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thebattalion l thursday,
august 1, 2013
We lost a terrific young man. Polo was loved by his teammates and coaches. Anyone who came in contact with him was struck by his sense of humor and smile. My heart aches for his mom and family members.” — Kevin Sumlin, A&M head football coach
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There’s definitely going to be a little less sunshine around the Bright Football Complex.”
— Amini Fonua, former A&M swimmer and Olympian
Gentle Giant
Friends remember fallen Aggie football player Sean Lester The Battalion
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Redshirt freshman defensive end Polo Manukainiu was entering his second season with the A&M football team. Manukainiu was killed in a car crash Monday in New Mexico at the age of 19.
he people who had the opportunity to meet Texas A&M student and football player Polo Manukainiu before his death described him as genuine, friendly, an ambassador and a gentle giant. While on a return road-trip from Utah to Texas Monday night, Manukainiu was one of five occupants in a 2002 Toyota Seqoia. The driver of the vehicle drifted off a New Mexico roadway and overcorrected, rolling the vehicle several times, according to police reports. Manukainiu was ejected from the vehicle and died on the scene. None of the four passengers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the incident. “We lost a terrific young man,” Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin said in a statement released by the A&M athletic department. “Polo was loved by his teammates and coaches. Anyone who came in contact with him was struck by his sense of humor and smile. My heart aches for his mom and family members.” At A&M Manukainiu struck many people as a virtual giant. Upon meeting him for the first time, former Texas A&M football player Damontre Moore said he was caught off guard by the 6-foot-5, 275 pound Manukainiu. “He was this huge kid,” Moore told The Associated Press. “I’d been in college already for like two years and he was this huge monster who had at least two inches over me and he was so intimidating. And when he talked he was the kindest person in the world. He was like the gentle giant.” Moore told The Associated Press that Manukainiu “never complained” as a redshirt freshman and was like a brother to everyone on the team. Manukainiu came from a tight-knit Tongan community in Euless, Texas. Tonga, a set of Polynesian islands, is known as the “Friendly Island” with a heritage that brought Manukainiu and Texas A&M swimmer and Olympian Amini Fonua together
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Aggies compete in World Championships
A&M breaks ground on 11,000-square-foot aviary
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Texas A&M senior Cammile Adams could make history Thursday by medaling in the 200-meter butterfly finals at the FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain.
Sean Lester
The Battalion enior Aggie swimmers Cammile Adams and Breeja Larson packed their bags to travel overseas this week as they compete in the FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain. Adams will have the chance Thursday to make A&M swimming history. On Wednesday she qualified second in the women’s 200-meter butterfly semifinals. With a strong showing in the final she could become the first Aggie medalist at the World Championships. Winning would mean adding to an already accomplished season after titles in the 200 fly at the Southeastern Conference Championships, the NCAA Championships and U.S. National Championships. The 200 fly is arguably Adams’ best event, as she placed fifth at the London Olympic Games a year ago. It was the highest ever finish by an Aggie swimmer at the Olympics. Larson competed Tuesday in the 100-meter breaststroke placing fifth. Joining the two women’s swimmers in Spain was former A&M All-American diver Grant Nel who finished 11th Friday in the three-meter springboard diving final. While the competition will be over for Nel, Larson will compete in the women’s 50m and 200m
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breaststroke. Adams will compete in three more events — the 100m butterfly as well as the 200m and 400m individual medley. Also in world competition, Texas A&M javelin thrower Sam Humphreys was forced to withdraw from the IAAF World Championships after being injured in competition. Humphreys suffered a broken rib and torn abdominal muscles on one of his throws at a meet in Finland. He will now miss the trip to Moscow, Russia where the Championships will be held. “It’s a tough, tough break for Sam,” Aggie head track and field coach Pat Henry said in a press release from the A&M athletic department. “He will bounce back from this injury, but it won’t be in time for the World Championships. It just proves that the javelin is the toughest event in track and field.” The setback is a familiar tale for Humphreys, who won the Olympic Trials a year ago but missed the standard to make it to the Olympics with a throw that came up just five inches short. Humphreys broke his own school record to qualify for the World Championships after becoming an NCAA Champion in the javelin in June when Henry and the Aggie men won their fourth team championship in five years.
as the only Tongan athletes at A&M. “The likelihood of two guys going to A&M, both being athletes and — being Polynesian is rare, but being Tongan is rarer — so both being Tongan, we connected on that,” Fonua said. “We would walk past each other at (Netum) Steed and we would joke with each other or speak Tongan to each other. There was a commonality between us because of our background.” Fonua said he received text messages early Tuesday informing him of Manukainiu’s accident, which eventually drove him to an early departure from work. “It hit me on so many different levels,” Fonua said. “There are so few Polynesian sports stars out there. He was someone who I think could have been a really great role model not just as a Tongan but as an Aggie. Everyone that knew him on the football team loved him.” Fonua told stories of walking through the Bright Football Complex with Manukainiu only to be stopped countless times by teammates or friends, guys and girls, yelling his name. Manukainiu was described by Fonua as humble, family-oriented and the opposite of the untouchable celebrity athlete, talking to anyone and everyone in his path. “He was one of those guys that when you go to study hall there are people you hope to see and I know he was one of those guys,” Fonua said. Senior agricultural leadership & development major Jerron Reese spent last year working as an intern for Student Athlete Services and Career Coordinator Zerick Rollins. During his time at the Bright Football Complex he would sign Manukainiu into study hall, making casual conversation. “It wasn’t just a ‘hello’ and ‘thanks’ when he would stop,” Reese said. “I would sign him in for study hall See Manukainiu on page 3
Sean Lester
The Battalion he Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences broke ground Friday on a new Exotic & Wild Bird Aviary that is scheduled for completion in May. The 11,000-square-foot building will hold a hospital, a receiving area with quarantine capabilities, two isolation rooms, a Biosafety Level 2 laboratory for infectious disease research, teaching and classroom space and four offices. The building will be located off of F and B road near the General Services Complex. Second year veterinary medicine student Anastasia Koinis was asked to speak at the ground breaking ceremony. “It’s going to bring a great facility for our vet students to learn on our in-house avian population as well as enhance the research being done, giving us a better facility and giving the birds a better environment to live in,” Koinis said. The current aviary uses fans during the hot summer months to cool the birds while heaters try to keep
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Faculty from the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences breaks ground Friday on an 11,000-square-foot exotic bird aviary. The new facility will be able to hold 200-250 birds. up with the winter. The new facility will be climate-controlled and capable of holding a population of 200-250 birds. “This is a beautiful facility that exemplifies the College’s commitment to exotic species and to conservation in general,” said Ian Tizard, Professor of Exotic Bird Health, in a statement. “It enhances our programs in environmental health and will be a
magnificent resource for the whole college.” The aviary will be able to separate infected and healthy birds, something the current facility cannot do. Sharman M. Hoppes, clinical associate professor in the department of small animal clinical sciences, is a specialist in avian See Aviary on page 4
campus
Urbanovsky endowment exceeds goal Jessica Smarr
The Battalion uke Urbanovsky died in a car accident on June 16, 2012, at the age of 19, but his family — both biological and Aggie — has ensured his memory will live on. The “Luke Urbanovsky MSC FISH Endowment,” formed after Luke’s death, has now raised $35,000 — $10,000 more than the original goal — with donations from friends, relatives and Aggies. The money raised for the endowment fund will go to support MSC FISH (Freshmen in Service and Housing), a freshman leadership organization with an emphasizes on community service that Luke was a member of. Luke was one of 80 freshmen chosen to participate in MSC FISH his freshman year. His girlfriend Charley Taggart, a junior psychology major and the current executive director
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MSC FISH (Freshmen in Service and Housing) is a community service freshman leadership organization that completes more than 5,000 service hours each year. of MSC FISH, said the organization changed Luke into a more serviceminded individual, an occurrence common for many members of the organization. “They come in, and they end up
learning how to serve others without receiving in return, and that’s pretty much what our goal is — to give back to this community and See Urbanovsky on page 4
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