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U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H F L O R I DA

‘I don’t want to give bullies the time of day. I want to fight this.’

The Turning Point USA chapter at USF, unoficially being called The Forum, faces scrutiny from two students after cutting

ties with the national Turning Point USA organization in Feb. leading to an ethics investigation and request for a court case.

By Maria Ranoni N E W S

E D I T O R

The Forum, formerly known as Turning Point USA (TPUSA) at USF, continues to experience controversy after cutting ties with the national organization, TPUSA. Last month, The Forum president and Student Government (SG) Sen. Aida Vazquez-Soto was accused of being anti-Israel after her vote on a Senate resolution regarding the Israel and Palestine conflict.

Vazquez-Soto vehemently denied this accusation, but rumors still Students of the former TPUSA at USF now meet under the unofficial name of The Forum.

SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE/BRYANT HOWARD swirled.

After these rumors reached decided to start The Forum.

TPUSA chapter members will the USF chapter anymore even TPUSA donors, Vazquez-Soto Rather than formally vote Thursday to officially change though USF does. According was told she must step down starting an entirely new student the name of the organization and to TPUSA’s chapter directory, it as the chapter’s president at organization and applying for keep the current funding. claims Spencer Tate, former SG which point she and most of the new funding from the Activity & TPUSA does not claim Senator and member of TPUSA members of the organization Services (A&S) fees, the former Vazquez-Soto as the president of at USF, as the current president.

Tate and fellow chapter member Leo Stoler disapprove of the current direction VazquezSoto and other members have taken the student organization and have therefore taken steps to discredit Vazquez-Soto’s leadership.

Tate emailed members of USF administration expressing concern and affirming his leadership within TPUSA at USF. “I find out Friday morning — Friday the 9th I want to say — Spencer had gone and emailed the administration claiming that the money, the travel grant, my Bullsync page, that they belonged to him because nationals went and recognized him on their directory as the president of the organization at the national level,” Vazquez-Soto said. “They

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ULS speaker encourages positivity, togetherness

By Ashley Jablonski C O R R E S P O N D E N T

Dressed in a black t-shirt with white lettering that read “FREE HUGS,” Ken Nwadike Jr. welcomed students in the Oval Theater to the idea of kindness and spreading love rather than hate.

Nwadike spoke to students and the community on Wednesday in an effort to share his story of how he became known as “the free hugs guy.”

Growing up in a homeless shelter in California, Nwadike

faced many bullies that forced him to become isolated, shy and distant from others.

It wasn’t until a track coach stopped him and told him to join the team that he grew out of his shell. Nwadike joined and began to run as a part of the team. He would take left behind clothing and shoes to allow himself to take part in the sport. Track became his first sense of belonging.

Later, Nwadike wanted to allow other homeless children to find the same sense in running that he did. With this, he created the

Hollywood Half Marathon held every April. The children told him it would never happen.

“Alright, cool I will reach out to the media,” Nwadike said to the children. “I will see if I share my story, if that would help generate some buzz for this event.”

After some exposure, celebrities such as Andrea Barber (Kimmy Gibbler from Full House) began to take part in the event. The Hollywood Half Marathon wound up having over 10,000 attendees and they were able to raise over $1 million the first year.

“I was able to shut down Hollywood boulevard,” Nwadike said.

Nwadike’s presentation dealt with various pictures and videos from his experiences. This included footage from various rallies and his start of the “Free Hugs” campaign at the Boston Marathon.

According to Nwadike, the Boston Marathon was like the Super Bowl where he would get together with people and watch people run. Four years ago he was watching as the bombs went off.

He was devastated.

“I knew I needed to have some bold standard of solidarity for the people that lost their lives and limbs at the Boston Marathon,” Nwadike said. “I told the kids at the shelter, ‘let’s create a campaign that’s going to get people to come out and run the Boston Marathon rather than being scared or afraid.’”

Originally, Nwadike planned on running the marathon. However, he needed to qualify with a time of

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the Oracle the University of South Florida’s student newspaper since 1966

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NEWS

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FORUM

Continued from PAGE 1

Ken Nwadike Jr. talked to students about his journey and how he became the “Free Hugs Guy.” ORACLE PHOTO/CHAVELI GUZMAN began to form relationships with others through his mission, Continued from PAGE 1 including meeting the godfather to his children while he was talking three hours and five minutes. He to protesters and getting a positive missed the qualifying time twice response.

Nwadike referenced the by 23 seconds on the first attempt particular riot where he got and 19 seconds on the second protesters to hear him out and attempt.

“Because I couldn’t reach the have a conversation. He ran into qualifying time, what do you a contradicting situation when a guys think if I print ‘Free Hugs’ police officer approached him at on a T-shirt and go out there one of the protests he attended and because of the bombings where he embraced both the officer that happened the year before,” and the protesters marching. “‘Hey man do I get one of those Nwadike said to the kids. “What if I just go out there and show people hugs?’ the police officer said. This how we respond to these acts of is not going to look good, I feel like I’m probably going to get hate and violence.”

The kids from the shelter attacked,” Nwadike said. “But, my laughed at Nwadike. They thought shirt says ‘Free Hugs.’ That invite nobody would take him up on is open for everyone, despite the his offer. Nwadike went to the fact there is literally a riot going on marathon with a camera and came right now. I’ve got to hug this guy.”

Nwadike then defended back to prove them wrong.

“The most beautiful thing for himself to both sides of the issue me about being there, it was a explaining that everyone involved moment for me to realize that was human. His point was to politics didn’t matter in that make people see that there is a moment, race didn’t matter, peaceful way to approach hard gender, financial status, none of conversations.

He explained that he encourages that mattered,” Nwadike said. “It was just a moment for human people to get to know one another beings, strangers to interact with in an effort to hear each other’s stories. He said this is the way to one another.”

After this event, Nwadike create change. Nwadike decided decided that he needed to spread to test this with children who this form of love in a more volatile normally had a negative outlook setting such as riots dealing on police officers.

“Love will save the world,” with political issues as a way to create positive and peaceful Nwadike said. conversations. This is where he

ULS

removed my name.

Tate could not be reached for comment by 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Vazquez-Soto said she was shocked to hear that the administration would be meeting about this considering the small size of the organization.

“Imagine my surprise when I hear that the director of the CLCE, the dean of students, the assistant dean of students, the director of SGATO, all these people are meeting over a little student organization with $2,000,” Vazquez-Soto said.

The administration replied to Tate by saying that student organizations are able to change any information in their constitution including their name and there has been no request for a name change thus far. They also mentioned that Vazquez-Soto is the current president of TPUSA at USF. However, Stoler proceeded to file an investigation request form with the Senate Ethics Committee against VazquezSoto and The Forum, claiming funding should be withheld from the organization because TPUSA at USF no longer exists and has changed its name to The Forum as well as changed it purpose on campus.

“What happened was Turning Point has a chapter at USF that was liquified by the organization itself because they disagreed with how she (Vazquez-Soto) was running the chapter,” Stoler said. “When that happened, she formed the new organization called The Forum, and The Forum has all the funding that Turning Point originally had and it didn’t go through the same

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process that an organization would have to go through to get A&S funding. That was the cause of that investigation, which didn’t even go through as planned.”

Vazquez-Soto said Stoler and Tate are working together in an effort to disenfranchise The Forum.

“I get the email that an ethics investigation has been filed and the thing is it has been filed by Leo,” Vazquez-Soto said. “Leo Stoler and Spencer (Tate) are both kind of tag teammates in this. So, Leo files an ethics investigation and my first question is, ‘Why is this in their jurisdiction?’”

The Ethics Committee found that since TPUSA at USF has not officially changed its name, Stoler’s claims could not have occurred. Also, it stated that the Ethics Committee would not find any student organization in violation of a statute for a change in its constitution.

“It didn’t work out and I’m disappointed, but I don’t want to dwell on something that didn’t work out,” Stoler said.

“There’s only forward, there’s no backward.”

In a final attempt, Tate applied for a trial with the SG Supreme Court claiming that The Forum should have to start out as a new student organization and apply for funding rather than just changing its name to keep its current funding.

However, the court decided that this was outside of its jurisdiction and therefore cannot proceed.

“Nobody should ever have to go through that,” VazquezSoto said. “This was a club I founded. This was a student organization where the members were confident in my leadership, confident enough to come with

3 me when I left Turning Point. It’s harassment because if anything you only need the ethics investigation, but this was him (Tate) just going in and trying to make people miserable which is what he does.”

According to Stoler, TPUSA has been encouraging him to pursue these actions in an effort to win back the organization’s chapter at USF. “I’m involved in Turning Point and we’re trying to get our chapter back up and running at USF because we have the right and we’re being encouraged by Turning Point,” Stoler said. “Our regional director (Driena Sixto) has been pushing for it as well — who I’ve been working directly with.”

TPUSA has been accused of interfering with university affairs in the past. Last year, Ryan Soscia and Logan Holland were accused of taking campaign merchandise from the organization during their campaign for student body president and vice president.

According to a report by The Ohio State Lantern, TPUSA’s goal at the collegiate level is to influence SG races across the country to elect conservative students.

“Leo has been threatening that Turning Point will take legal action against the school,” Vazquez-Soto said. “He is one of the people helping them — this is systemic harassment. He’s one of the strings they’re pulling.”

Vazquez-Soto said she would describe Tate and Stoler as bullies.

“I don’t want to give bullies the time of day,” Vazquez-Soto said.

“I want to fight this.”

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ESPORTS

Continued from PAGE 8

swimming, Billy started taking esports more seriously.

“I saw a YouTube video called ‘The best comebacks at SKTAR 3’ by Mew2King,” Billy said. “He was probably the biggest smasher at the time and he still plays to this day. But that video showed me tech skills that I hadn’t seen before.”

Mew2King is a screen name for Jason Zimmerman. In 2017, he earned just over $41,000 from Esports alone. The top esports earner in the world is Kuro Takhasomi, who won $2.4 million in 2017.

Billy became infatuated with the game. He practiced daily.

Just like swimming, he started to become good quickly.

“He was just better at it than me,” Jack said. “He would kick my a** every time we played.”

Billy continued to play casually

T H U R S DAY, M A R C H 1 , 2 0 1 8

with friends and family before taking a step into competitive gaming. His friends would team up trying to beat him in threeagainst-one matches. He would always prevail.

“He enjoyed playing it and kept getting better at it,” Jack said. “He wanted to play against people who were better.”

Billy played in his first competitive event at Old Video Games in Tampa, a store that is now closed. The event was called the Tampa Spicy Spot.

“I went by myself and I got destroyed,” Billy said. “I realized that’s just part of the game though. The first tournament you go to, you get wrecked because you’re bottom seed. You’ve never been there before; you play against the number one seed in the tournament.”

Instead of quitting, Billy kept practicing and played in several other tournaments. He plays in Orlando frequently and traveled

to Miami before playing in the Evolution Championship Series games in Las Vegas in 2017.

Billy flew out to Las Vegas to play in the international tournament. This act was unexpected from someone who described themselves as quiet and reserved.

“I was amazed about how far he had come, I guess,” Jack said.

“Hearing that he got to go to such a high-level event in a different state, to fly out there, it was kind of cool.”

The 2017 Evo games were featured on ESPN2 and Disney XD. The finals of Street Fighter V was on ESPN2 and Smash Bros. for WiiU aired on Disney XD. Billy had transformed from a reserved high school athlete to a competitive gamer involved in esports across the country.

He occasionally livestreams his gameplay on Twitch to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Billy still plays semicompetitively at USF. At the Skypad on the fourth floor of Marshall Student Center, he is able to play video games with other students.

“It’s a big deal that he seeks that out on his own,” Billy’s mother, Lori Wilson, said. “He doesn’t know who’s going to be there, but he knows to go. I think that gaming makes him want to be engaged.”

Stories are often told about how traditional sports bring out the best in people. Esports, although non-traditional, accomplishes the same.

“Gaining self-confidence, I think self-confidence is something that everyone should have and some people just really don’t sometimes,” Billy said.

“I’ve always been a quiet person because I never really wanted to express myself without feeling like an idiot. Gaming helped me make friends.”

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WIN

Continued from PAGE 8

in five innings pitched.

“I thought Baron had a really good outing coming out as a true freshman,” Mohl said.

“He pounded the strike zone, executed his pitches and forced a lot of ground balls.”

In the win, all eight USF position starters scored a run and four Bulls had a multi-hit game. Of those four, Garrett Zech hit the most with three hits, two of which were triples.

It was the first time a Bull had two triples in a game since Kyle Teaf did so on May 29, 2015.

The 16 runs scored were the most USF’s scored in a game since they downed Penn State 19-1 on Feb. 21, 2014.

After having a losing record for the past six games, the win puts USF back at .500 on the season, with a favorable threegame series against Columbia (0-4), which is winless in 2018, starting on Friday at 7 p.m. at USF Baseball Stadium.

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OPINION UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

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Dear school board: Keep your nose out of this one

Students around the country are being pressured by schools threatening disciplinary action for peaceful protests, but they are not backing down. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE

By Paige Wisniewski S T A F F

W R I T E R

Since the mass shooting where 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, students across the U.S. have rallied together to protest for gun law reform. These students are generating a movement based on the premise of “Never Again” to end gun violence in schools.

Students, regardless of being of voting age, should be able to participate in movements against policies that directly effect their lives.

On Feb. 21, students united in peaceful protest on the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, while students within a spread of counties in South Florida demonstrated walkouts at their schools. Protesters also staged a “lie-in” near the White House on Feb 19, where students posed as corpses lying on the sidewalk with

their arms crossed to symbolize the effects of gun violence.

The Gun Violence Archive – a nonprofit organization which has been tracking school shootings since 2014 – reports that there have been 239 school shootings since 2014, 16 of which were classified as mass shootings. The Gun Violence Archive considers a mass shooting to be an event where four or more people are shot.

The prevalence of gun violence in schools is inspiring students to take action against the policies in place that they claim are enabling gun violence to continue.

These students are not backing down. More protests have been planned, such as the National School Walk-Out on March 14 and the March for Our Lives demonstration on March 24.

However, many schools are pushing back against these protests.

For example, a superintendent in the Needville, Texas school

district sent out a letter warning that students who engaged in any peaceful protest would be met with a three-day suspension.

Schools should not require students to choose between their civil rights or adherence to their school policy.

On Feb. 24, 1969, the Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines where students were suspended for wearing black armbands in school to protest the Vietnam War, ruled that “students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” This ruling is still relevant today.

Students are engaged citizens.

Despite many of these students being minors or high-school aged, they are directly affected by the laws within this country. If they are expected to uphold the laws as any average citizen within and above voting age, they should be allowed to exercise the laws already in place

meant to protect them as well, such as the right to peaceful assembly under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

It is arguable that they are protesting the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. How do we determine which law takes precedence when one appears to enable students to advocate for dismantling another?

These students are not calling for a ban on all guns. The aim of these demonstrations is to raise awareness on how the little restrictions on gun ownership are affecting their lives and their schools. Students should be able to exercise their rights without fear of penalty from the exact institutions they are advocating to keep safer.

On Feb.27, @USouthFlorida tweeted a statement in support of lawful student protests: “The University of South Florida values the right to free speech and strives to be a campus where all community members can share their diverse perspectives in a civil and respectful manner. #USF Admissions does not penalize students who participate in lawful, peaceful protests.”

The First Amendment should be applied to all public schools.

Stifling students’ rights to free speech and free expression (even in the form of peaceful assembly) is unconstitutional. Students should not be expected to relinquish their rights as American citizens to be free of punishment from the schools they want to protect.

Paige Wisniewski is a junior majoring in interdisciplinary sciences.

According to their website, marchforourlives.com, “March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar.”

March For Our Lives events will be occurring in the following Florida cities on March 24: Doral Miami Beach Gainesville Orlando Tampa Tallahassee March For Our Lives events will be occurring in the following cities outside of the U.S. on March 24: London Toronto Brussels Bordeaux, France Edinburgh, Scotland

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CROSSWORD

Magic Puzzle

Rules: Fill the rest of the puzzle using words from the official International Scrabble Word List. Words must be spelled left to right or top to bottom. Words can only be used once. THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION ! The validity of your words can be checked at https://www.collinsdictionary.com/scrabble/. Good Luck.

Solutions will appear in Monday’s paper.

Created by faculty member H. Henrick Jeanty, an instructor in the Computer Science and Engineering department.

Answer Solutions to Monday’s Puzzle

Classifieds To place a classified ad go to

http://www.usforacle.com/classifieds

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Staffer West Meadows Community Club seeking part-time college students that are selfmotivated, mature and assertive, to work at their clubhouse. Flexible hours.

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Sports

Esports gives former high school athlete a new playing field at USF 8

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

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Esports

By Sam Newlon A S S T .

S P O R T S

E D I T O R

Baseball

USF Baseball earns revenge, thrashes Bethune Cookman 16-1

By Josh Fiallo S P O R T S

A quiet, reserved young man continues to grow through a non-traditional branch of sports.

He found a new sense of selfconfidence amid the sharp, plastic clicking of a video game controller.

Billy Wilson, a junior majoring in film and new media studies, grew up playing sports, but simply became bored. Gaming, however, always peaked his interest and esports gave him an avenue to grow as a person.

“I was always a fan of video games when I was a kid,” Billy said. “Super Smash Bros. Melee was always one of my favorite games. I was competitive about it; I would get upset if I lost.”

Esports is a form of competition using video games. In 2017, global esports revenues reached $696 million, with that figure projected to increase to $1.5 billion by 2020.

Orlando City SC signed Abraham Valbuena as their eMLS competitor to represent the club in FIFA video game tournaments around the world last week, making Orlando City one of 19 MLS clubs to compete in eMLS. Melee, the game Billy plays, is among esports’ most popular.

Billy doesn’t just play Melee for fun, he plays it competitively.

It’s a fighting-style video game that pits characters from the Nintendo universe in brawls.

“I thought I would try that. As I went through high school, I was swimming all the time. I had a club association in Tampa and would swim two to three hours a day.”

Billy was good enough to make the regional swim meet all four years of high school.

“As time progressed, I just really wasn’t into physical stuff,” Billy said. “I still run today, but swimming competitively became boring and I got tired of it.”

As he got less interested in

USF scored 16 runs for the first time since 2014 and notched a season-high 14 hits on its way to a 16-1 rout over BethuneCookman in Daytona Beach on Wednesday night.

Last season, USF (4-4) was eliminated from the Gainesville Regional in the NCAA Tournament after losing to Bethune Cookman 6-4. To make the loss sting even more, it came just two days after the Bulls routed the Wildcats 9-1.

Wednesday night, the Bulls’ play was reminiscent of their first game against the Wildcats (3-7) in the Gainesville Regional, taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning they would never relinquish.

After the two-run first, the score would stay the same for two innings. In the third inning, the Bulls pushed six runs past the Wildcats to make it 8-0.

They’d then score three times in two more innings before closing the game with a five-run ninth inning.

“It was great to see us put up the runs we did,” coach Billy Mohl said. “We had a lot of quality at-bats and a lot of hard hit balls even when guys weren’t getting on base. Everyone did a nice job of locking in and capitalizing on mistakes.”

The run support helped ease freshman Baron Stuart in his first collegiate start, with the right-hander allowing one run

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An esport tournament at Wang Theatre in Boston where players from around the country compete annualy in December. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE/THE BOSTON MAJOR Melee tournaments use brackets that resemble the NCAA’s annual 64-team single-elimination basketball tournament.

He started playing the game when he was visiting his cousins in Tennessee. After one game of Melee, he was entranced.

“We had older cousins who played Melee,” Billy’s older brother, Jack Wilson, said. “You’re a little kid. You’re going to be obsessed with video games and all that stuff. We did other things, but we were both really into it.”

Those other things include

a variety of sports. Billy played basketball, baseball and soccer growing up, but he was mostly involved in soccer until middle school.

“When I was younger, my dad was a coach,” Billy said. “He coached soccer a lot. Basketball and baseball didn’t appeal to me as much as soccer and I lost interest as time progressed.”

In high school, Billy became an active member of the swim team at Pasco High School.

“I saw the 2008 Olympics and saw Michael Phelps,” Billy said.

E D I T O R