Volume 92, Issue 15

A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.

temple-news.com

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2013

VOL. 92 ISS. 15

The Fallen 7

CSS begins initial plans for security

TEMPLE ELIMINATES SEVEN SPORTS, DIVIDES COMMUNITY

Demand high for developers

Alarm systems will prevent students from holding open secondary entrances.

View at Montgomery complex sees quick sales of newest offcampus leases.

EDWARD BARRENECHEA The Temple News

JOHN MORITZ News Editor

As part of response initiative following an attack on a professor in Anderson Hall, Campus Safety Services has received funding approval for the first round of new building security implementations.

Acting Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said CSS and Temple Facilities Management are planning to initiate necessary measurements to prevent students from entering the academic buildings without security clearance.

One example of the proposed security plan is to install delayed-egress alarms into the outside doorways in Anderson and Gladfelter halls. The technology makes it difficult for students to “piggyback” each other by forcing someone to push the door for a substantial amount of time until an alarm is activated, then the door can be opened.

These types of alarms have been implemented in many department stores to reduce theft.

These new initiatives were submitted by a capital expenditure request form and approved for $300,000.

The second floor of both buildings can be accessed from the outside with minor resistance, and students have opened the door to other people waiting outside with the thought of being generous to their classmates.

However, this sort of cordialness can weaken the safety net that the university is trying to uphold, Leone said.

In late October, an 81-yearold Temple professor was assaulted in his office in Anderson Hall. Darryl Moon, 45, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and robbery.

It is unclear how the suspect entered the building.

Plans to implement these tactics in other buildings will be discussed in the future, but Leone strongly emphasized that other security options will be considered.

“We are not going to do a

SECURITY PAGE 6

Student-athletes (top) were denied an opportunity to give public comment at a Board of Trustees meeting four days after the sports cuts were announced, but spoke to some administrators afterward. | HUA ZONG TTN

WHO?

WHY?

–­ The baseball, softball, men’s gymnastics, men’s crew, women’s rowing, men’s indoor and outdoor track & field teams.

–More than 200 student-athletes affected.

–Nine full-time coaches will lose their jobs.

SPORTS - PAGES 20-24 Reaction from students and coaches from each affected sport.

After 70 combined years, game over for two legends

Fred Turoff looked down at a vacuum cleaner. It sat next to some boxes and a pair of crutches, in a room off the gymnastics team’s training gym in Pearson Hall. The gray two-toned wet/ dry vacuum was open and dirty.

It had seen better days – but it was still functional.

“This needs a new bag,” the men’s gymnastics coach said.

“Let me see if there’s a janitor around that can get one.”

The men’s gymnastics gym doesn’t have the modern, brandnew look of Edberg-Olsen Hall

Athletes jump ship

or the recently renovated areas of McGonigle Hall, but the team that has won 18 of the last 38 Eastern College Athletic Conference championships still

COACHES PAGE 21

NEWS DESK 215-204-7419

A Temple football history Facing blame for sports cuts, the football team fights through a history of inadequacy to remain relevant in a new era of investment.

Junior Justin Berg transferred to Temple after his previous school cut its track team. PAGE 24

Coach Fred Turoff. | HUA

DEVELOPERS PAGE 6

Onward, the beaten path ‘It’s happening again’

ZONG TTN

QUESTIONS ABOUT TITLE IX The administration said Temple’s desire to be in compliance with Title IX was part of the reason for the cuts, but critics say Title IX compliance isn’t a legitimate excuse.

PAGE 2

INSIDE

Temple lifers Gavin White and Fred Turoff say they won’t receive severance packages.

EVAN CROSS Assistant Sports Editor

BUDGET ISSUES In the American Athletic Conference, Temple has the second smallest budget, but is tied for the highest number of sports sponsored. PAGE 2

In the first week of online leasing, the 14-story View at Montgomery apartment complex sold between 5 and 10 percent of available units, with more expected to go as students return to campus following winter break and begin to look for future housing, a spokesperson for the building said.

The View is the latest in a string of private student housing developments that have begun sprouting up around Main Campus as more and more students begin to challenge Temple’s long-held reputation as a commuter school.

With a rise in demand for off-campus housing, a battle has been created over available space to construct new residential buildings, several of which provide space for hundreds of students.

Goldenberg Group, which purchased the property of the former John Wanamaker Middle School from the School District of Philadelphia in 2008 for $10.75 million, did so as part of a partnership with Bright Hope Baptist Church. That agreement has since been restructured, and future plans for the remaining 2.5 acres of undeveloped space on the property are undergoing continued reassessment.

Kevin Trapper, a senior vice president at Goldenberg Group, declined to comment on the developer’s future plans for the property or its relationship with Bright Hope Baptist Church, and said he was focused on the current property in development.

Representatives from Bright Hope Baptist Church did not respond to multiple requests to speak on the subject of their relationship with Goldenberg Group.

Another nearby piece of real estate on sale by the school district, the vacant William Penn High School on North Broad Street, has attracted interest by the university and private developers.

After announcing Temple’s interest in the property last fall,

Six players have left the baseball team ahead of its upcoming season this spring. PAGE 23

ONLINE – Students react Hear students’ opinions on the university’s decision to eliminate seven sports at temple-news.com/ multimedia.

JOEY CRANNEY Editor-in-Chief Sometime in the 1990s, for the honeymoon before his second marriage, Gavin White took a cruise around the world.

He and his bride-to-be were on the water for 95 days. They headed south through the Panama Canal, up the West Coast and across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. They circled Australia, sailed through Indonesia and wound their way up to Southern Spain, before heading back across the Atlantic Ocean to New York.

White loved that boat trip. It was the greatest experience of his life, he said. He speaks about it nostalgically, much like the way he discusses his 40-year career in Temple athletics.

White, 88, served Temple as a football player, coach and athletic director from 1949-88 and is

NEWS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

a member of the Temple Athletics Hall of Fame.

He remembers a time when local rivalries dictated football schedules and the athletic department prided itself on the success of its Olympic sports.

Last month, Temple announced it would be eliminating seven of those sports to cut costs. The baseball, softball, men’s gymnastics, men’s crew, women’s rowing and men’s indoor and outdoor track & field teams will lose their Division I sponsorship, effective July 1.

White’s son, Gavin R. White, was among those affected. He will lose his job this summer after coaching crew for 34 seasons. When the older White learned of the university’s decision, he was floored.

“It has nothing to do with my son. It has to do with tradition,” White said. “It’s a shame to give up on what’s good to be reaching out for stuff that

FOOTBALL PAGE 18

NEWS

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EXCLUSIVE

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

Athletic Cuts

Former AD Bradshaw ‘not surprised’ by cuts Bradshaw deflects old athletic budget issues.

JOEY CRANNEY Editor-in-Chief The business of collegiate athletics is a relay race.

At least, that’s what Temple’s former athletic director Bill Bradshaw thinks.

Bradshaw, who oversaw athletics from 2002-13, is largely credited for managing one of the most significant transitions in the history of the department.

Bradshaw was athletic director during the recent resurgence of the football team, which went to two bowl games and received a $10 million upgrade to its practice facility in the latter half of the decade. He hired Fran Dunphy to coach the men’s basketball team in 2006 and the Owls have since played in six consecutive NCAA tourIn the new conference, naments.

Temple has the second-small“When somebody hands est budget ($41.5 million), but you a baton, you take it and you is tied for the most number of run with it,” Bradsports it sponshaw, who retired sors (24), aclast summer due cording to the to personal reamost recent sons, said in a data from the phone interview U.S. Departlast week. “But ment of Eduyou always try to cation.

That hand it off in betdiscrepancy ter shape than you was particulartook it.” ly troubling to Most memoClark and less rably, Bradshaw troubling to was part of the Bradshaw, acnegotiations that Bill Bradshaw / athletic director, cording to in2002-13 led to the 2012 anterviews with nouncement that them. most of Temple’s sports would Bradshaw said most univerbe competing in the Big East sities, including Temple, have a Conference. After the Big East “cafeteria approach” in choosfolded last year, the Owls being what sports to emphasize. came a member of the American He insisted that institutional Athletic Conference. support doesn’t always equate Temple’s fragile stake in to competitiveness, pointing out the new conference, which is that the Owls’ football, men’s full of schools with large athbasketball and women’s basketletic budgets, state-of-the-art ball teams have been successfacilities and a histories of fiful in recent years despite their nancial success in Division I relatively small budgets. football, was one of the main Bradshaw said that the noreasons Athletic Director Kevin tion of dropping some sports Clark said he recommended the was “always under discussion” university eliminate seven nonunder the administrations of revenue sports last month. former presidents Ann Weaver

“In terms of

non-revenue sports, it’s not as critical. Not that they aren’t important, just not as critical.

”

(Top) Bill Bradshaw speaks at an event. (Bottom) The football team takes the field against the Connecticut Huskies. | COURTESY TEMPLE ATHLETICS/ TTN FILE PHOTO Hart and David Adamany. He said he was “disappointed, but not totally surprised” to hear about last month’s reduction.

“I think that’s something the new president has wanted to do,” Bradshaw said, though he insisted it had nothing to do with his decision to retire. “That was always in the crosshairs.”

While Bradshaw was able to avoid any cuts during his tenure, the issues that many Temple sports have today were no

less dire under his administration and have been highly scrutinized in the new conference.

A review conducted by The Temple News last spring, using 2011-12 data, showed Temple ranked last in the new conference in operating expenses for its non-revenue sports by about $12,000 per sport. A further review showed that Temple’s facilities, for most sports other than football and basketball, were well behind compared to

what others have in the conference.

Bradshaw admitted the decision to change conferences mostly considered Temple’s revenue sports, saying “those conversations are always more compelling” when discussing football and basketball.

“You compare a lot of things inch for inch, dollar for dollar,” Bradshaw said about benchmarking the revenue sports. “In terms of non-revenue

sports, it’s not as critical. Not that they aren’t important, just not as critical.”

The non-revenue sports stacked up much better in the Atlantic 10 Conference, the Owls’ home for all sports other than football from 1982-2012.

Records show that last year Temple had the largest athletic budget out of all the A-10 schools by far, about $12 million more than the University of Massachusetts. Facilities, too, were much more in line with that conference.

Historically, the football team has competed in a separate conference from the non-revenue sports, which have been able to stay competitive against schools with more modest budgets and facilities. However, in the new conference of football schools, some of the financial discrepancies are alarming.

Temple spent $62,510 in operating expenses combined on its men’s and women’s tennis programs during the 201112 year, which ranks last by far among The American schools.

Most schools spent more on just one of their programs than Temple did on both of its combined.

Effective July 1, the baseball, softball, men’s gymnastics, men’s crew, women’s rowing and men’s indoor & outdoor track & field teams will be eliminated.

Bradshaw said non-revenue sports were considered as a “frame of reference” when making the move to The American, but insisted that overall, Temple is better off with its sports united in a conference of schools with “similar institutional commitment” to athletics.

“We realized that there was going to have to be a commitment,” Bradshaw said about the non-revenue sports. “The time to do it is when you get into a new conference. A commitment to those sports to be competitive, or just a philosophy that winning in that league in that sport wasn’t as significant as keeping that sport alive.”

Joey Cranney can be reached at joseph.cranney@temple.edu or on Twitter @joey_cranney.

Administration’s Title IX excuse challenged after cuts Administrators say cuts made in part due to Title IX, a claim disputed by some.

JOEY CRANNEY Editor-in-Chief Questions have been raised over the legitimacy of Temple’s excuse that Title IX was a reason for the university’s decision to eliminate seven Division I sports last month, while prompting greater scrutiny over enforcement of the gender-equity law passed in 1972.

President Theobald has twice mentioned Title IX specifically while making public comments explaining the cuts.

During his president’s report at a Board of Trustees meeting four days after the cuts were announced, Theobald said the student-athletes of the affected sports are “casualties” of the university’s “overreach in trying to operate an athletic program beyond its facilities and resources, which caused us to be out of compliance with Federal law,” referencing Title IX specifically.

Title IX compliance was the first issue Theobald mentioned in an op-ed published in the Inquirer on Dec. 21 outlining the problems he saw with Temple’s athletic department upon his arrival at the university in January 2013.

However, some say a desire to be compliant with Title IX isn’t a legitimate excuse for cutting sports. Critics of the sports cuts say Temple could have simply reduced participation in men’s sports or added a women’s sport if it wanted to balance out Title IX numbers, while athletic administrators insist that Temple is bound by a roster management plan enacted after the university was re-certified by the NCAA in 2007.

The elimination of the women’s rowing team in particular has raised questions.

The sport is well known to have blossomed at the end of the 20th century because many universities with large Division I football rosters added such programs for the specific purpose of balancing out Title IX numbers.

Temple added its women’s rowing team in 1986, a related move to that year’s decision to eliminate eight varsity sports.

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BY THE NUMBERS

51/49

TEMPLE’S FEMALE/ MALE RATIO IN ITS UNDERGRADUATE POPULATION.

48/52

FEMALE/MALE RATIO IN TEMPLE’S ATHLETIC PARTICIPATION.

42/58

TEMPLE’S FEMALE/ MALE RATIO IN ATHLETIC FINANCIAL AID.

172

ROSTER SPOTS IN ELIMINATED MEN’S SPORTS.

84

ROSTER SPOTS IN ELIMINATED WOMEN’S SPORTS.

The Owls had 62 student-ath- closely resemble the gender raletes on its roster last year, rank- tio in the university’s undergrading behind only combined track uate enrollment, while the per& field in participation numbers centage of athletic financial aid among women’s sports, accord- given to men and women should ing to athletic data. line up The U.S. Departwith parment of Education’s ticipation Office for Civil Rights, numbers. which oversees Title AcIX enforcement, discording courages the eliminato the tion of sports because most re“it diminishes opporcent data, tunities for all students Te m p l e interested in participathas a raing in athletics, and so tio of 51 is contrary to the spirit percent of Title IX,” according female to Kristen Foley / senior associate to a statement released perathletic director 49 by an OCR spokesman. cent male Theobald denied in its unan interview request for this ar- dergraduate population, while ticle. In a phone interview last 52 percent of its student-athletes week, Senior Associate Athletic are men. Last year, Temple gave Director Kristen Foley said the 58 percent of its athletic student desire to be compliant with Title aid to men.

IX wasn’t the “sole reason” for Foley said the university the cuts. has a roster management plan in “You have to put it into per- place to ensure the athletic numspective and keep [Title IX] in bers line up. It was enacted as consideration with any decision part of an overall gender-equity you make in the athletic depart- plan after the NCAA re-certified ment,” Foley said. the university in 2007.

Title IX requires that the Foley insists that the sports proportion of male/female par- cuts will move Temple’s Title ticipation in athletics should IX numbers toward being com-

NEWS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

“You have

to put it into perspective and keep [Title IX] in consideration with any decision you make.

”

pliant, but declined to talk specifics.

Still, despite whatever overtures Temple makes toward being Title IX compliant in the future, it’s unclear what, if any, penalties the university would have faced for its non-compliance.

Scores of Division I schools across the country are Title IX non-compliant. In Temple’s conference alone, the American Athletic Conference, half of the schools don’t pass the participation to aid numbers test.

Since Title IX was passed in 1972, the OCR has never denied federal funding to an institution for being non-compliant.

If the OCR finds a compliance violation through an investigation, it is more likely to enter a “voluntary resolution agreement” with the university with a plan to come into compliance, according to a statement.

“It’s not necessarily we didn’t meet proportionality this year, so the OCR is going to come in and ding you,” Foley said.

Joey Cranney can be reached at joseph.cranney@temple.edu or on Twitter @joey_cranney.

NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 3

Staff Reports Student Affairs

SEPTA payment plan shifted to ‘18 veiled a “doomsday plan” to eliminate nine of its 13 rail lines and one subway line and convert some trolleys to bus routes, if the state budget did not allocate more money to public transit.

Then in November, the state legislature approved a JOE GILBRIDE large boost to transportation The Temple News funding, with plans to contribute Following dashed hopes for roughly $400 million to SEPTA Owl Cards serving as a fare pay- by 2018. With new funding on ment option on SEPTA, TSG the horizon, SEPTA introduced officials are working to keep the plans to replace much of its inissue open frastructure. Since then, Temple STUDENT for alterna- officials have not announced GOVERNMENT tive solu- any collaboration with SEPTA on Owl Card implementation. tions.

Bartholomew said TSG has In October, The Temple made it a top priority to design News reported that the univerthe next update of the Owl Cards sity had been into fit SEPTA’s formed by SEPtechnology.

TA that its New The last Payment Techmajor U.S. nology, an initiatransit system tive to update the still using tofare system, was kens, SEPTA not compatible plans to make with Owl Cards. the NPT work The longwith refillable term solution cards, key fobs, proposed is to wait for the Darin Bartholomew/ student body ATM cards and next generation president s m a r t p h o n e s , as well as cash. of Owl Cards, These payment which aren’t exoptions are already available in pected until 2018, to integrate many transit systems around the compatible technology in them.

Northeast, including the PATCO The short-term alternative is to line, which connects Philadelwork a deal out with SEPTA for compatible readers to be in- phia with South Jersey.

A year after SEPTA anstalled. nounced its new system, Temple Additionally, Darin Barintroduced the current form of tholomew, Temple’s student Owl Cards in 2012, in time for body president, is a member the last presidential election. of the SEPTA Youth Advisory The student IDs were made to Council. be used as a form of voter iden“We’re working on three tification at the polls, and they different proposals with the also included a “tap and go” SEPTA Youth Advisory Counscanning feature. cil,” Bartholomew said. “We SEPTA aims to complete its want to fill in the gaps for the NPT project by 2015 and plans interim.” to have new payment methods Bartholomew would not available on buses, subways and reveal the proposals TSG was trolleys by this summer. working on with the council. As Regardless, Bartholomew SEPTA moves further along in said that a proposal will be a its implementation of the NPT “scale-back from the original project, which has already sufidea.”

He said that he was disfered delays and faced potential appointed with how the original funding pitfalls, the possibilities initiative fared but that it is not a for students are slimming.

Although the university dead issue. could request SEPTA add readJoe Gilbride can be reached ers capable of scanning Owl at joseph.gilbride@temple.edu.

Cards, therefore offering a quick solution, funding may keep this Marcus McCarthy contributed idea out of reach. reporting.

In September, SEPTA un-

TSG plan to create payment options on Owl Cards stalled due to technology.

“We’re working

on three different proposals with the SEPTA Youth Advisory Council.

”

Volunteer Temple student Janice Durrant, a junior communication studies major, folds donated clothes at Berean Presbyterian Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

Owls serve to honor MLK Day Events around the city draw students and faculty to honor civil rights leader.

JOE BRANDT The Temple News Temple students, staff and alumni took part in the nationwide Martin Luther King Day of Service on Monday in various locations near Main Campus. Added by Congress in 1994, the day of service component to Martin Luther King Day encourages citizens to volunteer in their communities.

Temple’s Office of Community Relations, which is a sponsor of the Greater Philadelphia region’s service projects, encouraged students to volunteer at sites such as Berean Presbyterian Church on Broad and Diamond streets and Gray Manor Apartments, a retirement home on 8th and Oxford streets.

The office’s staff planned many of the service projects near campus.

“We see [planning service projects] as a great way of connecting us to our neighbors and showing support to the larger component of MLK Day of

Service, which is giving back,” said Andrea Swan, director of Temple’s Office of Community and Neighborhood Affairs and a leader in Temple’s promotion of the day’s service projects.

At the 130-year-old Berean church, Temple students and local residents helped clean, paint, and organize the church’s collection of donated clothes available to those in need of them.

“Rather than spend time indoors today, I thought it’d be better to just go out and help people,” said Scott Fulton, a junior political science major.

Gregory Bonaparte, who has been with Temple’s residence hall maintenance team for 20 years and is also a trustee for Berean, led the volunteers with the clean-up of the church’s basement rooms. While many of the volunteers were Temple students or local adults, some children took part.

“We asked for our contacts at the church to bring children so that after the cleanup we could have a conversation about MLK Day,” Swan said.

At Gray Manor Apartments, students from Temple’s College of Health Professions and Social Work interacted with the building’s residents and administered free blood pressure

screenings.

“A lot of our seniors here have high blood pressure or hypertension, so these screenings can let us know if their levels are too high or not,” said Irene Robinson, an administrator at Gray Manor and a Temple alumna. “It’s been great,” said Chorn Pen, a senior public health student who was administering the test. “I’ve met a lot of great people.”

Many students enjoyed their volunteering experience, such as freshman nursing major Rachael Pozneck, who volunteered to help teach origami to Gray Manor residents. “I hope we get to do it again soon,” Pozneck said. “At first I was reluctant because it was our day off, but this is really rewarding.”

Swan hopes that this year’s service projects will motivate more students to volunteer more often. “The concept behind the MLK Day of Service is that it should really be 365 days a year,” Swan said.

Amos Recreation Center on 16th and Berks streets had one of the largest reported volunteer turnouts. Members of Temple’s Black Alumni Alliance, who helped paint and clean the facility that morning, estimated that between 30 and 60 volunteers

came to help.

“It was a really diverse group of people here,” said Beverly Coleman, assistant vice president for community relations and economic affairs. According to Coleman, the volunteer group consisted of HPSW students, local children and members of Temple’s Campus Recreation staff.

The volunteer activity in Philadelphia began at Girard College in the Fairmount neighborhood, which holds ties to Dr. King since he fought for the school’s eventual 1968 desegregation. This year, the city’s signature project involved sending packages of school supplies to Philadelphia public schools.

The volunteer activities at Girard concluded with a performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In addition to students particpiating in service, President Neil Theobald participated in a ceremony with Sen. Bob Casey and the Rev. Carl Prince at the Zion Baptist Church in North Philly.

Joe Brandt can be reached at joseph.brandt@temple.edu.

Boys and Girls Club denies campus salesman Club says man who advertises charity has no official ties to organization.

ERIN EDINGER-TUROFF The Temple News In response to an inquiry by The Temple News, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia advised students to be wary of a man who claims to be soliciting on behalf of the organization, although he has no affiliation.

The man, who claims to be with BGC, has often been sighted near Paley Library, close to the intersection of 13th Street and Polett Walk, Montgomery Avenue and close to the Student Center.

When approached by a Temple News reporter while soliciting candy outside the Student Center in December, the man said his name is Lawrence, but refused to provide his last name.

He was carrying a clipboard and donation box with a BGC logo that didn’t appear to be professionally printed.

“I’m just a volunteer, I don’t get paid,” Lawrence said when asked about the nature of his fundraising. “I’m doing this for free, I want to help out the

community a little bit.”

Lawrence said he could only take cash, not checks, for what he called the “local community group” for which he said he is fundraising. He told The Temple News that anyone interested in donating could also do so at BoysandGirlsClub.com, which he spelled out.

That website, however, directs to the site for Boys and Girls Club of Santa Ana, Calif. The website for BGCP is bgcphila.org.

Despite Lawrence’s claim of fundraising, Marcos Reynaga, a spokesman for BGCP, said the organization does not station representatives to solicit for donations anywhere on or near any university campus in Philadelphia.

BGCP has also addressed reports of a street solicitor claiming to be part of the organization in Washington Square.

Lawrence claimed the organization he represents is based in West Philadelphia, “but we can canvass anywhere,” which contradicts BGCP’s official statement.

“BGCP does not solicit donations in this manner and does not currently have any individuals – staff or direct partners – collecting donations with management consent,” a BGCP statement emailed to The Temple News from Reynaga, said. “We have worked with fraternities and campus groups on short collection drives with proper con-

sent in the past but not recently with BGCP staff making collections as has been described.”

BGCP acknowledged that some “charter groups within Boys and Girls Clubs of America” could potentially seek donations through street fundraising. Those organizations do not require BGCP consent, as they are not legally a part of the Philadelphia-based organization. Regardless, BGCP confirmed that any individual on Main Campus is not a legitimate employee or fundraiser of its office.

“We don’t have individuals collecting on any street corners,” Reynaga said.

Several students recalled encountering a solicitor on Main Campus as early as the spring semester of 2013 and continued reporting encounters throughout the end of this past fall semester.

Sophomore business management major Nicholas Bui said a man matching Lawrence’s description approached him three times during the past academic year. He said these encounters took place once outside Paley Library, once outside the Student Center and once outside of the 7-Eleven on Liacouras Walk.

Junior sociology major Michael Kovich said he called the BGC after doubting the individual’s credibility

and received the same confirmation that the organization doesn’t have any representatives on Main Campus.

Students said they have seen the man selling both candy and granola bars for $5. Several recalled the solicitor indicating that proceeds of his sales went toward a youth basketball team associated with BGC. Lawrence told The Temple News his organization is “not selling the granola [or candy] bars, we give them for free with a donation.”

Acting Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said CSS has received only one report, called in on Nov. 20, of a student being harassed by the solicitor. The call notified CSS officers that the man was outside of Johnson & Hardwick residence halls, but Leone said when officers arrived to the scene he was no longer present.

Leone said he aims to identify the individual as soon as possible and has alerted officers to be on the lookout for any individual seen soliciting in the manner described by students.

Leone said CCS’ policy, if it determines an individual’s credibility is questionable, is to issue a trespass warning and require them to leave campus immediately.

Should the person return to campus, officers may arrest the individual.

Leone said CSS hopes to address the solicitor as soon as possible.

“We certainly don’t want anyone at Temple to get duped,” Leone said.

Former sophomore criminal justice major Taylor August recalled seeing the solicitor near Paley Library on a Thursday afternoon.

“He was walking around the circle by the Bell Tower,” August said. “I always thought he was friends with the preacher guy. He just seems weird. I never bought [a granola bar] because I was wondering [if he was] really from the Boys and Girls Club.”

Other students were frustrated by the man’s attitude toward their attempts to donate.

“My boyfriend tried to give him a dollar and he said, ‘No, I don’t want that, you can only give [money] in $5s and $10s,’” sophomore early childhood education major Chelsea Leigh said. “My boyfriend took his money back and we walked away.”

Bui recalled when the man “cut in front” of him and his friends and tried to sell them candy, “but he would only accept dollar bills and not any change.”

Leone said students should report any suspicious encounters to Temple Police.

Erin Edinger-Turoff can be reached at erin.edinger-turoff@temple.edu or on Twitter @erinJustineET.

EDITORIAL/OP-ED

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.

Joey Cranney, Editor-in-Chief Jenelle Janci, Managing Editor Cheyenne Shaffer, Chief Copy Editor John Moritz, News Editor Jerry Iannelli, Opinion Editor Erin Edinger-Turoff, Living Editor Patricia Madej, Arts & Entertainment Editor Avery Maehrer, Sports Editor Marcus McCarthy, Asst. News Editor Evan Cross, Asst. Sports Editor Jessica Smith, Asst. Living Editor Sam Tighe, Asst. Arts & Entertainment Editor Dustin Wingate, Multimedia Editor Alexandra Snell, Multimedia Editor Chris Montgomery, Web Editor

Patrick McCarthy, Asst. Web Editor Abi Reimold, Photography Editor Andrew Thayer, Asst. Photography Editor Addy Peterson, Design Editor Katherine Kalupson, Designer EJ Smith, Designer Donna Fanelle, Designer Zachary Campbell, Advertising Manager Grayson Holladay, Business Manager Morgan Hutchinson, Marketing Manager

The Temple News is an editorially independent weekly publication serving the Temple University community. Unsigned editorial content represents the opinion of The Temple News. Adjacent commentary is reflective of their authors, not The Temple News.

Visit us online at temple-news.com.

Send submissions to letters@temple-news.com.

The Temple News is located at: Student Center, Room 243 1755 N. 13th St. Philadelphia, PA 19122

EDITORIALS

Make no mistake: Football drove cuts In the five weeks since the From 1982 to 2013, most administration announced that of Temple’s non-revenue sports it will cut seven non-revenue competed in the Atlantic 10, a sports, one fault in its reasoning conference filled with schools has hung over with smaller The move to a new the affair: That budgets that these cuts some- conference doomed non- don’t sponsor how happened in revenue sports from the Division I foota vacuum, wholball teams. start. ly separate from Records Temple’s football program. show that last year Temple had To claim that teams were the largest athletic budget out cut in order to be more com- of all the A-10 schools by far, petitive within the American about $12 million more than the Athletic Conference, as the uni- University of Massachusetts. versity has stated on multiple Facilities, too, were much more occasions, is – in and of itself – in line with that conference. a football-driven decision.

Last year in the A-10, TemAthletic Director Kevin ple would have ranked third in Clark said the seven eliminated operating expenses per sport, a teams – baseball, softball, men’s category the Owls rank last in gymnastics, men’s crew, wom- The American among non-reveen’s rowing and men’s indoor nue sports by about $12,000 per and outdoor track & field – were sport. cut after a yearlong comparison If Clark had benchmarked of Temple’s athletic budget and Temple’s non-revenue sports facilities against the rest of the against A-10 schools rather than schools in The American, a con- schools in The American, he ference that the university could would have come to a much difnot have entered without putting ferent conclusion. its football goals ahead of every But the football-induced other sport at Temple. decision to drag all of Temple’s In terms of its budget and non-revenue sports into a major facilities, the football team was conference led Clark to recomaligned with most schools in mend taking a drastic measure. the new conference. However, Sadly, it seems Temple’s Temple’s non-revenue sports decision to eliminate sports was didn’t stack up. purely economical.

A Spring 2013 Temple Most of the cut programs News analysis of athletic bud- are among the most expensive gets in The American, using of all of Temple’s non-revenue 2011-12 data, raised several sports, according to budget concerns about Temple’s com- data. Other sports, like men’s mitment to its non-revenue and women’s tennis, have weak facilities, but are much cheaper sports.

Temple ranked below to operate.

Instead, to cut costs, the the average of The American schools in operating expenses administration eliminated the in all of the university’s sports expensive budgets of the men’s except football. In most cases, crew team, which has won 20 it was well below average. In Dad Vail Regattas in the Varbaseball, men’s soccer, wom- sity 8, and the men’s gymnastics en’s soccer, tennis and volley- team, which has won 18 conference championships. ball, Temple ranked last.

And this summer the adMoreso, the facilities housing most of Temple’s non-rev- ministration will terminate the enue sports were inadequate contracts of Gavin R. White and when compared to the lavish Fred Turoff, who have coached arenas that other schools in The crew and gymnastics, respectivley, at Temple for a combined American boast.

Particularly for the teams 70 years. The coaches say they who compete at the Ambler won’t receive severance packSports Complex, Temple’s fa- ages.

Ultimately, cutting costs is cilities more closely resemble high school stadiums than the just another way of saying ingrandstand seating available at creasing revenue. And the only all other schools in The Ameri- sport that brings in significant revenue is football, a program can.

By uniting all sports in a that athletic administrators semi-power conference, the across the country recommend university turned its back on investing in.

We recommend that Temthe longstanding tradition of allowing its non-revenue sports to ple start thinking about athletics compete in a modest conference as something other than a budseparate from the football team. get line.

CORRECTIONS The Temple News strives to be a newspaper of record by printing factually correct and balanced articles. Accuracy is our business, so when a mistake is made, we’ll correct it as soon as possible. Anyone with inquiries about content in this newspaper can contact Editor-in-Chief Joey Cranney at editor@temple-news.com or 215.204.6737.

JULIANA COPPA TTN

FROM THE ARCHIVES...

Sept. 9, 1986: Temple’s Board of Trustees approved the decision to eliminate eight non-revenue sports on May 13, 1986.

Athletic Director Charles Theokas made the recommendation to cut men’s swimming, fencing, cross country, track & field and wrestling, as well as women’s bowling, badminton, cross country, track & field and swimming. Men’s and women’s track & field were later saved from termination.

Athletic cuts violate Temple’s mission State-funded institutions should care about more than efficient budgeting.

F

or a moment, let’s ignore the glaring moral transgressions brought about by Temple’s administration throughout this entire athletic cut ordeal – the weeping athletes, the disregard of tradition – and focus solely on the university’s admitted stance that the decision to cut seven non-revenue sports on Dec. 6 was a move streamJerry Iannelli to line Temple’s athletic budget, among other claims. This was – at the end of the day – a business decision, one that frees up $3 million to $3.5 million for the 17 remaining varsity sports to allocate for whatever they see fit.

Depending on what side of the political fence one sits on, the cuts were either the result of a boardroom gone rogue or the perfect outcome of free-market capitalism, wherein seven programs with essentially zero chance at turning any type of profit for the university were let go in an act of economic Darwinism. Taking emotions out of the equation, cutting seven

nonrevenue sports to free up a few million dollars in a cashdriven business makes perfect sense, provided that Temple solely exists as a moneymaking enterprise. There is a very obvious reason why football and basketball remain, in that athletic programs cost money to run, and big-ticket sports are theoretically designed to bring in a good bit of cash.

That being said, let’s back up a step: Temple is not a moneymaking enterprise, both according to its mission statement – “Temple seeks to create new knowledge that improves the human condition and uplifts the human spirit,” the statement reads – as well as its status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the state of Pennsylvania. It receives state funding to further said goals of “uplifting the human spirit” and “[prizing] diversity of thought,” about $146 million in each of the past two fiscal years according to its 2014 operating budget. It is a school founded by a man that made a career out of reciting an 11,000word speech about finding value in the folks often overlooked by an education system that still heavily favors a mostly white and upper-class population.

As such, what business does this administration have cutting multiple historic programs amidst an admitted hunt for a lucrative outlet through which to showcase its football

games?

There is a certain social contract that comes when an entity receives state tax money, in that said corporation or group will work to engender the public good above clamoring for fame or monetary success for its own sake. When the trustees of a university that receives state aid hold a public meeting wherein they flatly deny students and taxpayers the simple opportunity to speak their minds, as Temple’s trustees did after the sports cuts on Dec. 10, the unspoken contract that Pennsylvania’s tax money works to better the lives of its citizens is broken.

Granted, Temple – like most public universities – is not funded fully via tax money, and covers most of its expenses by charging tuition. Moreover, Temple is not even a fully “public” entity, its status mired instead in a confusing “state-related” system that hands four of the largest universities in Pennsylvania taxpayer cash without demanding that said schools be fully subject to the state’s Rightto-Know laws.

But the point still stands: Does this school – as well as every other public school in America – merely exist to spend taxpayer money in the most efficient way possible, or does it have a deeper responsibility to use its position to preserve the public good?

Russell Conwell, founder

of what was then called Temple College, was a Baptist minister and a man who believed that instilling a moral backbone in his students carried some sort of intrinsic and spiritual value that mattered on a far deeper level than what it may cost to add lighting to a baseball stadium over the course of an offseason.

“Greatness consists not in the holding of some future office, but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life,” Conwell often said when reciting his speech “Acres of Diamonds.”

Waking up at 4 a.m. to push an oar through the Schuylkill River builds real backbone.

Waking up at the same time to set up a tailgating tent does not. If we increasingly allow our schools to slowly shave away the programs that do not provide an immediate returnon-investment – Division I Olympic sports at colleges as far-reaching as the University of Maryland, the Universities of California at Davis and Berkeley, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington were all cut within the last five years – we will soon wake up in a world far grayer and less diverse than the one we inhabit now.

Jerry Iannelli can be reached at jerryi@temple.edu or on Twitter @jerryiannelli.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

COMMENTARY

PAGE 5

Break-in, Gymnasts welcomed gay athletes Promise zones for but not N. Phila broken What does it feel like to have your apartment robbed?

I

Dan Craig can be reached at daniel.craig@temple.edu.

T

emple’s administration has claimed that an important factor affecting its decision to cut seven sports on Dec. 6 was the university’s compliance, or lack thereof, with Title IX. The title requires that athletic scholarship money be divided to reflect the gender proportions of the student body. Before the cuts, just Grace Holleran 42 percent of athletic aid went to women, who make up more than half of Temple’s undergraduates.

However, cutting five men’s sports may not actually make Temple’s athletic programs more accessible across the board.

Temple’s men’s gymnast i c s

team, which will lose its Division I sponsorship as of July 1, provided a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere to gay athletes – part of the student population that appears to have been overlooked in regards to the recent cuts, and is consistently overlooked at the national level.

Evan Burke, a 2013 Temple alumnus who was on the team for five years, recently wrote an article for Outsports. com that reflected his positive experience with being a gay athlete on the gymnastics team. “[Being homosexual] was just never an issue,” the former kinesiology major told The Temple News. “They met guys I’d be dating, I’d go on doubledates with some of them. It was kind of like just being a family rather than a team.”

Clay Stewart, a 2007 graduate with a degree in finance, felt similarly.

“We got along so great,” Stewart said. “It was a respectful environment.”

Within the atmosphere of

TUMG, sexuality simply did not matter, multiple athletes said. And because the team had several openly gay members, it was recognized across Philadelphia for its tolerance.

“Instinct Magazine, Philadelphia Gay News, Outsports, so many publications have covered our experience, so we’ve proven how accepting Temple is in general,” Burke said.

“The Equality Forum would extend tickets for us for free to go to dinners,” Stewart said. He added that the entire team, which encompassed politically conservative and religious views, accompanied him to LGBTQ events. In addition, Stewart has spoken at human sexuality classes at Temple.

Gymnastics is far from the only sport that gay athletes participate in, but cutting a D-I team that was not only accepting and respectful, but also recognized outside of Temple for being such, will have a lasting impact on the LGBTQ community at large.

“You’re taking away the opportunity of bringing kids to Temple, and people know they’re accepting of LGBT students,” Burke said.

“Any time we see athletes openly out, it’s a good thing for any environment,” Stewart said.

What kind of message does cutting a program like this send to incoming LGBTQ freshmen? Where does cutting our LGBTQ-friendly programs leave students like Stewart, who only knew what Temple was because of the men’s gymnastics team?

While President Theobald strived to promote equal opportunity, he neglected a vital and vibrant part of not only Temple’s community, but also the city’s community at large.

To some, the men’s gymnastics team is just one team of seven that will not be returning next year. But to many, an important and iconic facet of Philadelphia’s LGBTQ community will be lost forever.

Grace Holleran can be reached at grace.elizabeth. holleran@temple. edu or on Twitter @coupsdegrace.

JUSTIN NOWAK TTN

can be an anxious person. In fact, that’s probably an understatement, which is why I was surprised with my own reaction to my apartment being robbed.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving – while I was home on break – my roommates and I received a text from our upstairs neighbor. Someone had broken in to her apartment, as well as the other apartment above us on the second floor.

Our door was the only one of the three apartments in our complex Dan Craig that hadn’t been opened, but she couldn’t get in to check whether anything had happened since our door was locked.

There was a slight glimmer of hope before coming back to school that our place hadn’t been hit. That was quickly erased after seeing my bedroom window wide open with footprints on my desk. It turns out that was the point of entry, and the perpetrator had taken my roommate’s video game system and a pair of expensive speakers from another.

They didn’t take anything of financial value from me. However, I wish the person had if it meant he or she would give back the vintage shot glasses I had collected from different European countries I visited while studying abroad.

I kept waiting for a shiver of fear or helplessness to take over while filing the police report or going to sleep after it happened to accompany the material loss. Despite the clichéd questions about what it felt like to have a stranger in our apartment, the anxiety never came.

I’ll admit that a five-iron golf club now sits within grabbing distance of the head of my bed.

The surprising calmness I felt was something I can’t explain.

Maybe subconsciously I’d prepared myself for something like this to happen considering Temple’s location. Or maybe if more had been taken, I’d feel worse about it. I’m really not sure.

I was sure of one thing: I didn’t want people to know – or at least my family and friends who don’t go to Temple.

I think my fellow Temple students can relate. I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve been asked if I felt safe walking around campus at night or if I thought there was enough security. On one instance, I was asked if I had bought a gun in a sad attempt at a joke.

I love living in the city, and even more so, I love going to Temple. I’ve spent the last four years trying to slowly break down the annoying and oftentimes incorrect stereotypes about going to school in North Philly. I’m not arguing that Temple doesn’t deserve that reputation in some respects. However, the generalizations are often based on a small minority of bad personal experiences, reinforced by media coverage and occasionally masked by racism.

Plenty of us didn’t come from urban areas and were warned by people back home when we decided to become Owls. And although we know going to school at Temple isn’t the terrifying experience some people believe it to be, sometimes those “worst case scenarios” become reality.

I’m a little more meticulous when locking my apartment now, and I’m more easily startled when I hear noises in the night. But I don’t for a second regret going to Temple. And no, I haven’t bought a gun.

Temple may have fixed its Title IX compliance, but hurt its LGBTQ athletes.

The NCAA is failing in real time As more Olympic sports are cut nationwide, the NCAA has little reason to exist.

T

he articles and protests in response to Temple’s recent athletic cuts fall short in one area: Most of them lack a call for action from the NCAA. If the NCAA is to live up to both its legal mission statement and ethical obligation to students, Joe Brandt then it should not allow these cuts to happen.

Article 1.3.1 of the NCAA Division I Manual for 2013-14 states that the NCAA exists to promote collegiate athletics in order to “retain a clear line of demarcation between intercollegiate athletics and professional sports,” due to the fact that “intercollegiate athletics [are] an integral part of the educational program, and the athlete [is] an integral part of the student body.”

This “Fundamental Poli-

OPINION DESK 215-204-7416

cy” rests on the intentionally vague lawyer-phrase “clear line of demarcation.” With these cuts, the NCAA seems to be allowing Temple to cross that line.

While professional sports feature sizable player salaries, gargantuan TV contracts and huge corporate sponsorships, college sports have traditionally taken a different approach to sports than the professionals do, one that focuses on amateurism. Old-fashioned college sports fans will claim that because these amateurs don’t make a profit, they must love the game more.

Regardless of what fans want, money has become a driving factor in college athletics.

Big-money sports like football and basketball have turned their college equivalents into the competitive minor leagues they always lacked, and colleges don’t seem to mind.

Athletic Director Kevin Clark told the Inquirer in Au-

gust that “football and basketball drive the bus. They generate the revenue, so we have to invest in those programs.” The same article concludes with a quote from President Theobald on a possibly solvent future for Temple athletics. “It’s really going to depend on football,” he said, admitting that “football runs the show in athletics, financially.” Earlier in the piece, Theobald excuses the fact that football loses more than $7 million a year. Since an “average NCAA athletic program loses almost $8 million a year,” football’s losses are “right in line,” Theobald argued.

The seven sports Temple cut may have had success, but they were unable to produce revenue. Some of the teams were also in need of new or updated facilities, such as a boathouse for the crew and rowing teams, and this made the teams even less attractive for Temple’s future plans.

Temple’s bowing down to the dollar seems to be crossing that line which the NCAA

“Regardless

of what fans want, money has become the driving factor in college athletics.

”

LETTERS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

swears to protect. Professional sports let money control them, too. After this semester is over, there will now be seven fewer opportunities to “fight, fight, fight for the cherry and the white.”

Though the administration will describe the cuts as an unfortunate but necessary financial move, they know not the moral damage they have done.

Athletes should not have to fear the demise of their sport if it does not have ample opportunities to sell Mountain Dew or appear on ESPN. If college sports are “an integral part of the educational program and the athlete [is] an integral part of the student body,” as the NCAA says, then Temple’s integral parts are now smaller in size and strength. If the NCAA exists to facilitate opportunity for athletes, then it should not allow opportunities to disappear. If American college students are supposed to count on the NCAA to defend their classmates’ “integral” sports, then it is in the NCAA’s best interest not to let them down.

Joe Brandt can be reached at joseph.brandt@temple.edu.

President Obama’s second phase of promise zones should include North Philly.

S

ince the beginning of the Great Recession, an increasing number of American neighborhoods have become suffused with the opposing characteristics of prosperity: fewer jobs, worsening safety and – unsurprisingly – less optimism about residents realizing their version of the “American dream.”

S o m e communities, such as North Philadelphia, were battling the effects of poverty decades before the 2008 r e c e s s i o n , Romsin McQuade which only exacerbated the situation.

President Obama’s recent proposal to implement “promise zones” is a possible remedy.

These promise zones would allow for a “partnering with local communities and businesses to create jobs, increase economic security, expand educational opportunities and increase access to quality, affordable housing and improve public safety,” according to the White House’s Jan. 8 press release.

The release states the program will include physical undertakings such as demolishing abandoned buildings, focusing on infrastructure developments and providing youth with leadership training through the sponsorship of educational and state initiatives.

Five areas were chosen from across the country to spearhead the program, representing the Northeast, West Coast, Midwest and the South.

While the neighborhood of Mantua, located in West Philadelphia, was chosen to represent the Northeast, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development claims it will designate 15 more communities over the next three years. North Philadelphia would seem like the perfect match.

According to recent American Community Survey estimates, multiple zip codes in North Philadelphia contain households in which more than 50 percent of the population makes a yearly salary lower than $14,999, which amounts to those households living at poverty level – per the 2013 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which considers a family of three impoverished at $19,530 per year.

You still might be asking: but why North Philly?

Rewind to last spring, when students, parents and educators alike mourned the closings of 23 Philadelphia schools. Of those schools closed, more than half were located in North Philadelphia. Now, a paltry amount remains.

One of the core components of promise zones is the reliance and cooperation of the local communities, including their businesses and organizations.

It seems that Temple is in a unique situation, as it already facilitates communications between students and the local population.

If North Philly were to be designated as a promise zone, some of the many jobs Temple could perform are as simple as job fairs or training seminars.

The unwritten promise, after all, was that with perseverance, a positive attitude and a supportive network, better days were ahead.

Making it a promise zone has the ability to start a new promise – one in which they aren’t abandoned.

Romsin McQuade can be reached at romsin.mcquade@temple.edu.

NEWS

PAGE 6

In The Nation

2012. Of those tested, 60 percent were reading at a fourth-to-eighth-grade level and roughly 10 percent scored below a STUDY AT UNC FINDS ATHLETES third-grade level.

READING BELOW H.S. LEVEL

-Marcus McCarthy A study from a faculty member at the University of North Carolina is catching a lot of flak from the university’s admin- COLLEGE CAMPUSES CONSIDER istrators for claiming test results paint a E-CIGARETTE BAN dismal picture of the school’s football Cigarette bans on campuses have and basketball players’ literacy rates. been a rising trend in the United States The study was based on 10-minute with around 1,200 institutions particitimed vocabulary standardized tests pating, according to the American Nonhanded out to 183 of UNC’s basketball smokers’ Rights Foundation. Now, the and football players between 2004 and

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

universities are considering a ban on ecigarettes.

Although these devices do not cause secondhand smoking, questions of their health to the user are showing they could be more dangerous than regular cigarettes.

The universities considering these bans include the University of Iowa and some branches of the University of California, among others.

Crime

-Marcus McCarthy

MAXI’S CITED FOLLOWING POLICE BUST OF UNDERAGE DRINKING The state Liquor Control Board busted Maxi’s Pizza and Bar on Liacouras Walk early Sunday morning around 12:30 a.m. resulting in arrests and citations for underage alcohol consumption and false identification.

There were four Temple students and five non-Temple associated people charged. Maxi’s was cited for the incident, Campus Safety Services reported.

-Marcus McCarthy

Letter written to district on William Penn High James Creedon, senior vice president for construction, facilities and operations, said the university submitted an expression of interest to the district in mid-December, including an overview of what the property might be used for.

Creedon said the front part of the building could be repurposed if the university was to receive the property, and it would also look at using the back part of the property for athletic fields. The much-specu-

lated about on-campus football stadium is not in the university’s vision for use of the property, he said.

Fernando Gallard, a spokesperson for the school district, declined to say how many bids the district received on the property, saying such speculation is “not beneficial towards overall real estate.”

William Penn High School was one of 21 properties listed for sale and requesting expressions of interest, Gallard said.

DEVELOPERS PAGE 1

The school district received 18 total responses for properties.

In September, The Temple News reported that the university had previously submitted a bid for the Wanamaker School property that was ultimately won by the Bright Hope/Goldenberg Group partnership.

This spring, the university is expected to release its Visualize Temple initiative, a project that by then will have been a year in the making, and is expected to include a substantial

relook at Main Campus space and new building projects.

The View at Montgomery apartment complex has room to house more than 800 students in one- to four-bedroom apartments. The complex also includes study space, a lounge, a 24/7 gym, standup tanning beds, washer and dryer units with personal allotment cards and lease options for 80 parking spaces.

In addition, the complex will hold 11,000 square feet of

retail space, with agreements already signed for Chipotle and Potbelly Sandwich Shop restaurants. Mark Caltabiano, a manager at the View at Montgomery for Asset Campus Housing, which is handling leases for the property, said discussions are ongoing with several clients to fill two to three other spaces by next fall.

Asset Campus Housing recently opened a small office on the site’s property, complete with sample kitchens and floor-

Small expectations for Corbett’s new wage law A new law affecting wages on public projects will not lead to campus changes, admins say.

MARCUS MCCARTHY Assistant News Editor State lawmakers in Harrisburg changed a wage law in the name of saving public entities money on conADMINISTRAITON struction projects, but Temple officials said the university won’t see much of a change.

Having not changed since 1961, the prevailing wage was the regular industry wage at the time depending on the construction trade, as dictated by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry as well as Bureau of Labor Law Compliance, required on projects that cost more than $25,000. Signed into law in November as part of the state transportation funding bill, the prevailing wage will now only be required on projects over $100,000.

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The rhetoric of supporters for the bill’s passage said the point of this change was to allow public entities to cut down their production costs on projects by reducing construction wages.

Temple, being a semi-publicly-funded institution, is required to follow the prevailing wage laws.

Jim Creedon, senior vice president of construction, facilities and operations, said that he doesn’t believe Temple contractors will trim their wages for cheaper production costs. He said that Temple is likely to keep wages at or above prevailing wage regardless of the project’s cost in interest of incentivizing the best in respective construction trades to work on Temple contracts.

“You get what you pay for,” Creedon said. “I know our usual contractors. I see a minimal to zero decrease in their wages for future contracts with us.”

Creedon also said he doesn’t see taking advantage of this to be economically beneficial. He explained that after other expenses such as construction materials and temporary utilities, wages make up a fraction of any sub-$100,000 project. This change would only save a

small part of that fraction, he said, not noticeable enough to justify cutting wages.

The change in state prevailing wage requirements came as part of a massive transportation funding bill that had been in the works for months. The bill included funding for public transit including SEPTA, more funding for bridges roads and highways, a raise in the tax on gas sales, a raise in traffic violation fines, a raised speed limit on to-be-determined highways and a future raise in driver license fees.

The loosening of wage requirements was argued by proponents to make transit network construction more affordable for public entities. They also argued that since the prevailing wage requirement formally required on projects exceeding $25,000 had not been adjusted since 1961, inflation had made the threshold outdated in today’s dollar value therefore requiring an adjustment.

Critics of the prevailing wage element of the bill feared the economic damage that allowing wage cuts could have.

According to Temple’s Vendor Report for Fiscal Year 2012, a large

amount of contracts were made with construction companies with price tags ranging from $2,000 to $12,068,788.

Four of these contractors did not respond to interview requests from The Temple News by the time of press.

Additionally, the Department of Labor and Industry did not return multiple inquiries from The Temple News.

The prevailing wage threshold will reportedly not change much on the state level as well. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, only a fraction of projects by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation are under $100,000.

Although Temple is unlikely to see a change in construction expenditures, additional state funding for SEPTA and roads will affect the Philadelphia area, according to Gov. Tom Corbett. “There is barely a spot in Pennsylvania…that will not see an improvement because of this legislation,” Corbett said in a speech in Spring Mills, Pa. Marcus McCarthy can be reached at marcus.mccarthy@temple.edu or follow on Twitter @marcusmccarthy6.

ing for students interested in leasing. Electronic leases are also available on the building’s website. Prices are based on individual situations, Caltabiano said.

“The spaces are flying off the shelf,” Caltabiano said, adding that several floor plans have already sold out.

John Moritz can be reached at john.moritz@temple.edu or on Twitter @JCMoritzTU.

Security PAGE 1

one-size-fits-all kind of plan,” he said. “It depends on the demand of each building.”

For example, the Science Education and Research Center that will be completed in Summer 2014 will have an enhanced turn-style door that is similar to Morgan Hall.

Other security models, such as the ID card scanners at the TECH Center, have been efficient, yet it can cause long lines.

“We don’t want students to experience a long wait like an airport,” Leone said. “Each building will be picked out to test different security options.”

One possible long-term solution for CSS is to have a universal security system that will be successful for every building on campus.

“A uniformed security measure for every building is possible,” Leone said. “In a couple of years, it may happen.”

Eddie Barrenenchea can be reached at eddie.barrenenchea@temple. edu.

LIVING

GIRL POWER BRAND

MEALS ON WHEELS

Alumna Kristen Kenner started ‘On the Verj,’ a women’s empowerment brand. The business has partnered with Operation Prom.

PAGE 15

An owner of The Tot Cart explains her reasons for keeping Main Campus on her truck’s route, while others have abandoned for Center City.

PAGE 15

temple-news.com

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2013

CLASSROOM MEETS CHATROOM

Students and professors have differing views about the benefits of online classroom learning.

PAGE 8 PAGE 7

On and off the hockey rink, Karega shoots for equality Master’s candidate Tarasai Karega acts as a role model for kids interested in sports.

ERIN EDINGER-TUROFF

Living Editor

W

hen Tarasai Karega watched “The Mighty Ducks” at 7 years old, it never crossed her mind that it might be considered unusual for her to want to play ice hockey.

The fancy tricks and maneuvers she saw on the screen

looked cool – she wanted to learn. Even when she did begin to encounter the stereotype that African-Americans don’t play ice hockey, she didn’t hang up her skates.

The sports business master’s candidate has encountered that stereotype, even from her own extended family at times, since she started playing the sport at age 9. Growing up as one of two African-American girls at a private school in Michigan, Karega was surrounded by other students who played hockey – they just didn’t expect her to have that in common with them.

Despite the challenges she encountered, Karega played

hockey throughout her undergraduate education, but her involvement with the industry didn’t stop with being an athlete.

Karega said she believes the sports industry has significant opportunities for young people, something she strives to impress upon the youth of Philadelphia through her past work at Black Women in Sport Foundation and current employment at the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation.

Balancing the pursuit of her master’s degree part-time with her full-time day job, she hopes to become a role model for kids who dream about a career in the industry.

“I think especially in today’s society, we see a lot of kids who see professional athletes on TV and their dream is to become the next Kobe Bryant or the next Lebron James,” Karega said. “It’s definitely not a dream I’m going to shatter – if you want to become a professional athlete, that’s great. I just think sometimes kids miss the steps [between] becoming an amateur and a professional. My job is to help them bridge that gap.”

Karega coaches hockey at the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation. Much like her mentor and the founder of BWSF, Professor Emerita Tina Sloan Green, Karega said she believes physical activity and participa-

tion in team activity are invaluable aspects of any child’s education.

Green, the first AfricanAmerican woman head coach in

HOCKEY PAGE 8

Karega played collegiate ice hockey and is now pursuing a master’s degree. | COURTESY TARASAI KAREGA

A River Captured

Tyler student Hannah Close is working on her Susquehanna Photography Project for the duration of this semester as a thesis project. PAGE 14. | COURTESY HANNAH CLOSE

Alumni aim For students, feminism not defined by gender for holistic The Temple Area Collective counseling Feminist confronts societal A therapy clinic on Main Campus is run by alumni hoping to expand their practice.

BRIAN TOM The Temple News It all started with an overcrowding of Tuttleman Counseling Services.

Today, Hornstein, Platt & Associates strives to provide “holistic, insurance-based psychotherapy” services to its community members. The aim of the center is to bring patients “one step closer to a new you where you feel more control over your life and on a positive path toward growth and well-being.”

HPA is a private therapy practice created with the efforts of Executive Director Randi Platt and clinical director and

THERAPY PAGE 16

standards.

JESSICA SMITH Asst. Living Editor It’s not a girl thing.

The members of the Temple Area Feminist Collective have plenty of different ideas about the definition of feminism, but they all agree that activism is open to both genders.

“When people hear the word ‘feminism,’ they automatically think of a bunch of women arguing about how women are the superior gender,” said freshman university studies major Megan Jones. “But in reality, feminist ideologies fight for the equality of all sexes.”

A recent recruit of TAFC, Jones said the collective aims to combat rape culture and raise awareness of stereotypes – concepts that she said are basic human rights.

“We try to explore the posi-

LIVING DESK 215-204-7416

tions which intersect with femininity, like race, class, sexuality and gender identity, among others,” said sophomore women and gender studies major Morgen Snowadzky. “An important thing to remember about feminism is that it is inconsistent. It lacks a solid definition, which is sometimes the beauty of it.”

Although Snowadzky was responsible for creating the organization in the fall and hosts Thursday night meetings in her living room, she holds no title of leadership. She said the group is structured non-hierarchically.

“The goal is to be open to learning from each other to form a greater common knowledge,” Snowadzky said.

That goal is one of many outlined in TAFC’s manifesto that includes eliminating girl hate, appreciating the benefits of an anti-capitalist stance and fighting back against oppressive institutionalized and internalized power structures.

“So often you see college students doing things only because it looks good on a résumé,” said sophomore political

science and women’s studies major Tom DiAgostino. “But with this organization, people are there because they care and because they are passionate about radical intersectional feminism.”

It wasn’t hard for the group to generate interest quickly.

Snowadzky said she contrib-

utes the success to the women and gender studies major, which she described as a “built-in safe space for feminism.”

“We would get together to study, but end up just discussing feminist issues until one in the morning,” Snowadzky said.

“I would imagine it’s more difficult to find out if you have

fellow feminist allies in [other] majors or departments.”

While Snowadzky said the meetings usually have about 20 members in attendance, their Facebook group has ballooned to more than 220 members who post thoughts and share relevant links daily.

FEMINIST PAGE 15

The Temple Area Feminist Collective meets regularly to discuss current issues in society including rape culture and gender role expectations. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

LIVING@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

LIVING

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INSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Deflating threats to natural world

TUESDAY, JANUARY, 2013

Temple should consider the harsh effects of littering when decorating campuses with balloons.

I

n the Northeastern Atlantic Ocean, a bird is strangled.

Cause of death: balloons.

Turtles are found dead with 40 pounds of balloons in their stomachs. In 1985, an infant sperm whale, an endangered species, was found dead, after one balloon and string was lodged in its Toby Forstater esophagus.

To d a y, Green Living balloons hang from trees and buildings on Temple’s Ambler and Main campuses without concern.

Some folks on Ambler Campus, however, are paying attention to the risks of improperly disposed balloons for wildlife and are making moves away from the colored latex, Mylar and nylon balloons. The Ambler Campus Sustainability Council aims to begin encouraging Ambler faculty, students and staff to use balloon alternatives.

“Birthday parties and any kind of celebration today seem to be filled with balloons, even graduations,” co-chair of the ACSC Anne Brennan, said.

“People seem hardwired to like balloons, but more and more people are saying, ‘Wow, we shouldn’t be doing this anymore.’”

It seems like a minimal effort has been made to remove the neglected balloons stuck in trees, which should be a major concern of all students who value the safety of other species.

Balloons have littered our environment for decades. Rarely are they cleaned and properly disposed of, but with enough effort from Main Campus and Ambler students, this could change in the near future.

Brian Linton, founder of the clothes and apparel store United by Blue, is a Temple alumnus who is leading the way in the effort.

For every product purchased at his store, he promises to pick up a pound of trash. With the help of more than 3,500 volunteers, UBB has excavated 171,000 pounds of trash in more than 100 cleanups in 21 states nationwide.

Without such cleanups, birds become trapped and usually die. Unfortunately, we don’t have accurate statistics to depict the predicament because few are paying attention.

Brennan, Robert Kuper, co-chair of the Ambler Campus Sustainability Council, and Deborah Howe, chair of community and regional planning department, are taking notice. They said it is important for others to notice, too, with an aim to garner support from the student body. The main concern is the waste of helium and non-recyclable balloons, the use of which they h o p e t o d i s cour-

age.

Most everyone is familiar of the spectacle of balloons floating into the clouds. However, catching a breeze could blow them right into the ocean.

According to BalloonsBlow.org, “Balloons can travel thousands of miles and pollute the most remote and pristine places. Dolphins, whales, turtles and many other marine species, as well as terrestrial animals such as cows, dogs, sheep, tortoises, birds and other animals have all been hurt or killed by balloons.”

The turtles, fish and other aquatic animals mistake the objects for food. Because the balloons are plastic, they cannot move past the stomach, making the animals feel full. They soon die of starvation with the trash caught in their digestive systems.

Other than balloons littering the earth and depleting wildlife, we are wasting tons of helium in the process. This finite resource is running low globally. Helium actually has practical uses: electronic manufacturing, science and medicine, such as MRIs. We shouldn’t be wasting this important resource for temporary and minor enjoyment.

Popular Mechanics notes that the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve, which supplies roughly 75 percent of the market, may only last another 5 to 10 years.

A government mandate to eliminate U.S. sales is set for 2015.

All of this is why Kuper and Brennan are looking for alternatives to balloons. Already, the Ambler Student Government has purchased a reusable retractable banner. Other options for decorative purposes are flags, recycled origami and tear-drop banners.

“Some of these alternatives have higher initial costs, but they can be used for longer,” K u per

said.

“The benefits, on the large scale, [are that] balloons don’t end up in the ocean and on campus. Also, so we don’t have to deal with these Mylar balloons without responsible disposal.”

The balloons being used on both Temple campuses are not recyclable. The ACSC is trying to focus on small, practical issues that can be addressed quickly, inexpensively and have a noticeable impact on campus.

“It seems, on our campus, even within the past year, much progress has been made,” Brennan said.

“Recycling and other initiatives like switching to recycled printer paper. It seems like we’ve touched on some of the bigger issues that have the biggest impact. I think this is the right time for this.”

Though some issues arise with online classes due to Internet connectivity issues, some professors prefer the chatroom setting to large lecture halls. Students recall feeling on the spot when asking questions in online classes. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

A new realm of learning Students and teachers offer differing views on online classes.

CLAIRE SASKO The Temple News Accounting Professor Christian Wurst sits quietly in his home office while his dog, curled up and asleep, lies by his feet. On the computer screen in front of him, he toggles between selections of some 40 students’ live webcam feeds during one of his online classes.

This, Wurst said, is face-toface interaction, despite the fact that the faces are pixelated on the computer screen.

“The only difference is that we aren’t breathing the same air,” he said.

Some argue that personal interaction, a crucial part of education, cannot occur between computer screens. This is one of the reasons why it is sometimes suggested that online courses will never be as successful as traditional classes.

Despite these perceived limits, Wurst disagreed. He noted a number of benefits provided by online courses.

“In a classroom, I don’t get to know more than 10 to 15 percent of classes of 300 students,” he said. “Online classes tend to be smaller and more intimate insofar as that I get the feeling that I’m looking and talking directly to you one at a time.”

But sophomore Alex Suleski, who recently took an accounting class online, said some students may feel discouraged from participating online for various reasons.

“It’s a chat room, and whenever you ask a question, your face pops up on the screen

for everyone to see,” Suleski said. “That made people not want to ask questions because it put them on the spot.”

Not all online courses operate with chat room-style interaction, but it is typical among online classes at Temple. Wurst said he believes technology is a useful tool in that it can adjust to the needs of different students, especially if they don’t like a particular style of teaching.

“Good technology has to be transparent,” Wurst said. “Just like a fish doesn’t know he’s in water, when you’re teaching online you have to not know you’re online.”

Wurst credits some of his success with technology to Darin Kapanjie, who is in charge of Temple’s Online and Digital Learning Team. The team helps professors manipulate the technology necessary for online courses.

“They had a tech guy sitting next to me for the first five weeks,” Wurst said. “They were unbelievably helpful.”

Kapanjie said he sees technology as an essential stream between the professor and the student.

“I wouldn’t teach online if I couldn’t get my online students the same experiences as regular students,” Kapanjie said.

Professors like Kapanjie and Wurst not only attempt to give online and traditional students similar experiences, but also similar workloads. “[Online classes] can be harder because you have to master the same content with the same standards and rigor, but you have to learn the technology,” Kapanjie said. “You’re either going to do it and keep up with it well, or not and fail really quick.”

This may come as a surprise to students who believe online courses are comparatively easier. Some students said they often don’t expect a demanding workload and become overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility.

“You have to be able to learn a certain way,” Suleski said. “It takes a lot of self-motivation. There isn’t anything to make you focus. You have to want the class or you probably won’t like it.”

Still, students continue to enroll.

Kapanjie said online courses are becoming increasingly popular, and “the No. 1 reason is convenience and flexibility.”

Suleski recommended online courses for students who can manage their time efficiently, can keep up with deadlines and are comfortable tracking assignments and updates.

Academic adviser Harriet Butterfield, however, said she never recommends online courses to students.

“It depends too much on your preference to your learning style and how you do things,” Butterfield said.

For students who tend to procrastinate, online courses are likely dangerous, Butterfield said, but she did not deny that these courses are opportune to some.

“If [students] aren’t in the area or are working, online classes might work very well,” Butterfield said. “It’s convenient for a student to do the class online and do it more on their own time.”

Other benefits include saving both time and money without the commute. Wurst noted that online classes alleviate the stress of potentially inclement

weather for busy students.

Even with the benefits, the Internet can brew some storms of its own. Suleski and Wurst recalled a few nights when Blackboard was down.

“I once had a midterm exam review scheduled and Hurricane Sandy took out the tower, so I had no power and hence no Internet,” Wurst said. “But this year, I showed up to give a final to 350 kids and the door of the classroom was locked. It’s the same scenario – you just need a different key.”

Along with reliable Internet connection, instructors need to accurately assess a student’s effort and achievement, Wurst said.

For Kapanjie, this means live proctoring exams, which includes technology that allows the instructor to see a student’s face, keystrokes and everything in the room during the time of an online exam. For Wurst, this means pooling questions for an exam so questions vary for the same test. Both professors agreed that there will always be cheaters, whether inside a classroom or online.

Professors find it no surprise that online courses are gaining popularity in an age of such connectivity. Wurst said he sees larger benefits that could potentially reach around the world.

“I can see how this would deliver education for some real-world areas,” he said.” “We can deliver greater benefits to a greater number of students.”

Claire Sasko can be reached at claire.sasko@temple.edu.

Scoring interest in sports in community

the history of women’s intercollegiate lacrosse, was Temple’s lacrosse coach from 1973 to 1992. She has been significantly commemorated in the sporting world for her coaching achievements and activism.

It was Green, Karega said, who encouraged her to return to school to pursue a master’s degree. The spark of interest had already been ignited when a family friend, who sits on a board with the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, suggested Karega could someday even own her own sports team.

The BWSF was formally established in 1992 to encourToby Forstater can be reached at tobymf@temple.edu. age and enable women on an intergenerational level to be active and engaged in sport. As Green said, however, the foundation

HOCKEY PAGE 7 isn’t just about athletic ability.

“There’s a developmental value in sports,” Green said.

“We’re not looking to produce champion athletes, we’re interested in producing good people.

[We want to give] them reasons to be leaders and stay in school.

I think it’s one of the greatest ways to teach the value of diversity. My teams at Temple were always diverse and they had to work together to win.”

Karega hopes to model the foundation’s mentality in her own work. She said she feels she can act as a mentor by showing students interested in pursuing sports professionally that being an athlete isn’t the only option available to them.

“For all the people who want to be professional athletes,

there just aren’t enough spots,” Karega said. “That’s where my story comes in – I was a collegiate athlete, I had a lot of success playing ice hockey and I’m still connected with the ice hockey industry and the sports industry with my career and my academic status. A lot of kids don’t know that you can study medicine and be an athletic trainer for a team, or you can study law and help negotiate contracts for athletes.”

In addition, since ice hockey is what Green called “a hard sell to the black community” in many areas due to lack of accessibility and funds, Karega acted as a key advocate for the sport among board members of BWSF and participating students alike.

“She actually was able to really change the opinion of my staff and parents,” Green said.

“She was a real trailblazer and change agent.”

Green added that Karega is a “great role model” and anticipates her mentee having success in the sports business world.

Though Karega said owning her own sports team is “definitely something I’d want to look into,” she currently aspires to break into the field of corporate partnerships for teams.

Erin EdingerTuroff can be reached at erin.edinger-turoff@temple.edu or on Twitter @erinJustineET.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LOVESICK FOR OFFBEAT WEDDINGS

PAVING THE WAY

Ariel Meadows Stallings shared her nontraditional wedding tips through her blog “Offbeat Bride” at Philadelphia’s Lovesick Expo earlier this month.

PAGE 12

12+ is a local nonprofit looking to help high school students trying to make their way into college with the help of volunteers from Temple and other universities and colleges.

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temple-news.com

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

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Local playwrights impact neighborhoods Artists are helping to evolve new communities through theater.

EMILY ROLEN The Temple News Michelle Pauls and her husband Stan Heleva, founders of the Walking Fish Theatre, were artists rentTHEATER ing an apartment in Northern Liberties for 10 years, but when it came time to buy a house and raise a family, they couldn’t afford the neighborhood.

“Kensington is more affordable for artists,” Pauls said.

“We decided that if we were to continue to do theater, we wanted to have our own place where we could have more control over the production of it. We found the building at 2509 Frankford Ave. and saw

how we could make an impact on our community.”

Since opening Walking Fish Theatre a little more than seven years ago, the company has produced four main stage shows annually, as well as countless co-productions with other local arts groups, provided classes and workshops, produced standup comedy shows, burlesque and family theater and has earned a reputation for supporting Philly-based art.

Evident in its tendency to promote and hire local playwrights, actors and young artists, Pauls

said Walking Fish believes that making art and theater readily available in a community is essential.

“When people experience art and take part in it, they see the parameters of their world expand,” Pauls said.

Walking Fish recently supported LabFest, an initiative with the Philadelphia Dramatist Center. The program combined the playwrights of

the PDC and the mechanisms to produce from the Walking Fish.

Pauls said she and her husband read more than 30 plays and then worked on three of them with their directors to develop them.

“I’ve never writ-

ten a play in such short amount E f o PAG

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ANDREW THAYER TTN

DIY-ers change the music game Bands offering “nameyour-own-price” albums give listeners the option of free music.

T

hroughout the last decade, the traditional means of discovering local bands changed.

Maybe it took a holiday, or perhaps it got lost, but my theory is that it died. Murdered, in fact.

But before we panic, let’s take a minute to remember those good old days.

Local shows were the place for d i s c o v e r y.

New music pounded the walls of Jared Whalen gritty baseConcrete ments, livColored ing rooms odd Basements and rental spaces. Xeroxed fliers stapled to a telephone pole meant hearing a new band for the first time.

But, this isn’t the case.

Concerts are still alive, but they aren’t the sole method of discovering music anymore. This brings us to our murderous culprit – the download.

Downloading music isn’t new. Websites such as iTunes and Amazon have long since revolutionized how the world gets its audio fix.

What is relatively new is the growing presence of DIY talent on the web. The local music scene is no longer confined to venues. Instead, it is spread out across the Internet, connecting every angry suburban punk and indie city kid out there. So where do we discover most of our music? On our laptops, cellphones and tablets.

When I am invited to a show, the first thing I do is check the event’s Facebook page. In the description, I’ll find a list of the bands playing and underneath their name is unfailingly a link to their music.

DOWNLOAD PAGE 10

Pet portraits more than a pastime Perusing

Bill Apter’s mind, alley

Elizabeth Peterson paints pet portraits to pay off student debt.

CHELSEA FINN The Temple News Many 22-year-old college students are forced to abandon the skills they’ve learned in college for side jobs in order to pay off their accumulating debt.

Elizabeth Peterson, howART ever, has opted to paint pet portraits.

Peterson, a junior at the University of the Arts, said after using Craigslist for “normal things” such as looking for apartments, she thought, “Why not put an ad in for my work?”

Once a portrait painting major at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Peterson said she was able to use her experience to start her side project.

However, PAFA ended up only being a stepping-stone in Peterson’s life.

“It was an amazing school, but I wanted to study something with more possibilities,” Peterson said. “I knew I could be a little more creative with my practice and do something that would give me more job opportunities.”

Today, she studies illustra-

Bill Apter, wrestling reporter, shares his advice for success.

N

Elizabeth Peterson is using her skills as an illustration major at the University of the Arts to paint pet portraits to help pay off her student loans. | ELIZABETH PETERSON COURTESY tion at the University of the Arts.

“It’s a computer-based art, but I find it interesting to combine my classical art practices, like the portrait painting, with digital art,” she said.

Looking back, Peterson said she found her grandmother to be one of the most influential people in her life when it came to picking a career. Peterson said

she was intrigued by creativity at a young age since her grandmother was both a writer and an artist. This divided interest in writing and art created an unlikely inspiration in Peterson’s life.

“I just really want to connect to people more than anything,” Peterson said. “As I got older and was deciding what I

wanted to do, I would read [Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot’s] poems and feel a personal connection. I think that’s what art is all about.”

Continuing on her path toward art, Peterson said she feels lucky that she had the opportunity to attend a high school right outside of the Philadelphia re-

PORTRAITS PAGE 11

‘Pezheads’ range from families to students Loco Pez, named one of the best bars in Philly, gains business from all ages.

KERRI ANN RAIMO The Temple News Despite falling victim to an armed robbery last December, Fishtown’s Loco Pez still has its dedicated regulars NIGHTLIFE – lovingly dubbed “Pezheads” – and inquisitive newcomers.

“The neighborhood was great,” General Manager Sergio Ruiz said. “People came out the day after the incident occurred and were extremely supportive.”

The cash-only bar and ta-

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quería, located at 2401 E. Norris St., was named the 12th best bar of 2013 in Philadelphia by Foobooz. The establishment not only draws Fishtown locals and college students, but also the occasional child.

“It was funny, when we first opened we didn’t think that we were sort of a family restaurant, but there are a lot of young families that move into the area – there were a lot of highchairs in the restaurant at one point,” Ruiz said with a laugh, highlighting the numerous families that come with toddlers in tow, although the hotdogs at Loco Pez are presumably not the boiled and sliced type.

The “street dog,” a hotdog wrapped in bacon and topped with pico de gallo, jalapenos, beans, ketchup, mayonnaise

and mustard, pays homage to the Los Angeles street-inspired menu.

Loco Pez is a rough translation of “crazy fish,” which is a

take on the name of the bar that used to occupy the space: Crazy Fish Saloon.

The name and its transla-

LOCO PAGE 11

Loco Pez, located at 24th and Norris streets, is still successful despite a robbery in December.| ANDREW THAYER TTN

ARTSandENTERTAINMENT@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

estled in parts unknown, cough Dresher, Pa., cough, “Apter’s Alley” is the home of professional wrestling’s pioneer journalist Bill Apter.

Reporting for the trinity of wrasslin’ magazines known as Pro Wrestling Illustrated, the Wrestler and Inside Wrestling, Apter covered the squared circle action with a sense of legitimacy in an era John Corrigan when the Cheesesteaks media only and Chairshots focused on finding ketchup packets under the ring.

Conducting televised interviews in territories across the country, Apter gained national recognition by appearing on Ted Turner’s “superstation” for Jim Crockett Promotions during the mid-‘80s.

These days, Apter runs the popular grappling news website 1Wrestling.com and hosts the webshow, “Apter’s Alley.”

I’m lucky to write about my passion on a weekly basis, and it’s incredibly satisfying to receive complimentary feedback from readers on and off campus.

But for the Edward R. Murrow of wrasslin’ journalism to reach out to this wide-eyed student and invite me to his immaculate abode is mind-blowing.

I brought my friend Aizaz, a modern day Iron Sheik, and we drove through a blizzard to find Apter waving us into his driveway with one hand and holding his snowy “wrestling wonderdog” Lexi Rose in the other.

Removing our shoes at the door, we toured the homemade

APTER PAGE 12

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PAGE 10

MUSIC

Bandcamp changes DIY music scene

TUESDAY, JANUARTY 21, 2014

DOWNLOADS PAGE 9 From here I can listen to a band’s entire discography and form an opinion of it – all from the comfort of my living room.

I’ll pick on Bandcamp because I love it. When bands put up their music for download, they can set their own sale price.

Some decide on $1 a song, but quite a few have the option of ‘name your own price.’

Oh, the sweet relief I feel when I see that option. Whether it’s that I'm a Generation Y child who can’t commit to buying from a new artist or that it’s too much work to type in a credit card number, I am overjoyed that I can simply enter in $0.

This way, a listener can go from hearing about a band for the first time to having its music on their iPod with at least one chorus committed to memory in just a few keystrokes. But what is the result of such instant gratification mixed with content oversaturation? Both harsh reality and DIY utopia.

Bands can connect with fans like never before. While it used to take a record label or a sugar daddy to afford distributing an album, bands can now do it themselves, usually for free.

Additionally, the limits to where that music can go are almost endless. The Internet makes a band’s music just as accessible in its hometown as internationally.

The harsh reality is that while it’s easier for bands to distribute their music, it is becoming increasingly difficult to monetize it. Unless a group cleans up on T-shirts, it’s probably hard for band members to quit their day jobs.

With the oversaturation of music available online comes the arduous task of becoming heard as the five bands similar to yours become 15, then 30, all with almost identical links.

Targeting your local audience is grueling when they are obsessed with some indie band from 10,000 miles away.

Adapting to that change is the challenge. For listeners, there has never been a more diverse catalogue to choose from.

For bands, there has never been a larger audience. Sure, lots of artists will grumble when they have to sell their music for practically nothing. But in the spirit of DIY, most bands will be even happier that listeners can sing all the words to their songs.

City Rain released its newest album “Songs for a High School Dance” last year. The band raised $4,000 for it from Kickstarter.| COURTESY BEN RUNYAN

City Rain’s Ben Runyan ‘not Superman’ City Rain’s Ben Runyan discusses a new record and being yourself.

DAVID ZISSER The Temple News

Much ado is being made about the recent announcement that Paul McCartney MUSIC and Ringo Starr are shaking the dust off the Beatles’ catalogue and reuniting at the 56th iteration of the Grammys.

Long touted as the premier award show in the music industry, recipients of the honor include audio luminaries ranging from Miles Davis to Jay-Z to Trent Reznor. City Rain’s Ben Runyan said he believes it’s only a matter of time before he joins them.

“In the next two years, I want to win a Grammy,” Runyan said. “I think I can do it.”

The last time we spoke, Runyan had just wrapped up shooting the music video for his single “Join the Human Race.”

Jared Whalen can be reached Since then, his brain child, City at jared.whalen@temple.edu. Rain, has been nominated for a tri-state indie music award,

won a contest to get the music video for his signature track “The Optimist” to go into rotation on MTVU and raised $4,000 to fund a new record entitled “Songs for a High School Dance” via Kickstarter.

During our previous conversation, Runyan, a former Temple student, mentioned that he wanted to name his upcoming full-length “Songs for a High School Dance.” This time around, the name is set in stone and scheduled for release in March.

“Thematically, it’s definitely referencing the feelings of when you leave high school,” Runyan said. “You’re 17 or 18 and you kind of have a sense of this world wide open and that anything’s possible. And the point is, after college especially, the optimist thing really takes a nosedive. And you realize you’ve entered an extremely cruel, harsh world, and that death doesn’t choose favorites and success doesn’t choose favorites and everyone’s on an equal playing field. And to that point, the album title is trying to reclaim a bit of that youthful fervor.”

Sonically, it’s at least partially influenced by one particular Jon Heder film.

“In ‘Napoleon Dynamite,’ in the high school dance scene they’re playing Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young,’ and I’m a huge Alphaville fan and a huge Mario Gold fan, and that was just kind of like that cheesy epic ‘80s anthem,” Runyan said. “I wanted to have something along those lines that would fit in perfectly with a high school dance.”

Although City Rain has been around in various incarnations since 2010, it was last year when it started truly gaining steam.

A shimmering, reverbladen endorsement of the “it’ll get better” mentality, “The Optimist,” as well as its accompanying music video, served as a jumping off point for the group.

Runyan said he’s well aware of the fact that there’s a chance the song could be misinterpreted.

However, under the veneer of unbridled optimism is a song that’s more about perseverance than blind, relentless giddiness.

“I think a lot of people initially scoffed at the whole optimism thing because they think it’s some sort of wool over the eyes, everything is great, puppies and kittens kind of thing,” Runyan said. “In reality, in 2011 when the s--- really hit the fan, I checked myself into a hospital, I

was pulling myself off of all the [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors], and all the psychoactive drugs I was on, and I lost my s---. I needed help.”

Post-medication, Runyan said he finds himself very capable. However, maintaining mental wellness is an active endeavor.

“I’ve been doing all of this without the help of anything,” Runyan said. “And that’s extremely hard. Some days I would love to be on medication.”

The fall and subsequent rise of Runyan has been a motif that has worked its way into much of the City Rain catalogue. “Songs for a High School Dance” is a record that will also explore this theme. But in a broader sense, the record aims to explore both ends of the spectrum of manic human emotion.

Stating that the first five tracks will be more “poppy,” Runyan said the latter half of the record is shaping up to be substantially darker and more experimental.

“I think that I’ve been trying to make music that’s just poppy enough to get noticed but not so poppy that it’s sacrificing my dignity,” Runyan said. “But as we get more well-known,

and hopefully as things grow, I’d like to settle back into things that I really enjoy doing.”

“Songs for a High School Dance“ will be the first City Rain full-length recorded with bandmate Scott Cumpstone.

And with the record, Runyan said he hopes to tread a bit of new musical ground.

With “Songs for a High School Dance,” Runyan said he believes he has created a record that will resonate with individuals who have had similar bouts of mental illness.

“I just realized as I got older, and I think that’s a part of getting into your late ‘20s and eventually into your ‘30s, is that you stop giving a f---,” Runyan said. “That’s really the crux of the point. You really stop putting up this front and you realize, ‘Oh, people actually do like me for me, and they’re not liking my projected image of myself.’ And that’s really it.

I’ve just become comfortable in my own skin, and I’ve become comfortable enough to say, ‘Hey I’m not Superman,’ and that sometimes I need help.”

David Zisser can be reached at zissered@temple.edu.

West Philly’s Big Tusk is on a mission to make its audience move Big Tusk is looking to make a connection with the local music scene.

TYLER HORST The Temple News Big Tusk wants you to fall in love. Not with the strapping young men in the band, but with another human being while you're sweating the night away in a basement to one of the group’s tunes.

The West Philly psych-rock outfit Big Tusk is at the beginning of what it hopes to be its biggest year. With the band’s EP “Flood” now on the digital shelves, the three bandmates said they’re looking to move hearts and souls in the physical world. The Wesleyan University-bred musicians have only been settled in Philadelphia for about a year and a half, but

they've made it their mission to spread good feels from basement to basement.

“I want people to dance,” said drummer Howe Pearson. “I want someone to fall in love. I want someone to cry.”

The typical Big Tusk tune is a balancing act between spacey head-nodding and groovy hip-shaking.

There's a feeling of surprise, a slight jam aesthetic that comes out of the fact that the band writes and records everything right out of the basement of its cozy West Philly house, where visitors are invited to remove their shoes upon entering.

The band's musical DNA could probably be decoded somewhere within the staggering vinyl collection in the living room. “[Keyboardist David Thompson’s] uncle just brought over all his albums,” said guitarist Sam Long. “Most of these aren't actually ours.”

This prompted a brief mu-

sical discussion between Long and Thompson, who sits crosslegged on the couch. They run through the albums in their collection, from the Beatles to Yes. The bond between the members of Big Tusk is an important component of the band, especially considering they live together. Beyond simple roommate politics, though, the band said fellowship is a feeling Big Tusk seeks to find for themselves and give to others.

“We were talking to people who moved [to New York] and have bands there now, and it's such a different scene,” Long said. “It's so much more stressful.”

What Philadelphia offered Big Tusk, besides cheaper rent, was a community of musicians that is far less adversarial.

Perhaps the greatest encapsulation of this idea is the basement show. Long said he fondly remembers coming to Philadelphia venues when he growing

up in Montgomery County, but band members agreed that the true gem of the city is its basement scene.

“House shows have been my favorite shows,” Pearson said. “You get to play with bands that already bring a lot of friends, and the vibe is just amazing.”

“You definitely get people who want to listen to you,” Long said.

For Big Tusk fans that prefer to shake it out at shows, Pearson offers a suggestion. He stands up from the couch and begins shimmying his torso back and forth, letting both arms flail limply about and slap him loudly in the chest. He dubbed the floppy dance move “the retirement home,” but said a kid he met doing an after-school program calls it the “chicken on roller-skates.”

“Flood” features wild, bursting cover art by Big Tusk's friend Dan Obzejta from Los

Angeles. Band members said it reflects the collage-like sensibilities of their music, and although they're definitely not making it up as they go along, there is an element of the unexpected in the way the songs explore different sounds.

The EP is Big Tusk's tightest and most focused set of songs so far, but the band said it doesn't mean it has lost its sense of adventure in writing music.

“We put so much time into this EP that it's hard to say that there isn't intentionality with it,” Long said. “Even if we did something unintentional, we intentionally chose to keep it.”

They've even treated the neighbors to some of their experiments, accidentally. One evening Pearson was blasting a “krautrock-y” drone in the basement without considering that the speaker was angled directly toward the house next door.

When the confused neighbor failed to reach Pearson, who

wasn't carrying his phone, he asked one of the other residents to come over and listen to the throbbing loop that was filling his house like a trippy nightmare.

“I checked my phone later and the texts were like, 'Hey man, who took the bad acid over there?’” Pearson said. “‘Seriously, I'm getting flashbacks. It feels like Gitmo in here.’”

But Big Tusk wants to share more than just a few laughs.

The band said its goal for the year is to start connecting with the folks who come to its shows by letting the music creep into everyone's personal headspace just by sharing its music.

“If we're completely lost in it and feeling it, that's the best way to reach out to somebody,” Pearson said.

Tyler Horst can be reached at tmhorst@temple.edu.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 11

‘Neon Resolutions’ crosses cultural boundaries This craft program reflects New Year’s traditions.

A

mid ancient, towering tapestries that adorn marble walls and misty windows looking off unto Boathouse Row, stood a young man. He set up shop in the kind of ambiance only dim lighting can provide.

Jim Grilli, a studio monitor in the education department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, greeted me with an Brianna Spause eager anticiCaught in pation. the Act As the sun set, it was just about time for the festivities to begin. Every Wednesday night from 5-8:45 p.m., admis-

sion to the museum is “pay what you wish” and comes included with various showcases. Staffpicked collection highlight tours are guided through the halls while participatory programs are open to anyone.

The low-key programming is a treat where there are crafts to be made, games to be played, yoga to be instructed and a seemingly popular happy hour to settle down with.

“Wednesdays create a place where people want to hang out,” Wednesday Programs Director Claire Oosterhoudt said. “You don’t have to wander around the museum for three hours, you can come, sit, relax and have a beer.”

Grilli, the man eagerly shaking my hand and offering a seat, was the man in charge of “Neon Resolutions” – the Jan. 8 edition of “Make Stuff.”

Offered weekly, “Make Stuff” is a participatory program that allows visitors to view a piece

of the museum’s collection and craft their own renditions of the piece.

We sat in the Great Stair Hall making pleasantries as a half hour ticked by – and plenty of determined individuals bustled by donning their yoga mats.

It wasn’t until a pleasant older gentleman accepted a seat at the crafting table that the program began to take shape.

Grilli explained to the man that in honor of the New Year, they would be creating a colorful resolution in the shape of a spiral – a “neon resolution.”

The design inspiration came from artist Bruce Naumann, whose piece “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths” in the medium of a neon sign, and is a permanent fixture in the Modern and Contemporary Art wing of the museum.

This man, a visiting New Jersey native by the name of Peter Lynch, sat down eagerly

claiming to have the perfect idea.

“I’m not writing a resolution, I’m inscribing a manifesto,” Lynch said. “This is a realization I came to a year ago that I have chosen to live my life by.”

“I personally believe that every story is better when you participate. Won’t you make one?” he asked me, motioning to the empty chair on the other end of the table. With an approving nod from Grilli, I sat, and created.

“I think ‘Make Stuff’ helps visitors engage with the collection in a very direct way,” Grilli said. “It’s one thing to stand in a gallery and look at pieces, or watch a video. It’s a very different experience, however, to have a physical interaction with the artist’s work to take home.”

It quickly became obvious, however, that ‘Make Stuff’ transcends past the opportunity to interact with the museum col-

lection. “Pay what you wish” opens up the museum to everyone, regardless of budget.

These strangers can then come together in a house of history and culture.

Participants were able to sit together, laugh and create with no mind toward age, race or language barrier. These shared ideas became embodied when a woman approached the table nervously with her two young children in tow.

She began to explain, “No hablo inglés.”

As Grilli clearly struggled to explain the program in a charades-esque fashion, the woman to my left rose. She smiled as she approached the children, crouched down to their level, and began to outline the objective of the craft in Spanish. Two smiling faces then sat down across from one another and began to create.

What they created was something we all could under-

stand – art. In that moment, goals were the commonality among otherwise unconnected strangers.

They left, one by one, expressing gratitude for the opportunity. One of the last to leave, Lynch tapped on my shoulder.

“I’m ready,” he said as he stood holding his resolution that read: “Every woman in the universe needs to be treated with kindness and love.”

“Make Stuff’ is a program that runs every week on Wednesdays and has been providing a participatory art program since February 2012.

“Sometimes, you forget to sit down and create, and ‘Make Stuff’ gives you that opportunity,” Oosterhoudt said. “We believe these programs are making art easy and accessible to our patrons.”

Brianna Spause can be reached at brianna.spause@temple.edu.

12+ sets up high school students for bright futures I've always enjoyed working with students.”

Not only does 12+ help struggling high school students, Pak said the organization can make a lasting impact on colSIOBHAN REDDING lege students like Chan as well.

The Temple News “12+ is a really nice way for university students to get Although the School Dis- engaged and become more intrict of Philadelphia is amid a vested in the city,” Pak said. budget crisis, local nonprofits “There are students who have are stepping in to prevent its no idea about this plight going lack of resources from affect- on in Philadelphia high schools, ing students to the point where which are immensely under-rethey’re not prepared to enter, or sourced and underfunded.” even apply for, college.

Pak is referring to the se12+ is an organization that vere budget and staffing cuts the sees a chance School District for each of those of Philadelphia students to chalis experienclenge the status ing. The lack quo and go on to of funding has achieve a higher made school level of educacounselors tion. greatly outIt started numbered and in 2010 when a college access few University programs unof Pennsylvacommon in the nia graduates high schools, grouped together according to the to make a change 12+ website. in Philadelphia 12+ has high schools. been able to exThey noticed that pand its mission it was not only a Albert Pak / operating officer to other schools lack of funding and positively that deterred stuimpact the lives dents from attending college, it of many more students. was also the confusion of the ap“During my time with 12+, plication process. 12+ was their I've helped build a stronger solution to this problem. foundation for our chapter here “We are ensuring that there at Temple,” Chan said. “Our is not a broken pipeline between chapter has grown from last year these high school students and and started a new partnership their dreams of attending col- with Penn Treaty High School. lege, whether that be a two-year, We've been able to send more four-year or some other type student volunteers to KHSA of schooling,” said Albert Pak, and PTHS for every day of the chief operating officer at 12+. school week and are beginning The Kensington Health Sci- to even have some volunteers ences Academy opened its doors working as teachers’ aids in the to 12+ and there, the nonprofit classroom.” was able to provide workshops With all of the success 12+ emphasizing the importance of is experiencing, Pak said he study skills and perfect atten- knows this is only possible with dance, as well as provide guid- the help of everyone involved. ance with the college applica“What we do is only postion process. sible with the help of the teach“At KHSA, we are able to ers, principal, et cetera,” Pak have one staff member devoted said. “It is a true partnership and to each grade level,” Pak said. a whole school effort.”

“This way we are able to help Pak said the most important these students from the begin- part of 12+ is the real-life sucning of their high school jour- cesses it facilitates on a daily ney to the end.” basis.

Along with these mentors “I have seen a student go are volunteers from universities from not caring about her SATs across the city. These students to becoming an involved student provide one-on-one tutoring and at a respected university because help during the school’s Career of 12+,” Pak said.

Week, among other things. Temple student Kevin Chan has been Siobhan Redding can be reached at a part of 12+ since last year. siobhan.redding@temple.edu.

“I saw this opportunity as a means to contribute back to the community even more than past service activities I've been involved with,” Chan said. “Also,

Local nonprofit gets volunteer help from Temple students.

“We are

ensuring that there is not a broken pipeline between these high school students and their dreams of attending college.

”

Elizabeth Peterson, a junior illustration major at the University of the Arts, has started to paint pet portraits to pay off her accumulating student debt. | ELIZABETH PETERSON COURTESY

Art student uses Craigslist to pay for school PORTRAITS PAGE 9

gion with an in-depth art department.

Peterson said she was accepted into another university when she realized she wanted to be closer to the Philadelphia art scene than she already was. She said she recalls running down Broad Street with her portfolio in hand, hoping she would make her school visits on time.

Peterson said switching schools was more difficult than expected.

“I’m always going to prefer traditional art, particularly oil painting,” Peterson said. “Digital art I’m fascinated by, but I’m not that great with computers.

It’s been a struggle to learn Photoshop, but I did get the hang of

it. Combining ink drawings and Photoshop, I’m really enjoying that. I like the style of art with really heavy brushwork, that’s what I like to see in a painting.

I see a lot of art, hyper-realistic art, which is amazing, but I’m more interested in very artsy paintings. I love vigilant brushwork, very aggressive strokes and a lot of movement in the art.”

Peterson decided to start offering a pet portrait painting service after realizing she could easily do it on the side. Peterson said pet portrait painting is not as expensive as regular portraits and that they make great gifts.

Although she said pet portraits aren’t exactly her “thing,” she

still sees it as a great way to make extra money and use her talents.

After posting her ad on Craigslist, Peterson got quite a few requests, but mostly by word of mouth. Peterson said she sees the Internet as an easily accessible place for young artists to start.

“People would post what I did for them on Facebook and people see it there,” she said.

“A lot of young artists use Tumblr, you just tag something and sometimes it blows up. The Internet, it is just fantastic.”

When a new client requests artwork, Peterson works closely with them. She sends pictures of her work in progress to make

sure she is on the right track.

Also, if the customer knows what room the artwork will be placed in, Peterson will ask for a picture of the room so she can tweak the colors so the work complements its surroundings.

Although she said her future isn’t completely figured out yet, Peterson said she hopes to get a job as an in-house illustrator for a design company, or in a media company doing storyboarding. Peterson said painting and portraits will always be something that she continues to do on the side because of her passion for classic art.

Chelsea Finn can be reached at chelsea.finn@temple.edu.

Fishtown bar sees success after robbery LOCO PAGE 9

tion are playfully reinforced inside Loco Pez, with a fish tank surrounded by Pez dispensers – and some bottles of tequila – behind the bar.

The Pez dispensers aren’t the only vintage attribute. The décor adds ambiance with some classic Philadelphia sports team banners, all wrapped in gritty Los Angeles overtones.

“It’s a place where people come to really feel at home,” said Graham Gernsheimer, an assistant manager at Loco Pez. All of the old-school knickknacks, including a recently purchased Metallica pinball machine, add to the quirky domestic feel that keeps Pezheads

coming back for “feliz hora” for margaritas and nachos.

Ruiz and Gernsheimer said both the drinks and the food are equally coveted.

“It’s really right down the middle,” Gernsheimer said.

“We have a large drinking contingent, and similarly we have a lot of people travel here just for the food. It’s a nice hybrid of the two.”

Owner Joe Beckham bought the space a little more than three years ago, and Ruiz and Gernsheimer said Fishtown has proven to be an ideal location for Loco Pez. “Fishtown has been going through a renaissance for the

past 10 years or so,” said Gernsheimer, a resident of the area for about six years. “Between us and a number of other establishments in the area, and the arts scene and music— we’ve really seen a change in the neighborhood prior to our opening and since we’ve opened.”

Although Fishtown seems to embrace Loco Pez, Beckham recently closed his other Philadelphia bar and restaurant, Alfa, located on Walnut Street, citing “skyrocketing rents on Walnut Street” in a comment on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

“We’re not sure what will be in its place, but it will most likely be a corporate store [of]

some sort,” Beckham added.

Doors closed after a final New Year’s Eve celebration, marking the last hurrah for Alfa as nearby stores for brands such as Apple and Burberry remain on Walnut Street. Ruiz said Beckham’s plan is to focus solely on Loco Pez for the time being, as Alfa’s livelihood came to an end as new stores continue to create hustle and bustle for shoppers in Center City.

“I think what makes [Loco Pez] stand out is the really relaxed environment,” Ruiz said.

Kerri Ann Raimo can be reached at kerriann.raimo@temple.edu.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PAGE 12

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

Taking a visit to Bill Apter’s ‘Alley’ APTER PAGE 9

Various wedding photographers, designers, planners and more showed off their latest trends for the 2014 season at the Lovesick Expo held at World Cafe Live on Jan. 12. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

Blogger offers offbeat wedding tips Ariel Meadows Stallings visits the Lovesick Expo.

CAITLIN O’CONNELL The Temple News Forget the Pinterest accounts with boards upon boards of long, white gowns, FASHION orchids and cute wedding invitation tips.

Offbeat Bride, a wedding blog, is teaching women how to make bohemian flower crowns and suggests rainbow colored wedding shoes for any bride-to-be.

Ariel Meadows Stallings is the founder of Offbeat Bride,

which is the world’s largest nontraditional wedding blog. The site is part of a larger publishing network called Offbeat Empire and has been around for seven years. Stallings said it had originally been nothing more than a project to promote her book, entitled “Offbeat Bride.”

“Ultimately, no one cared about the book,” Stallings said.

However, a second edition came out in 2010, and even though book did well, Stallings said “the website has become a whole force of nature.”

With 2,000,000 page views and 800,000 readers monthly, Stallings has taken on a staff of six and said “it’s become a publication at this point.”

She said using the website

to plan a wedding makes more sense than utilizing a book for the task. Offbeat Bride publishes 15 to 20 posts a week based on nontraditional wedding advice, as well as helpful resources.

“It’s a full range from pretty traditional with a little bit of quirkiness tossed in,” Stallings said with a smile.

To bring her ideas to Philadelphia, Stallings decided to be a major sponsor at the Lovesick Expo, which made its yearly return to World Café Live on Jan. 12.

Stallings said she became involved with the Lovesick Expo after getting support from the event, as it had advertised her publication.

“I got sick of hearing all

my readers go to the show, saying it was amazing and being like, ‘When are you going to do an amazing wedding show?’”

Stallings said.

After that, Stallings said she reached out and asked to be a part of the event.

“I said, ‘You’re doing something amazing, and I’ll help you bring it to the West Coast,’” Stallings said.

Although the website is devoted to the nontraditional and quirky, Stallings said sometimes even she is surprised by some of the ideas.

“Sometimes I’m even like, ‘Whoa, this might be too weird even for me,’” she said.

Stallings has even created a unique checklist booklet for brides, with tasks including taking a sedative the night before the wedding to be well-rested for the big day.

Stallings said she knows not everyone wants to have a traditional wedding, and Offbeat Bride is a way for nontraditional brides to find the ideas and advice they need.

“We try and acknowledge that lots of people get married, and God bless the people who want a wedding in a country club,” Stallings said. “I love those weddings, too, but we want to make sure that people who aren’t planning that wedding feel supported and encouraged and valued.”

Caitlin O’Connell can be reached at caitlin.oconnell@temple.edu.

Visitors at the Lovesick Expo stopped by tables and vendors in the wedding industry on Jan. 12. The Lovesick Expo made its fifth trip to Philadelphia this year. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

museum of memorabilia spanning more than four decades.

Flipping through his confidential photo album, Apter shared unprintable road stories and cherished memories of each posed legend on every page.

Mountains of videotapes and cassettes sprawled around the floor from Apter’s interviews with Liberace, Mickey Mantle and even Bill Cosby.

Wait…when did they wrestle?

“When I got out of high school, I bought time on WHBI 105.9 FM in New York,” Apter said.

“I called the stars’ publicists and offered to publicize their shows as long as I could get an interview,” he added. “Liberace was my favorite – I said, ‘Since you wear sequin everything, do you wear sequin underwear?’

He said, ‘No, it would be too hard to sit on.’”

Apter never attended college, but he did take classes at The New York School of Announcing for 13 weeks.

“It actually helped me break into pro wrestling because the promoter of Sunnyside Gardens asked me to write press releases for the matches,” Apter said. “I was able to interview Bruno Sammartino and some other wrestlers, shoot some pictures with my junky instamatic camera and then send them to the Wrestler and Inside Wrestling.”

As we walked down the basement staircase, my jaw dragged off each step at the sight of the “Apter’s Alley” studio. Mil Mascaras’ mask from his first night at Madison Square Garden. A World Wrestling Entertainment Championship belt designed in Legos. Sketches of Winnie the Pooh, M&M’s and other children’s characters that Jerry Lawler designed for Apter’s daughter’s bedroom. The King actually owed Apter a favor for kickstarting one of the most famous feuds in history.

“Around 1982, [Andy Kaufman] was backstage trying to convince Vince McMahon Sr. to let him wrestle,” Apter said. “[Kaufman] approached me because he knew who I was from the magazines. [McMahon] didn’t like showbiz people backstage, so [Kaufman] asked to take the subway with me back to my apartment. We sat in the living room for hours talking about wrestling. I told him I have a friend in Memphis named Jerry Lawler and they do a lot of weird things like a wrestling Frankenstein, so maybe he could do his uncanny Elvis impression. I called Lawler at 1 a.m., he asked to speak with [Kaufman] and the key was in the ignition.”

This was too much. A few candid photos of Ric Flair – OK. Ring jackets from different events – sure. But befriending The King to the point of calling him up during fourth meal?

Absurd.

These athletes talk to reporters on a daily basis, so what makes Apter special?

“My mentality was to cover pro wrestling like Sports Illustrated would cover baseball,” Apter said. “I knew what to talk about and not talk about in the dressing room back in the early days. Eddie Graham, Gordon Solie and even [McMahon] brought me in to maintain the kayfabe of the business. The guys who trusted themselves eventually trusted me, so I never broke it because this was the fraternity that I never had in college.”

Despite all of his contacts and credentials, Apter has never worked full-time for WWE. In the early ‘90s, Apter took a freelance position procuring memorabilia such as Buddy Rogers’ boots for the WWE Hall of Fame; however, the gig only lasted about 18 months because plans to construct a physical Hall of Fame ceased.

And although he was offered an editorship with WWE Magazine, Apter declined it.

“It wasn’t an ego, it just meant I was content where I was,” he said. “It wasn’t about turning down McMahon. I simply didn’t know if I could be the editor. When I was with PWI, I was only one of the editors.”

Although I had never been in front of the camera, Apter made me feel at ease as we discussed current tag teams, potential challengers to Randy Orton and the possibility of Hulk Hogan returning at WrestleMania XXX. When I finally watched the YouTube clip that night, I noticed Apter cut me off when I mentioned an inconsistency with the Big Show/Rey Mysterio storyline. Then he rephrased my point, but didn’t say the word “storyline.” Or “angle” or “heel” or “face.” The jargon of the industry, those inside terms once whispered among the wrestlers but now shouted within the Internet wrestling community, wasn’t welcome in “Apter’s Alley.”

After 43 years in the business, after analyzing countless matches, after spending five Thanksgiving dinners with Mr. Wrestling II and his family, “Wonderful Willie” continues to suspend his disbelief and, more importantly, the disbelief of fellow fans.

John Corrigan can be reached at john.corrigan@temple.edu.

Davio’s comes up with promotional offer to bring customers in from cold When temperatures are freezing, this restaurants gives away free spring rolls.

ALBERT HONG The Temple News There aren’t many advantages to record-setting freezing temperatures, but Davio’s in Center City is offering FOOD at least one.

Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse is providing a free order of its signature spring rolls to any visitor who shows proof of the temperature being below freezing. Anyone can visit the second floor of the Provident Bank Building on South 17th Street where the promotion is expected to last till the end of February.

Ettore Ceraso, director of operations and general man-

ager of the Philadelphia Davio’s, said the idea behind this promotion came last year when the restaurant was looking to increase business at its bar. Thus far, Ceraso said it’s been effective.

“People came in and they got their free spring rolls, but then they bought a drink and stayed for dinner,” Ceraso said.

“It was a fun event, and people got a kick out of us giving something for free, so this year we decided to do it again.”

The restaurant serves a variety of traditional northern Italian dishes, with a focus on homemade pastas, seafood and steaks, all centered around a “focus on the grill.” The staff, however, has not been afraid to change menu traditions by including its spring rolls as a featured item.

Spring rolls are typically not a part of an Italian restaurant, but after seeing how pop-

ular they were at staff meals, owner Steve DeFillippo decided to add it into the menu. The appetizer became so popular that Davio’s created its own brand of hand-rolled spring rolls for retail distribution.

The restaurant has even started to make adjustments to the appetizer. After adding a cheesesteak filling, DeFillippo included the new Philly cheesesteak spring rolls to its menu.

Davio’s was started in Boston in 1985. The restaurant has opened up three locations in the past five months, most recently in Manhattan, N.Y. “For a restaurant to be successful, you have to have consistently good food, but what brings people back is service and getting to know the guests,” Ceraso said.

Thomas Heck, chef at Davio’s, mentioned that some of the staff, including Ceraso and himself, used to work at Four

Seasons Hotel and Resorts, which gave them useful experience.

“We have a bit of a pedigree as Four Seasons vets,” Heck said. “We know what it takes to entertain people properly and give them good value for their dollar and good service. Service is the key for any good operation.”

Heck said a customer once asked him to recreate a lemon doberge cake, which wasn’t featured on the menu. After taking on the challenge, it’s become a dessert option at the restaurant.

Davio’s offers free spring rolls to its customers when the “A lot goes into the plantemperature reaches below freezing. | ANDREW THAYER TTN ning of the menu, because we want things to be right so people three-course dinners. selves, like they’re in our living are really feeling like they are Chuck Brotstein, the bar- room” Brotstein said. “We’re a getting the Davio’s experience,” tender who is the first person ‘yes’ restaurant, and we like to Ceraso said. customers see when entering make people feel comfortable.”

Davio’s prices are on the Davio’s, talked about the imporAlbert Hong can be reached at steeper side, but with Center tance of respecting and making albert.hong@temple.edu.

City District Restaurant Week guests feel comfortable. coming up, customers can order “We treat the customers the $20 three-course lunches or $35 way we want to be treated our-

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 13

OUT & ABOUT

A FASHIONABLE PROGRAM

This year’s Philadelphia Fashion Incubator program will begin on March 1. Launched in March 2012, The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator at Macy’s at Center City is a nonprofit organization that works with the city of Philadelphia, Macy’s at Center City, the Center City District and other institutions across Philadelphia that are devoted to fashion design. The Fashion Incubator works to provide support for fashion design students who are looking to begin their careers and start business. The program lasts for one year and selects five designers who are 21 and over that have the resources necessary to starting their business. Referred to as designers-in-residence, these five DIRs will be given their own office space, workshop rooms and mentoring throughout their time in the program. The designers will also participate in events and showcases throughout the year.

– Caitlin O’Connell

NEW STYLE OF COOKING

Simply Shabu had its grand opening Jan. 13, and it’s bringing a new style of Asian food to Chinatown called “shabu shabu.” This Asian-style fondue includes raw meat, vegetables and noodles coupled with a simmering pot of hot broth for cooking, including sauces for dipping. The restaurant, located on Cherry Street between 10th and 11th streets, is open for dinner Monday through Friday and for lunch and dinner on the weekends. It’s owned by Dennis and Kate Tuan who both want Simply Shabu to introduce “a new style of cuisine to Philadelphia while focusing on healthy eating and local ingredients,” according to the restaurant’s website.

– Albert Hong

AN APPLE ON WALNUT STREET

Alec Ounsworth from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah started off a living room tour in Fishtown on Thursday, Jan. 20. | KATE McCANN TTN

THEATER

Evolving communities through theater of time,” said Brian Grace-Duff, one of the chosen playwrights. “I got to walk into a room full of actors that weren’t scared with an entirely new draft every single rehearsal and that was amazing. I was fortunate enough to get chosen.”

The initiative was to support playwrights in a space that was constructive and encouraging.

“I hope more writers can participate in programs like that and opportunities like that continue,” Grace-Duff said. “But that’s always the question: Is this program going to survive next year? And that is always the hope.”

As a member of the PDC, Grace-Duff said it’s interesting to be a part of so many small organizations and theaters, but still feel like Philadelphia provides an open environment for art.

“It’s not like having a clique in high school,” he said. “There is a lot more freedom to move around, while still having your little family.”

Many of Grace-Duff’s opportunities, such as his participation with the Walking Fish Theatre and the PDC, came from connections through friends and creating relationships with professional playwrights.

“You can make pretty deep connections with people here,” he said.

“There are always new companies bubbling up and they are always

PLAYWRIGHT PAGE 9

evolving. I can’t imagine something like that happening in New York.

I’ve literally just met influential people through friends. The Philly Fringe is one of those things that is amazing for that.”

Grace-Duff said Philly artists are interested in Philadelphia, which eventually reflects onto their work onstage and in the community.

“I’m starting to see people that want to do work just because their neighbors working are right there,” Grace-Duff said. “There is that idea of community, and an extension of that is wanting to tell the stories of those communities. I don’t know how exactly, but some artists are changing the area in a more visible way, like simply taking a residence in a neighborhood. The changes are right there and right on the cusp for a lot of us.”

The Applied Mechanics, another local ensemble of artists, share a meal at every rehearsal as part of its desire to build friendships within its casts and the neighborhood, said member Thomas Choinacky. The meals started as a way to pay artists, as the company had limited resources and money to compensate actors during its early projects.

This communion was especially impactful during its 2012-13 show “Vainglorious,” which had a cast of 26 performers.

“Bringing that many artists into

TRENDING IN PHILLY

a room and having time for us all to sit down together to eat a homecooked meal, within creating an epic show, allowed the project to flourish,” Choinacky said.

From the success that came from sharing meals during “Vainglorious,” Choinacky said it prompted the group to start sharing meals with the community as well.

“We care about the community we live in and the artists who are in it,” he said. “By promoting time that local artists can convene to catch up and share a delicious meal together strengthens our relationships and artist community.”

Many opportunities seem to be growing outside of the most popular and financially dependent theater companies in Center City, and starting from the ground up in commu-

nities in other parts of Philadelphia, such as Fishtown.

“Seeing opportunities push further from Center City is really cool,” Grace-Duff said. “Going out there and finding some new theater is really great.”

Grace-Duff said the unique goal of theater in Philadelphia is to always see how it can help or reflect back onto the community.

“A lot of it is, can we point the work outwards? Can we point it to the community itself?” he said. “The growth is about supporting and nurturing the Philadelphia artist. That’s really important, and there is really a lot of fruit in that.”

Philly Beer Week. Russell, the founder of the festival, resigned in December after salary negotiations fell through.

RESTAURANT WEEK RETURNS

More than a 100 Center City restaurants will open their doors and offer discounted meals when the Center City District Restaurant Week returns at the end of the month.

Three-course dinners will be offered at a reduced $35 per person while lunches will be $20 per person.

Center City District Restaurant Week will run from Jan. 19-24 and from Jan. 26-30. A mobile app has also been released for goers to find participating restaurants, menus and to make reservations.

– Samantha Tighe

Emily Rolen can be reached at emily. rolen@temple.edu.

The Walking Fish Theatre has been open for seven years and produces at least four shows every year.| ANDREW THAYER TTN

What people LOEWS HOTEL GETS TASTE OF AMERICANA @uwishunu tweeted on Jan. 17 that Bank & Bourbon, an are talking “American restaurant” will open this spring at the Loews Philaabout in delphia Hotel in Center City. Until the restaurant opens, Level Philly – 33 Restaurant and Sky Lounge will open on the 33rd floor of the from news hotel as a pop-up restaurant. Bank & Bourbon is scheduled to and store open on March 16. openings, to music events PHILLY BEER WEEK FINDS NEW DIRECTOR and restaurant openings. For breaking news and daily updates, @PhillydotcomENT tweeted on Jan. 17 that Kristine Kenfollow The Temple News on Twitter nedy, a project sales manager who runs the Shad Fest at Penn Treaty Park, will replace Don Russell as the executive director of @TheTempleNews.

The Walnut Street Theatre’s 205th “Other Desert Cities” by Jon Robin Baitz opened on Jan. 14 and will run until March 2. The show has only five cast members, including Krista Apple, Philly-based writer, actor and artist teacher. Apple has consulted in the past for Temple and has dedicated some of her work to producing rare classical pieces on stage in the Philadelphia area. Tickets can be purchased for $20 with student ID, or half-price the day of the show with promo code DAYWST. – Emily Rolen

The Piazza at Schmidts continues to host “Skate at the Piazza” until Feb. 23. For $5, take part in Northern Liberties’ outdoor ice skating rink. This is the first year that the Piazza has hosted the event, with a 5,000 square-foot pop-up ice-skating rink open Monday through Thursday from 4 -10 p.m., Fridays from 4 - 11 p.m., and Saturday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Special events include two-for-one skate night on Tuesdays, movie viewings on the Piazza’s big screen on Wednesdays, DJ Caution on Fridays and Saturdays and an assortment of food trucks on Saturdays.

– Kerri Ann Raimo

PHILLY SKYLINE GETS NEW EDITION @6abc tweeted on Jan. 15 that a new 59-story skyscraper will be added to Philly’s skyline. The tower, to be built 1,121 feet by Comcast, will be the tallest skyscraper in the nation outside of New York City and Chicago. Construction is expected to start this summer.

HIGH-END ANTIQUES @uwishunu tweeted on Jan. 18 that Clover Market is now open at the 23rd Street Armory in Center City. The indoor flea market features high-end vendors offering a selection of antiques, art and homemade goods. Tickets are $5 with VIP tickets at $20.

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2013

TYLER

Thesis project dives into local waterway

Close’s project was chosen to recieve the CARAS grant, which will allow her to spend this semester photographing the Susquehanna River for her thesis project. | COURTESY HANNAH CLOSE

As her thesis project, a Tyler student will portray a major river.

ALEXA BRICKER The Temple News Growing up in Havre de Grace, Md., a town that lies where the Susquehanna River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, Tyler School of Art student Hannah Close decided to transform this vital resource for her community into inspiration for her senior thesis project.

“The Susquehanna has been a huge part of my life,” Close said. “I used to cross the bridge every day to go to school. I have been swimming, sailing [and] kayaking on the river. I have a really personal connection and great access to this beautiful part of our country, and I have taken it for granted.”

Close had great success working on a similar project for

her self-directed final last year, which focused on the way color reflects on water.

She decided to expand upon that idea for this project, which documents all 464 miles of the Susquehanna River.

The senior photography major has traveled across multiple state lines since officially beginning the project last September and is grateful for having had the ability to travel.

“The [Creative Arts, Research and Scholarship] grant that I was awarded was absolutely key in making this possible, because otherwise I might not be able to afford the traveling aspect,” she said. “I really do feel connected to [the river], and it is so incredibly beautiful.”

While Close said photographing nature is what she is most comfortable with, this particular project has forced her to push the boundaries.

“In a project this huge, I really have to think about how to

make each image different, what concepts to focus on and how to tell a story successfully, so this project is pushing my skills to levels I have not been to before,” Close said.

It is also equally important to her to tie her personal connections to the river into the project.

“It’s not just about what I can show in pictures, it’s about me personally seeing with my own eyes every inch of this river from beginning to end so I understand it’s life that exists before it gets to my hometown,” Close said. “I doubt many people can say they have seen this whole river, as [parts of it are] non-navigable by boat, but it was really important for me to see all of it.”

Close said this connection she is able to have with nature is one of her favorite parts of the experience, along with exploring areas of the river not many people are lucky enough to see.

“I wanted to show people

something they had not been paying attention to, something that I love and have a deep personal and spiritual connection to,” she said. “Water is something that connects all of us, it supports all of us, and the Susquehanna was something that I had knowledge of and could use to show people how important our natural resources are.”

While her main focus was to photograph the river, from its beginnings in Cooperstown, N.Y., to her hometown, Close said she was so moved that she would love to be able to work on other projects involving environmental conservation.

“As [the Susquehanna] is one of the most endangered rivers in the U.S., I would be really interested in showing other, more desperate landscapes that need our attention,” Close said.

Alexa Bricker can be reached at alexa.bricker@temple.edu.

LIVING

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2013

PAGE 15

Feminist collective not just a résumé filler FEMINIST PAGE 7 “We come from different ies and production major said. academic backgrounds that con- “What drew me in was finally tribute varying perspectives to being able to find a place where our feminism,” said sophomore people share similar ideas and women’s studies major Riley meet to discuss them.”

MacDonald. “It isn’t the sort of That same motivation instudent organization where the spired Drexel pre-junior and same people lead the discussion English major Melody Nielsen. every week.”

“I became friends with Junior African-American [Snowadzky] through a collabostudies major Sarah Giskin said ration between queer groups at the agenda for meetings always Temple and Drexel,” Nielsen begins with an introduction said. “We hung out a lot over activity and that all members the summer [and] when [Snoware encouraged adzky] deto lead discuscided to start sions about topics a collective, I they’re passionwas super on ate about. board and got “We do this involved from because we get the very beginnew people evning.” ery week and we Nielsen, a want everyone founding memto feel welcome ber of Drexand respected,” el’s feminist Gabriel Gonzalez / sophomore Giskin said. group Students Word of Advocating mouth played Feminism and a big factor in raking in more Equality, said her experience members, including sophomore with both university groups is Gabriel Gonzalez, who said his different. While SAFE is more initial motivation to join spurred focused on education about from a conversation about pop feminism, both groups remain culture. focused on changing respective “I was talking to one of the university policies regarding members and we kind of got into sexual harassment and consent. a discussion about Miley Cyrus Sophomore geography and or someone who claimed to be urban studies major Jenny Ryvery feminist,” the media stud- der said TAFC hopes to partner

“What drew me

in was finally being able to find a place where people share similar ideas...

”

with the university to institute a series of workshops to combat sexual harassment on campus.

“Temple needs to address explicitly the most common crime on campus,” Ryder said. “[They] need to demonstrate a sincere concern for its students safety, not just from stereotyped and criminalized non-university offenders, but also from members of the university community itself.”

Junior theater major Becca Greenberg said she applauds Temple for its efforts, including its participation in the annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes event and the Wellness Center’s production of “The Vagina Monologues,” but there is still room for improvement.

“There are certainly more things the university can do,” Greenberg said.

Snowadzky said TAFC also supports friends of the organization lobbying for gender-neutral restrooms and living facilities on campus. Members said they will continue to seek cultural change both on and off campus this semester as the group continues to grow.

“There’s power in numbers,” Ryder said.

Jessica Smith can be reached at jessicasmith@temple.edu.

Alumna polishes brand’s outreach Kristen Kenner’s new business partnered with Operation Prom.

DANIELLE HAGERTY The Temple News Getting your nails done is more than just a pampering pick-me-up for recipients of the first initiative of On The Verj, Kristen Kenner’s new women’s empowerment brand.

Kenner, a 2013 Temple alumna, created On The Verj in her hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y. The brand will embark on a series of initiatives to inspire and encourage young female students to pursue their dreams.

The establishment of On The Verj is Kenner’s first entrepreneurial effort since her graduation from the School of Media and Communication.

“There are so many resources and so many opportunities and so many other women who are willing to serve as a mentor or guide and show you the ropes,” Kenner said. “Don’t think that just because you’re a girl, ‘Oh, I can’t be a CEO, I can’t run a Fortune 500 company, only men do that.’ I don’t ever want girls to think that.”

The name On The Verj, she said, is two-fold.

“It’s a play on the word ‘verge,’ but the ‘J’ comes from my best [friend’s name] in high school,” Kenner said.

Her friend passed away while the two were still in school, Kenner said. In order to commemorate her friend, Kenner wanted to create something that would help young women. “[Her death] was really hard on me,” Kenner said. “I wanted to do something in her memory, so I named [my brand] ‘On The Verj.’”

After the initial desire to create the brand was sparked, Kenner recalled that in the spirit of her women’s support network, her friends encouraged her to start On The Verj.

“I think I am blessed to have the best, most [go-getter] friends ever,” she said. “Once

they set their minds to do something, they do it. Seeing them do it makes me want to do it as well.”

The first initiative of her brand is based on nail polish, recently featured on MadameNoir.com. The effort, titled ‘The Polish Project,’ is targeted toward young women who are just graduating, getting a job or breaking into the corporate world. Bottles of nail polish will be mailed to young women with an attached handwritten note of encouragement “featuring quotes and anecdotes from inspirational women both past and present.”

“I know it’s kind of a trend now for women to start their own businesses and take the man’s place in corporate America, [to] have real careers and real jobs and do real things,” Kenner said. “I definitely want to keep that going and spread the word about that to the younger generation.”

The Polish Project, which is set to kick off in the midst of the upcoming prom season, will allow Kenner to target her brand toward female high school students in the Brooklyn area. On The Verj has paired with the Brooklyn chapter of Operation Prom to provide underprivileged young women with “spa-day services” prior to prom night.

Operation Prom, established in 2005, aims to help low-income students afford the often pricey occasion and rite of passage by providing dresses and tuxes, but has since expanded to collect clothing donations for homeless or sick students.

“I always wanted to have a charitable cause,” Kenner said. “I’m trying to raise awareness and at the same time congratulate these girls. I feel like girls especially go through a lot now. More so than just creating public awareness, I want to say, ‘Hey, you graduated [high school], you’re going to prom, congratulations, let me do this for you to make it a little bit easier.’”

Kenner said her goal is to

(Above) Sarah Giskin wears a name tag indicating her preferred pronouns. (Below) Morgan Snowadzky reads the TAFC manifesto to the rest of the group. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

FOOD TRUCK

Trucking to Main Campus Truck owners who don’t permanently park at Temple weigh benefits of travel.

Kenner created On the Verj after graduation. COURTESY KRISTEN KENNER

make the nail polish affordable, at $6 maximum. She eventually wants to sell the polish in smaller consignment shops and boutiques after her efforts with Operation Prom have concluded.

“I’m trying to shy away from bigger stores,” Kenner said. “I’m trying to keep everything local so it can go right back into the community.”

Kenner’s friends agreed that her ultimate goal has always been to benefit the community. “[Kenner] has a very ambitious and driven personality,” said high school friend Monique Hamler.

When Hamler had a vision of a community service project at their old high school, she said Kenner was the first person she had in mind to be her collaborator.

“She [is] all about giving back,” Hamler said. “Working with [Kenner] is always a pleasure because of her bubbly spirit and creative mindset.”

“She’s super aggressive and seeks out all avenues before making a huge decision,” said friend and fellow Temple alumna Amanda Winston. “She’s all about women-owned business.”

Kenner noted that none of her work in the name of female empowerment is meant to be critical of men and their contributions to society.

“Guys do great things all the time and I’m super happy for them,” Kenner said. “But helping girls is near and dear to my heart. I’m not against guys – I’ll give them some shine when they deserve it. This is about the girls this time. It’s about us.”

Danielle Hagerty can be reached at danielle.hagerty@temple.edu.

ARIANE PEPSIN The Temple News Some owners say mobility is key in the food truck business. That’s why several trucks, including Undrgrnd Donuts and The Tot Cart, make Main Campus a stop on their weekly route, not a permanent location.

Julie Crist and Jessica Orso, owners of The Tot Cart, travel to other Philadelphia campuses such as Drexel, University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Sciences on a weekly basis. The decision to make their truck mobile rather than a permanent fixture at Temple helped create a larger customer base and helped Crist and Orso find their stride, they said.

“A lot of college campuses are becoming way too overcrowded with food trucks – the competition grows on a regular basis,” Crist said. “It’s hard to do business when there are so many trucks in one place. The University of the Sciences is a really great spot because there aren’t many food trucks there, so we’re becoming fairly wellknown.”

Crist and Orso have encountered trouble with finding

a parking spot at Temple that works for them due to the nature of their traveling business.

While most trucks on Main Campus have claimed their location, traveling trucks have to search for a new parking spot each time they arrive. The Tot Cart was told to move from its original spot on 13th Street because it was blocking the Fox School of Business sign.

“We don’t have a consistent schedule, so people don’t get used to seeing us at a certain spot over and over again,” Crist said. “It’s not profitable enough for us to only stay at Temple because there are just so many trucks on campus.”

Even with the challenges, Crist and Orso have enough faith in their business to keep bringing tater tots to multiple Philadelphia neighborhoods.

“Tater tots are awesome,” Crist said. “Everyone loves them, and we’re the only truck on the East Coast that specializes in them.”

The Tot Cart offers “gourmet” tater tots with a variety of toppings. Specials at The Tot Cart have included the “Bacon, Egg and Drunk Cheese” tots, cheesesteak tots and even the holiday “Turkey Tots,” topped with turkey, stuffing and gravy.

The truck was purchased in 2011 and had its grand opening last March on Main Campus.

Crist, a former Owl, chose the

location due to her undergraduate ties to the university.

“I love Temple,” Crist said.

“I worked here for five years before starting this business. I started here and I’ll continue to come here because it’s my alma mater.”

Other trucks, such as Pitruco Pizza, chose to discontinue their trips to Main Campus this semester. The pizza truck, which started business in October 2011, operates largely out of Center City since they have found it most profitable, according to their blog.

The ability to succeed, according to Crist and Orso, is that they don’t only serve college students. The two have toted their tots to the Philadelphia Night Market, the Manayunk Food Festival and shows at the Mann Center.

“We love going to places where there’s always a lot of foot traffic passing by,” Crist said. “Even though we move around during the week, Facebook and Twitter will let you know where we’ll be.”

The Tot Cart has been wellreceived by customers. Commenters on Yelp showed enthusiasm for the truck’s tots.

Ariane Pepsin can be reached at ariane.pepsin@temple.edu.

The Tot Cart operates from Temple’s Main Campus several days a week. It also parks on other college campuses to help grow its customer base. | FILE PHOTO TTN

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

CLIPPINGS

AROUND CAMPUS FEDERALIST SOCIETY CONVERSATION The Federalist Society will host an event titled “The Sweet Mystery of Justice Kennedy” on Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. The event will take place in Room K2A of Klein Hall and will be projected onto the monitors found within the law school.

The event will be a conversation about Justice Kennedy, the swing vote of the Supreme Court. All attendees are invited to participate in the discussion.

Guest speakers hosted by The Federalist Society will include Ilya Shapiro of Cato Institute and Professor Robert Reinstein. The speakers will lead the conversation among attendees.

All students are invited to attend, though the room capacity is 70 people. Interested individuals should contact Charles Prutzman at charles.prutzman@temple.edu.

Free pizza will be served at the event.

-Erin Edinger-Turoff

GREEKS GET NEW LEADERSHIP TECHNIQUES IN PITTSBURGH

Hornstein, Platt and Associates has a location near Main Campus at 1526 Cecil B. Moore Ave. The location services students, who are often sent to the clinic by the recommendation of Tuttleman Counseling Services. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

Holistic therapy clinic serves students on Main Campus THERAPY PAGE 7

owner Robin Hornstein. The two founders met each other at Temple during graduate school and shared a common dream of starting their own practice. After graduating in 1983, each had a degree in counseling and psychology. Later, the two did therapy work at separate practices.

After they experienced an overflow of patients, including from Temple’s own wellness center at Tuttleman, the two decided to combine the clinics in 2000 to create Hornstein, Platt & Associates.

“It’s kind of funny the way it started, because we were both were getting too many patients as private practitioners, so we thought we should collaborate,” Hornstein said.

“Once we did that, it just kept growing and it kept us really busy.”

Since the collaboration, the practice gained 25 cooperative providers through networking to provide people with insured services without the cost or restrictions of a clinic. Additionally, HPA hired 31 therapists and several ancillary practitioners. The practice has since expanded to eight locations in and around the Philadelphia area, one of which is found near Main Campus at 1526 Cecil B. Moore Ave.

“It was really like coming full circle because when I went to the counseling center when I went to Temple, it was incredibly helpful to me,” Platt said.

The university has worked closely with HPA in times when Tuttleman Counseling Services is overbooked by students. HPA has been taking on the overage of patients and clients for almost three years.

“There was a wonderful new counseling center, but the truth was that there was more of a need than the center could meet, and the center was really concerned about that,” Platt said. “So, that’s where we came in.”

Although HPA is not an official affiliate of Temple, Platt said there is a cooperative relationship between the two in that Temple will recommend HPA for students to receive additional care. HPA also works as a consultant of unique cases and trains Temple’s staff members.

The practice provides everything from psychotherapy, including individual therapy and family systems therapy, to therapeutic services such as life coaching and meditation. HPA has always focused its practice to specialize in behavioral

therapy and overall health and well- for community members struggling ness. This is encompassed by what with anything from sexuality to hoHornstein called their “holistic ap- mophobia.

“I feel great about it,” Platt said. proach.”

“It is really wonderful “As much as that we can give back to we can, we really the community in that try to help people way.” live a very full, Hornstein said she rich and peaceful believes therapy is a life, stress-free,” definite need in today’s Hornstein said. society, in particular for Along with the college community 20 services spewhere stress and anxiety cializing in alis common. She said she most 50 specific sees the impact stress issues, HPA still can have on people and plans on expandthe good therapy can do, ing the practice whether the benefit is to include several programs “micro or macro.” including stress “I think there is a lot Randi Platt /Executive Director reduction, sevof anxiety – especially eral discussion groups, finances and about healthcare,” Hornstein said. budgeting and acupuncture. In 2012, “There’s a lot of anxiety in populaHPA was named the top LGBT- tions of students and on professors. owned company in the Philadelphia We live in a very high pressured soBusiness Journal’s Book of Lists ciety. We really hope to help people and was again named as a finalist in cope with that better. That’s our 2013. main goal.”

HPA has served and been a part Brian Tom can be reached at of the LGBT community since its brian.tom@temple.edu. creation. Although it is not its only area of interest, HPA offers services

“It was really

like coming full circle because when I went to the counseling center when I went to Temple, it was incredibly helpful to me.

”

Greek life leaders will represent Temple at the Northeast Greek Leadership Association Annual Conference held Feb. 27 to March 2 at the Wyndham Grand in downtown Pittsburgh.

The event features more than 900 guests from the region, including: students, campus professionals, national fraternity and sorority experts and volunteers. Greeks will engage with keynote and showcase speakers in addition to participating in a variety of educational program blocks.

The speakers and seminars will highlight the communicative and interpersonal skills needed to foster unity and success among Northeast Greek chapters. The conference will also feature open forums to discuss current techniques and programs in support of Greek life.

The weekend-long event includes a luncheon with brothers and sisters from the region, and the opportunity to dine with members of the same delegation.

The weekend culminates with a banquet on Saturday evening during which the NGLA Awards are presented to the Greeks with the most individual and community promise, as well as the Greek program that had the greatest impact.

-Lora Strum

GREEKS TO SELECT NEW LEADERS Temple University Greek Association will pass the baton to a new set of leaders this semester.

A critical junction, the yearly transition involves more than just identifying promising Greek leaders, but also focuses on current leaders as they complete lingering projects and organize the effort to train their successors.

Important elements of leadership involves knowledge of organization history, rules, procedures and job descriptions.

To alleviate the strains of this transition, Temple works with sorority and fraternity members to offer a Student Training and Rewards System workshop specifically designed to coach current leaders on how to ease new leaders into their positions.

-Lora Strum

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

“What are your thoughts

about the cuts to Temple sports teams?

”

ANDREW THAYER TTN

“I was pretty surprised.

I’m a tutor at the athletic department and on a personal level I know the athletes took a blow.”

AMY COMMANDER

SENIOR | PSYCHOLOGY

“It is kind of B.S., especially for a public university.”

JUSTIN RODEN

SENIOR | MEDIA STUDIES & PRODUCTION

“It’s crazy because a lot of [the student athletes] are [here on] scholarship.”

RAYNESH ALLEN

JUNIOR | BUSINESS

LIVING

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 17

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A Watchdog for the Temple University Community Since 1921

NEWS

PAGE 18

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

Despite inconsistent history...

Temple Stadium, (left) was demolished in the 1990s. It served as the football team’s home from 1928-74. Edberg-Olson Hall, the Owls’ practice facility, received a $10 million upgrade in 2012. It opened in 2000 after a three-year effort to raise donations. | COURTESY TEMPLE ATHLETICS/ STEVEN REITZ TTN FILE PHOTO

FOOTBALL PAGE 1 you don’t know what’s going to THE BEGINNING happen with.”

The most successful era in White’s sentiments are the history of Temple football shared by scores across the happened close to 80 years ago, Temple community. Many are when students with nicknames casting blame at the football like “Swede” were led by a program, which the university coach named “Pop” to blowis investing in heavily despite out wins against smaller, local its penchant for losing games on schools. the field and money off the field.

At the turn of the 20th A review of the football century, the football team was team’s history shows that an in- merely an extension of the consistency in institutional sup- physical education department. port has prevented the football But after World War I, Temple team from building and main- saw an influx of students and taining a reputable program. became the second-largest uniExperts say two periods in the versity in the Philadelphia area university’s history – the 1950s in terms of enrollment. and the 1980s – when the adPresident Charles Beury ministration didn’t invest heavi- vowed a stronger commitment ly in athletics created rifts in the to athletics. In 1928, the unifootball program’s momentum. versity built Temple Stadium Former coaches say not in Vernon Park on the outskirts having a strong profile, in addi- of Germantown for $350,000. tion to Temple’s history of be- With a capacity of more than ing a commuter school located 30,000, the stadium would be a in North Philadelphia, has al- popular city football venue and ways made recruiting high-level the Owls’ home for close to 50 prospects from outside the tri- years. state area difficult.

Leading Temple on the Furthermore, Temple’s field, beginning in 1933, was inability to consistently win Temple athletics Hall of Famer games has prevented the foot- Glenn “Pop” Warner. Widely ball program from bringing in considered to be one of the the type of revenue that teams in great football minds of the era, major conferences use to prop Warner coached the Owls to up their athletic departments. five straight winning seasons In the newly and an invitaformed American tion to the inAthletic Conferaugural Sugar ence, Temple has Bowl, which the second smallTemple lost to est athletic budget Tulane, 20-14, ($41.5 million) in 1935. but is tied for the During most number of the next four sports sponsored seasons un(24), according til Warner’s to the most reretirement in cent data from the 1938, Temple U.S. Department scheduled of Education. Ofgames against ficials pointed to James Hilty / Temple historian some of best that discrepancy teams in the as the main reason country.

In for the cuts.

Warner’s last season, the Owls The athletic department played against three teams that estimates the cuts will save the would finish in the Top 10, inuniversity $3 million to $3.5 cluding eventual national chammillion. President Theobald and pion Texas Christian.

Athletic Director Kevin Clark “There have been times both deny that the football team when Temple was at the pinwas the root cause of the cuts nacle of the sport,” said James and brush off the notion that the Hilty, a professor emeritus in leftover money will be funneled the history department and a into the upstart program.

Temple historian. “Temple had Among the eight former its own football stadium and players, coaches and adminis- hired the best football coach trators interviewed for this ar- in the United States. There are ticle, there was no consensus prideful moments in the proas to the football team’s role in gram.” the decision to eliminate sports.

Temple had come a long However, no one disputes this: way from the modest schedule In the post-BCS era, a univer- of its early beginnings when the sity’s athletic department lives Owls beat up on the local miliand dies with its Division I foot- tary institutes and Big 5 schools. ball program.

The first recorded win in the The football team’s role history of the program was a in sponsoring an underfunded 14-6 victory in 1894 against the athletic department raises ques- Philadelphia Dental College. tions about its implication in the Temple hired Ray Morcuts and outlines the future chal- rison from Vanderbilt as Warlenges of the program, which is ner’s full-time replacement in pushing forward just as Temple 1940. Morrison led the Owls to has cut back elsewhere. promising results in his first two

“There have

been times when Temple was at the pinnacle of the sport... there are prideful moments in the program.

”

seasons, posting 4-4-1 and 7-2

records.

And then… a war.

LITTLE MEANS

On the exterior of Sullivan Hall on Liacouras Walk, inscribed beneath a window on the second floor façade, there is a quote from Temple founder Russell Conwell: “Greatness really consists in doing some great deeds with little means.”

Experts say the statement illuminates one of the fundamental challenges the athletic department has faced since its founding: Temple’s mission dictates that it strive to be the best while pledging to allocate as few resources as necessary.

After World War II, there was a nationwide increase in university enrollment. Many Midwestern universities used the boost in tuition money to prop up their athletic departments, and particularly, their football teams, Hilty said.

“There was this notion that an athletic ideal was attached to football,” Hilty said. “Maybe because of the success that the Ivy League schools had in the 1920s and 30s…but the Big Ten schools really took off.”

But just as major programs across the country were pushing forward, Temple decided to pull back.

In 1952, newly appointed Athletic Director Josh Cody rolled out an “administrative de-emphasis” of intercollegiate athletics. The football team stopped playing a national schedule, replacing Michigan State and West Virginia with the likes of Lafayette and Muhlenberg. The Owls even stopped playing Penn State.

Old budget numbers are hard to come by, but multiple people with knowledge of the university’s decision-making said Temple became less willing to commit the money needed to sustain a competitive football team and more concerned with maintaining an affordable education for its students.

“The reputation Temple had was a city school for poor kids that could get a good education,” said White, who was with the football team as a player from 1949-51 and a coach from 1956-68. “The main focus of those years was providing education for local city kids.

Football wasn’t the main thing then.”

“It’s a commitment made by the university, by Russell Conwell and all of his successors,” Hilty said. “The presidents and trustees have always tried to maintain the lowest level of tuition and the lowest cost to students.”

The lack of institutional support caught up with the football team by the end of the decade.

The Owls went through three coaching changes in the 1950s, managing only one win-

ning season and ending the decade on a 21-game losing streak, which stands as the longest in program history.

“It was about money after the war,” White said. “The stadium was far away. They weren’t drawing as many people as they should…our sights weren’t set that high originally.”

HANG ON, SLOOPY

On a rainy October afternoon in 1965, the Ohio State marching band made the unaccustomed decision to stop playing Tchaikovsky and start playing The McCoys.

The band played the No. 1 hit “Hang On, Sloopy” during halftime of a 28-14 win against Illinois. It got such a positive reaction from the crowd that the band continued playing it for the rest of the season. To this day at every home game, the band plays “Hang On, Sloopy” before the fourth quarter.

Some traditions, it seems, need to find a way to build on their own.

Ernie Casale took over as Temple’s athletic director in 1959 and convinced the Board of Trustees to re-emphasize athletics. The football team started to take a step forward under new coach George Makris in 1960, White recalled.

“We brought in a big recruiting class,” said White, who coached future stars Joe Morelli and Bill Cosby that year. “They must have brought in 200 guys that year to try out…I had the biggest freshman football team that we’ve probably ever had.”

White said most of Temple’s players came from the city’s public high schools. Other local colleges were more successful in recruiting talent from New Jersey and Maryland.

“I don’t know if we got our share,” White said. “There were other good schools who recruited in those areas. It depended on where your assistant coaches were from, so you’d try to bring in new coaches from outside areas.”

“We were trying to recruit kids to a campus that was in the center of the city,” White added.

“It was a very difficult job to do.”

But Temple made do. The Owls won five or more games in five straight seasons for the first time since the 1930s and captured their first Middle Atlantic Conference championship in 1967. By the end of the decade, the football team left the conference and returned to playing a national schedule as an independent.

Casale hired Wayne Hardin from Navy in 1970, ushering in the most prestigious era of Temple football since the Warner years. Temple won 80 games during Hardin’s tenure from 1970-82, including a 2817 victory against California in the 1979 Garden State Bowl.

In 1975, Temple played Penn State for the first time since 1952 and lost narrowly, 26-25. By the end of the decade, the Owls were playing the Nittany Lions, West Virginia and Pittsburgh every season.

White credits Hardin and the administrative support from Casale for the revitalization of the program. “[Casale] went after [Hardin],” White said. “He wanted Wayne Hardin in the worst way…it put even further back into big-time football.”

TEMPLE FOOTBALL

BY THE NUMBERS

114

SEASONS OF TEMPLE FOOTBALL

428

ALL-TIME PROGRAM WINS

558

ALL-TIME PROGRAM LOSSES

26

HEAD COACHES

4

BOWL GAME APPEARANCES

SUBWAY ALUMNI

Every day, there was a bus.

It seemed to always be parked outside Mitten Hall. In the spring it was loaded with baseball players, the fall with soccer players. The football team would ride it year-round.

From the beginning through much of the 1970s, student-athletes from most sports took the daily 20-minute ride from Main Campus to Vernon Park in Germantown to practice or compete at Temple Stadium.

The stadium was built in the 1920s with a capacity of 34,200. When the Owls moved back into playing a national schedule in the 1970s, the near 50-year old venue soon became inadequate for home football games.

Beginning in 1974, the Owls began playing in South Philadelphia at Veterans Stadium, the new home of the Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia Phillies. The football team would also share space at the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field, a longtime agreement Temple held in the case of scheduling conflicts.

The question of where Temple should play its home games has been a persistent is-

sue since the university moved from its old stadium. Former coaches say Temple not having a facility to call its own hampers recruiting, while administrators stress that the lack of a strong athletic donor base has prevented the university from making the upgrades needed.

In the 1980s, Temple was in the midst of one of the most significant transitions in its athletic department’s history. Wayne Hardin retired as Temple’s coach in 1982, the same year that the former dean of the law school, Peter Liacouras, took over as the university’s president.

Liacouras is a well-known supporter of intercollegiate athletics, but some question whether or not his administration had the resources it needed to invest properly in athletics in the 1980s.

“The money wasn’t there when I first got there and Peter first started,” said Charlie Theokas, athletic director from 198693. “Money has always been a problem at Temple.”

“We’ve always insisted tuition be on the low end and insisted it be the primary source of revenue by default rather than donors,” said Hilty, who was also Liacouras’ director of planning from 1982-88.

Hilty said upgrades to athletic facilities in the 1980s as simple as a $1 million improvement to the East Park Canoe House, the former home of the rowing teams, were nearly impossible to negotiate due to Temple’s weak donor base and unwavering commitment to affordability.

“We haven’t been successful as a university in raising large amounts of external funding,” Hilty said. “You have to have a [base] that’s there for its students and there for the general public. Temple wants a subway alumni. People who root for Temple because it’s a Philly thing. People who don’t have a college affiliation to say Temple is our school.”

“They’ve been trying to do that for a long time,” Hilty added. “It’s had some success, but it hasn’t created the huge momentum that can match Penn State or Pittsburgh.”

Larger upgrades, like a new football arena to replace the old Temple Stadium, were essentially out of the question.

“It’s a city problem,” Theokas said. “It doesn’t mean you give up football, it means you compete at the level you can compete at.”

Still, Theokas insists that the athletic department generated momentum during Liacouras’ first decade in office.

Bruce Arians and John Chaney were brought in the coach the football and men’s basketball teams, respectively, in 1982. Arians managed two winning seasons in six years,

NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 19

...a new era of investment

Glenn “Pop” Warner Coach, 1933-38

Warner coached the Owls during what many consider to be the golden age of the footbal program. He went 31-18 in six seasons and helped Temple earn a berth in the inaugural Sugar Bowl.

while Cheney led his team for two decades in the most prominent era in program history.

In 1986, the Board of Trustees approved a recommendation from Theokas to eliminate eight varsity sports: men’s fencing, swimming, cross country and wrestling and women’s bowling, badminton, cross country and swimming.

Theokas said at the time that the decision was meant to re-emphasize Temple’s commitment to its club sports, but in an interview last week, he said it was more about streamlining support for the remaining Division I programs, particularly the ones that generated revenue.

“You’re either in the business or out of the business in athletics,” Theokas said. “If you’re in, you can’t be mediocre. You have to chase the proverbial rainbow because good things happen in the end.”

‘BONA FIDE’ CHALLENGES

Bobby Wallace remembers a football practice, sometime in the 1990s, when a teenager from the community rode his bike onto the field and collided with the punter.

The football team stopped practicing at Temple Stadium after the Owls began playing their home games elsewhere in the 1970s. They moved to the fields behind what is now the Student Pavilion, sharing time on the lower grass field and the upper Astroturf field.

By the time Temple gained entry into the Big East Conference in 1991, its facilities weren’t up to the standard of the other football programs in the conference, let alone most schools across the country.

“It is grossly inadequate,” President Peter Liacouras wrote about the practice field in a 1998 discussion paper about the football team. “Continuous and multiple use leaves it in poor shape and with unpredictable availability for safe football practices. No other [Division I] football program can make that statement.”

Coaches had offices without windows in the middle of McGonigle Hall, which resembled a high school gym. There were no meeting rooms. Wide receivers held group sessions in a stairwell leading to a downstairs bathroom.

“The facilities, from the coaches’ offices to the practice fields, were worse than anywhere I’ve been, including [Division II] North Alabama,” said Wallace, who coached the football team from 1998-2005.

“I would come to work and the community would be playing touch football.”

Multiple people involved in the university’s decision making said that after a financiallystrapped decade of transition in the 1980s, drops in enrollment and demographic changes in the

Gavin White Jr. Coach, player, athletic director, 1949-88

Charlie Theokas Athletic director, 1986-93

money after the war...our sights weren’t set that high originally.

wasn’t there when I first started... money has always been a problem at Temple.

“It was about

”

early 1990s prevented Temple from being able to make necessary investments to stay competitive in football, just as the sport was skyrocketing to new heights across the country.

Officials point to two highly publicized faculty strikes – in 1986 and 1990 – as causes for enrollment downturns. Numbers from Temple’s institutional research and assessment office show that total enrollment dropped from about 32,600 in 1989 to about 29,200 in 1990 and continued to flatline in the early ‘90s.

“Those strikes hurt. We lost considerable enrollment,” said Hilty, the former director of planning. “Because the endowment’s not large and the state appropriation was leveled or cut back, there’s no room for growth … we lost so much in the way of tuition dollars, there was no room for expansion or investment.”

“We were strapped,” secretary to the Board of Trustees George Moore told the Temple News in 2012. “We didn’t have the money to invest in anything: the campus, athletics or anything in the ‘90s.”

Meanwhile, Big East teams like Miami, Boston College and Syracuse were fielding some of the best teams in the country.

In Temple’s first seven years in the Big East, the Owls changed coaches twice and went 4-42 in conference play.

“The [recruiting] challenge at that time is, No. 1, facilities.

No. 2 was the perception of campus and where it was located,” Steve Addazio said about Temple. Addazio was an assistant at Syracuse from 1995-98 and head coach at Temple from 2011-12.

“Those are legitimate, bona fide challenges,” Addazio added. “In doing that and playing a Big East schedule when the Big East was the Big East. That was a real challenge.”

Wallace took over as head coach in 1998, a year when Temple averaged a home attendance of 15,127, ranking 101 out of 112 Division I schools, according to NCAA data. The average Big East home attendance that year was 39,895.

Temple’s budget, facilities and attendance numbers became so unacceptable to the Big East that conference members voted to kick the Owls out of the conference in 2001. It’s the only time in the history of intercollegiate athletics that a conference has formally voted out one of its members.

“Nothing was done for so long,” Addazio said. “It’s like a house. If you don’t make yearly repairs, all of a sudden you step back and you’re confronted with this massive problem.”

Temple negotiated a threeyear stay and officially left the conference in 2004. Chairman of the Board of Trustees Howard Gittis commissioned a task

“The money ”

Bobby Wallace Coach, 1998-2005

“The facilities... were worse than anywhere I’ve been, including [Division II].

”

Steve Addazio

Coach, 2011-12

“If you don’t

make yearly repairs...you’re confronted with this massive problem.

”

A trend line showing the history of the football team’s win totals shows that the Owls were losing on the field during two periods in which the university didn’t invest heavily in athletics. | AVERY MAEHRER TTN force of trustees, faculty, students and alumni to determine the future of the football team.

President David Adamany, among others, thought the program should be disbanded.

Ultimately, it was decided that the Owls would continue competing in Division I in a nonBCS conference, largely due to conversations Temple was having with Rick Chryst, commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, who was interested in bringing the Owls in.

The task force’s recommendation was decided by one vote.

THE NEW CONFERENCE

It was a dreary Dec. 6 afternoon when Gavin R. White called his father, Gavin White Jr., the Temple athletics hall of famer and former football player, coach and athletic director.

“He said they’d been called into a room and told their sport was dropped,” the older White recalled. “It was a very short conversation. I was sort of in shock when he said that. And of course he was too.”

White’s son had been Temple’s crew coach for 33 seasons.

He led the Varsity 8 to Dad Vail Regatta titles 20 times. He even coached the men’s four at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

In a brief meeting last month, the younger White was informed by Athletic Director Kevin Clark that the university would be eliminating his sport, along with six others.

The news broke the heart of his old man.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” White Jr. said. “I didn’t hear any rumors to that effect from anyone else I knew at Temple.

It was a complete shock. I don’t know how else to describe that feeling.”

The cuts were described

by officials as a culmination of the university’s long history of having an underfunded athletic department, while always sponsoring a large number of sports.

In the American Athletic Conference, only Connecticut had as many sports as Temple, despite the fact that Temple ranks second to last in the size of its overall budget, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education.

The American was formed after the Big East folded last year. Temple was invited back into the Big East in 2012 for all sports, though the move was mostly due to the recent resurgence of its football team, former Athletic Director Bill Bradshaw said in an interview last week.

In 2000, Temple opened Edberg-Olson Hall, a new football practice facility on 10th & Diamond streets that was the culmination of a three-year donation effort by the Owls Club.

It would later undergo a $10 million expansion in 2012.

With Veterans Stadium set to be demolished, Temple announced a 15-year agreement in 2003 to play home football games at Lincoln Financial Field, the new home of the Eagles.

On the field, the Owls started winning games. Coaches Al Golden and Steve Addazio led the football team to two bowl appearances and a 26-12 record from 2009-11, the highest threeyear win total in program history.

“I felt pressure,” Addazio said. “We wanted to lift it up ¬– to get to a bowl game, win the bowl game, get the facility and get into a new conference … I always felt it was so important to keep a great buzz around the program.”

Temple was competing in

the Mid-American Conference, which admitted the Owls after they spent two years as an independent. From 2007-11, Temple paid the MAC a membership fee. Officials won’t disclose the amount, but said it was significant enough that Temple didn’t gain any profit from bowl revenue shared among the conference’s schools.

Now in The American, Temple’s budget and facilities are still at the low end of the conference and questions remain about the Owls’ ability to draw.

The football team finished second to last in the conference this past season with a 1-7 record and the Owls’ average home attendance of a little more than 22,000 finished only better than Southern Methodist.

THE FUTURE

Almost as soon as President Theobald took office in January 2013, rumors began to spread about the possibility of Temple building a football stadium on campus.

Theobald said publicly throughout last year that negotiations about building would have to begin soon if the university wanted the stadium open by 2019, the year after Temple’s contract with the Linc is set to expire.

Speaking at a post-inaugural event this past November, Theobald said the university is in “serious discussion” about building its own football stadium and that the venue would at “some point, likely” be included in Temple’s next master plan.

Theobald and Clark both denied interview requests for this article. Issues like Temple’s location and having the donor base to fund major projects remain, but the administration’s comments on the prospect of

building a new stadium illustrate how serious it is about investing in the football team.

Most former coaches and administrators interviewed for this article said they didn’t believe the sports cuts were made because of the football team.

They believe it’s about making smarter investments in the remaining programs.

“What they’re doing right now is having an organized approach to solidifying and building their athletic program,” Addazio said. “It’s really hard to be all things to everybody. No one can do that.”

“I’ve heard some people say how difficult it is to cut sports,” said Bill Bradshaw, who retired last summer after being athletic director for 11 years. “The most difficult thing is to keep sports and find ways to fund them to be competitive.”

Still, no one disputes the rewards of investing in an athletic department’s revenue sports, particularly the football team.

“Temple is in the crossroads,” Theokas, the former athletic director, said. “I’m sensitive to what they’re going through. Schools that continue to support athletics consistently with continuity will be rewarded. Are they going to subsidize?

Absolutely. Is it worth it? Absolutely.”

“We’ve had splurges of investment in which we’ve spent a lot of money and then it’s tailed off and we’ve had to reinvest all over again,” Hilty, the Temple historian, said. “And we’re at one of those periods in history – we had to decide to reinvest or cut back.”

“In some respects, it’s sad.

But it’s who we are.”

Joey Cranney can be reached at joseph.cranney@temple.edu or on Twitter @joey_cranney.

SPORTS

PAGE 20

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

WINTER WRAP-UP

Quenton DeCosey (left) and Natasha Thames (right). The men’s basketball team’s most recent victory came a month ago against LIU Brooklyn, as the group has lost several players during its current six-game losing streak. The women’s team has won two straight games, as Tonya Cardoza’s squad seeks to gain consistency as play in The American continues. | HUA ZONG TTN

Losing streak the worst of Dunphy era Winless in The American, the Owls are off to their worst start in 12 seasons.

AVERY MAEHRER Sports Editor

Before the start of this season, Fran Dunphy provided a warning of what his team’s prospects were headed MEN’S BASKETBALL into its first year in the American Athletic Conference.

The longtime coach said

he was facing the biggest challenge since his debut with Temple in 2006.

“We don’t have a lot of margin for error,” Dunphy said.

Now, as the Owls are in the midst of a six-game losing streak – the longest of the Fran Dunphy era, and the longest for the program in over a decade – that margin has become even smaller.

Temple has been plagued by injuries during the past month. Sophomore Daniel Dingle recently had surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his right knee and is likely out for the season. Freshman forward

Mark Williams was sidelined for one game after suffering a sprained ankle at Central Florida. Although he is medically cleared to play, Will Cummings has sat out for two of the past three games due to concussionlike symptoms.

“Will is definitely a big loss, starting at the point guard,” said sophomore forward Quenton DeCosey, who has scored in double-figures ever game this season. “We also have had other losses that could have helped us during this long stretch.”

Five of the team’s six losses during the losing streak have been to conference opponents

– Rutgers, UCF, South Florida, Memphis and Cincinnati. Most recently, Temple fell to La Salle, as the Explorers topped the Owls for the first time in nine match-ups. Temple holds a 5-11 record and remains winless in conference play.

With the exception of its most recent game against La Salle, the Owls have held second-half leads during every game this season.

With the team’s injuries and short-stacked roster, combined with the transition into The American, Dunphy said confidence may be playing a part in the Owls’ struggles as

of late, as the team needs to be “more mentally aware.” He said he talks about the issue with his players “ad nauseum.”

“It could be inexperience,” Dunphy said after the loss to the Knights on Jan. 4. “We need to get stops at certain times and score at others, but the encouraging thing is we’re right where we need to be many times at the end.”

Things won’t get any easier for the Owls this week. They will travel to Connecticut on Tuesday to face a 14-4 Huskies squad, later hosting conferenceleader Cincinnati at the Liacouras Center on Sunday.

Junior forward Anthony Lee, who posted a career-high 15 rebounds and his eighth double-double of the season against the Explorers, took a long pause after the game before answering how the team can move past its current losing streak.

“To get through it, we have to come together more and be strong through the diversity that we’re going through,” Lee said.

“That’s what we have to do.”

Avery Maehrer can be reached at avery.maehrer@temple.edu or on Twitter @AveryMaehrer.

In conference play, inconsistency hurting Owls With 10-7 record, team currently stands at fifth place in The American.

BRIEN EDWARDS The Temple News Temple is trying to work through its split persona.

“There are two teams,” coach Tonya Cardoza said.

In their first season in the AmeriWOMEN’S BASKETBALL c a n Athletic Conference, the Owls’ schedule and lack of experience have

produced an array of inconsistent performances.

Coming off last year’s 1418 season, when Temple was unable to earn a win streak of longer than two games, the 2013-14 season showed signs of change.

“It is different,” junior guard Rateska Brown said.

“We’ve got a good group here.

Everybody’s capable of scoring.

Everybody’s capable of playing [defense]. Everybody can play together. We’re a way different team than last year”.

The season began with three consecutive victories, the longest streak for the team since a 14-game winning streak two

years ago. But since starting the season with a string of victories, the Owls have been unable to earn back-to back-wins without interjecting losses.

In the 10 games that followed the perfect start, the Owls recorded a 5-5 record. During that span, every loss was responded with a win in the following game, preventing any losing streaks.

“No one really likes losing, but when the team feels like there’s something that is holding us back, and we just try figuring out what it is,” freshman guard Feyonda Fitzgerald said, in regards to the prevention of consecutive losses. “We come

together and do what we got to do to turn it around.”

But in the same stretch of games, consecutive wins were also not achieved, continuing a trend of trading wins with losses.

Temple suffered its first consecutive losses this season when it faced South Florida and No. 1 Connecticut, losing both games by double digits.

Previous to the two game losing streak, the Owls had lost by double digits one time this year.

For Cardoza, the 80-36 loss to UConn, where Temple held within single digits of the Huskies for most of the first half, epitomized the performance of

her players this season.

“We liked the team that showed up for the first 15 minutes versus Connecticut,” Cardoza said. “And when we play like that, we’re a tough team to beat.”

In a season where Temple’s 10-player roster contains six underclassmen, the Owls heavily depend on inexperienced players, like leading scorer Fitzgerald, to make an impact. Though her players are young, Cardoza insists that the overall team is to blame for inconsistency.

With a 10-7 record, standing at fifth place in The American, Cardoza said she believes that the team’s consistency will

improve as the season progresses.

Cardoza has attributed Temple’s increased schedule strength, due to its induction into The American, as a factor in the Owls’ difficulty to string wins together. Still, Cardoza said it’s up to her team to get itself in a situation to win games.

“We can’t sit around and hope someone else doesn’t do their job,” Cardoza said.

Brien Edwards can be reached at brien.erick.edwards@temple.edu or on Twitter @BErick1123.

Players take issue with administration’s handling of announcement SOFTBALL PAGE 24 other,” DiPietro said of the remaining players.

“They decided that they’re going to go out there to prove to everybody that they are a team, and they’re a team that cares a lot about each other.”

Temple’s softball team, as well as the other student-athletes and coaches, was not given prior warning that any cut was imminent. Both DiPietro and team captain Stephanie Pasquale had heard rumours as late as October that Temple was actually planning on renovating the softball team’s squalid batting cages, which boast gravel turf and dilapidated netting, Pasquale said, calling the cages a “catastrophe.”

DiPietro said he discussed the possibility with Athletic Director Kevin Clark.

“I find it kind of odd that we were hearing rumours of new batting cages as late as October,” DiPietro said. He added that through his team’s fundraising efforts – separate from Temple’s athletic budget – the softball team has been able to renovate much of its stadium on its own, including building a press box and adding seating.

“When I hear, ‘It’ll cost a ton to renovate,’ I don’t believe that,” DiPietro said. “We have the nicest facility in Ambler because I fundraised to do it.”

A donor had been in line to help update the team’s batting cages, but was let go after the team was cut, DiPietro said.

Last season, Temple won a school-record 32 games, hit 94 home runs to lead the country and held a team grade point average of 3.25. The team has had the highest women’s GPA at Temple for

three straight seasons.

While the team is upset about the cuts, it took a bigger issue with the way the announcement was handled by the administration.

“I walked up and asked [Clark] politely, ‘Excuse me, sir, may I please speak to you one-onone?’” freshman centerfielder Toni Santos said.

“He put his hand in my face, and said ‘I can’t, I have another meeting,’ and just kept walking. And this was after he told us that he would answer any questions. I was in tears.”

Despite the fact that it has been more than a month since the announcement, the team is still searching for answers.

“These kids feel like they [should] matter, instead of just being looked at as dollar signs,” DiPietro said. “They’re not looked at as human beings. They’re devastated because they can’t get any answers.”

In the meantime, underclassmen have been forced to weigh their futures. Sophomore infielder Kelsey Dominik said she spent her vacation visiting schools in order to transfer in time for the 2015 season.

“I’ve been under so much stress trying to make a plan for my future,” Dominik said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at Temple the same way.”

“Since I’m a junior, I’m not going to transfer to a different school to play softball or anything,” pitcher Jessica Mahoney said. “So next year I’ll be a senior, and I’m just going to be a regular student. I’ve definitely thought about what I’m go-

Coach Joe DiPietro (left) stands by his players during a game from this past fall. The softball team led the nation in homeruns last season. | COURTESY ALEXANDRA MCDERMOTT ing to do now that most of the team’s going to be gone. I’m not really sure, to be honest.”

As for DiPietro, his vision for his own future remains unclear.

“The coaches are the ones that really get the short end of the stick,” DiPietro said. “The players have the ability to transfer, while the coaches don’t have that.”

DiPietro, a resident of Mount Laurel, N.J.,

said he is unsure as to how he’ll make mortgage payments once the season ends.

“I may have to collect unemployment for the first time in my life,” DiPietro said.

Jerry Iannelli can be reached at jerryi@temple.edu, or on Twitter @jerryiannelli.

Don McDermott contributed reporting.

SPORTS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 21

Turoff, White losing longtime positions COACHES PAGE 1 practices 20 hours a week in their gym.

Including the upcoming seasons, Turoff and his crew counterpart, Gavin White, have been the head coaches of their respective programs for a combined 72 years. Both are members of the Temple Athletics Hall of Fame. Neither was given any advance notice about their teams’ impending elimination.

“The fact that Gav and I have been here over 30 years, and neither one of us was consulted at all with: ‘We have a problem. What can we do? Let’s think of some creative solutions,’” Turoff said. “We have some newcomers who come in from out of the city, don’t know Philadelphia traditions, don’t know the history of what we have other than what they can read. It seems pretty cold and corporate to me, instead of an educational institution that’s supposed to hear different ideas and weigh them back and forth.”

Turoff’s first memories of Temple go back to when he was in junior high, when he went to Temple on Friday nights to work out with the gymnasts.

After his family moved to Connecticut, he came back to Temple for his degree. He graduated with a physics degree in 1969, and after a brief stint in graduate school, he took a job as an assistant coach for the Owls.

“I was an assistant coach for six years, [then] took one year off from that to train for my last possible Olympic try,” Turoff said. “A series of injuries in my latter career knocked me out of the international program.

I tried, but finally had to face retirement, and the job opened up here three months later. It was very nice timing for me.”

White has been head coach for four fewer years than Turoff, but he has been around Temple athletics for longer. White’s father is a former Temple football coach and athletic director.

“I remember going to Temple football games when I was 6 or 7 years old,” the younger White said. “My dad was coach then, at the old Temple stadium.

Watching football there was fun.

Other memories I have are going down to gymnastics meets and going to basketball games.”

Turoff said there are other options for him to coach, even if they are in an advisory capacity.

White said in a November interview with The Temple News that he could coach 10 more years. Now, he’s backing off that stance.

“That might have been a little bit ambitious on my part,” White said. “This might have been my last year, or next year.

The hard part right now is that I have a group of sophomores that are amazing. They had a great fall. And I was expecting to maybe get back into the medals this year ... and then see them into their junior and senior years. Maybe finish here next

year and have [assistant coach Brian] Perkins take over the following year. I have a feeling that by the time these guys are juniors and seniors, they’re going to be awesome. That’s the sad part of seeing the program dissolve right now because I have a really good group.”

“If we’re going out, we want to go out with a flourish,” White added. “If we’re going out, we want to go out on top.”

White said he has gotten a lot of support from alumni and others. An online petition titled “Save Temple Rowing Teams” has more than 12,000 signatures. When the crew and rowing teams held a rally in December, rowers from St. Joseph’s, Villanova, Drexel and La Salle came to show their support.

Turoff has been in contact with alumni of his team, encouraging them to send letters to administrators.

“I don’t think there’s another team that’s had the com-

petitive success in the conference, or in any conference, that we’ve had,” Turoff said. “They also certainly haven’t had the academic success we’ve had the past few years... in addition to that, we run a boys’ team.

We run a Sunday clinic for local kids in conjunction with the women’s team. Those are both fundraising efforts, but they do provide opportunity for us to spread the word of gymnastics.

So we’re doing everything that you’d want an athletic team to do.”

Turoff said he has not directly been in contact with any administrators. He requested a meeting with Lewis Katz, the chairman of the Athletics Committee of the Board of Trustees, and was told the request had to go through Athletic Director Kevin Clark. Turoff has not contacted Clark, as he said he doesn’t believe Clark will grant the meeting.

Turoff is also an adjunct

faculty member, teaching classes in skin diving and gymnastics education. He said he believes those opportunities will remain for him after the team is cut.

“I could certainly stay on as a part-time faculty member, but it wouldn’t replace my full-time salary,” Turoff said.

One reason the university has given for the teams being cut was inadequate facilities, particularly in the case of crew and rowing, which have competed and trained without a boathouse since 2008. Neither White nor Turoff said they were unwilling to compete with their current resources.

“I know my facility isn’t ideal, but it hasn’t kept us from being successful,” Turoff said.

“I’m willing to continue with this.”

Evan Cross can be reached at evan.cross@temple.edu or on Twitter @EvanCross.

Thirty-fourth-year crew coach Gavin White looks upward during an early morning fall practice. White received his bachelor’s degree at Temple. | JACOB COLON TTN

Increased funding before cuts contributes to shock ROWING PAGE 24 this situation had held us back,” Moira Meekes, a junior rower, said.

Sophomore rower Stephanie Barber said she had been visiting her sister’s Temple races on the Schuylkill River since her junior year of high school.

“I have been all throughout these tents,” Barber said. “I had many years to think about whether I wanted to be in there or not, and that didn’t affect me at all.”

Women’s rowing coach Rebecca Grzybowski was well aware of the conditions when she was appointed to the position about two-and-a-half years ago. But she said it wasn’t something that deterred her team.

“Facilities aside, I mean, we could have lived in tents for another 10 years and continued to grow the team and the program and have more success than we had ever had in the history of the program,” Grzybowski said.

During a monthly compliance and coaches meeting in early fall, Grzybowski said the athletic department told the entire coaching staff that the two main priorities for the university were a football stadium and a boathouse that would cost between $8-10

million.

“The thought of our program being cut was so far off my radar,” Grzybowski said. “To be told that you are one of the two priorities for the entire athletic department makes you feel like OK, we’ve got total support and we are going full steam ahead and everybody is behind us 100 percent. So that’s partly why it came as a complete and total shock to the program.”

Kelsey Franks, a recruited sophomore for the women’s rowing team, said she was also shocked by the news.

Franks said administrators often reassured her coach about a boathouse, causing her to pass that same hope onto the team.

“So honestly, we could all picture the boathouse,” Franks said.

Even though Athletic Director Kevin Clark had been analyzing the athletic department’s budget for almost a year, the rowing teams were still receiving approval to purchase new equipment.

Grzybowski said two new boats arrived in September: a Hudson eightperson and a four-person boat costing upwards of $60,000.

“They are literally the most beau-

tiful boats that I have ever seen and then we are not going to be able to do anything with them next year,” Barber said. “So that was very disheartening that they would put forth so much money for these expensive, beautiful boats that were actually tailored to be our colors.”

A university spokesperson pointed to the fact that the cuts weren’t finalized at the time the boats were ordered, calling the purchase of the boats an “easy decision.”

Grzybowski said on Dec. 5, a day before the cuts were announced, she received approval to purchase 11 brand new rowing machines. On Jan. 6, the rowing machines arrived. Although the men’s team did not get new aid this year, 34th-year coach Gavin White said his team received new oars.

Along with new equipment, the crew and rowing teams received new personnel and clothing. In addition, a new full-time assistant coach from Boston, Brian DeDominici, started in October.

“We got new uniforms,” crew cocaptain Fergal Barry said. “We got a whole new weight training staff, and in my opinion, it’s the best since I have

been at Temple and we all enjoyed working with them. We got our own athletic trainer this time around as well just for crew. [We] had gotten new lifting coaches and we were working well with the lifting coaches and we got new pants and new hoodies and a lot of fancy stuff.”

White said that the lack of a boathouse hardly fazed his team.

“We have always tried to approach it with this attitude: ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’” White said.

“We don’t dwell on it, the kids don’t dwell on it either. We get there at six in the morning, get the boats and we go.”

Barry said the team has a “fantastic facility” in McGonigle and Pearson which includes a sizable gym, a weight room and an erg room, which houses the rowing machines.

The on-campus facility, some on the team say, made up for the lack of a boathouse.

Though the student-athletes say they could have stayed in the tents, Temple was concerned with its standing in the new American Athletic Conference. In a packet distributed to the athletes during the Board of Trustees meeting on Dec. 10 were photos of

Temple’s facilities next to other colleges and universities in the conference.

Dreary pictures of the nearly dilapidated tents, weathered by the elements, were placed adjacent next to gleaming boathouses on sunny days.

“We’ve grown accustomed to Temple’s disregard for their rowing team, but for Temple to cut seven of their varsity teams, it just shows a disconnect between Clark, Theobald and the true spirit of Temple athletics,” Josh Kuzo, a junior on this year’s crew roster, said in an email. “We’re the underdogs. Temple isn’t Alabama, we’re not Louisville, but we’ve got grit.”

Zephyr Dippel, senior co-captain of the crew team, said it’s disheartening to think of himself as an athlete on the last men’s crew team in Temple’s history.

“It’s like, would you like to be rowing out of tents or would you rather not row at all?” Dippel said. “And obviously I would choose rowing out of tents over not rowing ever.”

Patricia Madej and Danielle Nelson can be reached at sports@temple-news.com

SPORTS

PAGE 22

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

The men’s gymnastics team has won two straight Eastern College Athletic Conference titles. The squad has led athletics in GPA for much of the past three years. | HUA ZONG TTN

In defense, gymnasts point to academics The team held one of the highest GPA’s nationwide among collegiate gymnastics programs.

STEVE BOHNEL NICK TRICOME The Temple News When coach Fred Turoff learned that the program he has helmed for the past 38 years would be getting cut, he was in disbelief.

“My team has done everything you want a collegiate athlete to do,” Turoff said. “The team has represented the university well and led it academically, so I don’t see why we were subject to being cut.”

The athletic department cited budget issues and Title IX as reasons for the cuts, but Turoff is in GYMNASTICS the process of scheduling meetings with Board of Trustees members for further explanation and a chance to plead his case.

The team has been no slouch in terms of athletic performance, winning two straight Eastern College Athletic Conference titles and four in the last seven years. The program also impacts the community, running a Sunday clinic and a boys’ team that gets Philadelphia youth involved by competing in the sport, as well as introducing them to Temple.

But one of the program’s biggest assets has been its academic performance. It was Turoff’s first defense when he was told the decision was final. “[Academics] was the first thing that came into my mind because [Athletic Director Kevin Clark] said there is no recourse or amount of money that

will bring the team back,” Turoff said.

“So my first thought was, ‘This is going to hurt the university academically.’”

“We always push them for academics and we try to be the ideal student-athlete, with the emphasis on the student,” Turoff added.

The team has had the best grade point average of any team at Temple for most of the past three years and finished in the Top 3 out of all college gymnastics programs in the country in that same span, including the No. 1 spot in 2011 with an average GPA of 3.59. On top of that, the program’s academic progress rate is a perfect 1000, according to the most recent data.

A university spokesperson acknowledged both the academic and athletic success of the program, but did not comment on any potential effect on the department’s overall academic performance.

“They all know the importance of academics when we talk to them individually and as a team, and also the upperclassmen will try and further show that to the underclassmen,” Turoff said. “We have a history of doing well academically, and we have a history of graduating people, so that is certainly important to me. As much as I want them focusing on gymnastics all day long, they’re out here to get an education and have a career doing something that they want.”

“I think the normal tone is, ‘Grades are the most important thing and we’re going to be professional outside of gymnastics,’” third-year assistant coach and alumnus Patrick McLaughlin said. “We consistently talk on that, but really in terms of what you actually get to witness in here is just nothing but hard work.”

McLaughlin was named Temple’s Male Student-Athlete of the Year and ECAC Senior Gymnast of the Year in 2011. The assistant coach job allowed

Sophomore Wayne Conley practices during a winter break session with the Owls. Conley arrived at Temple last season after reaching Junior Olympic Nationals all four years of high school. | HUA ZONG TTN him to remain around a team that continues to impress him with their motivation.

“I’m consistently amazed at how hard people can work and how hard these guys just work for very little material or external gains,” McLaughlin said. “It’s really like an intrinsic motivation that they have, so I think in terms of a team mentality, it’s one of the purest forms of just coming in and doing your work.”

That mentality goes outside the gym. Freshman Misha Kustin, who

joined the team as a walk-on, was always a decent student. However, he said, it picked up when he got to Temple.

“Here it becomes, as one of the few D-I teams, that it counts especially showing off,” Kustin said. “So that’s always in the back of our minds, that academics are a part of it.”

“But then, in general, Fred and Pat are big about, ‘Let’s get the grades going, work as hard as you can in the gym, but if there’s a class that is going to interfere with it, take the time off and

do what you need to,’” Kustin added.

“You work hard in and outside of the gym. You’re always working towards something, and academics are one of the places where we do.”

The team has shifted focus toward the upcoming season in the month since the announcement of the cuts, but has continued to make every effort to save itself, despite the warnings that it would do no good.

Steve Bohnel and Nick Tricome can be reached at sports@temple-news.com.

For walk-ons, a dream deferred after sports cuts WALK-ONS PAGE 24

Some coaches choose to split allotted scholarships among multiple players – including rowing and men’s gymnastics. However, those that don’t receive scholarships make up a notable part of the rosters; the baseball team has 10, and 48 of the women’s rowing team’s 59 athletes were not initially offered scholarships. Like Braccia, 36 of those walk-ons were novices, having no rowing experience prior to joining the team.

Although they lack academic scholarship, sophomore softball walkon Gina Pellechio said walk-ons get the benefit of being on a team.

“It’s just something that I love so much,” said Pellechio, one of the

team’s seven walk-ons. “Everyone on was always looking toward D-II,” she the team shares the same goals. We are said. “This was like a dream come true all so passionate about for me.” the game and about winThe anning.” nouncement of Pellechio, who bethe cuts was a gan with teeball at age 4, sharp contrast to said she knew she wantthat elation, Peled to go to Temple since lechio recalled. she was in sixth grade.

“Our team She thought Division II was the first schools were a more atteam in there,” tainable goal, but after Pellechio said. attending softball camps “We were all Gina Pellechio / sophomore and proving herself to in there, joking coach Joe DiPietro, she around. As soon made the team. as we found out “I never planned on going D-I. I what it was about, we were all in com-

“I never planned

on going D-I. I was always looking toward D-II. This was like a dream come true for me.

”

plete shock.”

Post-cuts, Pellechio said DiPietro and the other coaches have been doing everything in their power to assist the players in transferring if they are interested. Two softball players have already done so. Pellechio said it’s an option she’s considering.

“I can’t imagine being in college and not playing,” Pellechio said.

“Even though I love this school, I don’t know if I’d want to stay there knowing that we don’t have a team anymore. It wouldn’t be the same. All my friends would be gone. It’s definitely something that I’m thinking about.”

Braccia said talk of transferring is swirling around her team, too.

“It comes up in conversation,” Braccia said. However, she said something is more prevalent in her mind.

“Spring season comes first.”

Referencing her team’s motto “last one, fast one,” Braccia said her teammates – walk-ons included – are trying to maintain an upbeat attitude for the upcoming season.

“We believe that it’s not our last season, but we’re working like it is,” she said. “We’ve been practicing like all 60 of us are seniors. We are trying to stay so positive about it.”

Jenelle Janci can be reached at jenelle.janci@temple.edu or on Twitter @ jenelley.

SPORTS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

PAGE 23

Peterson twins out, Wheeler says ‘it hurts’ With no long-term future on the Owls’ roster, six players transfer ahead of the upcoming season.

JEFF NEIBURG ANDREW PARENT The Temple News In a one-on-one interview session, Ryan Wheeler has never been one to skew an answer.

The third-year Temple baseball coach isn’t afraid to shoot from the hip when paged for a non-masqueraded line.

Staying true to BASEBALL character, his response regarding how Temple transfers and twins Eric and Patrick Peterson would fare among a star-studded North Carolina State University pitching staff oozed nothing but the pure honesty of a baseball coach who has had a rather rough time of it since his team was marked for the chopping block last month.

“Do you want me to be honest?”

Wheeler quipped.

The Peterson twins are two of six players who have already jumped ship to other schools amid news that the baseball program is one of seven intercollegiate Division I sports to be cut from the budget effective July 1.

Juniors Matt Snyder (Kentucky), Adam Dian (Pittsburgh) and Eric Ferguson (Hofstra) transferred during the holiday break, mere weeks after the announcement. Junior Nick Lustrino, one of the team’s top regulars for the past two seasons, left the team as well, but will not play for any university this spring, Wheeler said.

The Peterson twins, meanwhile, are joining a North Carolina State staff

Eric Peterson pitches during a game held in 2013. Peterson was named to the All-Philadelphia Big 5 team last spring after posting a 3.03 ERA, the lowest by a Temple pitches since 1999. | ANDREW THAYER TTN that ranks among the more highly touted groups in the nation and features junior flamethrower Carlos Rodon, who is heavily favored to be the top pick in the 2014 MLB Amateur draft in June.

Just how well the Petersons can fare with the No. 10 Wolfpack remains to be seen, a skeptical Wheeler said.

“I guess some people want [me] to say they’ll be great and they’re going to be superstars down there,” Wheeler said. “But honestly, N.C. State might have the No. 1 pick in the amateur draft this upcoming June, and their pitching staff was just featured in [Collegiate Baseball Newspaper], so I don’t know how they’re going to fare.”

“They’re coming into this team midseason,” Wheeler added. “The coaches have never seen them pitch, and really they’re there for depth. They are not there to provide the 1-2 punch they would’ve done for us. I don’t know every pitcher on N.C. State’s program, but I can’t say they’re near the top there like they were for us.”

Entering the 2014 season, Eric Peterson figures to hold the edge over his brother after posting a 3.03 earned run average en route to a 6-3 record and a team-high 69 strikeouts as a first-year starter last year.

Pat Peterson was second on the team with 51 punch-outs last season,

putting up a 4.49 ERA and finished the season at 2-7 after impressing in his freshman season in 2012.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of going to another team and seeing what I can do,” Pat Peterson said.

In terms of the transfer, the brothers joined the rest of the roughly 200 affected athletes in unified shock when the announcement of the cuts broke on Dec. 6.

“It was pretty difficult,” Eric Peterson said. “It was finals week. We had finals coming up and it got us by surprise. All of a sudden we were trying to figure out and think what’s best for us and what’s better for us individually.”

“The whole experience was very overwhelming as far as deciding what the best route for us academically and athletically was,” Pat Peterson said. “It put us in a tough spot and that was the biggest concern for us.”

The Peterson twins will leave a sizable hole at the top of Temple’s starting rotation come February, as they were the team’s No. 1 and No. 2 starters.

In addition to Snyder and Ferguson, Temple lost one of its prime backend relievers in Dian, who posted a 2.33 ERA in 11 appearances last season.

Lustrino was the team’s starting shortstop for the past two seasons, and posted the fourth-best batting average on the team in 2012 at a .282 mark.

“I can’t even put into words how difficult [losing players] is,” Wheeler said. “There’s been a lot of hard things with this, but that one sort of supersedes all of them because you build relationships with these kids. It’s the reason why you coach and you get an opportunity to work with them, and for them to leave, it hurts. It hurts a lot.”

For Wheeler, the painful emotions at the prospect of losing his job come July 1 have brought another feeling to the forefront of his current situation.

“I’m a little scared,” Wheeler said. “I would like to stay in coaching. It’s a funny business. These jobs are very precious and hard to come by, so I worry that there’s not going to be something open for me to jump to [this summer] and I’ll have to sit on the sidelines.”

“The longer you sit on the sidelines and wait for another job to open,” Wheeler added, “the harder it is to get back in.”

Andrew Parent and Jeff Neiburg can be reached at sports@temple-news.com.

Berg twice falls victim to national trend TRACK PAGE 24 men’s indoor and outdoor track & field – Berg must transfer again if he wishes to continue competing at the collegiate level.

One of the first courses of action Berg took after Clark’s initial announcement of the cuts was to find his coach, Eric Mobley.

“I told him, ‘I can’t stop competing,’” Berg said. “It’s the reason why I left Millersville and it’s the reason why I’m leaving here.”

Mobley said he told Berg to keep his head up, although the sixth-year coach was distraught over the news.

“It’s a shame that he had to go through this twice in a row,” Mobley said. “But Justin is a great student-athlete. I think he handled it pretty well.

He’s not dwelling on it, he’s just looking toward the future and trying to do what’s best for him and the program for the remainder of the year.”

Berg said he wants to continue his track career at another university and is in the final stages of transferring to Penn State after the spring semester. Berg continues to practice with Temple, although he plans to redshirt this season to give himself an extra year of eligibility.

“In a different era, I would have experienced an uninterrupted career,” Berg, a math and computer science major, said. “This wouldn’t have been a problem. That’s what is happening today.

But three universities ... that’s incredible.”

Pickett describes his teammate as a guy that’s usually to himself, which made his hug with Berg on the day of the announcement a “strong moment.” Pickett, already a leader on the team, said Berg has shown guidance to other student-athletes in the aftermath of the cuts being announced.

“He’s been really strong throughout the whole thing,” Pickett said. “He’s been a guy that a lot of people could look to when they need someone to talk to or need some help, because he’s been in this situation. He knows how to deal with it, and he knows the best steps going forward.”

Berg said he has emailed the coaches of the other teams, offering his guidance. Many at Temple, at least initially, felt a great deal of anger after the cuts were announced. Berg said he doesn’t find such feelings helpful.

“Anger isn’t the way to go,” he said. “You can be frustrated. But letting it get to you is going to bring you down.”

The track program at Temple seemed, to many on the team, as headed in the right direction. Travis Mahoney earned three NCAA AllAmerican titles during a five-year career from 2008-12, becoming one of the most decorated student-athletes in the team’s history. This season, the coaching staff grew to the largest it has been in five years. A renovated weight room and recently hired trainers also brought new attention to the team.

“It made me feel like we were going up,” Berg said.

Come July 1, the program will be eliminated a year shy of its 90th anniversary.

Berg was not recruited to Millersville, and he initially was forced to go through a tryout process in order to make the team. Former Marauders coach Scott Weiser said Berg showed some physical attributes and signs that he could be a valuable thrower on his roster during that initial tryout session – enough for the Phoenixville, Pa., native to join his squad.

Throughout his freshman campaign, Berg began to prove himself. He tossed the fourth-best distance in school history at the indoor conference championships, and placed seventh in the outdoor championships later that year.

Weiser, who now works in the construction industry, said he has reached out to Berg following the news of Temple’s athletic cuts, and hopes his former student-athlete continues his career elsewhere. Weiser describes his own experience of athletic cuts as “getting punched in the stomach and kicked in the balls.”

“It really stinks that someone who went through this already has to do it again, but he’s put so much into it and really deserves to have a good experience,” Weiser said. “You fight this much, for this long ... I’d hate to see the kid give up.”

“He may look back 20 to 30 years and regret giving up – just because someone can’t keep their finances in order,” Weiser added. “And that’s really the mess of it. Someone can’t keep their finances in order, and so they cut the team.”

Having been through this before, Berg said he believes the cuts are an opportunity for the team to come together and perhaps gain a new perspective on competing in track & field. During every meet this season, Berg wants his team to never forget that this is the program’s final season.

“It really makes you grateful for every opportunity that you get,” Berg said. “You’re more humble. People want to talk about entitlement in sports. You might not even think about it, but you might feel entitled to having your sport.”

“That gratefulness and humbleness that it can be taken away from you really changes your perspective,” Berg added. “You see how important the sport really is to you.”

There are a number of similarities between the situation Berg experienced in Millersville and the one he’s dealing with at Temple. Berg said there was a lack of transparency in both schools – he discovered the news of the cuts at Millersville through email. With the Marauders, Berg said the student-athletes came together and tried, unsuccessfully, to save their programs.

Likewise, many Owls aren’t giving up hope either. Most recently, a group was formed called

Justin Berg continues practicing with the Owls this season, but the thrower is redshirting to give himself another year of eligibility. | HUA ZONG TTN the “T7 Council” to try and convince the Board of Trustees to reconsider the cuts. Petitions have been created and flyers have been handed out.

Some are placing duct tape over the Temple logo on their apparel.

“The kids going out and getting those petitions, that’s fantastic,” Berg said. “It’s bringing people together, and it’s bringing notice to our school to show what’s happening.”

“It’s great to see everyone come together and all of the attention,” Berg added. “But from my first time, it wasn’t going to happen. And it’s not going to happen here ... That’s really disappointing.”

Avery Maehrer can be reached at avery.maehrer@ temple.edu or on Twitter @AveryMaehrer.

SPORTS PAGE 24

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

temple-news.com

Gavin White (left), President Theobald (middle) and Fred Turoff (right). White is in the midst of his 34th season coaching the crew team, while Turoff has led the men’s gymnastics program for the past 37 seasons. Both say they will not receive a severance package. | JACOB COLON/HUA ZONG TTN

‘HEARTBROKEN’ BASEBALL | SOFTBALL | CREW | ROWING | MEN’S GYMNASTICS | MEN’S TRACK & FIELD Without a team or athletic scholarships, walkons face adjustment of transitioning out of sports.

All but two stay with the Owls as the softball team prepares for first and last season in The American.

JENELLE JANCI Managing Editor

JERRY IANNELLI The Temple News

Freshman walk-on Rachael Braccia could barely contain her excitement when she found out she made the women’s rowing team last semester.

“I can tell you that I listened to the song ‘On Top of the World’ for 24 hours straight,” Braccia said. “I was in my dorm dancing around. I was telling people I didn’t know, ‘Hey, I’m on the rowing team!’”

Braccia’s journey began when a table advertising the team caught her attention on Liacouras Walk during Welcome Week. After calling her mom, a former high school rower, she attended a general interest meeting, where she said she was intimidated by the other girls.

“I was convinced I wasn’t going to make it, but then I heard [coach] Rebecca [Grzybowski] talk,” Braccia said.

“If she’s telling me that I can do this … for some reason I just trusted her right away.”

Braccia is one of many walk-ons affected by the recent athletic cuts.

While student-athletes on scholarship still have the advantage of keeping their award, those who walked-on will lose their status as a student-athlete on July 1.

For much of the past five weeks, Joe DiPietro has been afraid to pick up his phone.

“Every time I got a text over winter break, I expected it to be another athlete telling me she’s leavSOFTBALL ing,” DiPietro, head coach of Temple’s softball team since 2008, said. “And they had every right to do that.”

Instead, DiPietro watched as a close-knit group of student-athletes – a group that already “spends more time at the seniors’ houses than they do their own dorms,” he said – elected to remain together as a squad for one final season, partly to show Temple’s administration what it will be missing come July 1, when it will lose its varsity status. The softball team was cut along with six other non-revenue sports on Dec. 6.

Although many of the players are looking to transfer after this semester, DiPietro said his “core” is staying for the season, with the exception of two players who transferred to Temple in August, Jaymi Bautista-Geiger and Taylor August. Both elected to transfer again before the season began.

“They just wouldn’t leave each

A student-athlete wipes away tears at a December public session with the Board of Trustees. Other than President Theobald’s opening statement, the athletic cuts were not acknowledged at the meeting. | HUA ZONG TTN

“It’s a shame to give up on what’s good to be reaching out for stuff that you don’t know what’s going to happen with.”

Gavin White

WALK-ONS PAGE 22

Football coach, 2011-12

Athletic Director, 2002-13

SOFTBALL PAGE 20

After unsuccessful boathouse bid, facilities blamed for rowing cuts Rowers maintain that, despite no boathouse, they were willing to continue utilizing their tents.

Transfer from Millersville deals with athletic cuts for the second time in his track & field career.

As he sat alongside his teammates on the turf of the newly renovated Student Pavilion, junior track thrower Justin Berg hadn’t the slightest clue what was going on.

An emergency meeting, called during TRACK & FIELD the middle of a study day, was certainly out of the norm. But Berg, like many of the other student-athletes who were in attendance on that rainy December afternoon, was not at all prepared for what was next.

As Athletic Director Kevin Clark began speaking and reality struck, Berg’s body began to tremble. He had seen this before.

Steve Addazio

Bill Bradshaw

Temple Athletics, 1949-88

‘It’s happening again’

AVERY MAEHRER Sports Editor

“What they’re doing right now is having an organized approach to solidifying and building their athletic program.”

“I’ve heard some people say how difficult it is to cut sports. The most difficult thing is to keep them and keep them competitive.”

PATRICIA MADEJ DANIELLE NELSON The Temple News Justin Berg throws during a recent practice. | HUA ZONG TTN Surrounded by dozens of crying and confused student-athletes, Berg tried to keep his emotions together. But as his eyes met senior captain Gabe Pickett, and the two exchanged a hug, Berg lost it.

“It’s happening again,” he thought.

After his previous school, Millersville, cut its track program in 2012, Berg found a new home at Temple. He competed during the 2012-13 season, earning the Owls five points during the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship with his hammer throw. Now, with Clark’s announcement that Temple will cut seven of its sports – including

SPORTS DESK 215-204-9537

TRACK PAGE 23

One of the longest standing traditions in rowing is to toss the coxswain, who directs the boat during a race, into the river after a victory.

After July 1, the crew and rowing teams will never get that opportunity again.

On Dec. 6, Athletic Director Kevin Clark announced CREW/ROWING the elimination of seven sports, including women’s rowing and men’s crew, which will take effect this summer.

In late December, President Neil Theobald wrote an Op-Ed in the Inquirer outlining inadequate facilities and Title IX compliancy issues as one of the factors for the cuts.

For about five years, two tents, guarded by a fence, have been home to the teams’ boats, oars and personal be-

After their previous boathouse was condemned in 2008, the Owls have been competing out of tents. | EDWARD BARRENECHEA TTN longings. The tents sit next to the East Park Canoe House, the former home of the Owls until the building was condemned in 2008.

However, both teams had hoped for a new boathouse. The university submitted a proposal for one to the Philadelphia Commission on Parks and Recreation in October 2012.

The same proposal was then with-

SPORTS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

drawn in April of last year, which meant the continuing use of the tents.

“Obviously, if we had showers or bathrooms, running water, heat – all these things would make the situation better, but I do not think at any point this situation had held us back,” Moira Meekes, a junior rower, said.

Sophomore rower Stephanie Bar-

ROWING PAGE 21