02 13 14 The Crimson White

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2014 VOLUME 120 ISSUE 86 Serving The University of Alabama since 1894

New taps NEWS | CRAFT BEER

for crafts

Bruno’s offers new, take-home draft brews for growing craft beer trends

By Josh Sigler | Contributing Writer

A

s the demand for craft beers over traditional domestic beers has grown, Mike Jury, merchandising and IT consultant at Bruno’s supermarket, had an idea to help continue the trend’s growth in Tuscaloosa.

In Ja January, Bruno’s opened up a growler station where their pharmacy u used to be located. At this station, customers can choose from a varie variety of beers on tap and bring them home in 64 oz. glass jugs known as growlers, which get their name from the sound they make when ccarbon dioxide escapes through the lid.

“The idea first came from a store that was do doing it in Memphis,” Jury said.

“Our w wholesaler showed it to us, and we just ki kind of took the idea and ran with it.”

What is your Whi While Cashsavers, the model store favorite locally in Mem Memphis, features between 15 and 20 brew brews to choose from, Bruno’s offers brewed beer? more tthan three times that many Let us know at option options, nearly all of which are local and craft b beers. cw.ua.edu/poll.

“It’s been a continuing rolling-out proces process for us since January,” Jury said.

“We st started with around 24 different beers a and now already offer more than 60.”

The station is still a work in progress, and plans are in the works to includ include a drive-thru window, which Jury claims is the first of its kind in the city and one of the first in the state.

Jury said he hoped the station would be a good way to promote busine business among college students. Since the station opened, Bruno’s has so sold more than 600 of these growlers. Wes Rickey, a senior majoring in classics, was among those first 600 customers.

ONLINE

CW | Austin Bigoney Customers can purchase glass jugs of a variety of craft and traditional brews from Bruno’s after a recent growth in craft brewing popularity.

SPORTS | BASEBALL

SEE BEER PAGE 3

NEWS | ECONOMICS

UA baseball team Bitcoin brings cash to digital era sees expectations rise for 2014 season Fluctuation of Bitcoin

Digital money seen as controversial by experts

Market Price (USD) in the past year

1,400

By Samuel Yang | Staff Reporter

By Kevin Connell | Staff Reporter No one willingly reminisces on a loss. For any player or coach with a competitive drive and the determination to succeed, a loss is comparable to a nightmare, only it’s as real as it gets.

For the Alabama baseball team, one loss has been especially hard to forget – the one that ended the 2013 season.

The Crimson Tide’s season ended last June when it gave up four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning in a 9-8 loss to Troy at the NCAA Regional in Tallahassee, Fla. “Sometimes what occurs can help you later,” Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard said. “And we’ve really been able to use that regional as fuel moving into this year. The majority of guys that were in that dugout lived that, and now they’re back in this dugout again this year.”

Alabama, which comes into this season ranked No. 21 in both the Baseball America and Perfect

SEE BASEBALL PAGE 2

B

1,000

Market Price (USD)

Tide to face Saint Louis at home over weekend

Game USA preseason polls, will officially be able to put last season behind them with a good start to the 2014 season this weekend at home against Saint Louis.

“This year, I think the expectations are a little higher,” said righthander Spencer Turnbull, who is an expected starter in the weekend rotation for the second year in a row. “It’s still just a day-by-day thing. We want to take every day one day at a time, win every game that we can and hopefully go as far as we can. Obviously, everybody wants to make it to [the College World Series in] Omaha, so that’s our goal for sure.”

Those goals would not have been realistic a year ago. The Crimson Tide was coming off a miserable 21-34 campaign in 2012 and had to replace five starters in the everyday lineup for the upcoming season.

It’s much of the opposite heading into this season. Despite last season’s bitter ending, the Crimson Tide finished with a 35-28 record in the brutal Southeastern

It happens all the time – a student swipes their ACT card and walks away with their new purchase.

The process seems instantaneous, secure and foolproof. Most of the time, there’s no reason to doubt that, but a purchase like that can involve identity theft, refusal of access and fees.

Bitcoin, programmable money that can be spent in a number of places, is a low-cost, high-speed way of payment – and recent growth has sparked discussion and scrutiny into previously under-the-radar “crypto-currency.”

David Bailey, University of Alabama alumnus and founder of Forza Financial, founded a quarterly magazine, yBitcoin, to educate people about bitcoin. He said the bitcoin model, with all the traditional properties of money, has the potential to revolutionize commerce and government around the world.

“Bitcoin is going to do [to] the financial world the same that the Internet did to what we communicate,” he said.

Bailey also points to the Internet as a comparison when it comes to the controversy that often trails bitcoin. Concerns over its use in illegal

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CW | Belle Newby; Information obtained from Blockchain.info. activity have kicked up debate over its regulation and use – a problem that Bailey said also dogged the developing Internet.

“The controversy basically spins out of the fact that, for a long time, bitcoin was seen as basically nothing. It was just pieces of code – ones and zeros. People were just kind of moving ones and zeros around.

From that standpoint, bitcoin, for a long time, was kind of like this thing for crypto-anarchists, cyber-nerds and hackers,” he said. “But the principles and properties of bitcoin are extremely valuable. Most of the

controversy you hear about now stems from bitcoin’s early days.”

Crypto-currencies, which are math-based, stand in stark contrast to fiat money, the current system, which gains its value from the backing of governments. Benton Gup, UA professor of finance, said past systems have included the trade of commodities and the backing of currencies using commodities.

He said there is no doubt that bitcoin is well-designed, but he sees no reason to use bitcoin over an SEE BITCOINS PAGE 8

TODAYON CAMPUS

Ple a

Partly cloudy

Partly cloudy

51º/32º

60º/31º

per •

Friday

pa

16 15 15

Thursday

recycle th i se

s

INSIDE

Sports Puzzles Classifieds

tomorrow

per • Ple a

2 4 9

today

WHAT: Diverse Desserts: Love Around the World WHEN: 8-9 p.m.

WHERE: Ridgecrest South Atrium

pa

Briefs Opinions Culture

WHAT: Huxford Symphony Orchestra WHEN: 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: Moody Music Building

s

today’s paper

WEATHER

WHAT: “For the Love of the Blues” WHEN: 5-8 p.m.

WHERE: Druid City Brewing Company

Honors College

recycle thi

WHAT: “A Gift from Nanoscience: Molecular Memory” WHEN: 2 p.m.

WHERE: Rodgers Library

Campus symphony

CONTACT

Out on the town

se

Science series

Feb ‘13

Date

email

editor@cw.ua.edu

website cw.ua.edu

CAMPUSBRIEFS

Thursday February 13, 2014

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Brown hired by Louisville Alabama secondary coach Greg Brown was hired by Louisville to do the same job, Louisville announced Monday. The move frees up former Alabama director of player personnel Kevin Steele to move to an on-field role.

SCENEON CAMPUS

Booster club offers free ride to meet The Alabama gymnastics booster club is providing a free bus to the Crimson Tide’s meet at Auburn on Friday. The bus will leave from Coleman Coliseum at 2 p.m. and is scheduled to arrive in Auburn by 5:30 p.m. Those who choose to ride the bus will receive free tickets to the meet.

Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. If interested, contact Rita Martin at rmartin@ia.ua.edu.

Jacob earns SEC honor Alabama senior gymnast Kim Jacob was named the SEC Specialist of the Week, the league announced on Tuesday. It’s Jacob’s second SEC honor this season and the team’s fourth overall.

CW | Lindsey Leonard

Gymnastics moves up to No. 5

A bearded dragon is held by student Shermila Kher at Smith Hall during Darwin Day Wednesday.

The UA gymnastics team moved up two spots to No. 5 in the latest rankings. The Crimson Tide is also ranked No. 4 in both vault and balance beam, No. 5 on uneven bars and No. 9 on floor exercise. Alabama will travel to face No. 12 Auburn Friday at 7 p.m.

UA soccer hires new assistant Former Sky Blue FC assistant coach Erwin van Bennekom will join the Alabama soccer team as the newest member of the coaching staff. The Netherlands native will bring nearly 15 years of coaching experience with him at both professional and collegiate levels.

Compiled by Kayla Montgomery, Charlie Potter and Marc Torrence

P.O. Box 870170 Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 Newsroom: 348-6144 | Fax: 348-8036 Advertising: 348-7845 Classifieds: 348-7355

TODAY WHAT: Faculty Biennial Showcase: “Walking the Walk” WHEN: 6-8 p.m.

WHERE: 103 Garland Hall WHAT: Gifts From Nanoscience WHEN: 2 p.m.

WHERE: Rodgers Library

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

WHAT: UADM Kissing Booth WHEN: 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.

WHERE: Ferg Plaza

WHAT: Kiwanis Pancake Day WHEN: 6 a.m.

WHERE: Central High School

WHAT: Second Annual Valentine’s Gala WHEN: 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: Cypress Inn

WHAT: West Alabama Heart Walk WHEN: 8 a.m.

WHERE: Tuscaloosa Amphitheater

WHAT: Splatter-Heart Painting WHEN: 7 p.m.

WHERE: Sips N Strokes

WHAT: Mojo Trio WHEN: 4 p.m.

WHERE: Rhythm N Brews

WHAT: Cupid’s Ball WHEN: 9:30 p.m.

WHERE: Bama Art House

WHAT: Huxford Symphony Orchestra WHEN: 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: Moody Music Building

WHAT: After Dark Party WHEN: 8 p.m.

WHERE: Hive Bang Gaming

WHAT: Dance! Alabama WHEN: 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: 4th and 23rd

EDITORIAL editor-in-chief

Mazie Bryant editor@cw.ua.edu

managing editor

Lauren Ferguson

production editor

Katherine Owen

visuals editor online editor news editor

Anna Waters Mackenzie Brown Mark Hammontree

culture editor

Abbey Crain

sports editor

Marc Torrence

opinion editor chief copy editor

Christopher Edmunds

video editor

Daniel Roth

photo editor

Austin Bigoney

lead designer

Sloane Arogeti

community managers

Elizabeth Lowder Lauren Robertson

ADVERTISING advertising manager

territory manager

special projects manager

creative services manager

account executives

BURKE

John Brinkerhoff

LUNCH

Steak Ham, Salami, Pepperoni Stromboli Mashed Potatoes Glazed Carrots Grilled Vegetable and Black Bean Wrap

LAKESIDE DINNER

Baked Chipotle Orange Chicken Rachel Grilled Cheese Sandwich Steakhouse Potatoes Steamed Peas and Onions Pad Thai Shrimp Station

LUNCH

DINNER

Chicken Cacciatore Chicken Parmesan Slider Home-style Mashed Potatoes Seasoned Corn Eggplant Parmesan with Marinara

Barbecue Brisket Barbecue Chicken and Cheddar Sandwich Scalloped Potatoes Hamburger Cheddar Vegetable Strata

FRESH FOOD LUNCH

Fried Chicken Sautéed Zucchini and Tomatoes Grilled Vegetable Rotini Salad Roasted Potatoes Vegetable Lo Mein with Tofu

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VIDEO | STUDENT SOUND-OFF

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Ali Lemmond William Whitlock Kathryn Tanner Camille Dishongh Kennan Madden Julia Kate Mace Katie Schlumper

The Crimson White is the community newspaper of The University of Alabama. The Crimson White is an editorially free newspaper produced by students.The University of Alabama cannot influence editorial decisions and editorial opinions are those of the editorial board and do not represent the official opinions of the University. Advertising offices of The Crimson White are in room 1014, Student Media Building, 414 Campus Drive East. The advertising mailing address is P.O. Box 870170, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487.

The Crimson White (USPS 138020) is published four times weekly when classes are in session during Fall and Spring Semester except for the Monday after Spring Break and the Monday after Thanksgiving, and once a week when school is in session for the summer. Marked calendar provided.

The Crimson White is provided for free up to three issues. Any other papers are $1.00. The subscription rate for The Crimson White is $125 per year.

Checks should be made payable to The University of Alabama and sent to: The Crimson White Subscription Department, P.O. Box 870170, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487. The Crimson White is entered as periodical postage at Tuscaloosa, AL 35401. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Crimson White, P.O. Box 870170, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487. All material contained herein, except advertising or where indicated otherwise, is Copyright © 2014 by The Crimson White and protected under the “Work Made for Hire” and “Periodical Publication” categories of the U.S. copyright laws. Material herein may not be reprinted without the expressed, written permission of The Crimson White.

From MCT Campus

In the past few weeks, five days of classes have been canceled due to weather. News Editor Mark Hammontree asks students what they think about the crazy Alabama weather.

Hillary McDaniel 334.315.6068

CW | Daniel Roth Mark Hammontree

Experienced baseball team key to success BASEBALL FROM PAGE 1

Conference, losing only three position starters and one starting pitcher. In all, Alabama returns 21 players, including several key players who started or received significant playing time as true freshmen last year.

“I think it’s the first time in a while we’re not counting on a large group of freshmen to come in and perform immediately, so it’s nice to have some age on our team,” Gaspard said. “I think you’ll see Friday, we feel like it’s as deep as a team as we’ve had

in a while. We’re two-deep at each spot. On the mound, we have a lot of experience.”

Though the roster will be more experienced, the schedule will be just as tough. According to the Baseball America preseason poll, the Crimson Tide will face seven ranked teams this season, five of which will be on the road.

The strength of schedule will give Alabama plenty of opportunities to back up its own ranking.

“I think what you’re going to see is that this is a top25 team,” Gaspard said.

“I don’t think there’s any question. I’ve done this long enough to know that we have depth throughout this

Geotags help crooks steal

PLAN TO GO WHAT: Saint Louis vs. No. 21 Alabama WHEN: Friday, 6:05 p.m.; Saturday, 2:05 p.m.; Sunday, 1:05 p.m.

WHERE: SewellThomas Stadium RADIO: 99.1 FM team. I think they’re hungry, and I think they understand where the program is at now, where we want to go and that’s the way they have worked since day one going back to the fall.”

Experts say smartphone images can be deciphered to reveal precisely where the photos were taken, which could lead burglars and other criminals directly to your front door. Similarly, they add, posting images from vacation sites or your workplace could invite crooks to ransack your house while you’re away.

“That can be sharing a bit too much,” said Con Mallon, senior director of mobility at security firm Symantec.

“They can then put the location of where you are now and where your house is into a maps program and work out how much time they have to pay a visit while you’re out.”

Smartphone photos are embedded with “geotags” containing the latitude and longitude.

Experts advise anyone nervous about others knowing where their photos are snapped to block their phone’s geotag features through the phone’s settings or with geotag-disabling apps available on the Internet.

p.3 Mark Hammontree | Editor newsdesk@cw.ua.edu

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Bruno’s boasts collection of local, regional craft beers for growlers BEER FROM PAGE 1

Graduate journalism students win research awards

By Samuel Yang | Staff Reporter When Tim Steere, a community journalism graduate student, was an undergraduate student in history at West Virginia University, he often started his research by looking at newspapers.

During his history of journalism class, Steere wrote a research paper discussing a topic close to home: press coverage of coal mining disasters in West Virginia.

Steere and five other students went with their professor Diane Bragg to the American Journalism Historians Association Southeast Symposium and took home one of the team’s two honors: second place in Best Graduate Student Papers.

“The relationship between history and journalism is quite special. If you think about it, in many cases journalists are the ones who write history. I think the concept of storytelling is at the core of both history and journalism,” he said. “Journalism often lends itself to historical inquiry. At the same time, journalists need to know their history to fully grasp the nature of the story they are creating.”

Steere said to truly understand the nature of coal mining disasters one has to take into account “a myriad of factors,” from absentee land-ownership – much of West Virginia is owned by out-of-state companies – to payment by fined companies – only a fraction of fines are usually paid.

“The more obvious value of extended research papers is the comprehensiveness and depth that comes naturally with these sorts of studies. You simply cannot tell a story and discuss its historical significance in 1,000 or 2,000 word snippets,” he said. “Also, in order to make a lasting, meaningful argument, you need to not only back your position with the relevant facts, but you need to give your

Photo Courtesy of Dianne Bragg Elizabeth Manning, Ryan Phillips, Tim Steere, Laura Monroe, Becky Robinson and Wade Leonard stand with associate professor Dianne Bragg at the American Journalism Historians Association Southeast Symposium.

readers a thorough understanding of the subject matter. Thus an extended study is truly the best way to do so.”

Bragg, an associate professor of journalism, said a sentence in a newspaper article could reflect information that fills a page in a research paper. In an academic setting, she said, papers and research are an important part of journalism and the ability to find and verify sources is a central tenet of both disciplines.

“That’s a skill that a historian has to have and a reporter has to have,” she said.

Even long-form journalism, she said, can be useful and valuable to reporters and readers.

“I think we sell our readers short these days if we think they just won’t read something that has to jump to another page,” she said.

In addition, Bragg said familiarity with the history of one’s field is important for all fields of study.

“It helps to know who came before, the stakes that were made, the successes,” she said. “It informs your ability to do your job.”

Journalists may also be particularly interested to learn about predecessors at the Alabama Insane Hospital, now Bryce Hospital, which had a patient-run newspaper. This newspaper, The Meteor, was the subject of Ryan Phillips’ work, another community journalism graduate student, who took home first place in Best Graduate Student Papers.

“This newspaper gave the patients a voice along with serving as a means of therapy, so the implications are far reaching,” Phillips said. “Everyone in the community seemed to rally behind it, and, in comparison to periodicals of the day, actually isn’t that bad of a read.”

Like Steere, Phillips tackled a subject close to home – a Tuscaloosa native, Phillips has family members, including his grandmother,

who worked at Bryce. He first heard about the paper four years ago and set out to find who its editor was.

“Despite being slightly studied, the identity of the patient-editor has never been found or released, so I set out and discovered that the editor was an educated man by the name of Joseph Alexander Goree, who was born into a planter family in Perry County and even attended Brown University,” he said. “For unknown reasons he was committed and died at the hospital in 1896 and is buried in a numbered grave on the property.”

He said the story started as a personal pursuit and though his presentation stemmed from a research paper, he really treated it as a journalist seeking an answer.

“As a journalist, I enjoyed the research with this project more than any previous story I had covered, simply because there was an answer waiting to be found that no one else had uncovered. Fortunately, I was helped tremendously by historian Steve Davis of the Alabama Department of Mental Health, which led me to the conclusion of my research,” he said. “When I actually found the name of the editor of the paper for the first time, my hands were shaking and my heart immediately began to race. To me, that is what it is about.”

And while his paper produced an answer for a personal question, Phillips said students at the University should take cues from their own predecessors and pay attention to this particular piece of history.

“I researched and wrote the academic article mainly for me, my family and my grade but knew how much this would mean to people who had been affected in some way by the hospital,” he said. “Students at the University during the time of this newspaper supported it, so students now should definitely be aware that it existed just a stone’s throw from campus.”

“I just thought it was a great deal,” Rickey said.

“You get quality beer that you can’t get anywhere else in town except bars, and you get it for a really good price.”

The growler itself costs five dollars to purchase and can be brought back at anytime and refilled for between $10 and $20, depending on the beer.

“You can split it with a friend and only end up paying five or six bucks for 32 ounces of beer,” Rickey said. “Most bars will charge you that much for a pint.”

While the station does offer a few well-known domestic beers like Bud Light, Blue Moon and Shock Top, the vast majority of its options are brewed either in Tuscaloosa or around the state. Multiple offerings from breweries like Druid City, Black Warrior, Back Forty and Avondale can all be found at the station.

Joe Fuller, brewmaster at Black Warrior and owner of the Black Warrior Brewery and taproom downtown, said he sees great potential in this venture and thinks the effects are more than just increased sales.

“The biggest thing for us was to give more people an opportunity to try our beer. Maybe you don’t want to come hang out at the taproom,” Fuller said.

“Maybe you’re grilling a steak that night and want a good brown ale to go with it. Now you can do that.”

Bruno’s is not licensed to sell beer for consumption within the store, and most taprooms are not licensed to allow customers to bring beer home with them.

This creates a unique partnership between these local businesses.

“One of the great things for us is that we’ve seen people come in for the growler station, then realize they need to pick up some groceries while they are here and realize the variety we have here,” Jury said.

Bruno’s was not the first business to offer a takehome service like this in town. Corks and Tops also allows customers to take home beers on tap, though it’s selection is significantly smaller and come in plastic jugs rather than glass ones.

Dillon Scags, brew expert at Bruno’s, said he believes many customers will prefer Bruno’s takehome section to the one at Corks and Tops.

“We get a lot of customers coming in and saying that they tried to buy the same beer at Corks and Tops that we have here, only they were charging 30 or 40 percent more,” Scags said.

Though there might be a price difference between the two stores, Corks and Tops does offer jugs in 16 and 32 oz. sizes in addition to the 64 oz. option offered at Bruno’s. While Corks and Tops is constantly expanding its bottled section, Bruno’s has a number of ideas to expand its growler section, including a beer club as well as the potential to increase the number of beers on tap up to 100 or more.

“We don’t ever want to promote drinking, but if you are going to drink, we hope you’ll come buy it here,” Jury said.

p.4 Thursday, February 13, 2014

John Brinkerhoff | Editor letters@cw.ua.edu

COLUMN | VALENTINE’S DAY

Love, lust and the continuing human narrative

By Michelle Fuentes | Senior Staff Columnist

CW | Talia Scarpelli

COLUMN | POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

The South’s problem with political correctness

By Regan Williams | Staff Columnist We have a political correctness problem here in the South. We suffer from a negative connotation of what political correctness is and how it operates.

Our understanding of what it means to be politically correct is way off base. Many people do not actually realize what it means to be politically correct. Being politically correct is not saying that white people are less valuable then other races, like many believe. Rather, it says that I weigh cultures equally as long as they are not directly harming other cultures. It is treating people with respect. We as Americans always claim to want to treat everyone with respect; that is all political correctness wants to do.

Another negative association that we instill in political correctness is that it is just a liberal idea of controlling America. I would combat this by saying that I believe in political correctness, and I identify as a Republican. As Americans, we believe in freedom and equal opportunities. We claim to be a melting pot, yet we do not want to treat oth-

Regan Williams ers with respect. If we want to live up to the ideas of being the land of the free, then we need to treat each other with respect.

We also think that it limits us as people. One of the most common things I hear accompanying offensive statements is, “I have a first amendment right to say that.” This thought makes no sense. When someone says you should not say something because it is offensive, they are not limiting your free speech. They are not a government organization denying your right to say it. They are just saying you should

not say it. So, it is not a violation of first amendment rights. Think of the situation from the opposite perspective. Would the person saying the rude or inappropriate thing like being called something similar themselves?

Again, this just goes back to treating other people with respect. It is just like when you were a kid and your mother said, “If you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all.” We need to go back to the basics.

We need to treat people with respect because they deserve respect. We see all these ads and ideas about how we should not bully, so why do we allow people to be bullied on some of the ways they identify?

As a society, we need to rethink the negative associations we give political correctness. We need to live up to the standards we set for ourselves and treat each other with respect. If we really want to be the land of the free we need to treat every person who comes over here with some basic respect.

Regan Williams is a senior majoring in political science and communication studies. His column runs biweekly.

The late-night clientele of Galettes and everyone’s favorite comic from ancient Greece, Aristophanes, have been searching for answers to the same questions: What is love, how do we find it, and how does it work? Appropriately for this week, which celebrates the possibilities of love and lust, let us, dear readers, take this moment to reflect on why we spend so much energy searching for love.

The idea of searching for love, looking for true love, or waiting for the one, originates in Aristophanes’ allegorical address in Plato’s “Symposium,” a famous text in which a bunch of old men get wicked drunk, dismiss the servants and women and chat about love. (This is not a joke, I’m almost qualified to teach this. Seriously.)

You may have heard Aristophanes’ myth in some form or another. Before modern humans existed, the creatures that roamed the earth were made of two human bodies stuck together by their backs. These great creatures were made up of three sexes: all female, all male and the androgynous sex, which was one male and one female body. Inevitably, as most often happens in Greek myths, something upset the gods. As punishment, the mighty Zeus split the creatures in half and scattered them across the earth, forming individual humans as we know today. Thus, we are now tasked with searching the earth to find our literal other (or better) half.

Love, or its myth, gives us a feeling of wholeness, because, in Aristophanes’ mind, we are actually finding the one and only being which was once a part of our own being. From this myth, we’ve created narratives that illustrate fate or providence as playing a critical role in finding and holding onto love. Shakespeare gives us the ultimate star-crossed lovers, countless romantic comedies offer perfectly timed coincidences to help sparks fly, and today’s young adult fiction authors passionately suggest that neither death nor destruction of civil society can stop the searching of two halves to become whole. In the last episode of “Sex and the City,” Carrie Bradshaw, who is probably fiction’s most authoritative voice on modern love, proclaims, “I am someone who is looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’tlive-without-each-other love.”

Even a trip to a Hallmark store will provide ample evidence that there are many different ways to engage with love. Being in love, love and loving are all beautiful things, emotions and rites of passage that we’ve each got to work through some way or another. One of my favorite blogs, The Crunk Feminist Collective, described these three types of engagements, saying that “being in love is an irrational state of being, that love is an ideology, and loving is a deliberate action.” I am, as I would bet many of our peers are, not looking for only one person to be in love with, but spaces where we can radically engage with all three types.

If searching the whole world for the one person that makes our souls and bodies complete is simple, Aristophanes myth and the subsequent narratives fail to recognize the complexity of love and engaging in it. I conceptualize the ideal state of being in love through a grammar analogy: If life is a paragraph, being in love is the use of a coordinating conjunction in a sentence with two independent clauses. The coordinating conjunction combines the two while adding depth, interest and new life to the paragraph. While both clauses could, in fact, stand alone and be complete, they are simply better together.

We don’t simply need to find one person to love and be loved by, but instead, we desire moments in time where we simultaneously experience the chemical euphoria of being in love with another individual, radiate beliefs and values infused with love, and repeatedly choose to commit radical acts that reflect and enhance love. Instead of one individual making you or me whole, we search in this real, ridiculous, inconvenient and consuming way for a life that is full of many different kinds of love.

Michelle Fuentes is a doctoral candidate in political theory.

Her column runs weekly.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR | T BURGER

Binge drinking is no laughing matter It seems that Tuscaloosa restaurant T Burger has decided to launch a new advertising campaign via social media, by creating the Twitter account “MoreThanUThink,” a thinly-veiled parody account of the popular LessThanUThink campaign against binge drinking. While I’m sure whoever at T Burger that created this account was proud of its supposedly clever way to encourage patrons to stop by during the snow days, they widely missed the mark on this one.

The description reads, “Its college, build up your tolerance and drink MoreThanUThink you can. A parody account at the University of Alabama by T Burger.” (And yes, they misspelled “its”.) Since then they have tweeted encouragements for students to chug, as well as pregame and postgame classes. The official T Burger Twitter account is listed as a follower of “MoreThanUThink,” which makes this embarrassment even more disappointing.

As a bit of background information, the LessThanUThink campaign was created by

Moderation is not a typical word used by college students, which can lead to nights you either don’t remember or wish you could forget. the University’s Ad Team in 2009 to encourage students to make responsible choices while drinking. The campaign has received national recognition through grants and awards, and it has since spread to campuses across the country. So it’s a bit odd that a restaurant that has held fundraising events for this year’s Ad Team would turn around and make fun of one of its most popular

campaigns.

It seems to me like a couple of employees got bored while at work and decided to try to draw in a few extra customers. The problem here is that T Burger, whether through direct creation of the account or implicit endorsement of it by following it, is blatantly encouraging students to over-consume alcohol and to put themselves in potentially dangerous situations. Sure, most places in Tuscaloosa are fans of increased alcohol sales, but even bars know when someone has reached their limit. To mock an initiative that encourages students simply to make smart choices is boldly stating that profit is to be prioritized over our well-being.

Binge drinking is one of the most serious issues facing college students. We are all encouraged by our peers to funnel beers, take shots and, in general, get drunk every time we consume alcohol. Moderation is not a typical word used by college students, which can lead to nights you either don’t remember or wish you could forget. While I’m certainly not here

EDITORIAL BOARD

WE WELCOME YOUR OPINIONS

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to put down drinking, I do admire those who encourage students to indulge safely. We all know to take care of each other when we’re out.

Why, then, is a restaurant pushing us to do the opposite?

If T Burger created this account, I encourage them to reconsider its marketing campaigns. If not, they should unfollow the account and demand whoever on their staff created it to take it down. There is no need to put down positive initiatives for your own gain.

Maybe instead, you should, oh I don’t know, advertise your burgers? Cheap advertisements mocking others are no way to gain support, and they certainly won’t draw in more customers. The creation of this Twitter account was disrespectful both to the Ad Team campaign and to students in general. TBurger, it takes LessThanUThink to make a fool of yourself on social media.

Mary Sellers Shaw is a senior majoring in Communication Studies and New College.

Last Week’s Poll: Do you know how Bitcoins work?

No (36%) Yes (33%) What are Bitcoins? (31%) This Week’s Poll: What is your favorite locally brewed beer? cw.ua.edu/poll

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Submitted The University of Alabama Sailing Club has seen an increase in membership since its April 2011 reincarnation.

CW | Hannah Glenn

Recreation to expand onto Bryce

By Jason Frost | Contributing Writer A chain-link fence currently separates the grounds of Bryce Hospital from The University of Alabama, but after the Board of Trustees approved a number of additions to the 2012 Master Plan last December, students might soon see a different kind of obstacle.

George Brown, executive director of University Recreation, said the addition of 26 acres purchased from the Alabama Department of Mental Health is expected to allow for the creation of a ropes course, running trails and other outdoor recreation areas.

The land from ADMH was purchased primarily to support drainage infrastructure, but it will also allow both students and patients a place to relax.

“There’s this new idea in mental health to get people out in the community and mainstream them,” University Planner Dan Wolfe said. “If they use these types of facilities to get well, they’re more apt to get adjusted to our typical downtown.”

Since the new land overlaps with a larger wooded property across from MacFarland Boulevard, the now 60-acre spot is currently being zoned to be used for outdoor recreation.

“We are in talks with local division construction companies about building a ropescourse on the site,” Field Coordinator Steven Mercado said.

Brown, who is in charge of the project, said the ropes course, like all additions to the site, will be designed to create a group atmosphere and will feature both a high rope 30 to 40 feet in the air and a low rope closer to the ground.

“High elements involve platforms and climbing, things that take you up in the air,” Brown said. “And you typically see, in a low element, six to 12 different obstacles on the ground.

They’re more group-based. You problem solve, with no degree of challenge in terms of height. As you go to the higher elements, it’s more challenging. There’s harnesses and ropes, but also the elements of risk and fear. In a perfect world, you’ll have groups going through both, but you’re in a safe environment at all times.”

Since the region is primarily wetland, much of the new construction will have to be planned around unusable parts of the marsh.

“One of the most intriguing parts of this land is that it has water, but not necessarily the kind you want,” Brown said.

Despite the obstacles to construction, Brown hopes to add bike trails,

rubberized walking trails, paved bicycle pathways and other amenities to the land once a planning company has evaluated the site.

“One suggestion we’ve been asked to entertain is to develop some camping areas,” Brown said. “Part of our Outdoor Rec is very involved in teaching individuals how to appreciate natural habitats for camping. This provides us an invaluable resource to practice and train people on everything from campsite preparation, backpack preparation, Leave No Trace, environmental low-impact training. I mean, there’s a whole lot things you can do when you’re camping.”

The new recreation area is expected to open in 2015. It is located a short walk down Campus Drive from the University Recreation Center.

The site will also allow for the construction of a UAPD radio tower. Wolfe, said construction is still on schedule for the entire Master Plan, including the outdoor recreation area.

“It’s got some heavy terrain on it, but it’s a terrific piece of land,” Wolfe said. “The vision is to keep it as natural as possible, rebuild the lake, and make it a place where students can recreate. Students can rent a tent, or canoe in the lake …it’s a place to spend a weekend.”

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Capstone sailing club teaches new members

By Jason Frost | Contributing Writer Though the University of Alabama Sailing Club has maintained unstable membership since the 1980s, its April 2011 reincarnation is going strong after more than two years.

The club was founded and spearheaded by Randy Mecredy, current director of the Museum of Natural History. Mecredy has been sailing for decades as a member of the Tuscaloosa Sailing Club. “[The Tuscaloosa Sailing Club is] an older club, and by that I mean I’m the youngest member,” Mecredy said.

For $10 a semester, members of the UA Sailing Club become members of the Tuscaloosa Sailing Club and can participate in any social events and outings held by either organization.

“We generally do one or two boat washes as fundraisers, but sometimes we just take the daysailers out and say come along,” said Danelle Pecht, the social media chair and a junior majoring in biology. “The first time I went sailing by myself, I went out with one guy in a Colby 14. We got out to the middle of the lake, he handed me the rudder and said, ‘Sail away.’”

Though the club focuses primarily on hobbyists and teaching new members how to sail, Mecredy

said the eventual goal of the club is to become a competition racing group.

“Most schools the size of Alabama have competitive teams, but we don’t,” secretary Maureen Penn, a freshman majoring in biology, said. “Even Auburn has one, and we don’t even have something close to that.”

The UA Sailing Club meets two Sundays a month for half-day events on the water in addition to regular, weekly meetings on Tuesdays in the Ferguson Center.

“One of the examples [Mecredy gave] was that most crew teams we have at the University started as hobby clubs,” co-president Luci Willis, a freshman majoring in international studies, said. “At some point in the future, maybe not next fall and probably not next spring, he could see us becoming competitive.”

The next few meetings will focus on teaching inexperienced members, which make up the majority of the club, basic sailing and docking. Their first outing will be held this Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Tuscaloosa Sailing Club on Lake Tuscaloosa.

“The best way to learn how to sail is to crew with someone who has been doing it a while, and Tuscaloosa Sailing has races on a regular basis,” Mecredy said.

p.6

Thursday, February 13, 2014

UA administrator retires, tackles new chapter

By Heather Buchanan | Contributing Writer

Photo Courtesy of Aldon Nielsen Lazer performs in a jazz-poetry group at a concert in Havana, Cuba, in January with percussionist Omar Perez.

In 1977, Hank Lazer started working at The University of Alabama with the intention of staying for two years. Thirty-seven years later, even after retirement, he said he is not quite ready to end his time at the Capstone.

Lazer, former director of Creative Campus and poet, retired last semester to open up time in his schedule, but he said that he is not planning on disappearing from the University by any means. Rather, he said he feels ready to begin tackling a new chapter in the future.

“I also had a feeling that there was another phase of my life to explore, that there was something else waiting for me to do,” Lazer said. “I’m still not sure what that is or will be.”

Aside from teaching in the English department, Lazer helped develop the dance program as assistant dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. While serving as assistant vice president in academic affairs, he worked with admissions to develop approaches to recruitment, such as Capstone Scholars Day, to increase enrollment of out-of-state students.

However, Lazer said he feels he made his biggest impact through the development of Creative Campus, serving the organization since its beginning in 2005.

“Creative Campus was the most

surprisingly engaging and fulfilling work during my 37 years at UA,” Lazer said. “I got to know the student-interns better than had been possible in the classroom setting, and I believe that I had more impact on their lives – career aspirations, grad school, thinking processes – than had been the case in the more traditional role of faculty member.”

Connor Fox, a junior and second-year intern for Creative Campus, praised Lazer’s knowledge and ability to help one see and think differently.

“Dr. Lazer has an endless amount of wisdom and is enjoyably unpredictable at times,” Fox said. “He empowers you to think differently and not only appreciate differences, but learn from them. The experience of working with him is unforgettable and enriching.”

Fox was able to work closely with Lazer on an event last year that brought jazz legend Doc Adams to the University.

“This was a memorable opportunity to work under the guidance of Dr. Lazer and learn from his valuable perspective, in addition to sharing an appreciation for jazz music,” Fox said.

Andrew Dewar, co-director of Creative Campus, has also worked closely with Lazer on various projects since 2008, even performing together in Havana, Cuba, this January.

“Currently, we are exploring the

intersections between music and poetry through an improvisational duo project featuring myself on the soprano saxophone and Dr. Lazer reading his experimental shape poems,” Dewar said. “It has been a very productive and new direction for us both, as well as a fun way to experiment with ideas in sound, rhythm and form.”

In the meantime, Lazer is currently serving as an adjunct faculty member in the Honors College, teaching a graduate seminar in English and advising a doctoral student in English. Recruitment work is also on the agenda for Lazer, as well as writing and traveling. The poet’s eighteenth book is planned to be published this year.

Dewar said Lazer taught him about balancing an academic career with growth in another field.

“One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from him is how one can continue to be active, learn and grow in an art practice – in my case, music – while maintaining an academic career at the University,” Dewar said.

Fox echoed Dewar’s sentiments, saying he owes Lazer some of the credit in his own growth and development process.

“Dr. Lazer is a great friend whom I admire and trust,” said Fox. “His influence and encouragement have helped me grow as a person while at The University of Alabama and I, along with countless others, could never thank him enough.”

‘Take a Journey in Science’ lecture to address nanoscience

By Greg Ward | Contributing Writer Some people think science is composed of complicated equations that only academics can understand. Scientists at The University of Alabama are trying to change these preconceived notions with their new Take a Journey in Science lightning talks.

This journey takes the form of a series of mini lectures held each Thursday during the month of February at 2 p.m. at Rodgers Library. The lectures discuss popular topics in the different fields of science. Talks last about 10 minutes, with a brief Q-and-A period following. John Sandy, head librarian at Rodgers, came up with the idea and ran with it.

“We are still in the experimental stages of this program, but it has gone well so far,” Sandy said. “This idea was to reach out to

PLAN TO GO WHAT: A Gift from Nanoscience: Molecular Memory WHEN: Thursday, 2 p.m.

WHERE: Rodgers Library faculty, staff and students and to get them informed.”

The first lightning talk was held Thursday, Feb. 6, and the speaker was Jeffrey Lozier, assistant professor in the biological sciences department. About eight students showed up to hear Lozier’s lightning talk last week, and organizers are hoping for a good turnout this week.

“We measure by the interest in the topics,

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not by the turnout,” Sandy said.

Gregory Szulczewski, associate professor in the chemistry department, is giving a talk on nanoscience this Thursday. He has been working on his research for about 25 years and is excited to present some of it to students.

“It is important to get this information out now because it will play a vital role in producing and storing energy over the next 50 years,” Szulczewski said. “I want to let people know that there are already nano-scale materials in commercial products.”

Products like tennis rackets, cosmetics, suntan lotion and even some socks have nano-scale materials in them. Some of these products, Szulczewski said, might shock people.

Sandy said that if enough interest is sparked, he would like to continue holding

lightning talks every semester.

“If we are successful, which I hope we will be, we hope to have it on going and picking one month a semester to have it,” Sandy said.

“Anything we can do to attract more attention to the science, engineering and nursing departments here at the University is always one of our goals.”

Sandy said one of his biggest goals is to get attention from other parts of campus and from people that normally never pay attention to these departments.

“We really have two main goals with these talks,” Sandy said. “One is to highlight our faculty and to show that they really work hard and that our faculty is some of the best out there, but also for us to reach other across campus. We want people to learn about science and to show them it is interesting and fun.”

p.7

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Toastmasters provides public speaking practice

By Rachel Brown | Staff Reporter

CW | Lindsey Leonard Erik Peterson speaks at Darwin Day in Smith Hall Wednesday.

New UA professor teaches students history of science

By Rachel Brown | Staff Reporter Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., Erik Peterson was on the third floor of ten Hoor, writing the words “Social Darwinism” and “Eugenics” on the white board. He turned to the class for discussion.

“What do these words mean to you?” he asked.

Peterson, a new history professor at The University of Alabama, was teaching his class on Race and Science. In one 50-minute period he brought Andrew Carnegie, birth control, Teddy Roosevelt, Manifest Destiny and Aryans together to discuss the history they all have in common. Peterson’s students said his classes are formatted to focus on learning, but he always challenges them in conversations.

“As soon as he see he’s stepping on toes he says, ‘Well, let’s keep talking about that,’” said Jodi Wilson, a senior majoring in history and political science and a student in Peterson’s class.

Peterson holds a doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in the history and philosophy of science. His background is in the sciences. He has worked in the fields of biology, archaeology and biological anthropology.

“Science is a really powerful way of organizing the world,” Peterson said. “It’s really, really important. And yet, it also makes all kinds of assumptions about what we should think about ourselves and about the rest of the world. Rather than just saying, ‘Okay, we know this so we know it.’ I feel like a more important thing is for, at least some people, to keep asking, ‘Yeah, but why do we think that we know it? And are we really sure that we know it?’”

Peterson said his love of questions contributed to his interest in the history of science. He describes himself as the kid who was always put in the corner for asking too many questions. But, he said, the great scientists – Newton, Galileo and Copernicus – were first and foremost question-askers.

Peterson came to The University of Alabama in the fall of 2013, moving to Tuscaloosa from Columbus, Ohio. The University is the sixth university where he has taught. Peterson said he enjoys living in Tuscaloosa; it’s the smallest town he has ever lived in. He said he appreciates the easy commute to and from work, as well as Southern kindness. In only one semester at Alabama, Peterson has already impressed many students in his classes, who said they could tell he cares about what he is teaching.

“I have learned more in his two classes than I have in any others,” Trever Chidester, a sophomore majoring in anthropology and biology, said.

Peterson is the only professor at The University of Alabama who specializes in the history of science. He teaches various courses on the subject, including The History of Medicine, Race and Science, The History of Science, The History of Games and Darwin.

“I feel like one of my jobs, just here, is to press upon students that you only get this period of time to think about difficult problems that humans have been thinking about for all of humanity,” Peterson said. “Once you’re [out of college] there is no time for thinking about those things anymore. So while you’re in college ask hard question and think about hard things.”

St. Paul and the

Broken Bones

You can find them in the back room of Rounder’s Bar on a Monday night. They will count your “ums,” ask you to step outside of your comfort zone, speak in front of the group and give feedback to your peers. They are a group of students who say they enjoy public speaking and together they compose the Capstone Toastmasters Club.

Jasmine Wells, vice president of public relations for the group, said Capstone Toastmasters is a peer-evaluated speaking club. It was established last fall as a chapter of Toastmasters International.

Toastmasters clubs exist around the world and boast members like Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Peter Coors of Coors Brewing Company and Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos Pizza.

“Public speaking skills are an essential key in winning over a group of people if you are planning on being very successful in the business world or any other situation that involves being a leader,” said Garret Brooks, vice president of Capstone Toastmasters. “The Toastmaster goal is to give people the tools and practice they will need in order to overcome the fear of speaking in public, which ultimately makes their person-toperson conversation skills flawless.”

Eve r y meeting begins with an introduction, and each person in attendance will stand up and give a short introduction speech. Members critique each other and provide peer reviews – counting filler words, pointing out areas of strength and giving recommendations for areas of weakness.

“Sometimes public speaking is really hard,” Wells said. “What people don’t understand is we laugh to each other. It’s a really close group. We just learn through each other.”

Toastmasters is an opportunity that continues after college graduation. Clubs exist all over the country and provide opportunities for further

Toastmasters.org personal development.

“The speech skills that I have obtained from Toastmasters will be the techniques I use when winning over the trust of a client and intelligently getting my point across to an audience of any sales team or sales meeting area,” Brooks said.

Brooks said watching new members transform from shy speakers into confident individuals is a highlight of the program. Clark Keator, a senior majoring in construction engineering and member of Capstone Toastmasters, said he felt the benefits were endless.

“Whether you are trying to get a girl’s number or making the biggest pitch of your business career, being able to effectively and confidently portray what’s in your head always happens through communication,” Keator said. “I don’t think you can begin to make a list of all the benefits that come from being a good public communicator.”

Capstone Toastmasters is open to students of any age, major and career interest. Meetings are held twice a month. The next meeting will be Feb. 17 at Rounders.

Interested students should email capstonetoastmasters@gmail.com to receive information for the next meeting.

“The main thing I tell people is its not scary,” Wells said. “Public speaking is fun.”

It’s a really close group.

We just learn through each other.

— Jasmine Wells

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p.8 Bitcoin’s volatility result of young age BITCOINS FROM PAGE 1

established currency. In fact, Gup said bitcoin’s ties to the black market result from one of its two most limiting characteristics.

“One of the strengths of bitcoin is the anonymity of the user,” he said. “That’s also one of the weaknesses from a legal point of view.”

That anonymity, Gup points out, has led to a minor exodus of companies, some as large as Apple, and countries such as China from bitcoin’s stable.

“Bitcoin can be used for illegal purposes … and because of that, the people that transmit that information, like Apple, may be subject to certain laws because they’re supposed to know what’s going on on their systems,” he said. “I don’t see how they can overcome that issue [of anonymity].”

Bitcoin’s other fatal flaw, Gup said, is its price volatility.

“You’re investing in, in essence, in a commodity whose value can go up and has been going down,” he said. “It doesn’t have constant value.”

And while that is true of much in finance, Gup said bitcoin’s fluctuations couldn’t be projected with any certainty. Ultimately, he said, bitcoin is being used legitimately and effectively across the world, but it is held back by its own strengths.

Bitcoin does not point so much as the future of money as it does reflect an existing trend – digitalization.

“Money is whatever people are willing to accept in the broad sense of the word.

At one point in time, sheep and cattle were money. The concept of what we are using as money is changing,” Gup said. “Quite clearly, digitalization is influencing the way we make our payments and bitcoin is a contribution in that area.”

Bailey also sees progress over time reflected in bitcoin, but said he sees bitcoin as the leader of a movement that resolves current issues in fees, accessibility and security.

“Fiat currencies come and go all the time and generally they have a pretty short time life span. A lot of people are looking for a viable alternative that you can actually use online,” he said. “Bitcoin enables the 6 billion who don’t have a bank account … now you can be this global actor in this global commerce in this global community.”

Bitcoin, Bailey said, is actually more secure and beneficial for buyers and sellers alike – as a business owner, he prefers bitcoin to other methods of payment.

Thursday, February 13, 2014 Other businesses that have jumped on board include Overstock and Virgin Galactic. Current price volatility, he said, is a byproduct of bitcoin’s youth.

“The price of bitcoin will stabilize in time,” he said.

“Bitcoin works around functions and marketplaces. You have buyers and sellers. The price of bitcoin represents the sentiments of those buyers and sellers. There are times in which people overvalue what bitcoin is worth at the moment. It was called a bubble earlier this year – it was called a bubble in 2011, when it hit $30. In my opinion, I think there are times that bitcoin becomes overvalued for its current utility and I think there are times that it’s undervalued for its current utility. I do think the price of bitcoin is very volatile but you also have to remember this is really early days for bitcoin.”

He projects increasingly higher values for bitcoin and says a crypto-currency, whether it is bitcoin or its successor, will change everything.

“Students needs to be paying attention because it’s going to change how they do business, it’s going to affect how they get paid, it’s going to affect how governments function,” he said.

Bailey said students and faculty have joined him in considering bitcoin as at least a worthwhile investment.

Graham Byrd, a junior majoring in mathematics who is on the STEM path to the MBA, said he was initially perplexed by bitcoin.

“Getting educated about bitcoin is surprisingly easy.

The information is abundant and accessible. However, the technical details of crypto-currency are certainly not the easiest concept to grasp,” he said. “Also, it is easy to find information about bitcoin that is biased in many different directions. It was difficult to find a balance of opinions, but I was able to do so through keeping the sources of my information broad.”

He considers bitcoin a “high-priority investment and asset” and sees a bright future.

“As more companies and governments continue to support and endorse bitcoin, I think it is poised to become a prominent and efficient way to support the infrastructure of commerce on a global scale,” he said.

Bailey said bitcoin’s best qualities – its immediacy, decentralization and accessibility – and healthy growth make him optimistic about its future value and impact.

“The state of bitcoin right now is [that] bitcoin has never been better,” he said.

“We haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s possible with bitcoin.”

Local housing complex gives back Donations and proceeds go to benefit local Boys and Girls Clubs

By Clayton Santo | Contributing Writer The local student housing complex The Retreat is hosting a number of fundraisers and initiatives in a program entitled “The Retreat Gives Back.” All proceeds collected by these events will directly support a local after-school center, the Boys and Girls Clubs of West Alabama.

The Retreat at Lake Tamaha is one of eight communities owned by parent company Landmark Properties participating in the philanthropic project to raise more than $30,000 and log more than 2,500 service hours for charities across the country. Landmark Properties has promised to donate $1 for every one of the possible 1,300 beds leased at Tuscaloosa’s Lake Tamaha, as well as a dollar-for-dollar match of total donations received, in an effort to reach a local goal of $5,000.

Rob Dinwiddie, the leasing and marketing director for Landmark Properties, said that “The Retreat Gives Back” is exactly what benevolent college students are excited to take part in.

“We’ve got access to lots of college students who, I think, oftentimes are looking for great ways to give back in their communities,” Dinwiddie said.

“Hopefully, these programs will give our residents something that I think a lot of people naturally look for.”

The Boys and Girls Clubs of West Alabama is the local partner of Landmark Properties and will be the recipient of The Retreat’s charitable contributions. The Boys and Girls Clubs is an after-school program for kids aged 6 to 18 that provides a stable and growth-oriented environment.

Chris Stewart, otherwise known as “The Voice of the Crimson Tide,” is the director of development for the Boys and Girls Clubs of West Alabama. He said that the Boys and Girls Clubs are more than just a hangout for children.

“It’s a place where kids are playing basketball or shooting pool, and you can do that, but there is just a lot more that takes place,” Stewart said. “They have computer labs where they can do work. They can go and get tutored there with their schoolwork.”

The Boys and Girls Clubs is a place meant to help children and teenagers in Tuscaloosa grow and develop as people. To alleviate some financial barriers for parents, the Boys and Girls Clubs works with nearly 200 kids a day for $20 per year per student.

Stewart said that the success and outreach of the Boys and Girls Clubs is due to all of the dedicated volunteers, such as those working with The Retreat.

“We have a ton of volunteers who are University students who come and give kids reinforcement in some areas

Photo Courtesy of The Retreat The Retreat at Lake Tamaha is working to raise $5,000 for the Boys and Girls Clubs of West Alabama.

It’s good for the entire community that The Retreat is doing its part.

— Kemper Wilson

where they may be struggling,” Stewart said. “It’s a really special place. And after being there and seeing the work that those people that are in there day in and day out do with them, it’s really special. It’s something I’m honored to be a part of.”

Students across campus are already showing interest and support for The Retreat’s impact on Tuscaloosa and The University of Alabama.

“It’s good for the entire community that The Retreat is doing its part,” Kemper Wilson, a resident of The Retreat, said. “I’m glad that they are not only here for college students but are also here for the people of Tuscaloosa.”

The Retreat is holding its first fundraiser, a pool-side chili cookout, on Feb. 16. It is open to the public for a donation of at least $2. All proceeds from “The Retreat Gives Back” will go towards paying upkeep costs at the Boys and Girls Clubs of West Alabama center.

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p.9 Abbey Crain | Editor culture@cw.ua.edu

Thursday, February 13, 2014

COLUMN | TV

‘Masters of Sex’ show on forefront of sexual revolution for women

By Hannah Widener Whenever I watch TV with my family, uncomfortable silence always seems to follow a sex scene. No one looks at each other, all of us shifting from side to side awkwardly, deciding whether or not to run or just let the wave of agony wash over the room. Cringing on the inside, I pray that one of my parents will leave.

At one point or another, all of us have experienced this moment of despair, and even now at 20 years old I still turn red when I’m watching “Game of Thrones” with my mom.

Around fourth or fifth grade we all watched (and laughed) at the sex-ed tapes shown in class. In high school, some of us experienced sex for the first time, and in college it became all about “hooking up” and one night stands. So if it’s just sex, why are we all so embarrassed about it?

In the last 10 years, sex on TV has become a prerequisite when it comes to producing a hit show. It’s no secret that sex sells, but in the last year or so it has been female producers who are encouraging all the heart-thumping, sweaty-palmed and hair-raising sex scenes.

Showtime’s “Masters of Sex” producer Michelle Ashford is on the forefront of the sexual revolution when it comes to her characters Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan) and Dr. William Masters (Michael Sheen). The show focuses on the research done by Masters and Johnson during the 1950s, when sex was still a topic never discussed at the dinner table.

In 1896, Thomas Edison distributed the first kiss ever recorded on film. Since that time, TV has made tremendous progress when it comes to what can and can’t be shown to viewers. Skirts became shorter, underwear became skimpier, and women became more assertive in the boardroom, as well as the bedroom.

“Masters of Sex” not only demonstrates how far we have come as women, but also how far we have come as men.

Johnson is a woman before her time, gallivanting at parties and having sex with multiple men, all while getting home in time to tuck the children into bed. Her drive to get her degree in science rather than in marriage is what sets her apart from the other women in Masters’ office.

In an interview with “Glamour” magazine, Ashford said, “To me, sex on TV usually looked boring and like it was trying too hard to be sexy.” There is no shortage of sex on “Masters of Sex,” but the show isn’t by any means classified under the category of pornography. Masters and Johnson are trying to prove what a woman’s body is capable sexually, not just reproductively.

It’s easy to make sex look great when there is a perfect musical score playing behind a choreographed sex scene and lighting that would make anyone appear flawless.

However, that’s not how real life works. Sex can be bad, sex can be good, it can make you cry, and it can make you laugh.

But in no way will it ever look the way it does on TV. For the first time ever “Masters of Sex” is putting women’s pleasure before men’s, and it is no longer only what a man wants.

For every breast on TV, you might see one shirtless man, but you will never see a man expose himself the way women expose themselves. These odds don’t seem fair, and maybe that’s what we will be working towards in the next few years.

For now, don’t be embarrassed and turn off the TV when a sex scene comes on with your parents in the room, because, in the words of Marvin Gaye, it’s time, America, for some “sexual healing.”

Photo Courtesy of Clear Plastic Masks Clear Plastic Masks, a four-member band who met at a summer camp for troubled teens, will play at Green Bar Thursday.

Clear Plastic Masks head south New York band to bring their tour from Nashville to Tuscaloosa

By Kinsey Haynes | Contributing Writer After forming in upstate New York in 2011, Clear Plastic Masks have started to push their limits and expand to Nashville.

The band began when singer Andrew Katz, bassist Eddie Duquesne and drummer Charles Garmendia met at a summer camp for troubled teenagers. Guitarist Matt Menold was a counselor who taught guitar and was later asked to join the band.

“Matt wound up staying with us after his wife left him, and we became fast friends and started playing together all the time,” Katz said.

Clear Plastic Masks gets their name from one of their favorite songwriters, Alan Lewandowski.

“We were in Brooklyn, where everybody’s so … cool, and here’s this genius, who, lovingly, just sort of threw it back in their faces,” Katz said.

After getting fed up with the New York scene,

moving to Nashville was not a hard decision. They are now becoming one of Nashville’s most hardworking and talked about bands.

“There is just a great mix of people and bands – a higher concentration of peeps that are serious about making a career out of it, and, compared to New York, [they are] less snobby and less saturated,” Katz said.

Touring is essential to any band that is trying to promote their music. One of their favorite aspects of touring is participating in on-the-road shenanigans.

“We dared this Dodge Challenger to race our van at a stop light, and we won because he stalled out,” Katz said.

Katz said the band’s influence is simply “all the good stuff.” Their sound is a mixture of rock, soul, blues, punk and grunge riffs, with a hint of ’50s and ’60s garage-band rock ballads.

The band will be playing for the second time in Tuscaloosa at Green Bar on Thursday with The Timberwolves.

Weekend Band SCENE

BARS

THURSDAY

RHYTHM & BREWS Lava Lamp

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Miles Flatt

Mojo Trio

GREEN BAR

Clear Plastic Masks and the Timberwolves

The High Fidelics and Knympho Knife

N/A

INNISFREE

Spank

Cooper Trent Band

Soul Tide

JUPITER

DMND Club

CBDB

DJ Houndstooth

ROUNDERS

URI

Plato Jones

The Divines

EGAN’S

N/A

DJ Supreme and Sahee

Happy Lemmy

COPPER TOP

John May

Dirt Star

URI

CW | Hannah Glenn

p.10 Thursday, February 13, 2014

Abbey Crain | Editor culture@cw.ua.edu

UA professor writes novel on obligations, conflicts with family

By Laura Testino | Contributing Writer

CW | Austin Bigoney The Sarah Moody Gallery will display the art of faculty members until March 7.

Faculty showcase artwork

By Cokie Thompson | Contributing Writer Photographs, drawings and installations from all over the country fill the walls of the Sarah Moody Gallery.

A class of graduate students sits on the floor clustered around one of the works as they discuss the exhibition with a professor.

From now until March 7, the gallery will host a variety of artwork created by full-time professors at The University of Alabama. Every two years, faculty members submit recent work for the exhibition. The show gives students a chance to see what their instructors create.

“We are practitioners as well as educators,” said Pete Schulte, a drawing professor at the University with a piece in the show.

Although he has work on display in New York and Atlanta, the faculty exhibition is the only show he has had in Tuscaloosa. He came to the University in 2011 and has participated in the exhibition both this year and in 2012.

Schulte described his piece as “an installation of drawings,” comprised of seven or eight individual elements. After the gallery set them up, he adjusted them to his liking. He said the piece will never be set up in the exact same way again.

The exhibit contains two or three pieces from each of the 10 artists

PLAN TO GO WHAT: Faculty Art Show Grand Opening WHEN: Thursday, 6-8 p.m.

WHERE: Sarah Moody Gallery involved. The works do not follow any particular theme, but they were all created recently. Faculty members submit the pieces they would like to show, and the gallery approves them for the space. The gallery, located in Clark Hall, is small, but Vicki Rial, exhibitions coordinator, said the professors are familiar with the space as they choose works they want to submit.

Schulte said the exhibition illustrates that professors encounter difficulties with their own work just as their students do.

“On some level, artists are always students,” Schulte said.

The Sarah Moody Gallery officially opened in 1967, but the faculty show has been going on much longer.

“As long as there has been a department, there have been faculty shows,” Rial said.

The gallery put on the show annually until 2008, when an opportunity for a student show came up.

“It makes sense to show the

students what the faculty are doing, and so they become familiar with the faculty’s way of thinking, way of processing information, way of working.

That can influence a student quite a bit,” Rial said.

Bill Dooley, the director of the gallery, said it’s an unusual opportunity for faculty exhibiting primarily outside of Tuscaloosa to show their work.

“The things they explore, the issues in their artwork, might be different,” Dooley said.

Schulte said he requires his students to visit shows on campus and around Tuscaloosa for sketchbook assignments.

Dooley said that coordinating the faculty exhibition differs from other shows because exhibitors have the opportunity to visit the show during the curation process.

The gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday evenings. The exhibition opened on February 6, but the grand opening was rescheduled for this Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. due to inclement weather. The event is free and open to the public.

“You’re always looking to do something better or something you haven’t done before. I think that’s the real competition for artists,” Rial said.

The creation of something new doesn’t always start with having a definite end goal in mind, but instead choosing to begin the journey. More than 20 years ago, when Angela Benson, published author and associate professor of instructional technology at The University of Alabama, chose to change her flight destination for an extra $100, she began her writing career.

“I was on a business trip in New Jersey at the time,” Benson said.

“And, for some reason I was in a bookstore. I can’t remember the specifics of why I was in that bookstore, but I remember seeing Romantic Times magazine on the counter.

And there was something about a readers ‘and writers’ conference in Savannah, Georgia. And I really don’t know what made me think, ‘I’d really like to go to there.’”

After attending the conference, Benson began devoting her Saturday mornings to composing her first novel, “Bands of Gold,” published in 1994. Twenty years later, she is publishing her 13th novel, “Delilah’s Daughters.” Benson may not write every Saturday morning now, but she follows the same writing method: She first creates the characters, then builds the story around these characters and a general plot line, she said.

Wanting to cultivate a fascinating plot, Benson’s style has evolved genres, beginning in AfricanAmerican romance, transitioning to Christian romance and then moving to inspirational novels. Her most recent novel, “Delilah’s Daughters,” was published earlier this year

by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Camille Collins, senior publicist for William Morrow, worked closely with Benson in the post-editing

CW| Austin Bigoney Angela Benson stages of the publication process.

“Each author is very unique, and that’s one of the fun things about the job, is that each person is unique in each story that they tell … Each one really is different because of the person writing it,” she said. “And so that always holds my interest, and in the case of [Benson] there’s no exception.”

In “Delilah’s Daughters,” Benson addresses obligations to oneself and one’s family and what to do when these obligations may conflict.

The resulting story includes three daughters who form a singing group, and their mother, Benson said. “[I] wanted to do a family story, and I wanted the family to work together. And [music] seemed to me like a good thing for them to work at,” Benson said.

The plot line is comparable to “Dreamgirls” and the film “Sparkle,” Collins said. She said she believes this similarity makes Benson’s novel “familiar in a good way” but that Benson also offers her audiences a new experience.

“Each book, just like each work of art or each painting in a museum, touches each person differently,” Collins said. “And so I think it is great that this is similar to other things, yet different.”

“Delilah’s Daughters” is available in most bookstores and can also be found online.

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Thursday, February 13, 2014

Student develops popular word game app

By Dylan Walker | Staff Reporter Hakeem Hasan, a senior majoring in electrical engineering, pulls out his Android phone and uses his thumb to quickly scroll across the screen. However, he doesn’t pull up Twitter. He doesn’t send a text message, and his eyes are not glazed with boredom or exhaustion. He is alert.

He is proud.

Hasan tilts the screen to reveal a logo of colored letter tiles. They read MOWO, short for More Words. As the app loads, a display of eight letters are presented, and the screen prompts its user to make a word. Hasan developed this app, a word game similar to the Words with Friends craze, and has garnered 3,000 online players and 5,000 total players in just a few months.

“The app itself is just a basic word game. It’s very simplistic,” Hasan said. “There’s not too much going on. You get eight letters at anytime and you just make a word out of it.”

Players can make any word, as long as they don’t repeat one already created, to earn points.

There is a single-player and multi-player option, which connects users randomly via Facebook. To

garner more than 5,000 players, Hasan advertised the game on Facebook and Google advertising and wrote to technology bloggers.

“In creating the app, the biggest challenge was multi-player, making sure people get matched up correctly and their accounts are secure,” Hasan said. “I didn’t think it would be that hard. And also really getting the word out there is also kind of hard.”

Jerome Wiley, a senior majoring in engineering, met Hasan in electrical engineering classes and works with him on a team for the Capstone Design Project. Hasan asked Wiley to beta test the application’s multi-user format while it was in development.

“I just logged on to Facebook, my picture popped up and we began playing,” Wiley said.

“The game was already working in single-player mode, so there wasn’t a difference in the way the game worked.”

To win the game, players must have the most points when all of the letters are exhausted. This challenges players to build words that earn more points than those of their opponent.

“Did I win? Of course,” Wiley said.

Theatre students gain auditioning experience at Tennessee workshop

CW | Austin Bigoney Musical theatre students gather around director Raphael Crystal during warm-ups for their class.

Hasan began coding a year ago and has developed several applications for Android, including a grade tracker and a paint color app that helps interior designers compare brands. He said the first step for him in creating an application is to write out all of its features and functions. He then draws what the app will look like and begins coding it.

“I just felt like, with technology changing as rapidly as it is, I wanted to be a part of that,” Hasan said. “And that’s what got me into app making. If I feel there’s a need for it, then I will try to fulfill it.”

Hasan considered changing majors to computer science, but decided to keep his work in software as a hobby to keep his interest active. After graduation in May, he will work for the Southern Company in Birmingham. He did note that he could see himself opening an app studio someday.

“Sometimes I ask myself. Maybe I should have majored in computer science, but then again, I’d taken a few CS classes, and it goes too deep in detail and that’d probably turn me off from all of this,” Hasan said. “I like that I’m not forced to work in it, though I wouldn’t mind making a living off of it.”

By Laura Testino | Contributing Writer For students eager to pursue a career in performing arts, the University of Alabama theatre and dance department serves as a four-year layover in the flight toward ultimate destinations like New York and Los Angeles.

This collegiate pitstop supplies students with training and networking skills of a caliber that became apparent to seniors who attended the Unified Professional Theatre Auditions this past weekend in Memphis, Tenn.

“It was awesome to know that the last four years have really, really prepped me in these callbacks,” said Gia Asperas, a senior majoring in musical theatre. “And we’re constantly told that you’re training to become a professional auditioner, because that’s technically what you’re doing in this field, is you’re constantly auditioning, you’re constantly learning, you’re constantly training to be better. It was awesome to feel confident that you’re ready to go out to the real world and try it yourself.”

At UPTAs, students presented a 90-second package composed of a song and a monologue to representatives from more than 80 different theatre companies. After this initial audition, students may receive callbacks that require them to present to individual companies later in the day.

“It is hectic, and you’re doing a lot of running around.

But it is so fun and exciting, to be out there auditioning for these real world representatives of these companies, and I think that’s the most important thing to remember throughout the day when you’re dying and sore, is to just have fun,” said Taylor Coffman, a senior majoring in musical theatre.

Both Asperas and Coffman believe the training they

CW | Austin Bigoney Hasan created a word game app in his spare time while majoring in electrical engineering.

received from the faculty at the University kept them grounded and confident throughout the marathon audition event.

Seth Panitch, associate professor and director of MFA and Undergraduate Acting Programs, constantly stresses the importance of seeing college as a stepping-stone rather than an end location.

“The thing that we tell the students when they get in the University is that the only reason they come here is to leave here,” he said. “Every single day they have to have their eye on that because there’s probably someone else out there in the world that’s doing just that, which is working harder than they are, preparing harder than they are, taking greater chances than they are.”

Raphael Crystal, associate professor and director of the musical theatre program, has witnessed this attitude contribute to the growth he has seen since the beginning of the musical theatre department 11 years ago.

“If [other professors and I] had professional experience in the theatre … we can try to distill our own experience and make use of whatever contacts or ideas we might have,” he said.

Learning from a faculty that enables current students to establish connections with these recent graduates and others in the industry is a tremendous asset, Nick Burroughs, a senior majoring in musical theatre, said.

“Being taught how to be professional in a callback, what is right, what is wrong — [the faculty members] have taught us that.”

Burroughs said he was surprised to see his execution of this advice transform into 47 callbacks at UPTAs. He also attributes this success in part to the dance training he has received at the University.

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Thursday, February 13, 2014

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Thursday, February 13, 2014

WOMEN’S GOLF

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Golf team prepares for matches in Puerto Rico

Curry tinkers with starting lineup

By Caroline Gazzara | Staff Reporter The Alabama women’s golf team has had three and a half months to prepare since their last tournament. Team members hope that their hard work will finally pay off this weekend.

Flying three and a half hours away, No. 6 Alabama will tee off in the Lady Puerto Rico Classic this Saturday against many SEC schools, including Auburn, Missouri, Arkansas and Georgia.

“We won the tournament last year, but at the same time, the team is different,” sophomore Emma Talley said. “Arkansas came in second last year, and they’re actually ranked above us. We had a rough start in the fall, and we kind of got it together at the end of the fall. I think this winter, our team has prepared very well, and everyone seems to be more focused. ” After the Lady Puerto Rico Classic, the Crimson Tide will compete each weekend for a chance to play in the NCAA tournament. The tournament schedule consists of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate, the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, the Liz Murphey College Classic and the SEC Championship.

Coach Mic Potter said he welcomes the continuous schedule.

“Physically and logistically, the girls have got to make sure they’re ahead of the game academically,” Potter said. “They’ve got to take responsibility for that. Golf-wise, I think it’s the best thing for us because we’re going to be in warm weather in Puerto Rico, and we’ll have a little more of an opportunity to find out where we really stand. Hopefully, we will play well there and can carry some momentum into New Orleans next week.”

By Nick Sellers | Staff Reporter During a head coach’s first year at an institution, it is commonplace to experiment with different starters and lineups.

Kristy Curry has been no exception in her first year as head coach of the Crimson Tide women’s basketball team.

At 14.6 points per game, Shafontaye Myers leads Alabama in scoring average and has for the majority of the season, earning her starts in the team’s first five Southeastern Conference games. On the road against then No. 10 Kentucky, however, Myers did not start or see any action against the Wildcats.

Alabama edged Kentucky for the upset, and Curry picked up her signature win. Over the next two games, Myers came off the bench and scored 16 points against Georgia and 21 against Florida to eclipse her points per game average.

However, Myers has started the last two games, which Curry said is all a part of adjusting lineups based on the previous week of practice and the characteristics of the upcoming opponent.

“I had felt like we hadn’t been getting off to very good starts as we needed to execution-wise, and I don’t think that’s

PLAN TO GO WHAT: Alabama vs. Arkansas WHEN: Thursday, 7 p.m.

WHERE: Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark. RECORDS: Alabama (11-12, 4-6), Arkansas (16-8, 3-8) RADIO: 99.1 FM WHAT: Texas A&M vs.

Alabama WHEN: Sunday, noon WHERE: Foster Auditorium RECORDS: Alabama (11-12, 4-6), Texas A&M (18-6, 8-2) RADIO: 99.1 FM any one person,” Curry said.

As a senior and the team’s leading scorer, Myers and her attitude concerning the lineup shuffling was praised by Curry.

“It’s been unbelievable,” Curry said.

“It’s ‘whatever you need me to do, and I just want my team to win and be successful.’ And we did start her against

Tennessee. She had worked that the past couple of days in practice and had earned that.”

Myers held true to Curry’s observations with her take on the starting lineup changes.

“Not at all,” Myers said when asked if her role had changed. “I just come in and do the same thing as if I was starting.”

Myers started against Tennessee with fellow guards Sharin Rivers and Daisha Simmons, not to mention forwards Nikki Hegstetter and Ashley Williams. Curry kept the same lineup when the Crimson Tide most recently traveled to Missouri and picked up a 59-56 win.

In addition to Myers starting again after three games on the bench, forward Khadijah Carter did not start in the two most recent games after having started in every previous conference game. Since starting against Kentucky, Rivers has averaged exactly 10 points per game, which is well over her previous average of 3.7.

In the SEC, Alabama is 2-1 when Myers comes off the bench and 2-5 when she starts.

The tweaks, Curry said, have had at least a little to do with the makeup of the Crimson Tide’s current roster.

CW | TK Scott Kristy Curry “Well, I think you have to use your quickness,” Curry said. “I don’t feel like we have much size on the perimeter, regardless of what lineup we go with. We’re not as big as you’d want to be normally, but it is what it is.”

There are no indications this most recent, smaller starting lineup with three guards and two forwards will be permanent. Curry did offer some clarification going forward, however.

“We’re going to start those who we feel are going to give us the best start,” she said.

SOFTBALL

UA softball team to compete in Arizona

By Kelly Ward | Staff Reporter For junior Chaunsey Bell, softball is a family affair.

Her two older sisters played, and when she was younger, she wanted to follow in their footsteps. She started playing when she was 5 years old and started playing travel ball a few years later.

Neither of Bell’s sisters was a catcher.

“One was a shortstop, and then one was a pitcher, so I got stuck behind the plate because my dad was like, ‘I’m tired of getting all these bruises so I’m sticking you behind there,’” Bell said.

Her sister Chanda pitched at Kentucky. The two sisters met only once in their college careers. In 2012,

Alabama swept Kentucky in Lexington, Ky. “She was a senior my freshman year here, so it was fun getting to play against her one year, and it was a good little rivalry, and my family got to come in,” Bell said. “It was just a lot of fun.”

Bell fielded .985 behind the plate in 2013. She played in 25 games. So far in the 2014 season, Bell has played in four of five games and started in three of them.

“Chaunsey does a great job of receiving,” Alabama coach Patrick Murphy said. “I think every pitcher’s comfortable throwing to her. She’s got great presence behind the plate. That physical presence is awesome. She’s a big target, so there’s so many positives with her behind the plate.”

Murphy said Bell came back in great shape in the fall, which helped her as a catcher. He said he never has a concern about her work ethic.

“Just her passion for the game, just the way she goes about her business is great, and she’s a professional,” coach Patrick Murphy said. “You know that’s a great compliment to give her, but we never worry about her and her readiness to play the game.”

This weekend, the team will trade in the cold, rainy weather in Alabama for a warm, sunny Arizona climate at the Hillenbrand Invitational. Its first game of the tournament will be Friday against Grand Canyon.

“I heard it’s like 70, 80 degrees there,” Bell said. “The pitchers always look really great when it’s hot weather.

Everyone gets really warm, so yeah, I’m really excited. I think the team’s ready, and we look really good.”

No. 6 Alabama’s perfect start (5-0) will be challenged as it faces its firstranked opponent of the season while playing in the invitational. On Saturday, the Crimson Tide will take on No. 22 Arizona. “[We] haven’t gone to Arizona, but every year, we’re either No. 1 or No. 2 in attendance, and they’re No. 1 or No. 2, so it’s going to be a great atmosphere,” Murphy said. “I mean, they’ve had some of the best fans in college softball for years and years. They’ve won eight national championships. Other than Alabama, this is probably the place to be in terms of a fan, and we’re just looking forward to getting out there.”

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Thursday, February 13, 2014

CLUB SPORTS | MEN’S RUGBY

GYMNASTICS

Photo Courtesy of Will Beckett Shawn Branham eludes a player from the Auburn rugby team.

Rugby team aims for nationals

By Danielle Walker | Staff Reporter Coming off of a successful, winning season last year, the Alabama men’s rugby team is looking to build on its success and take its team to the next level this season.

Alabama is already 3-0 overall and 2-0 in the Southeastern conference. Within the SEC, the team has beat Mississippi State and Auburn University, which puts it right where it wants to be, senior George Rowen said.

The team will take on South Carolina at 11 a.m. o Saturday at the UA recreation fields. It will be the team’s first home game of the season and possibly one of its biggest games. South Carolina is also undefeated in conference play.

“We’re both undefeated in the SEC this season and it’s looking like South Carolina will be the team to beat from the Eastern Division after a close win against a strong Florida squad,” club president and senior Simon Bedoya said. “This will be a great test for us to see how we match up against a quality opponent and point out the flaws in our game that we need to fix as we continue through the season.”

For games against South Carolina and other opponents, the men’s rugby team has been preparing since the fall semester. The players work on team chemistry, defense and conditioning. The team practices four times a week and is expected to work in the gym every day.

“Defense is going to be a big focus this week; our offense is starting to click as we get used to our new system, but in order to beat the better teams, it always depends on your teams ability to

play solid defense,” Bedoya said.

One of the advantages that Alabama has over its opponents is how well-conditioned everyone on the team is.

“I think we’ve been working really hard this season to make sure that we’re well conditioned and in shape and it’s shown in our past few games,” junior Nick Byrne said. “By the end of the game, the other team’s dragging and we’re flying around the field, so our conditioning has definitely paid off.”

Senior Tyler Hoffman said the conditioning and athletic ability that the sport requires is something that he loves about the sport.

“I enjoy rugby because it promotes a pure meaning towards fitness,” Hoffman said. “Rugby demands players to be strong, fast, athletic and the pace of the game requires cardiovascular endurance.”

Byrne said team chemistry is huge for the rugby team, and while it’s hard to achieve in a collegiate program, this team places a huge emphasis on chemistry on the field.

“Chemistry is a big part of our success this season,” Bedoya said. “Most of our players have been playing on the field together now for a couple of years so we understand what each teammate is going to do in a given situation.”

The team has been doing great so far, but the players know they can’t lose focus of their ultimate goal.

“We’ve had great success so far but we need to continue improving if we want to reach our ultimate goal of completing at nationals,” Bedoya said.

CW | Austin Bigoney Coming off a win against Georgia Feb. 7, the Crimson Tide will travel to face No. 12 Auburn.

UA gymnastics team to defend streak at Auburn

By Marc Torrence | Sports Editor While the Alabama gymnastics team’s win streak against Auburn currently sits at 107, it hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park, especially on the road.

Two years ago, the Crimson Tide escaped by a margin of just .075. In 2010, the team earned a convincing victory in Auburn, but the year before that, the meet came down to the last routine, where Alabama squeaked out a win by .025, the smallest possible margin.

No. 5 Alabama expects more of the same Friday, as it will head to No. 12 Auburn for a Valentine’s Day showdown.

“It makes it difficult to compete there, just because we know Auburn’s going to bring their A-game, especially because of how big the rivalry is,” senior Diandra Milliner said. “And the crowd definitely knows it. They always have bigger crowds whenever we’re there, and I think that always adds just that little bit of pressure.”

The Tigers are in the midst of one of their best seasons in school history. They’ve been on a steady climb since hiring coach Jeff Graba in 2010.

“What Auburn has done with their program under Jeff has been amazing,” Alabama coach Sarah Patterson said. “He was hired by [Auburn athletics director] Jay Jacobs to come in and change that program and beat Alabama. I mean, there’s no mistake that that was the focus, to have a contending program. And I think they’ve done an amazing job. And you look at their

PLAN TO GO WHAT: No. 5 Alabama vs. No. 12 Auburn WHEN: Friday, 7 p.m.

WHERE: Auburn Arena facility, their facility reached a peak before we did ours.”

Auburn’s new state-of-the-art Auburn Arena opened in 2010, where the gymnastics team competes alongside the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

It’s a much more intimate venue, with a capacity of just 9,121. But, according to AuburnTigers. com, the worst seat in the arena is just 43 feet away from the court.

For gymnastics, the vault runway is so close to the student section, the students can nearly reach out and touch you, Patterson said.

“It’s a great arena because of the way it’s configured,” Patterson said. “It’s smaller, but they’re right there on top of you. If I had my choice of an arena, I would pick a smaller one and have them down closer.”

And the rivalry only intensifies those conditions.

“Just being a part of this program is just an honor in itself,” Lora Leigh Frost, a junior UA gymnast from Decatur, said. “But to keep this rivalry going and to have two programs that are great at gymnastics in the state of Alabama, I think that Friday night’s going to be very interesting.”

Thursday, February 13, 2014

p.15

p.16 Thursday, February 13, 2014

TRACK AND FIELD

Marc Torrence | Editor sports@cw.ua.edu

Hakansson has sights set on nationals

CW | Austin Bigoney Elias Hakansson, a sophomore from Halmstad, Sweden, competes in the weight and hammer throws at the Tyson Invitational beginning Friday.

By Joshua Gaines | Contributing Writer Most athletes celebrate a new personal record by reveling in the progress they have made and attempting to replicate the training process that helped them reach the milestone. However, when personal accomplishments have become as common as they have for sophomore thrower Elias Hakansson, even the best of achievements can be interpreted as a sign that there is work to be done.

As a freshman last season, Hakansson, who participates in both the outdoor hammer throw and indoor weight throw, had one of the best seasons in UA track and field history. He was named a First Team AllAmerican for the outdoor hammer throw and to the SEC All-Freshman Team for indoor weight throw. Hakansson not only broke school records for distance in both events, but also continues to exceed his own records with seemingly every throw.

As the Crimson Tide track and field team opened its 2014 indoor season at the Auburn Invitational, Hakansson yet again was breaking records, setting a new school mark of 67–9 3/4 on the weight throw. Despite a suc-

PLAN TO GO WHAT: Alabama Track and Field WHEN: Friday-Sunday WHERE: Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark. cessful outing in which he set new personal and school records, Hakansson said all he could think about was correcting his few mistakes.

“There is plenty of room for improvement,” Hakansson said. “I never throw the farthest in the first throw – except in this meet I did. I also had a couple fouls during warm-up throws. It will probably end up being the shortest of my throws out of all the competitions this year.”

Hakansson’s career at the University hasn’t always been as easy as the record books would have you think, as he was faced with adjusting to a new country, climate and event.

After moving to the United States from

Sweden to pursue a track and field career at The University of Alabama, Hakansson initially struggled to learn the weight throw.

Hakansson vividly remembers his first indoor meet at the University.

“It was the worst,” Hakansson said. “It was a new event to me. We don’t throw the weight in Europe, so I was unfamiliar with it. Whenever you have technical issues, it’s easy to identify them if you’re used to the event.”

Hakansson would go on to finish seventh that meet, with a throw of 56–8.

“We didn’t know what happened. I didn’t call my parents for a whole week” Hakansson said.

Despite Hakansson’s unfamiliarity with the event, he still went on to place third in the SEC championships last season and set the school record in with a mark of 67–6 1/4.

These marks were enough to earn him SEC All-Freshman Team honors for the event.

Hakansson attributes much of his success in the event to throwing coach Doug Reynolds. Though Hakansson goes back home to Sweden when the season ends, Coach Reynolds works with him throughout

the offseason to make sure his technique stays correct.

“I continue to work with Elias all year and plan his summer training, as well. We do what we can with film through email and Skype,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds, who coaches both weight and hammer throw, also works with Hakansson to make sure his approaches to the events don’t interfere with each other.

“I have shown Elias how the two events can be trained with balance so that they become mutually beneficial,” Reynolds said. “We are very systematic with the design of our training, and much like Coach Saban talks about, we are constantly focused on the process of making fewer mistakes.”

Though Hakansson did not participate in last month’s Indiana Relays, he hopes to improve upon his Auburn Invitational distance as he gets set to compete in this weekend’s Tyson Invitational.

“At Tyson, I’m going to try and get a longer throw so that I can qualify for nationals,” Hakansson said. “Qualifying for nationals is being among the top 16, and that’s what the objective is going to be this season.”