Massachusetts Daily Collegian: Oct. 29, 2015

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

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FOOD

COSTUMES

How to spice up your costume Ten easy-to-make Halloween treats

By AnnAmArie WAdiAk Collegian Correspondent

Halloween weekend is here, which means its costume time.

For those still wondering what to dress up as, don’t lose your head – unless you’re considering dressing up as a headless horseman – because this story breaks down the top costumes of the year. In most cases, creating any of these costumes should be simple.

The Day of the Dead is a huge theme this Halloween in both decorations and costumes. So, how do we make a costume for this traditional holiday? All that’s really needed is some white makeup and black eyeliner. Cover your face completely in white makeup and then draw some intricate, skull-like patterns on your face, specifically around your mouth, eyes, cheekbones and forehead.

For some tutorials on creative designs, head to YouTube (user Iris J. does a good one). Women can wear a black dress and add to this costume with some red flowers or colorful scarves or belts to tie around their waist. Men can wear a suit jacket, a bow tie or colorful tie and a classy hat.

Emojis are another trendy costume this year, and, luckily, they are pretty easy to create. Toss on an all-black outfit and either print an image of an Emoji out, or cut up some construction paper and draw

an Emoji face on it. Then, paste (or tape) the image onto your shirt.

Of course, you can be more specific with your Emojis: dress like the red dancing lady with a red dress and red shoes, wear a pink shirt and blue jeans for the girl Emoji, or wear blue shirt and brown pants for the boy Emoji.

There should be plenty of Donald Trumps and Hillary Clintons at Halloween parties this year. For Trump, wear a blazer or suit with a red tie and, of course, invest in a men’s super tacky blonde wig. For Clinton, wear a black or blue suit with big black sunglasses, and, of course, invest in a woman’s super tacky blonde wig.

There is also the release of the new, long-awaited Star Wars movie, “The Force Awakens.” I find that the easiest characters to recreate under a time constraint are Han Solo and Leia. Han Solo (for men and woman) includes the use of generic autumn clothes, such as a long sleeve shirt, a vest, leggings or jeans, a brown belt, and boots.

For Leia, all that’s needed is a white dress and a tutorial on how to make those hair bun loops (see YouTube for that as well). You can also throw together a generic Jedi costume with a brown jacket, brown boots, a brown belt and a tan or white top and bottom.

The piñata costume is also super trendy this year, and is also

a relatively easy one to make. All you need to do is paste a variety of colorful tissue paper to a shirt or dress.

An easy one for groups is the Ninja Turtle crew. Just get some green shirts or sweats and paste a turtle shell print out on the back and front. Then, either use colored headbands or ribbons so people can tell which turtle you are.

It might not be Oct. 3, but you can still dress up as the “Mean Girls” on Oct. 31. Just wear pink and a skirt. A lot of people try to stick to the movie cover for inspiration on which Gretchen wears a plaid skirt and a dark pink sweater, Regina wears a white shirt, pink sweater and a pin skirt, Karen wears a pink sweater and dark pink skirt, and Cady wears a red sweater and jeans.

Another cute group costume is the “Spice Girls” costume.

Everyone in your group picks a spice; if you are lacking resources to paint a cardboard spice cutout to wear, just print out a label of your favorite spice and pastes it to a shirt. To add to this costume, wear a red hat like the cap to the spices.

If all else fails, oldies like the nerd costume, fairytale character costumes and witches can be easily thrown together in a pinch.

Annamarie Wadiak can be reached at awadiak@umass.edu.

Sweet snacks you can make in your dorm

By LAuren CroCiAti Collegian Correspondent What would Halloween be without the excuse to bring out your creative and dark side, all at the same time?

Halloween-themed treats are a must-have for any occasion on the holiday, whether at a party or just to impress friends. Still, as college students, it can be difficult to make those adorable sweets without an oven. There are definite ways around this. Here are 10 no-bake treats that can easily be made in a dorm room, and only require one quick stop to your nearest supermarket.

and securely put the cookies together. Next, use any sort of frosting tube (you can make them with a plastic baggie and scissors) and add the ears and tail.

2. Gummy Worm Ice For any type of cold beverage, gummy worm ice is the perfect way to spice it up. The only ingredients required are water and gummy worms, which you can easily attain from your dorm’s vending machine. Ice trays and a freezer are also of course essential for this treat as well.

3. Apple Teeth

With the vast amount of apples that can be found in dining halls, this treat may not even require you to leave campus for ingredients. With just 1. Black Cat Cookies one apple, you can make about These black cat cookies eight of these apple teeth. After require a microwave and only that you can easily snag mini three ingredients: black candy marshmallows and peanut butmelts, Oreo Cookies and Nilla ter from generous neighbors.

Wafers. First off, you will need 4. Witches’ Hats to microwave the candy melts from 30 seconds to one and These witch hats are the pera half minutes, dip both the fect addition to your cauldron Oreo and Nilla Wafer cookies of goodies, and all you need in the now melted chocolate

see

TREATS on page 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Halloween-themed coffee

Spooky coffee that will spice up your fall

‘Crimson Peak’

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‘Goosebumps’

A fun take on R.L. Stine’s classic book series

Guillermo del Toro returns with a bang

The Story of Randall Wulff A3

‘It Follows’ A3

A captivating, beautiful horror film

follow us @MDCollegian

The remarkable, ghostly music of Lewis

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Sweeties A4

A NoHo institution serves up delicious treats

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Cover Design by Randy Crandon

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

TREATS

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are Hershey Kisses, shortbread cookies and frosting (of the color of your choice).

Just glue the “Kiss” on to the cookie with frosting and add the darling bow.

5. Finger Sandwiches Although these sandwiches may look too intricate to create on your own, these bloody fingers require very little work. It seems almost essential to offer your friends a PB&J sandwich and watch their faces as you hand them these.

With just white bread, peanut butter, your favorite flavor of jelly, margarine and almonds, these appendages will come to life (or death).

Just roll bread filled with margarine and peanut butter into the finger formation, stick the almonds on with anything sticky, and add jelly for the bloody effect.

With just white bread, peanut butter, your favorite flavor of jelly, margarine and almonds, these appendages will come to life (or death).

8. Monster Cereal Bars Monsters are not always waiting under your bed to scare you. They can also be made into cereal bars. Just mix melted marshmallows with cereal (Frankenberry works perfectly toward the Halloween theme), form the rectangular shape, dip the tips in melted chocolate and create the frightening face.

9. Oreo Spiders

Perhaps the simplest to make, ghost pretzel sticks will appeal to all chocolatecovered-pretzel lovers. Just grab a few bags of pretzel sticks, white and milk chocolate chips and you are all set. Dip the pretzel sticks in melted white chocolate and use a toothpick to create a face with melted milk chocolate.

Are you arachnophobic?

Either way, it will not be a problem with these Oreo spiders. Almost every college student has Oreo cookies stocked in their dorm, and all you will need after that are M&M’S, licorice and frosting. Stick the chocolate candies on the Oreos with frosting and cut black licorice to look like legs.

7. Ogre Toes

10. Mummy Cakes

If there weren’t any gross or repugnant elements about Halloween, what would be the point?

Cookie ogre toes will give the perfect balance of disgusting and delicious to your holiday party. For this treat, all you will need are Nutter Butter cookies, green candy melts and chocolate covered almonds. Melt the candy, dip the cookies and stick on the almonds.

Voila!

Last but not least, we have mummy cakes wrapped in deliciousness.

Simply spread some white frosting on a few Twinkies, add M&M’s for the eyes and you are done! For the wrapping effect, use an icing tube or make designs with a knife.

6. Ghost Pretzels

Lauren Crociati can be reached at lcrociati@umass.edu.

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COFFEE

Halloween-themed coffee beverages Add a little spice to your fall season

By Sarah Gamard Collegian Staff

Halloween is one of the biggest holidays of the year that includes fun, themed foods. Candy, of course, is the biggest hit, inspiring endless pastry recipes and party concoctions.

In Oct. 2014, Starbucks introduced a Halloweenthemed “secret drink,” the Franken Frappuccino, which featured green tea, white mocha and peppermint syrup. There was little that was special about it, except for its green coloring, which is already available year-round in the form of a regular green tea Frappuccino.

This is apparently a theme in the holidaythemed coffee world, with most Halloween-related coffee recipes online providing aesthetic variants in place of flavor variants. Unlike Christmas, which leaves room for peppermint-flavored coffees galore, the fall holidays do not necessarily have any coffee flavorings specific to Halloween.

It seems we’ll have to wait for holiday specials like Halloween candy-flavored coffee brews and experiment on our own by “brewing” our own “ghastly” concoctions, using recipes found online for ideas.

There’s Witch’s Brew, which is simply coffee, condensed milk with green food coloring and “graveyard dirt,” which a concoction made of crumbled chocolate cookies, and a small amount of coffee beans for flavor. Put this on the rim

CHRIS BLAKELEY/FLICKR

These drinks prove that even coffee can get the Halloween treatment. of a glass, similar to a margarita, and serve it either hot or cold.

There is an alcoholic variant to this recipe that calls for coffee, vanilla vodka, and heavy cream.

It’s called Witch’s Brew because it’s served with small brooms on the mouth of the serving mugs made of cinnamon sticks and black licorice.

There is also the “Black Goblin,” made of coffee, tequila, Kahlua and cream with chocolate, vanilla and orange sugar sprinkles.

The “Halloween Express” is made of rum, espresso, maple syrup, and half & half with cinnamon sugar.

The “Black Cauldron” is simply brewed espresso, beer, vodka, and vanilla ice cream.

Many of these recipes found online are obviously available and enjoyable year-round. However, the

sugar) with some “ghoulish” decorations (white marshmallows, white chocolate melts, red M&Ms and black food decorating gel.)

The decorations are used to make a phantom’s face on the surface of the beverage.

There is also the “Red Eye Sambuca Coffee.” Sambuca, for those who do not know, is an Italian anise-flavored liqueur. This “bloody” recipe involves coffee and Sambuca mixed with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, Maraschino cherries, red food coloring, and corn syrup. The “blood,” made from the corn syrup and food coloring is meant to trickle down the sides of the glass that serves the beverage.

“Drunken Ghoul Coffee” is a cute mixture of Scotch, coffee, green whipped cream (simply made with green food coloring) and Amaretto or almond syrup.

The “Bloody Caramel Macchiato” is already nonalcoholic: it includes coffee, vanilla syrup, milk, caramel syrup and red food coloring.

“Devilish Mochas” are named so because they provide adding Bailey’s Irish Cream to your typical mocha. The recipe also calls for cocoa powder and milk.

While Halloween-themed foods are ubiquitous this time of year, the best coffee recipes so far have simply been variants that require adding blood-colored food dye or a candy-constructed monster mask to the beverage. The process is, for those who enjoy caffeine and cute ghosts and vampires, fairly fun.

fun of the seasonal drinks are partly in the title and partly in the creativity required to make them Halloween-themed. It is surprisingly hard to find Halloween-themed coffee as opposed to Halloweenthemed alcoholic beverages (and, often, these two are combined.)

Thankfully, pumpkin spice lattés are a fallthemed drink already, so we can still enjoy those well into December.

The Rogers Family Company Coffee & Tea Blog has a great recipe list for Halloween-themed coffee beverages, which includes lots of coffee and alcohol combinations that provide a fun, spooky variant on typical recipes. All of these recipes can be used without alcohol as well.

“Ghoulish Irish Coffee” is Irish coffee (Irish whis- Sarah Gamard can be reached at key, heavy cream and brown sgamard@umass.edu.

FILM REVIEW

‘Goosebumps’ a fun, clever take on famous books Adaptation does the books justice

By Griffin LyonS Collegian Staff

Director Rob Letterman and writers Darren Lemke, Scott Alexander, and Larry Kraszewski have pulled off a smart trick in the course of adapting R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” books into a single movie of the same name.

Rather than only adapt one or a few of the books, they haven’t just made a “Goosebumps” movie, but a movie about “Goosebumps” itself, setting their story in a world where the “Goosebumps” are a series of short novels aimed at younger readers, just like ours. A few small details have changed, of course.

The film begins with teenaged Zach (Dylan Minnette) moving into sleepy Madison, Delaware, with his mother Gale (Amy Ryan), who has been hired as the new vice principal at the local high school. Relocating from New York City, Zach’s grief for his recently deceased father is compounded by his boredom and loneliness as the new student at his school.

Thankfully, and in keeping with the tone it will eventually adopt, the film opts to have the likeable Minnette express this through a pen-

JAVIER AGUIRRESAROBE/COLUMBIA PICTURES

Director Rob Letterman’s adaptation of R.L. Stine’s ‘Goosebumps’ is both humurous and well-acted. chant for sarcasm, rather than prolonged teenage surliness.

Moving into his new home, Zach meets Hannah (Odeya Rush), a girl his age living next door. Mysteriously, Hannah is not enrolled at the high school, and her reclusive, moodily eccentric father (Jack Black) warns Zach to leave his daughter alone. Naturally, per any execution of the classic “Goosebumps” formula, this does not come to pass.

Performances are what

buoy the film’s first 20 to 30 minutes, as it struggles to figure out how to approach the story. The tone veers between Disney sentiment (single parent, kid on an adventure), Disney teen movie, high school comedy (there is a conference-inthe-gym scene where Gale is introduced to the students that has weak echoes of “Mean Girls”), or underdog comedy-drama – Zach makes the acquaintance in the same scene of Champ (Ryan Lee), an affable loser better

known to his classmates as “Chump.”

Everything ordinary goes out the window in short order, seemingly making that question of tone moot, but it’s also where the film begins to effectively blend recognizable tropes and elements from roughly the last two decades of similar teen movies.

One night shortly after their first meeting, Hannah shows Zach an abandoned amusement park.

Clambering up the Ferris

wheel into one of its seats, the two share a tender conversation and come a little closer to letting down their respective guards.

When Hannah’s father discovers that Zach has been seeing his daughter, he freaks out and cuts Zach off from her entirely. Convinced that something is wrong when Hannah ceases to appear anywhere, Zach tries to discover her whereabouts.

In the process, he enlists Champ to help him break into the house, where they stumble onto a shelf of books that seem to be the original manuscripts of R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” series. But according to the film, R.L. Stine hasn’t been seen in years. Could it be?

Yes. Jack Black is R.L. Stine, with a thin fictional sheen (namely, he’s twentysome years younger than the real author), and the original manuscripts are the prisons of the terrible creatures that Stine, lonely and resentful of the world in his youth, literally conjured out of his imagination. He and Hannah, it seems, have changed addresses regularly over the years to keep them from falling into the wrong hands, hence the secrecy and paranoia. ` At first it appears that Jack Black’s shtick threatens to make every line feel over-acted. His performance,

however, snaps into place like a puzzle piece with the escape of one, then another, then all of Stine’s creations, led by the menacing ventriloquist dummy Slappy (voiced

by Black in a turn that is half-Cryptkeeper, half-Mark Hamill’s Joker).

It is by this point, following the amusement park scene, that the tone of the movie finishes coming together, and kicks into gear with fun riffs on “Goosebumps” plots, teen movies, and horror tropes with a sensibility comparable to one of the better iterations of the “ScoobyDoo” cartoons.

The humor is a boost, reminding us that high stakes aren’t necessarily the entire objective of things. In a quiet moment of the film, as Zach picks a lock, Champ asks him, “Wow, where’d you learn that, New York?”

Zach looks at him as he opens the door, and replies, “No. YouTube.”

The emotional stakes of “Goosebumps,” monsters or no monsters, never get extremely serious, because they don’t need to be.

“Goosebumps” is a satisfying, amusing movie that does its source material justice by playfully exploring its formula and clichés.

Griffin Lyons can be reached at gylons@umass.edu.

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

THEATER

The fun of ‘Rocky Horror’ Live viewings of the film are wild

By Aly Nichols Collegian Correspondent Halloween is a time for candy, costumes and cult classics. The time has come to brush off those graphically challenged horror movies and pile the friends in for a popcornfilled night of screams and laughter.

Now, what classifies as a “cult classic” may vary with viewer’s taste, but Halloween is never complete without a showing of the classic that tops them all – “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Best seen live, this interactive show is an experience suited to those with a sense of humor, and audience members are encouraged to their own props. Live or in the movie, people will throw rice, glitter, or cards. They will cover themselves with newspaper, or even squirt other audience members with water guns.

Think that’s not enough? True “Rocky Horror” fans know the movie’s lines by heart enough to shout them in unison with other showgoers to take the awkward pauses in the film to an entirely new level of entertainment. What’s better than a strange musical? A

strange musical that you make fun of while watching it.

But the film is not just enjoyable because audience members make it a great time. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” for all its stupidity, is actually a great movie. The songs are ridiculously catchy and the “Time Warp” dance is absurdly fun to do, especially when you look around and see all the others in the theater doing it with you.

The movie is meant to make little sense and the acting isn’t meant to be Oscar-worthy, though the plot isn’t terrible and the acting isn’t awful either.

The cast, however, has great actors you might recognize, such as Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon, both still popular stars now.

I had the pleasure of experiencing “Rocky Horror” at Chunky’s Cinema Pub in Pelham, New Hampshire last Friday. Though there was a list of acceptable props, it was only for the safety of the other guests. I’m used to watching Rocky on television, and the one live show I went to previously had a fairly disappointing interactive portion, so this experience was amazing.

Everyone came in costume, as is encouraged, and people had bags upon bags of props to use.

Attendee ages ranged

from early teens to elderly, and all in between, with everyone eagerly partaking in the tossing of toilet paper or the shouting of sexual innuendos at the screen.

When the movie ended, I was covered in rice and water, the floor was littered in toilet paper, and I had been laughing so hard my sides were hurting.

People had said the lines perfectly at just the right times, everyone had sung along, the “Time Warp” had great audience participation and the sheer amount of objects thrown in the air had been amazing.

By far, it had been the best live show I had ever seen, including actual stage shows of professional non-“Rocky Horror” performances.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” became a cult classic for a reason; the show is a night of hilarity that brings people together in a sense of absurdity. Seeing it around Halloween is a near necessity. And there are still plenty of showings happening this week and on Halloween weekend, so if you haven’t gone out and secured your “Rocky Horror” adventure, there’s still time to get warped.

Aly Nichols can be reached at apnichols@umass.edu.

FILM REVIEW

‘Crimson Peak’ is spooky and delightfully gorgeous along with Thomas’s Guillermo del Toro Hall, peculiar sister, Lucille. perched atop returns with a bang theAllerdale, titular Crimson Peak, is

By NAte tAskiN Collegian Correspondent The always-inventive writer-director Guillermo del Toro has made his best English-language movie to date.

Sumptuous and lovely, “Crimson Peak” is a ghost story with precious few scares. It derives its creep factor from atmosphere and vibe rather than inyour-face boos and shrieks.

And del Toro, one of the most ambitious and creative filmmakers working today, has stressed that the film is more of a gothic drama than horror.

As the main character, Edith (Mia Wasikowska), points out when she hands her manuscript to an incredulous publisher, “It’s not a ghost story; it’s a story with ghosts in it.”

The film opens in the waning days of the 19th century. Edith Cushing resides in Buffalo, New York as a young writer. Though she makes a passionate argument for the wistful necessity of ghost stories, she struggles to make a living because of both genre and gender bias in the literature scene.

Stifled by bourgeois boredom, Edith finds a new joie de vivre when Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) enters her city looking into investors for an invention that extracts red clay from his ancestral family estate. Sharpe hopes to return his clan to the aristocratic prosperity he remembers from his childhood.

Charmed by Thomas’ smoldering stares and their shared interest in the haunted past, Edith falls in love with him. Though her father (played by Jim Beaver, doing what he does best as a tough but sweet old man) mistrusts his Old Money foppishness, an unfortunate accident that transpires allows the two to wed. Before long, they spirit off to the Sharpe’s English mansion, Allerdale

knows the right amount of ham to employ at any given moment.

From offering a lowkey grimace to going all out bonkers, she walks a delicate tightrope between deliciously wicked and overwhelming cheesy.

Chastain, who has never before been allowed this much scenery to chew, delights in her wickedness, and I followed in turn.

As much of an achievement its gothic atmosphere is, the film’s greatest weakness may be the ghosts themselves. From an aesthetic standpoint, they look delightfully creepy, with their fully exposed ribcages, oily paper skin, and spindly, snake-like fingers.

Yet their motion-captured, obvious CGI feels at odds with the mythic vibe that del Toro has crafted. They feel more like background scenery than the actual background scenery, and never feel like characters.

“Crimson Peak” is, above all else, wrought with tragedy. While some may find its plot predictable, I found that the sense of inevitability that the film evokes only serves to highlight its themes of melancholic nostalgia for an era long since past. Long past its prime, the moldy and rotten Allerdale Hall is a relic from a time that we can never visit, though its legacy still reverberates inside its occupants today.

Sometimes the most frightening aspects of our lives are not the unknown demons up in their castles, but the monsters we face everyday: incorporeal demons that have left the earth and remained in our hearts. Guillermo del Toro understands this aimless, futile need to escape one’s legacy, and has figured out a way to express these ideas through lush, exquisite, wholly eerie storytelling.

the true star of the film. A sinking, decrepit house, the way the wind gusts through its shadowy hallways makes it feel like it’s always inhaling a breath. Those vivid, swirling shades of blue and red and del Toro’s meticulous, almost fetishistic attention to detail – every little teapot and door handle feels like it has its own backstory – absolutely enraptured me.

Some may call this sentiment pat, but I would invite the viewer to luxuriate in the film’s visual pleasures.

Bathe in its glorious color palette. With a creaky elevator, whistling fireplace, and a gargantuan hole atop the main stairwell where gentle drops of snow flutter down to the floor, this haunted house feels trapped out of time.

The human characters in this movie delight just as much as its inanimate objects. Though her character is perhaps a touch on the Mary Sue side, Mia Wasikowska’s wise, yet wide-eyed gaze entrances the viewer. Her earnestness is played without a hint of irony.

Wasikowska knows del Toro’s vision, and matches it superbly. As she tiptoes down the restless hallway in her elegant white gown, candlestick raised in the air, she crafts an image straight out of a Mary Shelley novel.

Hiddleston at once appears affectionate and charming, all the while disguising a clearly wounded soul that simmers just beneath the surface. With his seductive, viper-like face, we understand how Edith could fall in love with such a person, even when there are a million red flags warning her to jump ship.

Part of the film’s charm is the contrast between its wide scope and narrow, intimate setting. The only other major cast member is the jealous sister, Lady Lucille (Jessica Chastain).

Though she may not look Nate Taskin can be reached at the type, Jessica Chastain ntaskin@umass.edu.

Illustration by Caroline O’Connor

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

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FILM REVIEW

‘It Follows’ lingers beautifully in your nightmares Bombastic horror captivates viewer

By NathaN FroNtiero Collegian Staff

“It Follows” taught me to fear everything onscreen.

The film’s visual language elicits constant unease and feeds off our growing existential dread. The movie takes you in and traps you, leaving you addicted to its inescapable paranoia.

The film opens with an unassuming shot of a suburban street in early autumn.

Birds chirp and all seems well. The camera stares down the road, then pans to a house. The front door opens and a booming synth drum shatters the peaceful moment as a teenage girl fearfully runs out. She rushes to her car and speeds away. She calls her parents from an empty beach and tells them she loves them.

Another smash cut reveals her gruesome fate – her leg broken backwards at the knee, blood smeared down both thighs, her lifeless eyes staring just offscreen.

This three minute prologue establishes the film’s thematic balance between intimacy and devastating terror. When 19-year-old Jay (Maika Monroe) has sex with a boy named Hugh (Jake Weary), she contracts something much worse than anything ever discussed in health class. A demonic entity will follow her and kill her if it catches her – unless she decides to pass it on by sleeping with someone else.

Monroe captures the mix of fright and frustration of someone thrust into a dangerous new world. She elicits immense empathy as the safety of Jay’s small world crumbles around her. Her subtler expressions – sullen eyes, silent tears, the ghost of lost joy in her face – evoke tragedy amid the

MIKE GIOULAKIS/RADIUS-TWC

Writer-director David Robert Mitchell combines a dreamlike aesthetic with a masterfully simple script to instill a pervasive sense of dread in the audience. absurdity.

Keir Gilchrist provides a twisted kind of comic relief as Paul, Jay’s childhood friend and not-so-secretadmirer. Paul constantly offers to take on the curse, and Gilchrist effectively conveys the sad yearning beneath his character’s futile efforts. Jake Weary is equally compelling as the world-wary Hugh. He earned my sympathy despite the fact that his actions put Jay squarely in harm’s way. The cast enlivens the movie’s tortured headspace.

They portray these panicked teens in a manner that always felt genuine to me.

Through their performances the film earns real stakes; its fictional horrors become tangible possibilities.

“It Follows” wades into murky thematic territory as Jay and her friends grap-

ple with the threat of the Follower. The film uses sex as a plot device, not a theme, even though the Follower seems like it could be a metaphor for STDs. Writer/ director David Robert Mitchell makes allusions to other huge issues – stifling suburban classism, the uselessness of adult authority, parental abuse – but the movie, like a bad dream, is stuffed with big heavy things that don’t get explained.

The film’s taut script doesn’t go into the curse or Follower itself much beyond the aforementioned rules.

Simplicity is Mitchell’s secret weapon. The story anchors itself in these sparse details and the film’s aesthetic wraps them in a dreamlike cocoon.

The sets look hollowedout. Jay’s fall semester literature course meets in a

stark brown and white room filled with empty seats and barely-covered whiteboards.

An impenetrable blackness bleeds around the bare concrete of a sprawling empty parking garage. A swing set in a cricket-silent playground is lit so that only the glint off the metal is visible, the swings and chains mere shadows against an offscreen source of light.

Unbreakable tree canopies float eerily over nearly all landscapes whenever the camera looks up at the sky.

The sparse population and stillness in many of the shots are tremendously disturbing.

Anachronisms abound in these Detroit suburbs.

Modern and vintage cars roam the neighborhood while people watch black and white horror flicks on 1950s tube TVs. Date

match their narrative safety or danger – but he bathes the entire film in gooey, moody saturated colors. The attention paid to composition feels like a fitting joke on the part of the filmmakers – my eyes were stuck to the screen because I was scared of what was happening, but it’s hard to look away from such beautifully crafted images.

Nothing in this film is safe – every shot, cut, zoom and pan holds potential risk. The Follower could enter from anywhere in the frame – and it almost always appears by entering rather than through a cut.

Regardless of how it manifests, it’s always staring and walking directly toward the camera, as if pursuing the viewer through the fourth wall. I never considered that such an ostensibly innocuous image could be so unnerving, but every new variation on it is just as paralyzing as the last.

The film owes much of its horrific bombast to composer Disasterpiece (Richard Vreeland). His fully electronic score is its own kind of frightening creature. It mixes chiptune-esque cues, haunting blips and screeches and swooping synths that melt into ethereal space.

The music earns scares on its own merits, but works with the images to create a dominating sense of anxiety.

“It Follows” is an extended nightmare. It’s the spider creeping across your ceiling, the hairs standing straight on the back of your neck, the unshakeable fear of death. The movie stays with you. Like the Follower itself, you can’t get rid of it. You can’t stop thinking about it. You can only pass it on.

nights include trips to an old-fashioned movie house, complete with a red curtain, an organ player and the Grant/Hepburn romcom mystery, “Charade.”

Jay’s friend Yara (Olivia Luccardi) reads passages from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” on a clamshell e-reader Mitchell created specifically for the film.

This hodgepodge of out-oftime artifacts makes this world seem imaginary, but the film’s power comes from convincing the audience that it’s not.

Mike Gioulakis’ cinematography bolsters this surreal visual palette. Filming with wide-angle lenses, he and Mitchell often stretch roads into nothingness, or carve larger voids out Nathan Frontiero can be reached at of already cavernous spac- nfrontiero@umass.edu and followed es. Gioulakis lights sets to on Twitter @NathanFrontiero.

MUSIC

The ghostly, extraordinary music and story of Randall Wulff

By JacksoN Maxwell Collegian Staff

Imagine this if you will: notes from a delicate, distant piano elegantly and slowly unfurl, with a similarly quiet synthesizer uneasily trying to work in tandem with the piano. A male voice suddenly appears in your speakers, but he’s frustratingly obtuse, his words unintelligible.

The music sounds strangely familiar and glamorous, and yet entirely alien. It sounds like the artistic output of a genius musician who simply wanted to be documented, and yet not heard.

This surreal piece of music is “I Thought The World of You,” the first song on “L’Amour,” the 1983 debut album of a musician named Randall Wulff, and released under the pseudonym of Lewis.

The entire album is simply astonishing, and is coated in more of the mysterious, hesitant synthesizers, grand, circular piano melodies and whispered, unintelligible vocals shown on its opening track.

Many of its slow-burning songs play like warped selections from the Great American Songbook. It’s undoubtedly pop music, but rather than attempting to integrate itself into the world and mind of the listener, it exists on its own.

But what truly accentuates the ghostly beauty of “L’Amour,” and Wulff’s other discovered works, is the truly unbelievable story of the man who created them, and how they were re-discovered decades later.

Much of the story was put together by Light in the

LIGHT IN THE ATTIC RECORDS

Lewis’ ‘L’ Amour’ is an astounding album, recorded by a musician who wanted to be heard, but not seen.

Attic Records, a reissuefocused label who re-released “L’Amour” last year.

According to the label’s website, a vinyl copy “L’Amour” – which was originally released by an unknown label by the name of R.A.W. – was located in a flea market in Edmonton by record collector Jon Murphy, and passed onto another collector named Aaron Levin, who shared the album on the internet.

There was next to no infor-

mation on the vinyl, other than a dedication to Sports Illustrated model Christie Brinkley, a photo credit to noted Los Angeles punk scene photographer Ed Colver, and credits to engineer Bob Kinsey and a synth player by the name of Phillip Lee. Light in the Attic contacted Colver, who could only remember that Wulff drove a white Mercedes convertible, was staying in the Beverly Hills Hotel at the time of the album’s

recording and was constantly accompanied by his blond girlfriend who – according to Colver – had the appearance of a model.

Colver shot the album’s cover, an appropriately bizarre image of Wulff staring distantly; not quite at the listener, but not off into space either.

When Colver attempted, weeks later, to cash the $250 check that Wulff had written him for the photo session, the check bounced, and Wulff was

nowhere to be found.

None of the parties involved with the record ever heard from Wulff, or heard anything about him, again.

Soon after Light in the Attic discovered “L’Amour” though, a Vancouver DJ named Kevin “Siperano” Howes discovered an album deep in his collection entitled “Romantic Times.”

The album was dated from 1985, and credited to one Lewis Baloue, The cover showed a man – clearly the same person as the one on the cover of “L’Amour” – in a white suit, standing in front of a white Mercedes convertible and a white private jet.

Just a couple of months after that, Len Oscanic – a recording engineer at the Fiasco Bros. studio, near Vancouver – confirmed rumors that Wulff had recorded at the studio under the alias Randy Duke in the 90s. To date, the Fiasco Bros. have culled and released two albums from the sessions – “Love Ain’t No Mystery,” which was released in Aug. 2014, and “Hawaiian Breeze,” which was released in January.

All of these albums show a sort of artistic growth for Wulff, displaying his experimentation with more guitar-based material. And yet his indelible, everindecipherable vocals remain.

For each moment you think he may finally be emerging from his self-constructed shell, there is a moment of quiet withdrawal, as if Wulff suddenly became aware of how much of himself he was giving away.

And yet, the end to the Randall Wulff saga is almost unfathomable as the music itself.

According to a Light in the Attic blog post, the label spent two and a half years searching for Wulff, and found nothing but total dead ends. Then, in the summer of 2014, during the height of the buzz surrounding the reissues of Wulff’s work, one of Wulff’s closest friends contacted Light in the Attic, saying that he had seen Wulff the previous year near his home.

After 48 hours of fruitless searching, two employees of the label walked by a small café. Sitting out front, dressed entirely in white and sipping a latte, was Randall Wulff.

Wulff took wistful looks at the reissued copies of “L’Amour” the employees had brought him, but declined to keep both the albums, and the royalty check they offered him from the sales. Though he allowed a photograph to be taken, he asked politely that they blur out the background, so his location would not be revealed.

Saying that he had no interest in any financial gain from the albums, he kindly wished the employees all the best with the reissues.

Randall Wulff’s music may not be “scary” necessarily.

But it is truly from another planet, the deeply emotional and spiritual outpourings of a man who merely wanted to cleanse himself of his private heartache. When you think of how anonymous and mysterious he wishes to remain, you can imagine yourself listening to a ghost, someone who wants desperately to be heard and understood, but not seen.

Jackson Maxwell can be reached at jlmaxwell@umass.edu.

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

P L AY L I S T

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P L AY L I S T

Ten best Halloween remixes Ten scariest songs you New spins on the may not have heard about creepiest classics

By Griffin Lyons Collegian Staff

1. Andrew Gold – “Spooky Scary Skeletons (RedManGhost Remix)” The spot for very best remix goes to this inventive, extensive remix of the Andrew Gold classic.

The layers of remixing gleefully embellish what’s fun about this classic from the musician’s 1996 Halloween-themed album of children’s songs, and adds a compelling beat to boot.

2. Bette Midler – “I Put a Spell On You” Variations on “I Put A Spell On You” appear twice in a row on this list, and for good reason. One of the highlights of the 1993 Disney movie “Hocus Pocus” is its trio of antagonists, the witchy Sarandon sisters. Midler, one of the witches, delivers this show-stopping rendition of “I Put A Spell On You” when the sisters crash a Halloween costume ball in Salem, Massachusetts.

Midler’s rendition trades Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s spine-chilling vocals and slow, thudding rhythm for an up-tempo, bigband rendition that is half-showbiz revue, halfMotown and delightfully all-camp.

3. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – “I Put A Spell On You (Jeremy Sole’s Zombie Stomp Remix)”

Southern California’s track in goth rock, infusNPR affiliate. es the song about Bela Lugosi – the man whose turn in the role of Dracula 4. Moxy Früvous – “Psycho Killer (Live)” defined the public’s menWhat list of Halloween tal image of the fictional songs, remixed, covered vampiric count – with or original, is complete an affecting, thudding without a nod to that sta- beat and ringing, echoing ple of the late seventies instrumentation that adds through the nineties, the even more atmosphere to slasher film? This cover, the track, if that’s even by the now-defunct, oneof-a-kind Canadian band possible.

Moxy Früvous, is a spirited, wonderful take on 8. Masha – the Talking Heads’ clas“Werewolves of sic from their first album, London” infused perhaps with a Quebecois spin on the A cover of the late, French of David Byrne’s great Warren Zevon, lyrics.

Masha’s cover here is airy and atmospheric, some5. Marilyn Manson – thing a DJ with a mind “This is Halloween” towards variation could Recorded for a 2007 put on at the start or end tribute to the soundtrack of the night, or when they of the 1993 film “The sensed a quiet moment in Nightmare B e f o r e the proceedings. Slower Christmas” – directed by and a little more wistful, Henry Selick and conMasha’s cover somehow ceived by Tim Burton – there might not be a more preserves the energy of appropriate artist to cover Zevon’s original. this song than Marilyn Manson, the shock rock 9. Ray Parker, Jr. – musician and nightmare “Ghostbusters Theme of media-sensitive par(Ghost Grnder Heavy ents everywhere in the Dance Remix)” 1990s. Manson’s cover has his characteristic affectaThis remix holds down tions, yes, but his enthuthe opening of the theme siasm for the material shows through and makes to the classic 1980s superaction-comedy them effective in the ser- natural and turns it into a slow vice of the cover. build-up until the recognizable energy and tempo 6. Beatfreakz – of the original explode “Somebody’s outward with a dance beat Watching Me” This c ove r o f and additional instrumenRockwell’s 1984 hit is tation. enjoyable for the sheer, 10. Yeah unabashed cheesiness of Yeah Yeahs – its amped-up rhythm and “Heads Will Roll shameless deployment of (A-Trak Remix)” a kit of dance music tricks normally reserved for The list ends with remixes. One ding on its one of the more recent ranking, though, is that it songs to make it onto omits the comically paranoid verses of the origi- Halloween playlists. The nal in favor of the cho- song’s bloody drama and rus, as covered by a Dutch its horror-spoofing, weresoundalike to Michael wolf-filled music video Jackson, who provided have made it an attractive, the backing vocals on the tongue-in-cheek choice. original.

This remix by A-Trak, Kanye West’s former tour 7. CHVRCHES – DJ, turns it up to 11.

Jay Hawkins’s spinetingling vocals on this almost supernatural song about heartbreak – legendarily recorded in a single drunken session in 1956 – and their accompanying brass instrumentation, are given a boost here with the help of some claps, an additional beat and a few other tweaks “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” from Jeremy Sole, of This cover of the 1979 Griffin Lyons can be reached at the radio station KCRW, Bauhaus hit, a seminal glyons@umass.edu.

Put these tracks on at your own risk

and equally as terrifying. His cover of Bob Dylan’s haunting “The Ballad of Hollis Brown” is told through his quavering, strange vocals.

By Jackson MaxweLL Collegian Staff As Hollis Brown – a similar character to Frankie Though they may not be Teardrop – loses his sanity, as ubiquitous as the theme Lynch’s tone never wavers. from “Ghostbusters,” or “Monster Mash,” these 10 4. PJ Harvey: songs will scare the pants “The Words That off of anyone. If you feel darMaketh Murder” ing, give these a listen this Halloween if you really want Culled from her remarka fright. able 2011 concept album,

“Let England Shake,” PJ Harvey’s “The Words That 1. Sonic Youth: Maketh Murder” is as sad as “Death Valley ‘69” it is ghostly. Vividly detailThe first classic track by ing a World War I battleone of rock’s great, unsung field, Harvey sings of seeing bands, “Death Valley ‘69” “soldiers fall like lumps of is Sonic Youth’s searing, meat.” One can almost feel noisy take on the infamous the ghosts of those anonyManson murders. Featuring mous soldiers as Harvey screeching and backup sings about them. vocals from punk rock poet Lydia Lunch, it’s a song that 5. D.N.A.: “Lionel” captures the full horror of the incidents. Equally fasThough it’s completely cinated and repulsed by its instrumental, this twosubject, “Death Valley ‘69” is minute slice of noise from a powerful look at the dark- seminal no wave band est underbellies of hippie D.N.A. could probably clear culture. out a party before it is even

2. Suicide: “Frankie Teardrop” Less spooky than absolutely terrifying, “Frankie Teardrop,” is perhaps the centerpiece of the discography of Suicide, one of punk’s earliest and most confrontational bands. Over nothing but a relentless, but completely monolithic, beat and a droning organ that slowly seeps under the listener’s skin, lead singer Alan Vega slowly details the mental disintegration of a poor factory worker. Over 10 minutes, the story becomes increasingly horrifying, and is punctuated by chilling, ear-piercing primal screams from Vega.

Not for the faint of heart, this one.

3. David Lynch: “The Ballad of Hollis Brown” (Bob Dylan cover) Anyone who has seen a David Lynch film knows how the legendary director can switch from surrealism to pure horror in an instant.

Lynch’s less talked-about ventures into music though, can be equally as surreal,

the Hole,” relies on off-beat saxophones and a creeping stand-up bass to give it its disconcerting atmosphere.

In that gravelly, unmistakable voice of his, Waits begs, “Don’t pay heed to the temptation,” declaring above all that, “You’ve gotta help me keep the devil, way down in the hole.” Only Tom Waits could make a song about fearing the devil more frightening than the devil itself.

8. Dead Kennedys: “Holiday in Cambodia”

Though a brutal and brilliant piece of satire, the imagery in Dead Kennedy’s punk masterpiece “Holiday In Cambodia,” is still horrifying. The ever-provocative Jello Biafra – who wrote the song’s lyrics – spends the song taunting a moralizing, privileged college student, contrasting their life with the life of a typical Cambodian during the genocidal reign of Pol Pot in the mid-late 1970’s. “You’ll work harder with a gun in your back for a bowl of rice a day,” Biafra sneers at one point, playing halfway over.

Between off of the humorously overArto Lindsay’s completely done surf-rock guitars. unhinged guitar scrapes and Ikue Mori’s bludgeoning 9. Marissa Nadler: rhythms, this could easily “Dead City Emily” soundtrack any horror film.

This exquisite slice of gothic folk is at once disarming6. The Stooges: ly gorgeous and chilling.

“L.A. Blues” Marissa Nadler is alone on Featuring Iggy Pop’s this song, her own acoustic primal screams and wail- finger-picking circling defening, atonal sax blasts from sively around her ghostly the recently deceased Steve vocals. Nadler’s imagery is Mackay, “L.A. Blues” is vague, leaving much of it to the most confrontational your own imagination to fill outburst from punk rock’s in the blanks. originators. A free-jazz/ noise-rock hybrid of sorts, 10. The Specials: “L.A. Blues” embraces total “Ghost Town” musical anarchy rather than any semblance of structure. Though it was written Though they were known for to address the United being raw, The Stooges never Kingdom’s economic hardgot more raw than this. ships in the early 1980’s, this should be a Halloween classic. The upbeat, ska-infused 7. Tom Waits: “Way Down in the Hole” horns are eerie, cutting confidently through the intenEven if it had not been tionally desolate music. The immortalized as the theme wordless backing vocals are song to the HBO television equally as unnerving, makseries “The Wire,” Tom ing this a strangely creepy Waits’ 1987 song, “Way Down pop-ska hybrid of sorts, but in the Hole” would still stand a brilliant one at that. as one of his greatest. As bizarre a gospel song as any Jackson Maxwell can be reached at that exists, “Way Down in jlmaxwell@umass.edu.

VIDEO GAMES

Eight great horror-based games for the Halloween season By aLessandro arena-derosa Collegian Staff

Halloween is the time of year where scares and spookiness await around every corner, and video games are no exception.

Whether gamers are looking for a game that delivers on spookiness, or simply something that an entire group of friends can enjoy at once, here are eight different horror games that satisfy all the Halloween needs.

“Alien Isolation” Fans of Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror film need look no further than one of the best horror games from last year. The first-person stealth survival game takes the player through a derelict space station full of malfunctioning androids and psychotic looters.

“Isolation” blends tight stealth mechanics and tense exploration, from cramped vents to pitchblack hallways, and a sound score that builds tension with every footstep heard, to create an experience that arguably surpasses its namesake.

“The Flock” The online first-person game is set in a surreal alien world. “The Flock” is essentially a competitive game of flashlight-freezetag. The goal of the game is to take the light in the center of the map and then survive as long as possible with only a flashlight as a weapon.

Attacking players can move with lightning speed, create stone decoys of themselves and are impervious to light when they stand still. This lends itself to a truly unique horror, as players try to outwit their prey or run helplessly from what is hunting them, delivering more tension and jump-scares than most single-player horror games.

“Until Dawn” Exclusively on the PS4, this horror game is full of clever puzzles, suspenseful chase sequences and gamechanging choices. “Until Dawn” plays a lot like a ch o o s e - yo u r- ow n - a dve n ture B-Movie, containing tropes from a cabin in the woods to a cast of eight stereotypical college students.

town from an evil curse using the various powers they can attain from their costumes. The game blends witty humor, simple puzzles and a satisfying turnbased combat system that makes for a great experience.

“Cry of Fear” This free PC first-person shooter masters the art of jump-scares in a horror-stricken, yet realistic, urban environment. The game is challenging, almost CREATIVE ASSEMBLY to a fault, with ammo conGames like “Alien Isolation” are both tense and well-executed. servation and quick thinking being key to survival. ghostly apparitions and Everything from monsters A player’s choices will usu- only mysterious tunnels hiding in trash bags to ally get most of the cast in the walls to guide them eerie texts builds players killed, although it is pos- out. The game features a up to the next scare, which sible for every character creepy, nearly-believable rarely offers any kind of to survive this nightmare. serial killer antagonist, relief.

This game is therefore per- grotesque monsters and “Resident Evil” fect for a group of friends to genuinely creepy imagery Resident Evil is a thirdeither pass around the con- that colors the apartment. person survival game that troller or simply watch as “Costume Quest” stars a group of special one player fumbles through Want to get into the forces trying to escape a a unique path in the story.

Halloween spirit, but zombie infested mansion, “Silent Hill 4” aren’t a fan of horror? The and solve the mystery As the fourth and most developers of the game behind all these strange created happenings. The game commonly overlooked game “Psychonauts” in the franchise, Silent the quirky role-playing became a touchstone for Hill 4 opens with the play- game, “Costume Quest.” survival horror games, and er being trapped in their The game stars a band of is still worth a play today. apartment with strange children who must save the The game engineers

stress this through its eerie audio and unreliable weapons that drive players mad as they try to navigate the labyrinthine mansion. The Capcom classic from 1996 recently got a re-release with updated HD graphics and audio, and captures everything that was great about the original.

“Deadly Premonition” A young woman has died in a string of murders in a secluded town in the United States and it’s up to an FBI agent to catch the killer.

The plot of this third-person shooter borrows heavily from “Twin Peaks,” as well as other horror franchises from “Silent Hill” to “Friday the 13th.”

Part horror, part satire, part noire detective game, “Deadly Premonition” is quirky and deeply engaging. The game features an open world to explore through countless hours of joyriding, shooting monsters and being confused about what exactly is going on.

Alessandro Arena-DeRosa can be reached at aarenaderosa@umass. edu.

THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

VIDEO GAMES

Three key elements to great horror video games Staying away from cheap jump scares

By Nate taskiN Collegian Correspondent In the past few years, the horror genre has experienced a meteoric but predictable rise in the video game industry. The genre lends itself to gaming characteristics which commonly include open-world exploration, manipulation of point-of-view and confrontation with the unknowable, as based on modern ludology.

Given the plethora of possibilities that game designers have at their disposal, it is frankly horrifying to see so many rely on cheap tricks in their thirst for an easy YouTube sound bite.

The three key components for a devilishly spooky and well-done horror game include unpredictability, an aversion to cheapness, and an awareness of environment.

We fear that which we cannot comprehend or recognize. That is the psychology that prompts shrieks from players when a character runs down to the basement or when a parasite has infiltrated the party and disguised itself as one of its guests.

A horror game has failed if the player settles into complacency and – as a result – must constantly throw wrenches into its gameplay. At every turn, the best horror games force players to constantly question their surroundings, double take at every corner and make them jump from every slight hint of motion.

In spite of its status

RED BARRELS STUDIO

Horror video games that rely on atmosphere more than jump scares, like ‘Outlast,’ are the ones that linger the most in the mind. as a massive sleeper hit, “Slender: The Eight Pages” fails because it lays out all of its cards on the table within the first – and I’m being rather charitable here – five to ten minutes.

Everything the player needs to know about the game is gleaned from just a cursory scan. As a result, it loses its replay value.

The more the player begins to understand the environment of the game, the less there is to fear.

Video games are works of fiction, and it’s their job to trick players into forgetting what they know. “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is a game

that efficiently accomplishes this yet typically goes unrecognized as part of the genre. With its beautiful scenery and creepy imagery, “Arkham Asylum” is a bottomless treasure trove of haunting delights. The image of Batman strapped onto a conveyor belt by Scarecrow can still elicit shudders years after it is played.

Similarly, “Batman: Arkham City” and “Batman: Arkham Knight” engage player’s anxieties about games as a vessel for their own fantasies .

All horror games would do well to follow a simple

maxim: jump scares don’t create nightmares. Game developers would do well to remember this mantra, as over-reliance on jump scares has infested the genre, particularly in the indie sphere, for some time. Jump scares rely on a sudden loud noise, and a goofy face jumping into a camera as a lazy crutch.

Rather than tension, jump scares only evoke an annoying lack of imagination. One can point the finger at the jump scare epidemic partly at YouTube “Let’s Play” videos, whose exaggerated screams have emitted a cheap and lucra-

appears. Rinse and repeat.

That being said, jump scares are not inherently banal. They can provide a nice seasoning to a horror game that is ultimately defined by its look.

A game’s environment is crucial, from the perilous space station of “System Shock” to the misty town of “Silent Hill 2.” A player can find no greater joy than stumbling upon an exotic new environment.

Exploration is the key to immersion.

A horror game’s universe must be simultaneously off-putting enough to keep players awake at night for days on end, and alluring enough to seduce them to dig deeper and deeper into its twisted world.

“Outlast,” a video game about an investigative journalist trapped in a remote, abandoned psychiatric hospital, is an excellent example. The flickering hallways and gothic design make “Outlast” both beautiful and repulsive. Its haunted landscape provides players with a reason to envelop themselves into its demented world, and - at the same time - frighten them into submission.

This contradiction is the key to all of horror. A player’s knowledge of their impending doom gives them a vicarious thrill at loss of control over the console. Players are at the mercy of the game’s will, thus shedding their identity as ‘players.’ The players, after all, are the ones getting played, and for this reason, they welcome the nightmare.

tive source of entertainment in the past few years.

The “scare cam” format cultivated by YouTube personalities like “PewDiePie” and “Markiplier” may allow for digestible clips, but it is a cheapening of art for the sake of artificial reactions. The only source of fear that one can derive from the game “Five Nights at Freddy’s” – the epitome of this hackneyed mechanic – is anticipation for a loud noise. The rest of the game involves pressing random buttons and staring at motionless rooms.

Oh, and every 10 minutes Nate Taskin can be reached at an angry, screaming bear ntaskin@umass.edu.

C A N DY

Trick or sweet: Sweeties delivers on Halloween traditions

By Jessica chaikeN Collegian Correspondent As we get older, it seems as though Halloween is all about the parties, and the craziness of the college festivities that surround the holiday.

People seem to forget their childhoods and the reasons why Halloween made us all plan out our costumes almost a year in advance and count down the days until we could run around knocking on strangers’ doors. The answer is, pure and simple, the candy.

The American Halloween tradition revolves around trick-or-treating for candy. But now that we college students are no longer children and it is less acceptable to trickor-treat, it is important that we continue (because we can) the non-age-discriminatory Halloween ritual of indulging ourselves in the sugary and chocolaty goodness that is excessive candy consumption.

Nestled in the heart of downtown Northampton is Sweeties Fine Chocolate & Confections, which has served up sweets at their location on 68 Main Street for more than 30 years.

Upon opening the doors to the shop, customers are greeted by the sweet and sugary scents of the colorful rows and walls covered with every type of candy imaginable.

This candy shop captures the essence of an old-time local candy store, with all of the variety and unconventional candies that the average store lacks.

Many of the types of candy

sold at Sweeties are difficult to find anywhere else.

Some of the candies that they carry are unusual, but still somewhat familiar. They sell the “smooth n’ melty” assorted nonpareil mints, which are little pink, green and yellow mint flavored white chocolate chips, and near golf ball-sized malted balls, along with many other “blasts from the past.”

They also have a large selection of various gummy candies, for gummy-lovers.

One of their most interesting gummy candies are their cola gummies, which are cola-flavored, and shaped like mini soda bottles.

But by far, Sweeties most popular candies are chocolate covered gummy bears and sea salt caramels. The store also sells “gross-flavored jellybeans,” with flavors such as “baby wipes” and “rotten egg,” which are perfect for any gruesome Halloween-themed party.

For the Halloween season, Sweeties carries various fall and Halloween-themed candies, such as dark chocolate nonpareils decorated with orange, yellow and white sprinkles. But on Halloween Day, Sweeties will team up with a few other stores in the downtown Northampton area to participate in a “trick-ortreating event” where they will give out candy to all who stop by.

But beware: one step into Sweeties and you will be so tempted to indulge yourself with their great selection of

candy that you most likely will not leave empty-handed.

The store can be defined not only by their quality, but also by their quantity. You can simply walk in, grab a small bag and fill it up with however much and whatever variety candy you want. The price is $9.56 per pound, which is pretty reasonable. A bag filled with just enough candy for one person will not weigh more than a few ounces.

With this system, the customer can avoid having to buy a whole bag of one type of candy and being forced to deal with that lack of diversity. At Sweeties, the choice is up to the customer, whether you want to fill up your bag with only chocolate-covered gummy bears, or one of every kind of candy they have. The possibilities are endless.

Sweeties also has a great rewards program. If you ask the cashier for a punch card, you will receive one punch for each purchase you make, regardless of the amount spent. And, after 10 punches, you get $2 off of your next purchase.

So be sure to check out downtown Northampton on Saturday and stop by Sweeties for a sweet walk down memory lane. Or, next time you’re craving that after-dinner sweet, or even just a satisfying snack, stop

by Sweeties and experience the feeling of being a “kid in a candy store” all over again.

Jessica Chaiken can be reached at jchaiken@umass.edu.

CRWR/FLICKR

Sweeties, a Northampton insitution, will make you feel like “a kid in a candy store” all over again.

THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Student profile: davieS CeSare-fouSek Students discuss

fantasy football Some consider the game as gambling

By Anthony Rentsch Collegian Staff

STEPHANIE S. BERENSON/COLLEGIAN

Davies Cesare-Fousek has worked throughout his undergraduate career to get business students prepared for the workforce

Business adminstration student prepares to pass torch to incoming leaders By tAnAyA AsnAni Collegian Correspondent

Group and the founder of UMass AdLab?

The Daily Collegian is running a weekly series this semester which profiles student leaders on campus and highlights their impact on the community. If you wish to nominate someone you feel is making a significant impact on campus, please email your suggestion to news@dailycollegian.com.

So you come into school, and you’re into college, I think it’s really important to figure out what your passions are. And it is very crucial to your success. I believe that both groups have to be a platform to do that. The Isenberg Consulting Group and AdLab provides an opportunity for students to be on the platform, possess an exponential learning opportunity to explore their interests. A lot of students have specific career interests, in advertising and management consulting but there might not be a road map to achieve that. So, we really want to provide students an opportunity to explore those areas and provide a road map for them to do it efficiently.

Davies DeCesare-Fousek, a 21-year old Lincoln native, is a business administration major at the Isenberg School of Management. He’s passionate about creating a big impact within the crossroads of business and technology by demonstrating profound leadership.

DeCesare-Fousek is the president of the Isenberg Undergraduate Consulting Group and the founder of UMass AdLab, a student- run agency that develops and produces advertisements for RSOs and local businesses.

How did you initially get involved with both groups?

After my freshman year at UMass, I wasn’t really sure on what I wanted to do. So I saw the opportunity through the school of management to do a How are you involved on campus, trip to one of the local adverespecially being the president of the tising agencies in Boston. I Isenberg Undergraduate Consulting went to this advertising agen-

cy and I was pretty infatuated with the culture and what they were doing. I went in and got the internship after freshman year.

I came back to UMass and saw a lot of students were looking into going for advertising in their junior and senior years but weren’t really able to get their foot in the door because of a lack of experience. They really didn’t understand the landscape and did not have connections. I created AdLab as a platform for students to get that exposure to advertising. I secured a partnership with the advertising agency I interned with because one of the senior vice presidents was an UMass alumni. Over the course of the semester, we conducted six seminars to kind of fill what we thought of as the advertising curriculum gap. With the business school in UMass and the communications program, there is a noticeable gap that is being filled slightly but there’s still the need for insights from professionals and the industry. So we made a curriculum to account for strategy and to cover management. The con-

sulting group was founded on a similar premise but also focused heavily on giving back to the local community in a meaningful way because we saw that we had a lot of expertise from our internships and classwork that we could bring to help these local businesses.

How does your involvement affect people on campus, and also the campus community?

We want to provide a bridge to careers and the consulting group also bridges the management and consulting careers.

We love to donate to charities or help local businesses and we want to go beyond that.

A good example of that is Mi Tierra, a local restaurant that had suffered a pretty tragic fire about two years ago. We got in touch and while they seemed to have new success at their new location, they’re still facing some operational challenges with their employee responsibilities. It had an impact on their bottom line and their services that they’re providing to customers and we saw a significant improvement see

PROFILE on page B2

For many college students, the fall semester marks the return of the National League Football and – perhaps more important to some – the return of fantasy football.

The fantasy football routine is almost second nature for regular players: form a league with a dozen friends, draft players from different NFL teams and spend each week of the regular season competing against your friends, scoring points based on how well your players perform individually.

Every league has a different buy-in, but in many leagues, the winner can come away with a couple hundred or even a thousand dollars.

With money and bragging rights on the line, many fantasy football participants say they take pride in drafting the most valuable players and setting their lineup each week.

They use their knowledge of how players are performing and what teams they are playing against to maximize the amount of points they score. Many would argue that winning in fantasy football takes skill and knowledge of the sport.

U n iv e r s i t y of Massachusetts accounting major Jacob Lurie, for example, said he spends several hours each week setting his lineup, monitoring league transactions and communicating with other members of his league.

Recently, however, questions have been raised about a new type of fantasy game that has become popular on college campuses – daily fantasy sports, like DraftKings and FanDuel.

Daily fantasy sports sites allow users to compete in abbreviated competitions, drafting players to their teams each day or each week and going up

against other users from around the country and across the globe. And these sites boast huge payouts; FanDuel’s homepage says that a $25 entry fee for a daily fantasy football contest could result in a $1 million payout.

As daily fantasy games’ popularity rises, so has the debate over whether these sites are indeed a form of fantasy sports or whether they are, like other contests that have high payouts for short-term time commitments, a form of gambling.

Stephen McKelvey, associate professor in the department of sports management, said that the dynamic of daily fantasy sports gives it the feel of being something more than the traditional definition of fantasy sports.

“It’s advertised as, it smells and it looks like gambling,” he said.

The question ultimately is whether daily fantasy sports are based on skill or luck, a question that the Massachusetts Gaming Commission will have to answer as it examines the legality of these sites.

The topic of daily fantasy sports is on the Gaming Commission’s agenda when it meets Thursday, Oct. 29.

Legal status Per a carve-out in the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, daily fantasy sports are not considered gambling as, “All winning outcomes reflect the relative knowledge and skill of the participants and are determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals (athletes in the case of sports events) in multiple real world sporting or other events.”

The exemption also states that the payout cannot be a function of how much money a person pays to play or how many people participate.

The carve-out, accordsee

FANTASY on page B2

Limits placed on guest policy Students divided on visitation changes

By BRendAn deAdy Collegian Staff

The University of Massachusetts is continuing its policy of implementing restrictions on the number of guests allowed in dormitories across campus in anticipation of a lively Halloween weekend.

The restrictions, which allow the standard four visitors but limits dorm residents to hosting two non-UMass guests, are identical to the policy implemented for the most recent homecoming weekend.

The University’s practice of altering its guest policies in anticipation of high-

traffic weekends extends back to the aftermath of celebrations following the 2013 World Series, 2015 Super Bowl and infamous Blarney Blowout of March 2014.

The University reserves the right to alter its guest policies for all of its campus dormitories but some students believe that a decision to order encompassing restrictions shouldn’t be made without hearing from the individuals it affects.

“I think it is a little ridiculous,” Cillian Clinton, a junior hospitality and tourism management major said.

“Not everyone will be partying. Some people may have family up for the weekend.”

UMass banned all guests for the most recent Super Bowl Sunday and used the same

policy for Blarney Blowout weekend this past March.

The policy to limit guests during high-volume weekends was shaped by the recommendations within the Davis Report, written by former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. The report commissioned by The University following Blarney 2014 identified non-UMass students as a significant contributor to the disturbances that took place throughout that weekend.

Joe Khoury, a business major who now lives offcampus, described the policies as presumptuous and believed UMass’ administration should listen to the opinions of its students. see

GUEST on page B2

JUDITH GIBSON-OKUNIEFF/COLLEGIAN

The University is continuing its practice of limiting the numbers of guest allowed in dormitories this weekend.

B2

THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

Thursday, October 29, 2015

FANTASY

continued from page

B1

ing to McKelvey, was based on two factors: the idea that daily fantasy sports were indeed skill-based, and the traditional conception of what fantasy sports are – season-long competitions played among friends where payouts rarely exceeded a couple of hundred or a thousand dollars.

Yet the influx of daily fantasy sports advertising this fall, which McKelvey said promoted the message that anyone could win a lot of money with little to no knowledge of the sport, has caused legislators to do a double-take.

In addition to states that have started to look into the gambling-exemption status of daily fantasy sports, the FBI and Department of Justice have also launched an investigation to determine the legality of these games.

McKelvey said these investigations will be tasked with determining how much skill it takes to play daily fantasy sports and whether that amount of skill would be small enough for them to be considered gambling.

“No one has figured out what percentage of skill (daily fantasy sports) is yet,” he said.

Several states have already declared daily fantasy sports to be a form of gambling, including Nevada who made its ruling on Oct. 15.

McKelvey said states could decide to regulate these daily fantasy sports through their gaming commission, which would act as another source of revenue, similar to the lottery and scratch-off tickets.

“This is exciting for states – if (daily fantasy sports sites) advertise paying out $1 billion, that means they get a lot more in and there is a big revenue source,” he said.

Recently, the relationships between college and professional sports and daily fantasy sports sites have also been called into question.

This month, the NCAA withdrew from conversations it was slated to have with DraftKings and FanDuel about incorporating daily fantasy sports into March Madness.

McKelvey said many professional leagues, including the NFL, have been put in a tough spot. On one hand, fantasy games drives interest in the sport and the leagues receive a lot of advertising from these sites. On the other hand, leagues consistently express a desire to preserve the integrity of the game.

“Leagues tend to talk out of two sides of their mouth: ‘We are totally against gambling because imputes the integrity of the game, but we’ll gladly take advertising from casinos,’” he said.

GUEST

PROFILE

continued from page

B1

“I do think that students can be reckless but there should be limitations on how they’re able to change their guest policies,” Khoury said. “We shouldn’t be paying for old mistakes, during a lot of other events students have shown that they can be calm.”

Stephanie Caljouw, a senior nutrition major who lives in the John Adams dormitory, said she wasn’t personally affected by the change but she may be a minority in that sense.

“People probably already made plans so I think we should be able to have the normal amount of guests,” Caljouw said.

Christian Putre, a freshman who lives in Orchard Hill, thought the University acted within reason but felt the administration could have handled it better.

“I think the decision is fair but they should provide more warning next time and actually talk to students,” he said Hannah French, a resident of Kennedy Hall, said she supported the policy.

“I think it’s reasonable because so there won’t be too many people.”

Clinton, a hospitality major who lives in the North Apartments, felt the University should consider who is affected by these sweeping policies.

“I think students should have a say because we’re the ones who are living in these places, we’re the ones who are affected,” Clinton said.

Brendan Deady can be reached at bdeady @umass.edu.

Student input and long-term implications As daily fantasy sports have become more popular, many UMass students have begun to play them, including microbiology major Josh Weinstein and sports management major Connor Walker.

Weinstein recently began playing daily fantasy football through DraftKings, while Walker has been playing daily fantasy hockey, golf and baseball through both DraftKings and FanDuel for roughly a year.

Walker said he spends about 15 to 30 minutes looking at what players to draft and setting his lineup each week.

“I do some research,” he said.

Weinstein said he spends 30 to 45 minutes a week

because he has to draft new players each week and he typically enters teams into five to seven leagues.

“I do a lot of estimating based on opponents. I always have to take that into consideration. It takes a little more time also because you have a salary cap (on DraftKings), so you have to think about, ‘Is this player worth this amount of money?’” he said.

Walker said that he had won some money from playing daily fantasy sports before – including a $200 payout he got from a game with a $5 entry fee. Weinstein said he recently won $90 from a game with a $3 pay-in.

Walker added that, for him, one of the main reasons he plays is to compete with people he knows. He said he typically plays $0.25 games or free games within his friend group for bragging rights.

Despite all admitting to take time to strategically set their fantasy lineups, Weinstein, Walker and Lurie believe that fantasy sports involve a large amount of luck.

Lurie said drafting players who perform well takes “a lot of luck,” while making in-season transactions for season-long fantasy sports involves some amount of skill.

Walker compared daily fantasy sports to betting on horse racing – a form of parimutuel betting.

“I think it’s more of a gambling game,” he said. “I guess there is skilled involved, but there is skill involved in all sorts of gambling.”

Weinstein, however, was more blunt in his analysis of daily fantasy sports and gambling.

“My friends and I always joke around – but it’s entirely true – that fantasy sports are really like 70 to 80 percent

continued from page

through a donation of small funds that amounted to a lot.

What are you currently working on through your roles?

There are some aspects of client confidentiality that we have to protect. We are working with a large local high end clothing manufacturer and distributor that is looking to expand their sales into the e-commerce space. With e-commerce there’s a lot of challenges in distribution, like providing the customer experience online and the need to market it properly. There’s a strategy that comes with that and figuring out how much they need to use and they’re seeking investors right now to fund that operation. So we are expanding to the e-commerce space and building a pitch for investors to raise a few hundred thousand dollars as capital.

Another project is with a local chain of fitness and outerwear outfitting. They’ve seen a lot of growth in the last couple of years and they’re facing a classic business paradox of the owners and the top level management being really involved in the day to day operations. At the end of the day, it is draining on their long term strategy to have management be involved in the day-to-day. So we really want to standardize their operations across their locations so that the delineation of responsibilities can be much clearer and remove non validated processes. It is called process reengineering and we’re helping them look at the overall market and where they fit in.

TA: What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I think working with the residential service desks was a very interesting project. That was an example of a very simple fix that had a huge impact. They had to

luck,” he said. “In that sense, it is gambling. It does take skill have to pick the bestvalued players for the lowest price … but that is really only 20 to 30 percent of fantasy. I do think it is mostly gambling and I do think, if a state wants to, it has the right to limit or expel daily fantasy sports.”

While the future of daily fantasy sports’ gamblingexemption status remains unclear, McKelvey doesn’t believe the presence of these games will have a major impact on sports fandom, the topic of a paper he is currently working on.

He said that, while fantasy sports have spurred interest in professional sports, especially the NFL, regulation or expulsion of daily fantasy sports would not negatively impact viewership of professional sports.

What McKelvey said might change, provided that daily fantasy sports continue to grow in popularity, is the style in which sports are followed. He noted that, at its logical conclusion, the rise of fantasy sports could lead to a sports community that is less interested in following teams and more interested in following the players on their fantasy teams.

Cofounder and CEO of DraftKings Jason Robins will be on campus Tuesday, Nov. 3, for a moderated discussion hosted by the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship.

The discussion will be held in in Mahar Auditorium at 7 p.m.

Anthony Rentsch can be reached at arentsch@umass.edu and followed on Twitter @Anthony_Rentsch.

B1

ensure that every single and spare key is in place for every single room on campus. So, that process was done by student employees who worked part time and had to be done every day. The process they went through was very time consuming and resulted in a lot of mistakes. It was painful.

We looked at it and did a kind of audit on the process and observed all the different residential service desks across campus and saw a number of inconsistencies. So we added essentially a color coded system to account for the number keys, sorted colors for the corresponding number of keys and then we offered a number of technological solutions to improve the speed at which they were going through binders. So that was a cool project which was very, very simple.

One of the more complex ones, I’d say was working with residential services. We worked with residential services to improve their winter housing switchover process.

So, it results in them having to ensure that people have moved out of their rooms and those rooms are marked as available for people who might want to switch rooms.

They were finding that due to a lack of communication, keys were not returned. So we virtually implemented a large access and multi-relational database to help them track all these changes that were occurring. That increased transparency.

What do you think makes you uniquely a leader at UMass, on campus, in the position you are in right now?

I like to think that I have a healthy paranoia of losing the culture that we’ve created within the consulting group.

I had a very hard time letting go of the AdLab but the new leadership is thriving and is on its way. The consulting group is something we’ve seen tremendous success for the past two years

since I became involved about a year and a half ago. We work to improve each other and provide a lot of critical, on-the-spot honest feedback.

The power of the group does not lie in one person, it really lies in the collective expertise.

I spend a lot time with the group and clients and that helps to develop relationships and relationships are really important with the student groups. Student organizations have a very fickle nature. People graduate, people leave. Our demands of being a student are very volatile. They constantly change, so we’re really trying to create a culture where we’re able to work with that. We always have very high expectations of each other and we always make sure that we’re constantly improving. There’s always something that could be done better .

Can you tell me a little bit about your hobbies, interests and what you enjoy doing for fun?

I really love the outdoors and one of the reasons I came to UMass was because of the Pioneer Valley. I enjoy spending time with my friends going out biking, hiking and kayaking. It provides an escape from my mind and all other obligations. I do enjoy cities. I don’t think I like New York. I love tech, just gadgets. I originally was a computer science major in my freshman year but I really liked the intersection of business and technology at the same time but I still love tinkering with stuff. I like making things efficient for my own life and that involves connecting two different technologies or different processes or making my to-do list sync up in a certain manner or using different scripts to do things. I love doing that.

Tanaya Asnani can be reached at tasnani@umass.edu.

DailyCollegian.com

Panel held on Health Care Citizens discuss high medical costs

By Danny CorDova Collegian Staff

highest per capita health care costs in the country and every year costs go higher and higher.

Moving to a Medicare for All “single-payer” system would help control healthcare costs in the long-term while ensuring that every citizen has a right to quality, affordable health care,” the flyer read.The format of the event consisted of participants writing down and sharing their stories relating to their experience of accessing and paying for healthcare in front of a panel of legislators and professionals. Gerald Friedman, UMass professor of economics, JM Sorrell, ombudsman prog ram director for Highland Valley Elder Services and Massachusetts senator Jamie Eldridge, the lead sponsor of bill S.579, sat on the panel.

Retired UMass professor Stephen Jefferson spoke in front of the panel about his experience when he was hospitalized and put in a wheelchair.

His hospital sent his bill to an incorrect address.

Dale Rice, who works as the clinic coordinator for the Free Medical Clinic provided by the Amherst Survival Center, discussed the efforts she and the Free Medical Clinic are making to provide free walk-in clinics.

Others told stories of themselves or loved ones having to go through financial difficulties to make medical payments.

The panelists were given the opportunity to respond to the stories.

“It takes a lot of courage to tell your stories of your friends or family,” Eldridge said.

The senator discussed the difficulty of communicating with business leaders and legislators about the issue of healthcare. The solution that he offered was having the courage to share stories with business leaders and legislators.

The stories were collected and will be given to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Care Financing on Dec. 8.

In the Cape Cod Lounge at the University of Massachusetts Student Union building, 14 individuals shared their stories to a panel of legislators, legislative aides and professionals in the effort to change the health care system in Massachusetts.

“Speak Out for Health Care Justice” was held with the intent to address the issue organized by the League of Women Voters of Amherst, an organization founded in 1920 that promotes an informed and active participation of citizens in government.

Sponsoring organizations of the event includes Graduate Employees Organization UAW Local 2332, Mass-Care: the Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, along with many others.

The program invited individuals to tell their stories relating to the accessibility and cost of health care in Massachusetts.

Their testimonies were collected and will be given to the members of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing during the hearings on the Massachusetts single payer bills. These hearings will take place on Dec. 8 at the statehouse in Boston.

Jackie Wolf, one of the event organizers from the League of Women Voters of Amherst, addressed the main concern of healthcare regarding the continual rise of the medical costs in Massachusetts.

“Private insurance companies are raising the deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance, straining the budgets of many Massachusetts residents,” Wolf said. “More people are choosing to forgo visits to physicians and other healthcare providers due to these increasing costs.”

The League of Women Voters support the Massachusetts bill S.579/H.1026 “An Act Establishing Medicare For All,” which would create a single-payer health care system for Massachusetts that guarantees first rate healthcare coverage for every resident of the state.

Flyers were distributed during the event which informed the audience of Danny Cordova can be reached at the bill.

“Massachusetts has the dcordova@umass.edu.

B3

Thursday, October 29, 2015

THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

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HORRORSCOPES aquarius

Jan. 20 - Feb. 18

Beware of spooky ghosts.

pisces

leo

July 23 - aug. 22

Don’t fear the Frankenstein.

Feb. 19 - Mar. 20

virgo

aug. 23 - Sept. 22

Watch out for werewolves.

Watch for witches, but look for wishes.

aries

libra

Sept. 23 - Oct. 22

scorpio

Oct. 23 - nOv. 21

Mar. 21 - apr. 19

Avoid the crawly clowns.

Beware the living crayons.

taurus

apr. 20 - May 20

gemini

May. 21 - Jun. 21

Don’t let the vampires bite.

Stay away from zombies.

sagittarius

nOv. 22 - Dec. 21

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Leave little gnomes alone.

cancer

capricorn

Jun. 22 - Jul. 22

Don’t get wrapped up with a mummy.

Dec. 22 - Jan. 19

Let senseless skeletons slumber.

Opinion Editorial THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

“Some people should just give up. I have.” - Elaine Benes

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Editorial@DailyCollegian.com

Caitlyn Jenner costume problematic

Letters to the edItor

Editorial@DailyCollegian.com

To the editor:

With Halloween less than a media to play along in the proweek away, students and non- cess. students alike will make the deciWhether it be the puff piece in Vanity Fair, or her new reality Isaac Simon show “I Am Cait,” the national media has cashed in on her transion of dressing up as a celebrity, sition without any indication athlete, firefighter or nothing at of looking back. When googling all. But perhaps the most talk- Jenner, one will read stories ed about and controversial cos-

In recent years, the problem of student debt has become a highly prevalent one, with the current average hovering around $30,000 per student. Naturally, this is an issue of major concern to our demographic as college students; student loans impose a long-term burden on our collective economic future as a generation. Despite the fact that not every student will be saddled with an overwhelming mountain of debt, most of us at least know someone who is affected by the issue to a degree. This is the biggest the student debt problem has ever been.

That said, this is also the most politically visible the issue has been thus far. Candidates are finally starting to engage in conversations about the affordability of higher education and acknowledging that it needs to be addressed. It has grown too important for everyone to continue ignoring it, and the discussion has been rapidly expanding.

“Both Jenner and the media have allowed the issue to move away from something important: being transgender and the struggles individuals face.”

Incidentally, this is also the first time a lot of us will be old enough to vote and to have our voices heard in a way that affects tangible change. It is therefore extremely important that we inform ourselves on the issues and exercise the political power that we now have. In order to assert our influence on the governmental system under which we live, we need to develop our opinions and take action accordingly.

tume for 2015 will not be someone dressing up as Bill Cosby, or someone who decides to be racist and wear blackface. Rather, it is the new Caitlyn Jenner costume.

Feminists and women’s empowerment groups along with other individuals have criticized the makers of the costumes.

People have taken to Facebook and Twitter to vent their frustration, and a petition was created on change.org asking Spirit Halloween to terminate any future sales of the costume.

Others have called it “offensive” given everything that Caitlyn has gone through, while some have deemed it “transphobic.”

These protests have not stopped other retail outlets from continuing the sale of such costumes. For example, wholesaleholloweencostumes.com and anytimecostumes.com also carry it.

While many Americans believe this costume to be offensive, I do not, although I will not be dressing up as Caitlin Jenner for Halloween.

But what is offensive is the way the media has handled the entire Caitlyn Jenner story.

From day one, it has been about publicizing and making a celebrity spectacle of Caitlin, rather than using her in order to advocate for transgender rights.

It is important to know that I don’t really have an opinion of Caitlyn Jenner the person. I am in total support of the transgender movement and do not believe that anyone should have to go through or be pained like the transgender community has been. However, Caitlyn Jenner has become nothing more than a media spectacle for millions of Americans to feast on. Jenner has succumbed to the same characteristics of the Kardashians.

She has become a woman who wears heavy makeup, enjoys having her nails done and wears tight clothing and high heels.

Instead of trying to go against the traditional path, she has decided to conform to gender stereotypes and thereby reinforce the way women are talked about in the media. Instead of redefining what a woman can be, she has become the woman America wants to see, and has allowed the

In light of the upcoming election, the UMass chapter of MASSPIRG conducted a panel on the issue of student debt and the validity of candidates’ proposed policies to address it. It took place on Tuesday, Oct. 27. There was a discussion of the proposed policies of leading presidential candidates and students collectively voted to grade each candidate’s policies. The event also featured economics professor Dr. David Kotz discussing changes in higher education since the 1970s. Following the discussion, students tweeted each candidate their report card.

The following GOP candidates were discussed and graded as follows: Donald Trump, F; Dr. Ben Carson, F; Marco Rubio, C. Democratic candidates fared better; Secretary Hillary Clinton received a B and Senator Bernie Sanders was given an A. Our generation has a frustratingly well-established reputation for apathy. As “millennials,” we have already been branded with the stereotype of being politically uninvolved and chronically disinterested with anything but our phones. However, that is largely not our reality. We care far more than older generations think we do, and we have more control than we probably realize.

Of course, we still have quite some time before the election takes place, but now is a good time to participate in the conversation and join the movement to solve student debt in the years to come.

Arianna Lewis ariannalewis@umass.edu Legal Studies major Class of 2018

Letters to the editor should be no longer than 550 words and can be submitted to either to Editorial@DailyCollegian.com or to DailyCollegian.com. We regret that, due to space constraints, not all letters will be printed but can be found online.

COURTESY OF LUCAS GUTTERMAN

Grades were given to each of the presidential candidates based on their proposed policies to alleviate student debt.

about how her career is taking off, especially with her television show being renewed for a second season. When Jenner was the recipient of the Arthur Ashe Courage award at this year’s ESPY Awards, more people tuned in than any other ESPY show since its inception in 1993.

It seems that if anything, Jenner herself has immensely profited from this new transition.

This is the problem. Both Jenner and the media have allowed the issue to move away from something important: being transgender and the struggles individuals face. The media is not validating the transgender movement so much as it is validating Caitlyn Jenner and everything else that comes with her.

In a recent interview on “The Today Show,” Jenner said she would not be offended if people decided to dress as her for Halloween saying, “I’m in on the joke.” No one should be surprised that a costume like this exists. In fact, it makes perfect sense. Jenner might respond by saying she gets the joke but what’s better than the costume is the amount of money it will make, which for Jenner is probably no laughing matter.

Furthermore, people shouldn’t wear the costume not because it is offensive but because it perpetuates the unnecessary action that marketing the transgender movement is what this country needs. If anything this country needs advocates to pass laws which would forward the transgender cause, not a media epicenter that claims to care about transgender rights only to benefit from its ratings.

Caitlyn Jenner is someone who went through a powerful transition only to come out making more money on the other side. She had the media and the American public by her side every step of the way. It would be a real shame for things to continue the way they have in the past. If such past events continue, then I am afraid it will only be Jenner receiving the last laugh.

Isaac Simon is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at isimon@umass.edu.

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The Massachusetts Daily Collegian is published Monday through Thursday during the University of Massachusetts calendar semester. The Collegian is independently funded, operating on advertising revenue. Founded in 1890, the paper began as Aggie Life, became the College Signal in 1901, the Weekly Collegian in 1914 and the Tri–Weekly Collegian in 1956. Published daily from 1967 to 2014, The Collegian has been broadsheet since January 1994. For advertising rates and information, call 413-545-3500.

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

B5

HOCKEY

UMass ready for Capital City Classic in New Jersey Minutemen to face Black Bears Friday

By Jason Kates Collegian Staff

After an emotional 6-6 tie last Friday against New Hampshire, the Massachusetts hockey team will head to New Jersey this weekend for the inaugural Capital City Classic tournament in Trenton, New Jersey.

UMass (3-0-1, 0-0-1 Hockey East) will face off against Hockey East opponent Maine, although the matchup is not considered a conference game. The winner will move on to face either Princeton or No. 13 Yale on Saturday.

Heading into the two contests, Minutemen coach John Micheletto said the team’s mindset is upbeat as they look to continue their hot start to the season.

“We’re spirited, (we) had a good practice on Saturday and another good one (Monday),” he said following Monday’s practice. “I think our guys are appropriately energized, yet excited to move forward and get better. One of the great things about our group so far is that we’re taking the positives in stride and not becoming obsessed with the negatives, but know that those

will push us to be better.

“I think since the tie on Friday, we’ve had that same mindset.”

Micheletto added.

Shane Walsh, who is third on UMass in points with seven and tied for second with four goals, admitted that there was a ton of excitement after the last game where the Minutemen scored four unanswered goals in the third period to earn the tie.

“We showed a lot of character coming back from that deficit, so I think it’s just about doing a lot of the same things,” Walsh said.

“I think we liked the way we played on Friday, obviously a couple bounces here and there we get down early, but it’s just a lot of the same, a good hard week of practice and then going into the weekend positive.”

While they have to prepare for the Black Bears (0-2-3), the Minutemen will also be tasked with preparing for one of two Ivy League teams in the other Friday tournament game.

But for Micheletto and the rest of UMass, the primary focus remains on Maine.

“There’s nothing we can do about Saturday until late Friday night,” he said. “We’ll continue to be in the moment, and that’s

LAFRENIERE From 1991-2001, UMass cross country won seven A-10 conference titles and four titles in track and field.

Personally, she also earned 11 A-10 coach of the year awards over this span.

“Yeah, I really had to hit the ground running with the first meet so soon after I was hired, but I’d say it has been a pretty successful run since,” LaFreniere said.

At the turn of the century, the Minutewomen saw a little bit of a drop in the overall standings in the conference championships each season. The recruiting classes started to lose their strength with other programs beginning to receive higher funding.

However, LaFreniere continued to keep the mantra of shutting out surrounding circumstances and focusing on the team she had and the meets in front of her.

This attitude has been displayed through her athletes and assistant coaches through the years. The same held true when assistant coach David Jackson first met her seven years ago.

“She first struck me as a dedicated person to the University, and that is exactly who she is,” Jackson said.

“She wants women’s track and cross country to succeed,

BALL STATE

the next opportunity we have to be good and put our skills and effort on display.”

Micheletto added: “Once we get our opponent, coaches will go about putting a scouting report and video together and then the guys will have that presented to them on Saturday.”

For UMass to produce any offense, it will have to beat 6-foot-4 Black Bears goaltender Rob McGovern, who is currently second in Hockey East with a .930 goals against average.

Micheletto recognized the challenge that McGovern will present.

“He’s a big kid and obviously a former football player in high school and a good athlete,” he said. “I know not having faced him will be a challenge, they’ve played all three of their guys a little bit here and there, so we’ve got to be ready for anybody.

“No matter who it is, we’ve done a good job in making sure we have pucks and bodies going to the net,” Micheletto added.

“Trying to minimize their vision is always the most important thing no matter who you’re playing, so that’ll certainly be at the top of the scouting report.”

Special teams is also set to play a vital role in this

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ure, LaFreniere has developed close relationships with her runners and has pushed them to achieve more than the average coach would. She creates a family atmosphere that has her athletes running for each other.

“She’s like a second mom to me, I always feel like I can go to her for anything,” MacLean said.

“She’s a big part of the family vibe that you don’t get at other schools, and she never gives up on her athletes through sickness or injury,” junior Dierdre Martyn added. “I don’t think any other coach would have believed in me the way she did through my injuries.”

With hopes that the program is starting to rise back to where it was 15 years ago, LaFreniere has all the more reason to continue what has already been a successful run.

However, she doesn’t need that kind of motivation.

“What makes her so successful is that she is in it for the right reasons, it’s not about money and she wasn’t coming in blind to what coaching in college is like,” O’Brien said. “This is a way of life for her.”

Nicholas Souza can be reached at njsouza@umass.edu.

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me upright. That’s something that, with a veteran group like that, you expect that.”

Sekai Lindsay done for the season The Minutemen’s running game took a hit with the announcement that freshman Sekai Lindsay will be out for the remainder of the year after being carted off the field last weekend in the second half.

Whipple said Tuesday that Lindsay would have surgery on his ankle.

In six games played, the freshman rushed for 114 yards on 34 carries with one touchdown. He was the third-leading rusher behind fellow freshman running back Marquis Young and senior Jamal Wilson.

“The loss of Sekai is huge,” said Wilson, who’s started six of UMass’ seven games in the backfield. “He’s

MAKOTO YABUSAKI/COLLEGIAN

Sekai Lindsay ran for 114 yards and a touchdown on 34 carries this season. a tough guy, runs hard and he’s decisive. He’s not making any unnecessary cuts.”

While Wilson and Young will continue to earn the brunt of the Minutemen’s carries, as the unit tries to find more consistency and balance, Whipple added that juniors Shadrach Abrokwah and Lorenzo Woodley would play a bigger role in the

Senior Shane Walsh (10) is tied for second on UMass with four goals through four games this season. affair, as the Minutemen’s power play is currently fourth best in the nation with a 35 percent conversion rate. On the flip side, Maine has killed 21-of-27 penalties, converting at 77.8 percent.

“No matter who, no matter where, no matter when, (special teams) is going to be a big part of it,” Micheletto said. “It was on Friday against UNH, and we’ve been fortunate that

the structures we’ve put in place and the options that we’ve given our guys have been good and profitable.”

With UMass continuing to pick up attention in the national polls, Walsh said it’s exciting to see the team continue to receive more recognition.

“Even me personally, this is my fourth year, so it’s exciting seeing this program moving in the right

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she is a true competitor and this state is in her blood.”

Holding down the head coaching position for so long gives LaFreniere an edge in recruiting beyond funding disadvantages. With other programs constantly changing coaches, O’Brien and LaFreniere have built a pipeline in the state of Massachusetts unlike anyone else. Often the athletes they recruit already know someone who has competed for them before.

It is not just word of mouth that makes an impact among athletes that join the Minutewomen. LaFreniere leaves a particular first impression on athletes she meets, and it convinces the right athletes to come to the program. It’s the reason current captain Heather MacLean decided to attend UMass three years ago.

“She was kind of awkward when I first meet her, but she was really straight forward with me, said MacLean, a junior. “She doesn’t want partiers, she wants us all to be dedicated to the sport and becoming better runners and that’s what made me want to commit.”

This relationship doesn’t stop at the recruiting period of her athletes’ careers either. Throughout her ten-

JUDITH GIBSON-OKUNIEFF/COLLEGIAN

offense starting Saturday.

“We don’t want to see Sekai get hurt, he was really starting to feel good,” Whipple said. “But the other guys have been solid and have been good throughout.”

Anthony Chiusano can be reached at achiusano@umass.edu and followed on Twitter @a_chiusano24.

running game has been as successful as it’s been.

With the second half of the season now underway, UMass’ seniors know that their games are numbered and have all made a serious commitment to turn the season around.

“I want to have my

direction like I know that we can, so its exciting but at the same time we know its early and we just have to keep playing hard,” he said.

Puck drop is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Friday afternoon at the Sun National Bank Center.

Jason Kates can be reached at jkates@umass.edu and followed on Twitter @Jason_Kates.

continued from page b6

best five games, no matter what. I want to do the best I possibly can. I know every senior here is thinking the same thing. They want to make their mark on these last five games,” Santos-Knox said. “I don’t see any quit in anybody, that’s not in anyone’s

vocabulary right now. I think we can get on a little run and a 6-6 season is a successful season, so that’s what we are going for.”

Andrew Cyr can be reached at arcyr@umass.edu and followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Minutewomen fighting for playoff berth over weekend UM currently sits ninth in A-10 By adam aucoin Collegian Staff

The last time the Massachusetts women’s soccer team failed to make it to the Atlantic 10 tournament, the five seniors on the team were in their freshman year of high school and coach Ed Matz was leading Northeastern to a NCAA Tournament berth.

That was in 2008.

It’s safe to say this group of UMass (6-6-4, 3-3-2 Atlantic 10) players is not used to the spot they are in, as they currently sit in ninth place in the conference. The top eight teams in the conference make the postseason, meaning the final two games of the season take on extra importance for the Minutewomen.

The team will need to win at least one, if not both, of the games to keep its season alive.

The first of the two games is Thursday as UMass finishes up the road portion of its schedule with a game against Saint Joseph’s (11-6, 5-3 A-10).

The Hawks come into the game riding a fourgame winning streak and sit fifth in the conference.

St. Joseph’s is known for its high-powered offense, entering this contest with a 1.82 goals per game average, tied for second best in the A-10 with Saint Louis.

The leader of the offense is junior midfielder Emily Gingrich, who has nine goals on the season, which

is fourth in the conference.

They also get strong offensive play out of freshman forward Dakota Mills, who has recorded seven goals.

Matz is wary of the opponent’s offensive abilities coming into the game.

“A lot of how we attack them defensively has to do with where (Gingrich) plays,” he said. “We have to make sure we pressure her whenever she has the ball.

If she has the ball in space, she can do a lot of damage.”

Senior defender Madison Smith said she believes UMass needs to do the same things it has done all season on defense in order to stop the Hawks’ attack.

“We don’t need to change our defensive strategy in order to have success,” Smith said. “We have a senior group on the backline that is strong, so if we all bring our A-game I see no reason why we can’t slow them down.”

A big storyline in the game will be the play of the two goalkeepers. The Minutewomen will call upon possibly the best goalie in the conference this season in Cassidy Babin, while Saint Joseph’s will start senior Allison Ebling.

Both goalies have been strong all season long.

Babin leads the conference with a 0.81 goals against average, while Ebling is third in that category with a 0.92 mark.

Matz is hopeful that his team’s offense will have a strong game despite the tough goalkeeping.

“We don’t worry too much about the opposing goalkeeper when we go into a game,” Matz said. “Our

goal is to get the people in the right places at the right time. I think with our varied offense we can have some success.”

UMass will be without one of their top offensive threats in the game, as junior forward Megan Burke will be out for the last two games of the regular season with a knee injury she suffered in the game against Duquesne last Thursday.

Burke is tied for the team lead in goals with three on the season.

With the Minutewomen’s season on the line in the last two games, both Matz and Smith realize the magnitude of the situation they are in.

“We need to win at least one of these last two games to even have a chance,” Matz said. “One point won’t cut it. We realize we have our work cut out for us playing two traditionally good teams, but we welcome the challenge.”

“We have made the tournament every year, so if we want to keep that going we need results,” Smith added.

“There are a lot of teams doubting us especially with our play on the road. This is our chance to prove that we are good team.”

Thursday’s game is set for 7 p.m. in Philadelphia, while UMass’ last game will be Sunday at Rudd Field against Dayton (8-9, 6-2 A-10), which will also be the team’s senior day. The finale is set for a 1 p.m. start.

Adam Aucoin can be reached at aaucoin@umass.edu and followed on Twitter @aaucoin34.

THE MASSACHUSETTS DAILY COLLEGIAN

Weekend

October 29, 2015

Sports@DailyCollegian.com

@MDC_SPORTS

W O M E N ’ S C RO S S C O U N T RY

BUILDING A LEGACY

After competing for UMass in the 1970s, Julie LaFreniere is in her 29th year as women’s cross country coach

By Nick Souza

A

Collegian Staff

s she readies her team for this year’s Atlantic 10 Championship meet on Saturday, Massachusetts women’s cross country coach Julie LaFreniere is also reflecting, as this year marks the team’s 40th anniversary.

LaFreniere, who was a member of that very first Minutewomen team, talked about the help she and her teammates got from current UMass men’s coach Ken O’Brien in convincing the school’s administration to make women’s cross country a Universitysponsored varsity sport.

The biggest advantage for the Minutewomen was that their practices took them through campus, which served as a recruitment tool for women to get involved with the team as they saw them run by.

In the team’s first year, it earned a trip to nationals, which was then conducted by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

“I remember we were too embarrassed to go to nationals that year because we still didn’t have uniforms, so the night before the meet we bought men’s tank tops and we had to sew the armpits in to fit us as we ironed ‘UMass’ on the front of them,” LaFreniere said.

The Minutewomen earned ninth place that first year under O’Brien, after the athletic department deemed him fit to coach both teams. LaFreniere would graduate in 1977, but her involvement

ROBERT RIGO/COLLEGIAN

Julie LaFreniere was a member of the inagural women’s cross country team at UMass in 1975. in the program was far from over.

Title IX and the beginning for LaFreniere Title IX, a federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, was passed in 1972 while LaFreniere was attending Gardner High School.

Her brother was also a cross-country runner, and when the law was

passed, schools had to come up with different ways to get female athletes involved. It was common for high schools to allow female runners to compete with the boys as a cheaper alternative to setting up a separate team. LaFreniere jumped at the opportunity.

“Long hair was in style for boys back then so it wasn’t always obvious, but as I passed by spectators closely I could literally hear them

gasp ‘a girl!,’” LaFreniere said.

LaFreniere said having her brother there helped her become closer with team, who accepted her despite being the first girl to compete after Title IX’s passing.

She competed in multiple events in track and field, and this experience with different events in high school gave her a slight advantage as a future coaching prospect.

“With her already having experi-

ence across the board, I didn’t know at the time what she wanted to do, but in the back of my mind I thought if she wanted to coach she already had a head start,” O’Brien said.

Upon graduation from UMass in 1977, LaFreniere began teaching and coaching at high school in North Hadley. She was then asked to come back to UMass to become a part-time assistant coach as she earned a masters degree in sports management. She eventually left in 1984 to take a full-time position at the high school level.

In 1987, UMass women’s cross country coach Randy Thomas decided to leave the program just before the season started. The Minutewomen needed another coach on short notice, and LaFreniere was called back to the program as a full-time head coach for the track and field and cross country teams.

“There is a lot of paper work to go through at a state university when you hire a new coach, but we couldn’t have gotten someone more qualified,” O’Brien said.

Three decades of consistency LaFreniere began coaching her first meet at UMass before she even got to know all the runners on the team. However, it didn’t take long for her to adjust to the world of collegiate coaching.

By the 1990s, LaFreniere and the Minutewomen hit their stride. see

LAFRENIERE on page B5

FOOTBALL

UMass set for conference matchup Minutemen welcome against Ball State this Saturday road trip to Indiana RB Sekai Lindsay out for the year with injury

Cardinals enter Sat. on five-game losing streak

By aNthoNy chiuSaNo

By aNdrew cyr

Needing to run the table to reach a .500 record for the season, the Massachusetts football team has essentially moved past its most difficult part of its schedule that featured numerous blown opportunities and second half breakdowns.

With their final five games coming against Mid-American Conference teams all boasting losing records, the Minutemen (1-6, 0-3 MAC) now look to save their season by eliminating their second half mistakes and piecing together a consistent performance against bottom level conference opponents.

“We’ve run into a little bit of a buzzsaw, we played a bunch of good halves so we just have to look for that 60-minute game,” UMass coach Mark Whipple said after Tuesday’s practice.

UMass begins the last portion of its schedule against Ball State (2-6, 1-3 MAC), who the Minutemen defeated 24-10 last year at McGuirk Stadium.

The Cardinals return a trio of top targets on offense in 2014 MAC second team receiver Jordan Williams (52 catches, 693 yards, five touchdowns), 2014 MAC third team receiver KeVonn Mabon (43 catches, 386 yards, one touchdown) and sophomore Corey Lacanaria (39 catches, 319 yards, two touchdowns).

They accompany true freshman quarterback Riley Neal, who boasts an 11-to-2 touchdownto-interception ratio after beating out 2014 starter Jack Milas for the starting job.

Sometimes a vacation is all that’s needed.

And while this weekend’s trip to Muncie, Indiana for the Massachusetts football team isn’t the ideal tropical destination as the winter months approach, it serves as the perfect getaway for UMass (1-6, 0-3 Mid-American Conference) to start fresh and turn its season around.

“I think away games are good because you become tighter as a family,” senior linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox said.

He added: “This away trip is exactly what we need. We’ve been at home and there are so many distractions when you’re at home, people here, family there.

When you are on the road, it’s just us against the world it feels like. Ball State is a great team and we can’t go in thinking ‘well we won last year, this is going to be a walk through.’”

The Minutemen have underperformed in their past two games at home, the first a 15-10 loss against Kent State at McGuirk Stadium on Oct. 17, and the second last Saturday when they watched their 28-10 halftime lead quickly evaporate in a 51-35 defeat.

Road games haven’t been kind to UMass, as it’s fallen in all three of its contents this year by a combined score of 172-79, including letting over 60 points against both No. 9 Notre Dame and Bowling Green.

The Cardinals (2-6, 1-3 MAC) enter Saturday in a similar position as the Minutemen, as they

Collegian Staff

Collegian Staff

ROBERT RIGO/COLLEGIAN

De’Sean Downey (41) and Sha-Ki Holines (95) make a tackle in UMass’ 51-35 loss against then-No. 19 Toledo Saturday at Gillette Stadium.

“We’ve run into a little bit of a buzzsaw, we played a bunch of good halves so we just have to look for that 60-minute game.”

Mark Whipple, UMass coach “Their quarterback has really grown up. He’s a big kid who can really throw it,” Whipple said of Neal. “They’ve played a lot of good teams and they’re right there. It’s kind of like looking in the mirror, we’re kind of similar. They’re just a tough, resilient group.”

Neal’s counterpart, UMass quarterback Blake Frohnapfel, will face Ball State for the first time since suffering a season-ending leg injury in last year’s Nov. 12 victory.

According to him, however, he doesn’t think Saturday’s matchup has any added meaning.

“I don’t really think about it that way. It’s just the next challenge for us and our next chance to win,” Frohnapfel said. “It’s the same (defensive)

coordinator so you see a lot of things they did against our personnel formationally. In terms of me actually watching the injury and when it happened, I usually don’t watch that part.”

Frohnapfel, who dropped back 56 times in last Saturday’s loss to Toledo, is figured to be the focal point once again against the Cardinals’ last-ranked passing defense in the MAC. He acknowledged the offensive line’s play last week against the Rockets – he was sacked only once – will be key once again.

“Toledo had a great front four and we knew going in it would be a challenge for (the offensive line),” Frohnapfel said. “They definitely responded to it and kept see

BALL STATE on page B5

have lost five consecutive games.

Ball State also watched a halftime lead disappear last weekend in a 23-21 loss against Central Michigan.

“We need a good team effort all the way through, on both sides of the ball,” coach Mark Whipple said. “We certainly did it last week in the first half, but 60 minutes is what we need, from both sides.”

Offensively, the Cardinals offer a balanced attack as they have 1,865 passing yards compared to 1,330 rushing yards.

They have 12 rushing and 12 passing touchdowns on the season.

Freshman quarterback Riley Neal has been one of the lone bright spots for Ball State as the dual-threat freshmen has thrown for 1,522 yards with 11 touchdowns to just two interceptions. The two interceptions are the fewest among MAC starting quarterbacks.

“He’s a freshmen so you want to send different pressures at him, different blitzes, different things for him. Things he hasn’t seen before,” Santos-Knox said.

Santos-Knox added: “We’ll try to mess up his timing. He’s a really good quarterback and he has great receivers too. Some different pressure from different ways is the best way to get to him and get him off his game.”

Ball State uses a pair of running backs in Darian Green and James Gilbert to head its rushing attack. Green leads the team with 103 carries for 559 yards while Gilbert’s seven touchdowns are the most on the team.

Santos-Knox said the Cardinals’ experienced offensive line is a big reason why their see

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