thebattalion l monday,
march 18, 2013
l serving
texas a&m since 1893
l first paper free – additional copies $1 l © 2013 student media
SXSW
Festival’s free shows, new artists attract student crowd Alec Goetz
The Battalion his year’s South by Southwest festival featured the old and the new, with musical artists such as the Flaming Lips and the recently popular Macklemore hitting stages to entertain masses of grinning and sunburned music lovers. Though the costs for some shows were high, students attest that this year’s festival offered free lineups that entertained at a cheaper expense. “I went to all free shows, so for me showing up early to the venue was key,” said Bo Martinez, senior communications major. “It was worth it to wait around for a couple of hours to see my favorite bands up close and personal.” “Free” was a key word for most students looking to get their Spring Break kicks in Austin during SXSW. While each night’s biggest showcases included bands such as Green Day, Justin Timberlake and Prince, free day parties offered the chance to see new and rising musicians at the low cost of an RSVP email and a short wait in line for a wristband. Day parties from SPIN’s, the epic-scale Fader Fort and Waterloo Records brought names like Kendrick Lamar, Tegan and Sara, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, though some music buffs found that older acts were their favorite part of the week. “It’s hard to pick just one, but my favorite would probably be the Adolescents,” said Daniella Mascarenhas, senior political science major. “They’re such an iconic punk band and despite being a bunch of old punks, they can still really rock and get a crowd going.” The extent to which corporate sponsorship is the driving force behind SXSW has always been controversial. However, this year some students found they didn’t mind all the advertisements as long as they got their fix of music. “I feel like I should be against the overwhelming corporate sponsorship, but I think it actually enhanced my experience,” Mascarenhas said. “I was able to get through most of the festival without paying for things because of the amount of free food and drinks.”
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bryan-college station
Tanner Garza — THE BATTALION
Jack Tutt slides past busy bartenders to replace a keg during the St. Patrick’s Day celebration Sunday outside of O’Bannon’s Taphouse. The celebration featured live music, traditional Irish food and lots of green beer.
baseball
A&M sweeps Georgia in SEC debut James Sullivan
The Battalion orking off early season struggles, sophomore Blake Allemand kickstarted the Texas A&M offense Sunday behind his first career home run, knocking in junior Krey Bratsen as the Aggies rolled to an 11-4 victory over Georgia. With the win, A&M (14-7, 3-0 SEC) completed the three-game series sweep of visiting Georgia (8-11, 0-3 SEC) in the Aggies’ Southeastern Conference debut. A&M downed the Bulldogs 4-1 on Friday before closing out a tight 2-1 extra innings victory Saturday. “It’s no secret that I was struggling early on,” Allemand said following Sunday’s victory. “I’ve been trying to take it one game at a time and have good at-bats, do anything I can do for the team. Today I was fortunate enough to get a hit.” On the mound, freshman Jason Freeman made his first career weekend start, pitching four and two-thirds innings while freshman reliever Matt Kent (1-1) earned the win behind one and two-thirds scoreless innings. During Saturday’s victory, Allemand scored junior Jace Statum in the third inning to push the Aggies to an early 1-0 lead. Georgia knotted the score at 1-1 in the fifth before Bratsen notched a walk-off single in the 10th inning to give A&M the 2-1 win.
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Junior outfielder Krey Bratsen hit a walk-off RBI single to help lead the Aggies to a 2-1 extra-innings victory over Georgia on Saturday. Sophomore Daniel Mengden pitched a career-long eight innings in the victory, allowing one earned run on six hits while garnering eight strikeouts. “This is a big-time win for us. It’s huge for our team,” Bratsen said Saturday. “I’m just glad I was able to be a part of that and come through when the team needed me.” In the series opener on Friday, A&M jumped out to an early lead in the first inning after sophomore Mitchell Nau drove Bratsen home with an RBI single. During
the second, Statum plated Mengden with a sacrifice bunt. The Aggies tacked on two insurance runs to close out the eighth inning and the 4-1 victory. Senior Kyle Martin (2-2) garnered the win over six and one-third innings, striking out six while allowing seven hits. “Kyle Martin set the tone, we grabbed the lead early and those two runs probably felt like four to them,” head coach Rob Childress said. “For us to score two runs in the eighth was huge. From the start I thought we were ready to play the game.”
league of legends
Student gamers use tournament Public program winnings to help pay tuition broadcasts A student shows Tanner Garza — THE BATTALION
Senior agricultural communications and journalism major Mikel Moon captures Rodney Zent on camera at the KAMU studio.
John Odom
John Rangel
The Battalion urn on the TV – A&M students are on the air. Amid the news broadcasts and documentaries on KAMU’S public television programming is a 30-minute show created and produced by A&M students. ETC, pronounced “et cetera,” is a show entirely produced by the work of Texas A&M students, providing students with an experience most find only in a professional workplace. Professor Rodney Zent, director of Educational Broadcast Services for KAMU, said ETC aims to teach students the aspects of TV programming in a short amount of time. “The program airs what students decide to cover,” Zent said. “They come up with topics, submit proposals, find guests and put on a show targeted at Universityrelated activities.” ETC is the work of Zent’s agricultural journalism class. Fifteen students split up into teams of three that have two weeks to pick a topic, find guests and create the show. The show’s name arises from the wide variety of topics students choose to pursue. Zent said even though only one student group is responsible for each show’s content, the other students gain valuable experience performing many of the other jobs that make television possible. “Each week one group is responsible for producing [the show’s] content, and the other students are responsible for other positions,” Zent said. “The audio, camerawork, video editing, floor director and everything else is
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See ETC on page 2
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The Battalion group of students found a way of using video games to help pay the bills while working toward earning a college degree. The five-member team, College Station League of Legends, earned the title of No. 1 college League of Legends team in the world and won $40,000 at a tournament hosted by the Collegiate StarLeague in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 17. The team went undefeated in the tournament and plans to split the $40,000. “For me — and probably most of the other guys — [the prize money] is pretty much just going right back into school,” said Justin Pulliam, senior computer science major. “You know, for paying off loans or future classes — however they decide to use it.” The team plans to utilize the $40,000 as a practical approach to financial stability, as opposed to a means to pursue the sport professionally. “[Competitive gamers] can go from being [financially stable] to being in a situation where [they] don’t have much to fall back on,” Pulliam said. “I’d have a degree, so I’d probably still be OK but I just
think it’s probably smarter to pursue a career than to pursue a game that will die out in at least a few years.” According to League of Legends gamers, professional gamers are distinct from competitive gamers in that they are sponsored by large companies and earn a salary in addition to tournament winnings. “Professionals basically eat,
sleep and live together, and playing the game is their job,” Schaeffer said. “The top-level teams have a house where all of their members live together — they wake up and play the game.” Pulliam said the fading popularity of once-major games and sponsors as funding sources are the main reasons that job stability in professional gaming is unreliable.
“I’ve seen tons of games become competitive and then almost overnight, the game completely disappears and is no longer being funded because the [source of funding] is a sponsorship from a company such as [energy drink companies] or some computer hardware company,” PulSee Gaming on page 4
COURTESY
Sophomore chemical engineering major Andrew Schaeffer and teammates compete in the Leauge of Legends tournament.
3/17/13 9:02 PM