph’s winner in the quarterfinals on Saturday, March 7.

The Bonnies defeated the Owls, 55-52, back on Jan. 24 at Olean, N.Y. Temple held a 29-23 halftime lead but then shot just 29.4 percent from the field compared to St. Bonaventure’s 52.4 percent.

The Owls fared much better against their archrival, the Hawks, beating them twice this season, 58-53, on Jan. 11 at Philadelphia University and 60-48 Feb. 15 at the Liacouras Center to start that five-game winning streak.

“At this point, we’re just happy to be in the position that we’re in,” Cardoza said. “We’re just ready to do what we have to do.”

A win in the quarterfinals would pit the Owls against the team that prevails in the Charlotte/Duquesne/UMass games.

But, regardless of what happens in Charlotte, Xavier coach Kevin McGuff thought the Owls’ 74-65 win over the Musketeers last Wednesday all but guaranteed them a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

“I think there are still things to be determined in Charlotte, but I would certainly hope that we would be a multiple-team league,” he said. “This victory shows Temple could go a long way in the [NCAA] Tournament, regardless of what happens in Charlotte.”

The Owls seem to have a strong case.

Their RPI stands at 25, and they had a strength of schedule at 38. During the non-conference portion of its schedule, Temple played four teams that are either ranked now or were ranked at the time — Auburn, Rutgers, Florida State and Duke. Granted, the Owls lost all four, though they were within three points of the Tigers at halftime and led the Scarlet Knights by as many as 11 before Rutgers won 64-60.

Last Wednesday, the Owls finally got that victory over a ranked opponent and then followed it up with a road win against G.W., which has made the Sweet 16 the past two seasons.

“There’s no limbo. [G.W.] played ourselves into fifth place. Temple played themselves into second,” G.W. coach Mike Bozeman said after Sunday’s game. “They deserve it.”

With the pieces coming together at the right time, the Owls could very well have played themselves back into the NCAA Tournament for the sixth straight year.

Jennifer Reardon can be reached at jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.

Offbeat Academia: Roommate choices affect home harmony

Where are you going to live? With whom?

I mean, it’s already March. The deadline for Temple housing is approaching quickly. Maybe you should be worried about ending up on the streets next semester. You could live in the TV lounge of the Student Center. Just shove your stuff in a corner, and cover it with a blanket so no one notices. Not a bad idea, right? It’s got proximity.

Just kidding. Don’t do that. You’ll probably get kicked out if you try. But some people might prefer that option to moving in with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Well, OK, maybe you were delighted when you moved in with him, but now it seems like he won’t go away, right? He’s always right there – snoring next to you, eating next to you, brushing his teeth while you’re on the toilet – and you’ve become fearful that you’ll never again have the luxury of sleeping alone.

Suddenly, you’re defensive. You start blowing up over little things. She’s trying to suffocate you, she never apologizes, and she hated your black bean rice soup. You’ve become a self-destructive, ticking time bomb, waiting for the right moment to stomp out and never come back.

That happens a lot, I’m sure. But it hasn’t happened to me, yet. I’m crossing my fingers.

Before living in this house, I lived with three boys with whom I had strictly platonic relationships, so it didn’t happen there either. Although, I pretty much became the mother of the house – cooking dinner, cleaning, taking care of a dying cat, adding and dividing bills – I enjoyed it for the most part. Like any good nuclear mother would say: it gave me a wonderful sense of purpose.

Now, I’m living with…him. With the boys, I didn’t have to see them all the time. They had girlfriends, shows and other friends to tend to. I mostly hung out with my dying cat, which wasn’t a very happening scene, and that’s probably why I took her back home. But him – he’s more like the dying cat.

I blow up over little things. I haven’t stomped out yet, but I threaten to often enough that it’s hard to believe anymore.

Before we moved in together this semester, I remember my mom asking me if I was worried about anything concerning the living arrangement. He and I spent most of our time together anyway, so I really wasn’t. Of course, there are those things you don’t experience until you’re living in the same house, but I didn’t think they would be a big deal.

And they’re not a big deal. Like I said, I blow up over little things. His guitar, for example: I’ve watched him play for the five years I’ve known him. Now, I get to hear it every day – while I’m sleeping, while I’m doing homework and while I’m cooking dinner. (Yes, I’m still cooking dinner).

Domestic duties have become the molten lava of our arguments, but it probably isn’t what you think. I’m the lazy one now. I don’t mind waiting until tomorrow to do the dishes, leaving my clothes on the floor or accumulating drinking glasses on my nightstand. He calls me lazy as he pulls out the vacuum and scrubs the bathroom floor on his knees. I cook the dinners. But that’s all I really have. I don’t know when this shift happened, but it did.

Living with one person, especially a significant other, is very different from living with multiple people. You rely on each other for something to do on the weekend and for food in the fridge. One of you has to be neat, one has to know how to cook, and one needs to remember trash day or the deadline for the electric bill.

Mind you, I only sound cynical for the sake of this column. He isn’t really so much like a dying cat.

Sarah Sanders can be reached at sarah.sanders@temple.edu.

Student seen as ‘Truman material’

Kylie Patterson sits in the front office of her residence hall trying to finish the task ahead of her.
It’s 4 a.m., and this is not the first night she has stayed up late to work on this application. With eight essays and a public policy to write, getting a full night’s sleep was not an option. She had to finish if she wanted to be a Truman scholar.

The Truman Scholarship is the only living memorial dedicated to a president. The Truman Foundation awards $30,000 to 60 candidates who show leadership skills and exemplify a commitment to public service.

This year, only 194 finalists have been selected, and Patterson, the Temple Student Government Senate university affairs chair, is one of them. She is the only Truman finalist from Temple this year.

“I would be lying if I said I was surprised,” Senate President Jeff Dempsey said. “She has the passion that greatness is made from.”

Honors Program director Ruth Ost nominated Patterson, a dual political science and African-American studies major, to be considered for this award. Ost has watched Patterson’s progress since her freshman year, noticing her commitment to public service and her academic credentials, which made her eligible to become a Truman scholar.

Many people around Patterson said they have noticed what makes her “Truman material.”

“She’s definitely one of the most motivated and determined person I’ve met,” said Kyle Bagenstose, a fellow TSG senator. “She’s got her goals, and she’s going to keep attacking them.”

Throughout her college career, Patterson has worked at several internships. During the spring semester of her freshman year, she worked and campaigned for Philadelphia’s first openly gay judge, Dan Anders.

During the summer of 2007, she participated in the summer union intern program at the AFL-CIO. She lobbied, held rallies, wrote press releases and learned about union negotiations. She also helped with a nonprofit in Maine, raising funds for people who were recently laid off from their jobs.

The next fall, she worked for State Rep. Tony Payton Jr. (D-179th District).

Patterson stressed how much she valued the experience she gained working in Payton’s office.

“I was able to go into this man’s office and really have a hand in seeing things get passed and have a hand in informing people,” Patterson said.

More recently, Patterson worked in the public policy and grants department in Mayor Michael Nutter’s office.

“She’s one of the voices of TSG,” Sen. Gaëlle Amazan said. “You’ll always hear her at the meetings, and she will always bring up something that may seem small but is really significant.”

Patterson wrote two bills thus far as a TSG senator. The first bill created an ad hoc committee that plans to address the problems in advising at Temple. The second was a resolution that declared TSG’s support for Temple against Gov. Ed Rendell’s Pennsylvania Tuition Relief Act.

“She’s really great to work with because when she’s really passionate about something, she works hard until she gets it done,” TSG Sen. Kevin Gerard said.

Patterson said the greatest thing about the Truman Scholarship is that it helps recipients set paths for their lives.

The ultimate goal Patterson said she hopes to attain is becoming a Pennsylvania U.S. senator. Before that, she intends to get her master’s in public policy, as well as her J.D. degree, which she wants to use to work as a civil rights attorney in Pennsylvania. Afterward, she plans to work in the mayor’s or state representative’s office as a legal aide before she runs for office as a state representative.

“[The Truman process] really makes you center your life. It makes you realize where you really want to be in however many years,” Patterson said. “It makes you more knowledgeable of your own self.”

As a Truman finalist, Patterson will now have to go through intense interviews. The Truman Foundation Web site describes these as rigorous and sometimes hostile. The questions are rapid-fire, and Patterson will only have up to 60 seconds to answer each of them.

“Their primary goal is to beat you down, and of course, if you can take it, they’ll be more apt to consider you for this scholarship,” Patterson said.

The interviewers will be former Mayor Wilson Glenn, an associate professor of law from Villanova University, the director of Save Africa’s Children and the deputy secretary of the Truman Foundation.

To prepare for the interview, Patterson is reading all the books about Truman she can find in the library. She also studies her application closely to make sure she does not contradict herself and stays informed about all current events.

Despite her anxiety about what’s coming next, Patterson said she remains excited throughout the process.

“One of my greatest accomplishments has been that I have always been able to see the final step,” Patterson said. “So many people get mired down in the process, and I can really always see the final picture.”

Rebecca Hale can be reached at rebecca.hale@temple.edu.

Rejected Education

Temple students are, as a statistical group, not wealthy. Many find it difficult to scrape together the money to pay for tuition, and any extra help they are given financially is appreciated.

Harrisburg is treating Temple students as if they are wealthier than they really are.

In an exclusive sit-down interview with The Temple News, the university’s Chief Financial Officer Anthony Wagner said it is almost as if Temple and the other state-related schools have “bull’s-eyes” on their backs. State-related schools are receiving less and less financial aid. Wagner said the schools are almost being considered like private universities in terms of financial support.

Temple’s budget issues are forcing the university to make cutbacks. Wagner said there will be layoffs, but Temple is trying to preserve the student experience as much as possible. Tenure and tenure-track professors will not be laid off, but Wagner said adjuncts who teach at most one class a semester or year may be let go.

While it is important to protect the jobs of tenure and tenure-track professors, the importance of adjuncts who teach fewer classes than their tenured peers should not be ignored.

Many adjuncts are working in the field in which they teach and can provide invaluable advice and experience to students. They can also be an important bridge between students and their prospective fields.

Laying off adjuncts will be detrimental to the educations and futures of students.

Appropriations from the state to Temple have been on a downward spiral the past few years as the state tightens its budget. Wagner said the amount of money given to Temple by the state this past year is less than what it received in 2001, when inflation is considered.

This has forced Temple to rely more heavily on revenue from tuition. Even though Temple needs as many tuition dollars as it can get, Wagner said the administration wants tuition increases as small as possible.

He said times are difficult for everyone, including students, and a large tuition increase is not in anyone’s best interest.

Even though Temple is not a state-system school, Harrisburg shouldn’t forget that it is state-related. It still has a duty to give Temple funding to help the university carry out its mission of providing an education at a reasonable price. The state needs to figure out a way to pay adequate attention to the state system and state-related schools.

Technical duties a 24/7 profession

When students plop down in front of computers, log on to OWLnet to register for classes, access MyBackpack or just search Temple-affiliated Web sites, they expect a pleasant online experience.

Temple employees like Ray Lauff, executive director and IT specialist, make sure these Web features are available and the necessary hardware is running accordingly.

Most people don’t know about all the work that goes into keeping Temple’s campus-wide technology services up and running.

“I don’t think people realize how many employees are really involved,” Lauff said. “There are over 200 fulltime employees involved in Computer Services.”

Lauff works in the infrastructure, operations and security department within Computer Services. He, along with the others in his group, is responsible for many background technical aspects.

“We are responsible for knowing that online applications like OWLnet are indeed running and there are no issues with it. Although we do not run it directly, we notify the respective department should there be a problem,” Lauff said. “Other than that, we make sure the physical hardware is operating properly.”

The worst part of the job for Lauff is that he must be on call constantly, should anything go awry.

“One time, I was sitting and eating dinner with my mother on Mother’s Day, and all of sudden, I get a call telling me there’s an issue, and I have got to get in here.”

Computer Services personnel developed the Active Directory Service, the system on campus computers that prompts students to authenticate their accounts by plugging in their AccessNet usernames and TUsecure passwords.

“In the past, you’d have credentials to log in to each building separately. It was really a pain, especially for those people creating the applications,” Lauff said. “You would have to keep track of 30 different passwords and usernames.”

Much like this effort to make the university’s technology more user-friendly, Lauff has been involved in several other advancements throughout his 20-year career at Temple.

“It could be said that I brought up the original public e-mail system for Temple,” he said.

Under Lauff are three students, one of whom is Mathew Currier, a senior computer science major.
Currier is responsible for writing the code for the online version of MyBackpack, as well as maintaining and updating it.

MyBackpack is one of the programs that rely on the internetwork operating system to maintain stored information onto tapes nightly, and because of this, both students and faculty are able to retrieve information that has been lost for up to three months.

This proactive attitude extends to the most important servers and systems at the university, as the job also falls on IOS to ensure students’ online security.

“We are the ones that have to back up Temple’s key systems. I’d say out of the 300 systems, there are about 30 to 50 that have to be backed up nightly,” Lauff said. “Those are the systems that are critical to the university. We can’t play any games with those because they have to be solid and reliable. We have to know that they can be recovered.”

Without the Temple employees like Lauff and the rest of his group, much of what is currently available would not be.

“Temple is a great place to work. They let me stay technical while advancing,” Lauff said. “I love all of the things I get to do here.”

John A. Dailey can be reached at john.dailey@temple.edu.

Trash troubles mean fines

In light of Philadelphia’s recent budget crisis, the city is toying with the idea of charging each of its households a weekly $5 trash collection fee to close the budget gap.

While it decides whether to implement the fee, the Philadelphia Department of Streets is collecting money from nearby off-campus real estate companies for trash violations.

“Right now, we’re getting slammed by city trash violations,” said Jill Kerrigan of TempleTown Realty.
The realty group, which operates more than 60 properties near Main Campus and houses about 500 Temple students, is being hit hard by various violations that include trash found outside of disposal containers and recyclable items found in students’ trash bags.

In 1987, Philadelphia passed Bill 1251A, the city’s mandatory recycling ordinance – the first mandatory recycling law of its kind in a major U.S. city. The ordinance allows for the city to specify what items are to be recycled and to issue fines to those caught with the specified recyclable items in their trash bins.
Oxford Village has been hit with fines from the Department of Streets, as well.

Michael Ross, a resident of the apartments at 15th and Oxford streets, said student tenants were recently issued warnings about the violations. It was the first he’d heard of the city’s policy.
“I wasn’t aware that they got fined,” the senior psychology major said.

Student tenants like Ross, however, were not issued any fines by Oxford Village management.

“I guess it just came out of their pocket,” Ross said.

Management personnel at Oxford Village declined to comment on the current situation but has held meetings with tenants in each apartment to explain the consequences of not properly sorting waste.

“If you leave your trash out on Sunday, I don’t know who they are, but they’ll pick through your trash, and if you have [recyclable items] in the bin, they’ll fine you for each one,” Ross said. “I think it’s a $20 fine or something like that.”

According to recyclenowphiladelphia.org, the city’s Streets and Walkways Education and Enforcement Program officers enforce the trash laws and may issue $25 tickets to those in violation of them.

To avoid a fine, recyclable items do not necessarily have to be placed in blue recycling bins issued by the city. Instead, items can be placed in any rigid container marked “RECYCLING,” according to the Streets Department’s online list of frequently asked questions.

Kerrigan said TempleTown hopes to “instill in tenants they need to separate trash from recyclables.”
As for the city’s possible $5 trash pickup fee, it is currently under review.

Property management companies of student housing are unsure how the weekly $5 fee will affect Temple students.

“We haven’t gotten anything in writing from the city,” Kerrigan said. If the fee is “rolled into real estate property taxes,” Kerrigan said students would not likely pay it.

A representative of Oxford Village, Janie McMorris, said operators of the student apartments have not yet determined how the fee will affect tenants at 15th and Oxford streets.

Five dollars may not seem like much, but eventually, it adds up. The fees may help the city raise an additional $85 million to $105 million a year. That money may prevent the city department from cutting jobs and reducing monthly garbage collections.

“[Five dollars] per week per household seems like a reasonable cost to not decimate services that people are looking to the city to provide,” said Rina Cutler, deputy mayor for transportation and utilities.

A Feb. 20 blog post by philly.com titled, “Trash free: budget fix or green idea?,” suggested if the city’s residents are paying for trash collection, “maybe people will think twice about how much trash they produce and perhaps, start recycling more.”

Daniel Doherty, vice president of Students for Environmental Action, doesn’t think the trash fee would really affect freshmen and sophomores living in on-campus housing.

“If the students living off-campus are paying the fee directly out of their pocket, then I think there will be some tough thinking of how to reduce one’s waste because that fee will add up quickly,” the junior social studies and secondary education major said in an e-mail interview, “considering you can easily fill up a trash barrel with the crap left over from just one Friday night party.”

Chelsea Calhoun can be reached at chelsea.calhoun@temple.edu.

Arabic dept. sees rise in interest

Senior David Kammiel, whose parents emigrated from Egypt in the 1970s, takes Arabic classes for cultural reasons.

For junior Ali Shater, learning the language quelled a curiosity he developed as a teenager.

Regardless of reasons, Kammiel, a political science and economics major, and Shater, a criminal justice major, are both part of a growing Arabic Certificate of Specialization program in Temple’s department of critical languages.

“The Arabic program keeps expanding,” said Gordon Witty, who is in his sixth year teaching Arabic. “It is expanding beyond the borders of Temple itself. More of our students are studying Arabic overseas at the undergraduate level.”

He said many Temple students travel to Jordan, Lebanon and Israel — among other Arabic-speaking countries — to study, and that others often receive prestigious scholarships to continue their studies of the language.

“In today’s world, the Arab culture is becoming woven into our culture very quickly,” said Shater, who is one of Witty’s students, adding that he hopes his certificate will help him to one day be fluent in the language. “To learn this language is to be able to communicate with other Arabic speakers in this country.”

Kammiel, another of Witty’s students, said while he decided to obtain the certificate because he already spoke colloquial Arabic at home and wanted to learn more, he hopes it will help him with a career in government.

“Most majors do not intermingle the way mine do, especially with the role the Middle East has had and will have in current and future political climates,” he said.

When Kammiel and Shater embarked on their paths toward Arabic specialization at Temple six semesters ago, they were members of a very small community of Arabic students on campus.

Department of critical languages chair Barbara Thornbury said enrollment in Arabic classes – and in courses of the other seven languages offered by the department – is growing quickly.

“We’re offering a robust program in Arabic language. We added a second full-time position this year,” she said. “But we’ve also added faculty in other languages in response to lots of interest at Temple and [to prepare students for] study abroad programs.”

In the Arabic department specifically, 116 students are enrolled in four different Arabic language and studies classes this semester, compared to only 75 students spread among three different classes last spring.

In Spring 2006, only 57 students were enrolled in classes.

Witty said a review of the names on class rosters from the year before he arrived at Temple shows that most students enrolled in the program then were of Arabic or Muslim descent.

He said despite the fact that more than 50 percent of students enrolled during the past several years come from Arabic or Muslim background, the number of students with no religious or cultural Arabic connections has grown most in the past few years.

Though Temple doesn’t yet offer a major or minor in the language, the growth in its program is on par with that reported by other schools offering programs like Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

“We expect that our program will continue to grow for the foreseeable future and will continue to attract outstanding students from all over the country,” said Hussein Kadhim, a professor of Arabic at Dartmouth.

Kadhim said the school focuses on undergraduate education in the language and offers a minor and major, as well as a relatively large number of courses.

Emily Schultheis, a sophomore Arabic and Islamic studies minor at the University of Pennsylvania, said she thought Arabic would be a good addition to her dual English and communications major, helping her in the job market when she graduates.

“Arabic language programs are becoming more widespread,” she said, adding that she knows a fair number of students take classes in the language each semester at Penn. “But it’s still not the first language most people would think of taking.”

Witty said knowledge of Arabic will not only help students get jobs but will also make students more rounded in general.

“When you study the language, you learn about the culture, too, and I believe Americans really do need to better understand the Middle East,” he said. “Students who have studied only a semester or two of Arabic are not likely to remember much of it a few years down the line, but they will retain some of the cultural lessons and will have benefited from being exposed to another culture.”

He said in the long run, Temple has ambitions to add an Arabic minor and, hopefully, a major in the language.

“Most students are intimidated by Arabic because it gets a bad reputation as a difficult language,” Shater said. “But overall, it was and will be a very amazing language to learn and keep learning.”

Morgan Zalot can be reached at morgan.zalot@temple.edu.

Here’s your method for some A-10 Madness

Some have the luxury of an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament – a free pass into the Holy Grail of college basketball.

Others, like the men’s basketball team, take the long road. The Atlantic Ten Conference Championship, held March 11-14 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., is the Owls’ last gamble at the field of 65.

If you’re not spending spring break in Jamaica, Mexico or another exotic retreat, perhaps you’ll want to take a weekend trip with coach Fran Dunphy and senior guard Dionte Christmas.

The Cherry and White will be represented in the 12-team Tournament and are currently looking at a four or five seed. They are 17-11 overall, 9-5 in the A-10. Last season, it was a string of victories over La Salle, Charlotte and Saint Joseph’s that gave the Owls their first A-10 Championship since 2001.

For a repeat performance, the Owls will need a bit of support from the fan base. Here are a few pointers for making yourself at home away from home.

Game One
If the Owls finish with one of the top four seeds, they get a bye. That will leave three teams in the way of winning it all.

What that also means is that they start play on Thursday during either the noon doubleheader or the 6:30 p.m. one. In the event the Owls don’t earn the bye, they will tip it off during one of the same times on Wednesday. Stay tuned to this week’s two games (St. Joseph’s and George Washington) to know when to make travel arrangements.

Should I stay or should I go
The traditional debate is this: Stay overnight at the Tropicana Hotel or another fancy residence or cram into the car for several days straight. Obviously, this depends on the Owls’ performance, so let’s take a look at the numbers.

According to MapQuest, the ride is two hours, 26 minutes roundtrip. It’s just more than 62 miles each way—not too shabby. The Tropicana maintains modest figures during the week at around $49 per night. During the weekend, prices jump up to $149 per night. If you’re feeling lucky, maybe a few nights on the blackjack table wouldn’t be so bad.

So long as you’re 21.

The competition
A group of heavyweights will be waiting to take out the defending champs. No. 17 Xavier sits directly at the top of the class. The Musketeers took down the Owls 83-74 on Feb. 5 in Cincinnati. Next in line is Dayton, who gave Temple trouble Saturday in a 70-65 loss. The Flyers are tied for second in the A-10 with a 10-4 record.

The second crop of teams who will be salivating to knock off the Owls includes archrival St. Joe’s, Rhode Island and an underestimated Duquesne team. So far, Dunphy’s squad holds a 3-1 record against these conference foes.

The bottom of the barrel consists of a few potential trouble spots mixed in with a handful of cupcakes. Massachusetts, although very inconsistent, took out the Owls 79-75 on Jan. 17. La Salle, a perennial opponent, popped the team’s bubble last week at the Liacouras Center. The rest (Saint Louis, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, Charlotte), should be landslide victories on the neutral surface.

In Conclusion
It won’t be a Spring Break vacation by any means but business as usual for the Owls. If successful, the team will bring its eighth career A-10 trophy back to the Liacouras Center. How much fan presence they’ll have there just depends on how you want to spend your spring break.

Anthony Stipa can be reached at anthonystipa@temple.edu.

Seniors prep to say goodbye

For Dionte Christmas, Semaj Inge and Sergio Olmos, the emotions will be heavy Thursday night as the three senior captains are introduced to the Liacouras Center crowd one final time.

After playing a combined 144 games in the building, suiting up for two legendary Big 5 coaches and leading the men’s basketball team back to the NCAA Tournament last season, how could emotions not run high?

“This is not going to happen to me again,” the center Olmos said. “I’m not going to be in college. I’m going to do whatever I do after college. I can’t explain this sense of it being over.”

Christmas had an easier time putting his emotions into words.

“They’re like my brothers,” the guard said of his teammates. “Leaving after the season is hard. It’s going to be an emotional night for me.”

Dunphy has said in previous seasons that senior night creates an unnecessary pressure to perform. Thursday’s game already carries its share of pressure.

Therein lies the trap and the major reason coach Fran Dunphy hates senior night.

The Owls dealt themselves a serious blow to their at-large chances last week when La Salle outplayed them at the Liacouras Center. Temple then lost to Dayton Saturday, a defeat it might have been able to stomach had the Owls properly disposed of the underdog Explorers.

With their grasp on one of the four byes in the Atlantic Ten Conference Tournament slipping, the Owls desperately need to right the ship against an even more desperate Saint Joseph’s team.

With two games remaining, the Owls (17-11 overall) sit in fourth place in the A-10 with a 9-5 conference mark, one game ahead of Duquesne, St. Joe’s and Saint Louis, which each own an 8-6 A-10 record.

“I think this last stretch with the situation we’re in, we have to pay attention to every little detail and every game we come across,” Christmas said. “We’ve got to go out and play every game like it’s our last.”

For one, this is their last home game (unless they draw a home matchup in the National Invitational Tournament, which leaves them shy of their NCAA hopes).

“The last game, you want to have a good memory,” Olmos said. “Beating St. Joe’s would be a good memory to have there.”

The Owls turned the table on their rival recently, beating the Hawks three straight times. But they haven’t won at home since Valentine’s Day 2006 when the seniors were freshmen. Christmas was the only one to appear in that game – a sparse four minutes, at that.

In last season’s meeting here, the Owls appeared to be headed for a victory but let a seven-point, halftime lead wilt away. Ultimately, Pat Calathes drilled a wide-open 3-pointer to win the game.

“That wasn’t a good memory, but it had to be one of my most memorable,” Inge admitted.

The Owls haven’t lost to St. Joe’s since, a proud accomplishment for this team, which had previously dropped 12 of 13 meetings.

But the seniors have each had their own personal obstacles to clear, particularly Inge and Olmos.
Inge often appeared overwhelmed during his freshman season, failing to register his first collegiate point until the Owls’ last regular-season game. That pursuit became somewhat of a spectacle for his teammates.

During one late-season game in which Temple was significantly ahead, the Owls’ bench anxiously cheered Inge as he toed the free-throw line. He missed them both.

Inge has also battled inconsistency, including last season when he mostly watched Temple’s A-10 run from the bench. This season, however, his production has been the best of his career, as he’s averaging 7.2 points and 3.5 assists in 28 minutes per game.

“I had a lot of obstacles to overcome,” Inge said. “But I think the main obstacle was being confident on the court and knowing my teammates have confidence in me and the coaching staff has confidence in me.”

Olmos has certainly had his share of hurdles, too. The Spaniard had to learn English and adapt to the more physical American game. He’s also lost his starter’s spot – twice. The first time came as a sophomore.

“I took it the wrong way and got down on myself,” Olmos said. “It was hard. I was thinking about going home. I was homesick. It was tough.”

But Olmos learned from the experience and was better prepared when he briefly lost it again this season.

“This is going to happen in basketball,” Olmos said. “It’s going to happen, just keep your head up.”

Christmas’s struggles have been less dramatic, but his biggest obstacle just might be ahead. Last season, he was an accomplice to seniors Chris Clark and Mark Tyndale as the Owls advanced to the NCAA Tournament. If the Owls are to make a similar run to the NCAAs, they’ll need him to be the backbone.

But, Christmas said, he’s only taking it one game at a time. And next on the docket is Temple’s last home game against the hated Hawks.

“You can’t paint the picture better,” Christmas said.

John Kopp can be reached at john.kopp@temple.edu.

Inside the uniform, anxiety emerges anew

Thomas Hyers undergoes a transformation every day.

After putting on his police uniform and going to the 23rd Police District, located at 17th Street and Montgomery Avenue, Hyers becomes Lieutenant Hyers. But last week, the lieutenant thought, for just a moment, he wouldn’t be able to transform the next morning.

“I was in the room, standing next to [Officer] John Pawlowski’s body, and I thought to myself, it’s time to do something else,” Hyers said. “But then, you get some sleep, and you wake up and come back the next day.”

Pawlowski had been a student of Hyers during his time at the Police Academy. Hyers also knew four other police officers who have died in the last 16 months.

Last year, C. Scott Shields, the attorney for the National Rifle Association, said, per the Philadelphia Inquirer, “I’d advise every resident of Philadelphia to go out and buy their guns now.”

At the time, Philadelphia was fighting for the right to enact city-specific gun control laws in an effort to curb the number of shootings. The NRA filed a lawsuit, which was followed by a decision by the commonwealth to deny Philadelphia the ability to “ban possession or sale of assault weapons within city limits” and a one-gun-a-month limit.

If it’s evidence the commonwealth needs, it should visit the station where Hyers works.

“The captain and I look around and are concerned about [officers’] mental health,” Hyers said. “I’ve had a lot of officers in here, and they’re upset. Inside the blue shirt, behind the badge or the vest, is a person. Officers cry. They get upset. They get scared. [They do] all the things every one else does.”

Hyers added that the human health of police officers is being carefully monitored. The day after Pawlowski was shot, they “got right back on their horse, as heartbroken as they were, and they did their job.”

With husbands, wives and children urging them to quit, doing their duties is becoming increasingly difficult. Hyers said he received a text message from his daughter that day in regards to his safety.
If the NRA is concerned with the basic right of the Constitution for Americans to “bare arms,” the association should consider Philadelphians’ natural right to live.

Living scared is not the proper way to attend work every day, yet the police force in Philadelphia has to do so.

Limiting the number of guns sold and to whom they are sold will not make violence in Philadelphia evaporate, but it certainly will aid the process.

Philadelphians themselves need to think a moment longer before they choose violence.

“Nobody calls us for birthday parties. Nobody calls us for bar mitzvahs or christenings,” Hyers said. “If you’re called there, it’s because they’ve already tried to work it out, can’t, and someone said, ‘We better get the police here.’”

When people cannot control themselves because of domestic situations, Hyers said it puts everyone in danger.

“That’s why police officers are killed.”

Though people need to take responsibility for them, if they didn’t have guns, no police officer would have a gun pointed at his or her chest.

Ashley Nguyen can be reached at ashley.nguyen@temple.edu.

Next Page »