The people have now spoken. With a few clicks of a mouse the Era of Free Napster has ended, while the Era of Free Towel Service dawns on the horizon. When you start looking for a job in large part based upon the strength of your UM degree, I’m sure the fact you had free Napster and were too cheap to pay $1 for a towel when you work out will stand you in good stead with your potential employer.

This is not a knock on Vance Aloupis or Pete Maki for offering those respective campaign promises; it’s a knock on the electorate for being moved to vote for nonsense like that. This is why I applaud the Elections Commission for canceling the debates. To have had to watch yet another amateurish display of grandstanding between variant factions of the Hellenic Industrial Complex is more than mortal man deserves. Of course that’s a hit on the electorate, too.

Having said that, I think we had two wonderful candidates for Student Government President this year, one of whom I came to know and have great respect for having had the honor of competing along side him for President last year, and the other who is one of those rare and inspiring natural leaders who understands, as they both do, the potential UM students have to make an impact on this community. The choice was difficult because SG is that important.

We would have had a great leader, regardless of who had won, leadership commensurate with the leadership we’re losing. This year’s Executive Board has done an admirable job serving the student body; I hope that next years Board does just as good a job.

SG is that important, because regardless of what arrogant, self-delusional and ignorant people might think, SG is a force for positive change. It is no more appropriate to base the effectiveness of the organization on the fact that refreshments were mentioned in the minutes than it is to base one’s potential effectiveness as a lawyer on the ability to blather nonsensically without restraint.

The problem with SG is not structural. The problem is a lack of sufficient resources to fund better initiatives. That’s why your choice for Student Government President is always between Athens and Sparta…rather than between good and better.

Scott Wacholtz can be contacted at s.wacholtz@umiami.edu.

Wikipedia encyclopedia defines sport as “consist[ing] of a normal physical activity or skill carried out under a[n]… agreed set of rules…: for competition, for self-enjoyment, to attain excellence, for the development of skill, or some combination of these. A sport has physical activity, side-by-side competition and a scoring system. The difference of purpose is what characterizes sport, combined with the notion of individual (or team) skill or prowess.”

I classify a sport as an activity that uses a combination of talents, skills and rules. In a sport an athlete must use a combination of coordination, strength, endurance and speed, combined with skill. The sport itself should have a level playing field.

I would like to introduce a system that ranks sports from one to five, where the lower end is a completely subjective event and five would be almost completely objective. The rankings are in no way derogatory to the events but a way to differentiate between them for the sake of argument. At level one would be events such as diving, gymnastics, surfing and ice skating, mainly because their scoring systems are highly complex, and they are so much closer to art forms than other sports. Level two would include events similar to the art/sport of parkour (freerunning). At level three would be the combative sports: boxing, wrestling, tae kwon do and judo, because spectators understand the rules but the scoring depends on the agreement of officials. At level four would be basketball and soccer. Level five includes swimming and athletics. The first two are almost completely devoid of subjectivity because when the ball enters the goal it is understood that points have been scored. The latter two are completely objective because their outcomes are obvious. All other sports would fall in line similar to the examples I have provided.

Now for the non-sports: fishing, hunting, billiards, poker and vehicle racing. Fishing and hunting do not have level playing fields, billiards and poker require no athletic ability (though ESPN would have us believe that). Vehicle racing requires stamina and coordination but the “athlete” in this sense does not do the majority of the work. Manipulating a steering wheel, shifting and hand-eye coordination are its requirements. Granted, some drivers cross train, but this does not make them true athletes. Another sport that requires a machine is cycling. The difference between it and vehicle racing is the amount of true athletic ability used to complete a race. I do not include equestrian or horse racing as non-sports because the horse is the true athlete and should therefore be rewarded for its effort.

I will admit that this is a contentious topic for many. The definition will continue to change over time making this debate more enjoyable.

Vontilla Steven can be contacted at v.steven@umiami.edu.

Hi, my name is Christopher and I’m Greek. After the verbal assaults following Greek Week, I am almost hesitant to admit it. But no matter what you say about it, I love every damn minute of being Greek.

And you might be surprised, but it’s not because I love to party, and it’s not because I love to always be drunk, and it sure as hell isn’t because I need to be paying for my friends or feel “elitist” as most people charge.

Don’t get me wrong: my first two years at UM, I had the same thoughts of Greek life as almost every non-Greek student. But a simple note on my door from my first friend at UM changed my opinion. As I sat on the bed in my dorm and read “the brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon applaud your accomplishments at UM” and asked me to check out the fraternity and what it stood for, I immediately dropped my barrier to Greek life and decided to give it a chance.

Thirty minutes into my quest to learn more about fraternity life, I was astounded by all I learned about SAE on its national website. Who’d have guessed that all fraternities had values that they stood for, especially values that were congruent with my own life like SAE?

The point of my life story here is that I had been letting my biased interpretation of Greeks influence my vision of what Greek life really was; I was truly ignorant and content in that lack of knowledge, like most students.

Two years after deciding that I would give up my anti-Greek stance, I have met 40 of the most dedicated scholars, athletes, philanthropists and best friends I have ever known. And that is just in my fraternity, one of the 29 Greek organizations on campus.

Despite coming from a non-Greek background, I can’t help but be furious when I read the comments of those that perpetuate the beliefs that we are “elitist” drunks or that Greek life is useless, mostly because I used to think that way too.

I could write paragraphs about the astounding statistics associated with fraternities and sororities, but that’s old. The important thing is that Greeks are just everyday students. When we aren’t wearing letters, we look the same, talk the same, act the same and do the same stuff that non-Greeks do, including being members of the 210 other non-Greek organizations at UM.

It’s OK not to be Greek, just as it is OK to be Greek. It took a note on my door for me to realize this. I just wish those who hate us because we wear letters to show our pride in the accomplishments of our organizations would drop their bias and stop believing the stereotypes.

No matter what, I will always be proud to be Greek. But more importantly, just like every other Greek at UM, we will always be proud to be ‘Canes; that’s why I wear my letters in orange and green.

Christopher Vasquez can be contacted at c.vasquez1@umiami.edu.

UM Mock Trial Organization

I find it disheartening that the Mock Trial Organization has been recently neglected in The Hurricane. The Mock Trial Organization is a club that not only upholds, but also helps, to build the academic reputation of the University of Miami. Last week, the club sent two teams to the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Southeastern United States Regional Tournament in Tallahassee, with much success. Melody Manning and Don Donelson each received a Best Attorney award, while Katie Onachila went home with a Best Witness award. One of our teams tied for third place and for the third straight year earned a bid to the National Tournament where they will compete against top schools such Yale, Dartmouth, Berkeley, Stanford and more. The other team earned the highly coveted Spirit of AMTA award given to the team that shows the most professionalism at the tournament. I cannot comprehend why, in the March 4 issue of The Hurricane, this information was ignored. If there is enough room to include an article about a barbecue at one of our rival schools, there should be enough room to report on the great accomplishments of a student organization here at UM. All of our teams devote a great deal of time and effort into Mock Trial, and they all deserve to be recognized. I hope that in the future, The Hurricane will lean more towards covering the substantial achievements of its own students.

Alissa McElhone

Mock Trial Treasurer

Re: “Greeks and non-Greeks involved in Trojan War,” 3/8

There seemed to be a lot of negative opinions toward the Greek community in the March 8 column of The Hurricane. Jovanni Bello’s piece called Greeks and non-Greeks involved in Trojan War was incredibly judgmental. He grouped all Greek students into a narrow stereotype of being elite and unfriendly to non-Greek students.

I already informed Mr. Bello that I found his article to be inappropriate. Surely, stereotyping all Greeks is equally as unjustified as making a blatantly racial or anti-Semitic or other type of ignorant generalization.

In addition, the editorial, entitled “Greeks force charity” practically made me cry. Many Greek organizations do not hold large philanthropic events like most of them preach about during recruitment. But my sorority, Delta Delta Delta, raised more than $30,000 in our annual golf tournament this last October. It is unfair to blame Greeks for giving their money and blood (literally) during Greek Week. Although I agree that the intentions were not directed towards helping people, and was, in fact, geared more towards winning, it does not negate previously successful philanthropic endeavors.

Sure Greek Week made $19,000 this year, which far surpasses that of last year-but our organization alone made over $30,000 last fall. Obviously something is wrong with some Greek organizations, but again, let’s not throw all Greek students into one large stereotype.

The media and entertainment industries are always against Greek organizations. We have to constantly defend our organizations-our ideals, our friends and the things we work incredibly hard towards. Your newspaper portrays our endeavors as a joke. The reason people in Greek organizations give into the stereotype is because it is so omnipresent, from books like Pledged to movies like Animal House, we must always be on the defense.

Reading about how all Greek students are snobby elitists gets old…and it gives the ones who do act that way all the more reason to maintain that attitude.

I think you are telling only one side of the story.

Elyse Gibson

Student

Apparently you just can’t make everyone happy. For the second year in a row the Department of Residence Halls has tried to make students’ lives easier by allowing online housing sign up for dorms. The online sign-up times are allotted during weekends, allowing students to pick their next living situation while still in their pajamas from the comfort of their own room.

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago we were forced to get up at 7 a.m. to wait in line for our rooms. Remember missing classes because the lines were more than five hours long, camping out in the halls of Eaton, calling in late to work, and who know what else? It was just part of the process.

Fortunately, after continued criticism, the University and the Department of Residence Halls began offering online housing sign-up last year. The program, compared with previous procedures, is near perfect.

Yet, being the cynical students that we are, we must point out some issues that, if addressed, would make the process even better. Mainly, many students have complained that they are unable to sign up for suites in groups of four because other students with higher numbers will each take one room per suite, leaving five suites in a row with only one room taken. This has forced groups of four who want to share a suite utilize thefacebook or other methods to ask for the other students to move. If there was a way for the Department of Residence Halls to encourage students to sign up for suites with other “randoms,” then this could be prevented.

While the above is a reasonable concern brought forth by students, a different complaint is just plain lazy. If your future roommate/suitemate/apartment-mate-whatever-can’t go to a website and click “confirm” within a certain window, then they really can’t complain about not getting the room they wanted. It’s not that hard, and face it, it’s a heck of a lot easier then setting up camp in Eaton for five hours!