A LOOK BACK AT NINER BASKETBALL
LIFESTYLE
SPORTS
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TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2012
Despite a 13-17 record several Niners had stellar years both on the offensive and defensive sides of the court.
Check out the Niner Times’ picks for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and Offensive Player of the Year.
CHOOSE YOUR STYLE: RAY BANS
A run down of the iconic brand that offers more than the Wayfarer.
Take a look at the history of the sunglasses and the people who have sported them.
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NINERTIMES Tuesday, March 13, 2012
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New on NinerOnline.com: Check out the exclusive online story and slideshow from the Free Syria protest.
Coast to coast
Late journalist leaves memoir behind Ryan Pitkin
AE@NINERONLINE.COM
Malcolm Carter
MCARTE72@UNCC.EDU
In the 19th century the pioneers did it on wagon wheels. In the 20th century Forrest Gump did it on his own two feet. Now in the 21st century Tanner Childs will travel coast to coast on his longboard. Childs, a Criminal Justice major at UNC Charlotte, begins his journey after his graduation at the end of the semester. Childs and his brother Caleb will start May 14, 2012, in Wilmington, N.C. and end in San Francisco, Calif. “I just had an idea when I was like 19,” said Childs. “I wanted to do something crazy like walk across America.” As he started to talk about the idea, people blew him off and undermined the validity of his desire to actually make the excursion. Childs said people didn’t believe him and told him “that’s cool it’s one of your dreams or bucket list things that you’ll never achieve.” The more he thought about it the more serious he became. “You can make life what you want it to be. You can do fun stuff like that no matter how small of a person you are, you don’t have to have like Rob Dyrdek’s money to do something crazy,” he said. Childs also set out to promote a cause. He settled on three charities to support with his trip: the Vickie S. Honeycutt Foundation, which supports teachers battling cancer, the North Toxaway Food Bank and the Semper Fi Fund, which “provides immediate financial support to injured and critically ill members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families.” Childs figured that he would have to do the trip right after he graduated because it would be difficult in the future to take time out of his career to travel across the U.S. He researched the trip and found that a professional backpacker averaged 30 miles per day on his coast-to-coast venture. Childs, having little experience traveling long distances on foot, decided “a longboard would probably speed it up some.” For more information on the trip and how to support it, visit www.longboardingusa.com.
A&E
Niner Nation Gold setting up the tents for the last Halton Heights of the 2012 basketball season. Photo courtesy of Christina Mullen
Inside: Halton Heights Christina Mullen CMULLEN6@UNCC.EDU
Students who pass the Miltimore-Wallis Athletic Center the night before a home basketball game may be surprised to find a group of tents by the door. These tents belong to a group of students who pride themselves on camping out for sporting events. Two UNC Charlotte students, Lewis Morgan and Ryan Benson, have camped out many times and truly understand the spirit behind spending time at Halton Heights. “The basic concept of it is to get that first spot in line to get in but it’s really not that necessary anymore,” said Morgan. “It really just turns a game into a multi-day event.” Campouts generally start around 10 p.m. the night before a game and last until the start of the game the following day. Whether rain or shine, these students are determined to spend the night supporting
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OPINION
Kony 2012: The online documentary has caused a shockwave of support and criticism. A look at celebrity support and the critics. Box Office: “21 Jump Street” starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum offers a new take on the duo cop flick without mocking the origional television series. p.6-7
their Charlotte teams. Several students have come up to the Halton Heights group and have asked them what they are doing. “It raises awareness for the games. One time we had a student walk by who had never been to a basketball game in five years, and he saw us camping and decided he would go the game that night,” said Benson. Morgan sees something a little more than just raising awareness. “The most important part of this is that it adds something to the game day atmosphere. It creates an event around basketball games. For football, you tailgate. For Charlotte basketball, you campout.” When the soccer team went to the state championship in Hoover, Ala. Halton Heights was buzzing. There were only 44 seats available on the buses to Hoover and students were determined to claim them. “We camped out in the rain and the wind and it was absolutely miserable but it was
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
CONTENT WARNING?
CELEBRETY LOOK-ALIKES
Have you ever taken a class that showed a film that was distrubing or scary? What if your experiences correlated to the film or content, creating an unhealthy learning environment?
Strolling across UNC Charlotte’s campus its not hard to mistake at least one of the 25,000 students for a celebrety.
SPRING BREAK BASEBALL ROUNDUP p.5
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Though there may be more, here are a few we found on our trip through campus. p.8
On Feb, 16, 2012, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Anthony Shadid was attempting to leave war-torn Syrian when he collapsed of an apparent asthma attack. Hours later Shadid, a man who had placed himself in danger daily as part of his job description, was pronounced dead. His most recent book, “House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East,” was slated for release at the end of March. In light of his death, the book release was pushed up to March 1st. As a journalism student, I only became familiar with Shadid two months before his death, when a professor slipped me a copy of a piece he had written on the Arab Spring, thinking I would be interested. She was correct and I tucked it away in my notebook after reading over it carefully, not to be thrown away but soon to be covered with returned grades and more pressing pieces of paper. When I heard the news of Shadid’s death, I was saddened by the news of another journalist lost but never made the connection. Hours later I heard the news repeated SHADID p.7
Shenzhen native speaks on Foxconn Elizabeth Bartholf E B A RT H O 3 @ U N C C . E D U
For the past fiscal quarter Apple Inc. announced record-breaking sales of over 37 million iPhones, 15 million iPads and 5 million Mac computers. With record highs in productivity, consumers continue questioning where their Apple products are coming from and how the people who make them are treated. Foxconn Technology Group, Apple’s main Chinese supplier, employs over 1 million workers in factories worldwide and also manufactures products for Samsung, Sony, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, International Business Machines (IBM), Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Nintendo. Between March and May 2010 nine workers in Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen, China committed suicide. Labor rights groups reported that a total of 18 workers in Foxconn plants attempted or committed suicide in 2010. UNC Charlotte student and former Shenzhen resident Zhong Ren does not want his native city to be associated with its many factories, especially recent negative publicity surrounding the Shenzhen Foxconn factory. FOXCONN p.3