The Daily Northwestern -- November 30, 2018

The Daily Northwestern Friday, November 30, 2018

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16 SPORTS/Men’s Basketball

Wildcats prepare to take on Indiana

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Moments that shaped the Wildcats’ season

Deans struggle with budget cut clarity Students frustrated with lack of deficit transparency

By ALAN PEREZ

daily senior staffer @_perezalan_

Noah Frick-Alofs/Daily Senior Staffer

The Youth & Opportunity United building. Y.O.U works with youth from third to 12th grade to close the opportunity gap by stressing academic, social and emotional learning.

Y.O.U. bridges opportunity gap

Longtime Evanston group focuses on academic, social learning

By CLARE PROCTOR

daily senior staffer @ceproctor23

This story is part of a series of profiles of activist and community groups across Evanston.

Simone Hampton was first exposed to Youth & Opportunity United in middle school,

when it was just a drop-in center at the church across the street.

Many of her peers at Chute Middle School went through Y.O.U. programming, as did her younger sister years later. By the time Hampton graduated from college, she knew she wanted to work closely with children and teenagers.

In Y.O.U., she saw an

Concerns raised over visiting scholar Kanazawa’s presence in psych dept. spurs outrage

By RACHEL KUPFER

daily senior staffer @rachkupfer

Students and faculty of the psychology department are asking for a revamp of the screening process for visiting scholars after a controversial psychologist’s request to conduct research at Northwestern was approved without scrutiny.

Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist and intelligence researcher, is spending a year-long sabbatical from The London School of Economics and Political Science in Evanston.

Kanazawa’s research on the relationships between intelligence,

race, health and gender has provoked criticism. In 2011, he wrote an article titled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women” during his time as a blogger for Psychology Today. He was later removed from the site as a blogger, and the post was deleted.

Since then, he has continued in a similar line of study. One research paper, published in 2015, associated life satisfaction with an area’s ethnic composition, concluding that minority groups are not as happy as “white Americans.” Another, published in 2012, explained an apparent race difference in intelligence.

Prof. Richard Zinbarg, the psychology department chair at Northwestern, approved Kanazawa’s request.

“Our policy on visiting scholar » See PROFESSOR, page 12

opportunity to do so.

“It’s really this after-school space that allows youth to kind of explore their identity, their interests, with safe and caring adults,” Hampton said. “I kind of took a stab at it. I was just really excited to be able to take my passions and interests and fuse them into the program’s structure.”

Hampton became involved

with Y.O.U. nine years ago and has been the after-school program director of its Dawes Elementary School center for the past four years.

Y.O.U. was founded in 1971 as a drop-in center at Nichols Middle School, and the organization has since expanded into » See YOU, page 12

Cause of death for Daniel Jessell determined Daniel Jessell, who was found dead in Kemper Hall on Wednesday, died by suicide, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Evanston Police Department officers responded to a call in Kemper at 6:36 p.m. Wednesday, Evanston Police Cmdr Ryan Glew said.

Jessell was 21, according to information from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The Weinberg sophomore was from Del Ray Beach, Florida.

In a Wednesday email to

To top administrators and undergraduate students alike, the budget deficit was a surprise.

When Provost Jonathan Holloway informed Faculty Senate of the budget shortfall in January, some senators were puzzled.

“Everything financial always seemed pretty rosy,” Feinberg Prof. Lois Hedman said at the time. Students were anticipating an ambitious plan to renovate and construct new residence halls. Now, those plans are on hold.

And certainly, no one expected the layoffs that ultimately came in July — Provost Holloway had been telling employees for months that he did not plan to make cuts that drastic.

The University leadership has seemingly attempted to limit confusion that has spread through the Northwestern community, with emails, appearances at Faculty students announcing Jessell’s death, Dean of Students Todd Adams recommended students having trouble with the news reach out to Counseling and Psychological Services, the Dean of Students office, the Chaplain’s office or residential services staff.

“I am deeply saddened by this news, and I extend my deepest condolences to Daniel’s family

Senate and interviews with student media.

But to many members of the community, particularly students, the deficit is still a complex, unknown phenomenon. Many are asking administrators to do more.

“There isn’t a lot of transparency about the budget cuts to the students — about how this happened, why it’s happening,” Associated Student Government President Sky Patterson said in an interview earlier this month. “Students would like more transparency and more information about University spending.”

Top administrators have been willing to share details about their handling of the budget deficit, even admitting to their own surprise about just how bad the University’s financial stance had become. Yet deans and department leaders, who oversee continuing cuts felt hardest by researchers and students, have shown greater reluctance to divulge information. Academic departments and schools were instructed to make 5 percent cuts, while administrative departments were told to cut 10 percent of its spending. » See BUDGET, page 12 and close friends as the University community offers support to them during this very difficult time,” Adams wrote in the email.

If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741 — Alan Perez

Skunk sightings stink up campus

Students report an increased number of skunks on campus, surrounds

By TROY CLOSSON and JONAH DYLAN daily senior staffer

Two weeks into her college experience, Jennifer Zhan was walking back to her dorm.

Then disaster struck.

Sitting right in the middle of the sidewalk was a skunk, its black and white tail raised to the sky in a defensive

position. She started walking toward it, but after she passed, something strange happened.

“It started running at me, which I feel like is not what a skunk is supposed to do. I turned and I ran away,” the Medill freshman said. “I was chased out of my own home.”

Zhan’s story isn’t unique. » See SKUNKS, page 13

Noah Frick-Alofs/Daily Senior Staffer

A skunk prowls in the leaves. Students report increase in sightings.

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2 NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

AROUND TOWN

Mental Health Board allocates for Fiscal Year 2019

By CASSIDY WANG

the daily northwestern @cassidyw_

The Evanston Mental Health Board on Thursday prepared for review the final distribution of its 2019 budget, which will disburse funds to agencies across the city.

The board has been allocated $736,373 for fiscal year 2019, out of the city’s overall operating budget of $319 million. Board chair Jessica Sales said at the meeting that she thinks the board received the funds it did from the city because representatives from the agencies it supports advocated on its behalf.

The city’s initial budget proposal included a $250,000 cut to funding for the board, which was met with concern from residents, board members and aldermen. After discussion with city officials, the final budget does not include a funding decrease.

“That’s probably why the funding amount is as great as it is because the City heard that and they recognize the great work that (the agencies) do,” Sales said.

During the meeting, vice-chair Michael Pierce and board member Irene Ziaya assessed and allotted points — for things ranging from serving diverse groups of people to larger numbers of residents reached — to agencies that applied for funding from the board. After averaging the committee scores of all of the agencies, they suggested that any agencies with a below-average

POLICE BLOTTER Watch, money stolen from residence A 61-year-old Evanston man reported Wednesday that belongings were stolen from his residence in the 200 block of Ridge Avenue.

The man told Evanston Police Department officers that he woke up Wednesday morning and found personal items placed on the foot of the bed

Cassidy Wang/The Daily Northwestern

Evanston’s Mental Health Board. Members on Thursday discussed allocations of funding towards agencies for fiscal year 2019.

score should receive 90 percent of the funding they received last year, while those scoring over the average should receive 100 percent of what they received last year.

Following its assessments, the board proposed an increase in funding to Connections for the Homeless, where 68 percent of people served are those of color.

Sales said that the Nov. 19 death of Tanuel Major in an alcove outside First United Methodist

Church in downtown Evanston emphasized the importance of allocating funding to services that help the homeless. Major, who was 49 when she died, was homeless and had frequented Evanston.

Her death is being investigated as a homicide.

After much deliberation, the board also decided to increase funding for Northwest Center Against Sexual Assault, while Books and Breakfast, a program that offers breakfast and academic assistance to Evanston students, received less from

where he was sleeping. The items had been in his closet the night before, Evanston police Cmdr.

Ryan Glew said.

After looking around his apartment, the man told officers that he noticed his front door was damaged and that $60 in cash and a Swiss Army watch valued at $150 were missing.

Police noticed that the lock to the front door was lying on the ground in the apartment’s

entrance. They estimated that the burglary took place between 11 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m.

Wednesday.

The man told officers that he did not hear anything suspicious during that time, but he was asleep.

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the assessments.

The board discussed whether they should prioritize funds for smaller agencies like Books and Breakfast and cut from larger ones like PEER Services, a service that prevents substance abuse problems through education. Deciding whether to prioritize depth of service or number of communities members served also influenced the Board’s decisions.

Sales advocated for more funding for Connections for the Homeless, as it serves 275 Evanston residents, and noted how the breakdown of funds per resident is disproportionate among programs.

This year, the decision came with both difficulties and factors that eased the process.

“In some ways, it was easier, because we had our full budget amount,” Sales told The Daily. “In other ways, it was more difficult because when you have a full budget amount, there’s more choices and it’s never an easy process. The overall result was good but in coming years, there’s definitely areas we can clarify and tighten up a bit.”

For board member Karin Ruetzel, the challenge in allocating funds for 2019 was waiting for the City’s budget to be adopted.

“I don’t think the process of allocating once we knew we had our full amount was any more complex than any other year,” Ruetzel told The Daily. “It’s always hard because there’s always more agencies we want to fund. The hard thing this year was we didn’t know until a week ago what amount we had to allocate.” cassidywang2022@u.northwestern.edu The woman told EPD officers she was loading groceries into her car in the Food 4 Less parking lot at 2400 Main St. around 3 p.m. After loading the groceries, the woman drove home and noticed her purse was missing from the front seat.

There is currently no further information, Glew said. ­— Amelia Langas

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OPINION

Join the online conversation at www.dailynorthwestern.com Page 4

Friday, November 30, 2018

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Unexpected nostalgia after three years at The Daily NORA SHELLY

EDITOR IN CHIEF

My first visit to The Daily’s newsroom didn’t go that well. I attended the Open House for interested reporters but ended up turning around after I saw the sheer number of people piled inside the tiny room on the third floor of Norris.

It took me weeks to take my first story: a poetry reading at Bookends and Beginnings. That didn’t go well either. The poetry went over my head.

Fast forward three years, and I’m making one of my final trips to the newsroom for our last night of regular publication for the quarter. It’s a moment I

have jokingly wished for all quarter, especially when we were in the newsroom exceptionally late or when a particular story was causing problems.

But, now that it’s here, I find myself unexpectedly nostalgic.

My first beat at The Daily was covering Evanston city council. A robust body of government, council isn’t particularly well known for moving quickly on big decisions. Sometimes, what is on the surface a simple issue becomes embroiled in an outpouring of community opinion.

But recently, I’ve noticed a lot of the issues I covered as a freshman are coming to fruition: The road work at the intersection of Ridge, Emerson and Green Bay, the apartment building going up at 831 Emerson Street and the new Theo Ubique Cabaret theatre on Howard Street. All were winding their way through council just a few years ago,

never seeming like they could someday be concrete realities. Now, here they are.

And it isn’t just council stories I remember: When I go on bike rides around the city, I find myself remembering an event I covered in that church, or a man-on-the-street interview I did on that corner, or a new business I profiled on this block.

My time in the newsroom has been just as formative. It was with a lot of trepidation that I ever applied to be an editor in the first place, and I still often feel out of my league when making editorial decisions as editor in chief.

And while it’s clear The Daily has a lot of work to do on its institutional issues — primary among them improving our coverage of marginalized people on this campus — I’m incredibly hopeful for the path this newsroom is on. I leave this paper

knowing that the editors who are now in charge are capable, determined and much, much more talented than I. I consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten the opportunity to cover Evanston. The city has shaped what kind of reporter I want to be, and I’m grateful for that.

And if I have one piece of advice for those student journalists coming after me, it’d be to dive into whatever you’re covering. Get passionate. The dividends will come.

Nora Shelly is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at norashelly2019@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

Personal stories can be powerful — and dangerous ALEX SCHWARTZ

OPINION EDITOR

I first came across PragerU last year. I was on YouTube about to skip through an ad, but something made me pause. A black woman faced the camera: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then a scholar at Harvard University. The video’s title was “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?”

Ali described her experience with Islam: she’d been educated at Islamic schools, lived in Mecca and sympathized with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Clearly, I thought, she knew what she was talking about, which is why I was surprised to see the video take a disturbing turn. She called for a complete reform of Islam, warning that terror attacks and violence would overtake the world otherwise. She said Islam was an inherently violent religion, antithetical to Western culture and people.

I was confused — how could someone who had such an intimate experience with this religion take such a blatantly simplistic and reductive stance on it? Yet, I still watched the entire video; the woman speaking made me curious. In

a strange way, I trusted her.

Soon, PragerU videos began appearing in droves on both my YouTube and Facebook feeds. Though Ali’s video left a bad taste in my mouth, I still watched the first few that came after it — titles asking seemingly innocent questions like “Do 97% of Climate Scientists Really Agree?” and “Gender Identity: Why All The Confusion?” — not because they were changing my mind but because I was so taken with how, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, they very well could have. My vague disgust soon turned to incredulous alarm: Who was behind this?

PragerU is a venture of Dennis Prager, a famous right-wing thinker, writer and champion of Judeo-Christian values. Not surprising, but I doubt the average person who comes across one of his videos would glean that: They’re short and easy to follow, with a non-partisan orange-andblue color scheme and arguments made by fresh, impassioned individuals (some of them are conservative icons like Ben Shapiro but others hold marginalized identities). You watch one and you feel like you’ve been exposed to a valuable, well-argued point of view, despite all the facts it ignored.

In 2016, these videos were viewed over 225 million times — 60 percent of those viewers were under 34 years old. Clearly, they’re

working. And after editing the opinion section for two quarters, I think I understand why.

While learning about the world in an academic setting is important, the human brain craves a good story — especially one that validates the tiny part of our minds that still questions whether all the facts and statistics we’ve been presented with are really true.

Someone like me — white, middle-class, educated, cisgender — may jump at the opportunity to poke holes in a narrative that tells them they are privileged, opting instead for the one person who makes an argument that confirms their own bias. It is imperative that we resist this urge and instead do the work of educating ourselves — not only by using valid, factual sources, but by exposing ourselves to as many individual, human perspectives as possible.

This quarter, Marissa and I have tried to facilitate that by making the opinion page a mosaic of experiences. We wanted people to tell their own stories and bring a human side to abstract societal issues. It’s not so much as an achievable goal as it is a theme for this section, and we hope to improve on it next quarter by bringing in even more perspectives. I’ve realized that PragerU is so effective — granted, for it’s targeted audience of privileged identities

Marginalized journalists don’t need more rules MARISSA MARTINEZ

OPINION EDITOR

I’m currently enrolled in a religious studies/ political science class called “Reporting Islam,” where a combination of political science, religious studies and journalism students discuss how mainstream media outlets cover Muslims in America and how they get it wrong.

For our last class, we watched a pre-screening of a documentary called “The Feeling of Being Watched.” The film is about FBI surveillance of Muslim communities in Bridgeview, Ill. — a community a few miles away from my own home — decades before 9/11.

As a fellow woman of color, I felt validated by all the things Boundaoui said during her Q&A session in my class Thursday afternoon. One poignant sentence I agreed with: “Objectivity in journalism is bullshit.”

I regularly receive emails of “advice” from people who read my columns, stating that I’m not doing my job as a journalist because my pieces lack “professionalism” and show my “prejudice” and “bias.” Others claim I have low levels of intelligence and am unable to use critical thinking, simply because I voice my opinion in the opinion section.

Bias is considered prejudice in favor or against something and is often considered unfair. The word gets thrown around a lot when analyzing journalism and even in Medill itself — “bias ruins newsrooms.” But as I’ve learned more from my classes and conversations with people, it is impossible to remove bias. We are human, we have thoughts, preconceived notions and evolving ideas. We all have inherent

biases. Pretending they’re not there will never solve anything. Instead, we must examine our thoughts frequently, both as journalists and as consumers of news. Why do we think the things we do? How do we acknowledge these thoughts within a media context?

At the same time, marginalized people are always seen as being affected more by biases than those in the majority. If our identities are particularly close to a story, we are automatically considered biased when we report on it. We are walking conflicts of interest. We constantly have to police ourselves when interviewing, writing and editing in ways that much of the rest of the newsroom will never know.

But marginalized reporters take journalism so personally because we need to. The policies we cover, the attacks we report on, the insults we face — they’re all personal. They affect our families, our neighborhoods, our communities.

To artificially distance ourselves from a story and ignore its context is to fail as journalists.

Backing away from that bias does nothing for ourselves or our publications. In fact, it makes coverage worse.

So we often have to sit and watch other reporters cover things we know well — discrimination, harassment, deep-seeded pain. They can parachute in, discover our trauma anew, and be airlifted out, as Boundaoui noted.

I don’t mind the emails, the comments and the overall dismissiveness of what I do. That’s part of the job, akin to the grease stains on a chef ’s apron or the paint-covered hands of an artist. They’re things I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my career as a woman of color.

But it does make me reevaluate what my role is as an opinion writer. Opinion is journalism — that’s an unarguable fact. However, it is said to have a direct purpose: persuading people. After being on this desk, I’m not sure if that’s true.

Boundaoui said empathy only goes so far.

What we actually need to fix is power structures, the ones that over the past hundred years surveilled hundreds of thousands of Americans like the ones featured in Boundaoui’s film.

That won’t happen if we continue to discount marginalized voices, voices that are often allowed to shine in a limited capacity — especially in opinion sections — because of the barriers that keep them out of newsrooms in the first place. They are barred from breaking the white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative rules that define journalism as it is practiced currently and taught to the next generation. We are constantly forced to reformat our perspectives to fit a system that doesn’t want us in the first place. Our intended audiences are erased in favor of a vague readership that has no interest in reading our pieces to begin with.

Opinion is about presenting a counternarrative. It’s about showcasing a new perspective.

It is absolutely vital to journalism. And it’s also very hard.

However, hearing Boundaoui talk about how much the documentary meant to her, the communities she covered and how journalism can help heal and support just as much as it can harm us made me hopeful. Someday, newsrooms won’t be as closed off — that’s something I’m actively trying to fight in many ways. In the meantime, I will continue to try to open this section and my other reporting to inspire other writers to fight as well.

Marissa Martinez is a Medill sophomore. She can be contacted at marissamartinez2021@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@ dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

— because it essentially does what we’re trying to do. It gets you to examine your own views by being exposed to a new perspective: one that is authoritative, energetic and welcoming.

While I’m concerned with PragerU’s popularity and ideology, I recognize the power they’ve tapped into: the power of the human story. We should be wary of that power when it’s used to trick us or close us off, like in these seemingly innocuous videos.

But we should also acknowledge that a good story can change things for the better when it opens our minds and leads us down a path toward further learning and understanding. That, to me, is the point of what we do as opinion journalists. The intent of a column is not to open your mind at the lede and close it at the kicker — it’s to ignite a spark that keeps you curious and makes you reexamine your own beliefs. Just be mindful of who’s trying to start that fire, and what they’re trying to burn.

Alex Schwartz is a Medill junior. He can be contacted at alexschwartz@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern. com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

The Daily Northwestern Volume 138, Issue 43

Editor in Chief Nora Shelly Managing Editors Troy Closson Jonah Dylan

Opinion Editor Alex Schwartz Marissa Martinez Assistant Opinion Editor Cassidy Jackson

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR may be sent to 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, via fax at 847-491-9905, via e-mail to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com or by dropping a letter in the box outside The Daily office.

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• Should be fewer than 300 words They will be checked for authenticity and may be edited for length, clarity, style and grammar.

Letters, columns and cartoons contain the opinion of the authors, not Students Publishing Co. Inc. Submissions signed by more than three people must include at least one and no more than three names designated to represent the group.

Editorials reflect the majority opinion of T he Daily ’s student editorial board and not the opinions of either Northwestern University or Students Publishing Co. Inc.

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS 5

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

ON CAMPUS

ASG talks revamp of group funding

By WILSON CHAPMAN

daily senior staffer @wilsonchapman10

Associated Student Government held a town hall Thursday to introduce a new system for funding student groups starting in Spring Quarter 2019.

The new system will categorize events, rather than groups themselves. Events will be sorted into five tiers, based on relative financial need.

Events in tier one will receive the most funding, events in tier five the least.

Dillo Day, for instance, will automatically be placed into tier one, based on the large amount of funding Mayfest traditionally receives. However, groups will be able to apply for any event tier.

The system is also designed to ensure that events in lower tiers will receive a larger increase in funding each year, whereas events in higher tiers will receive a flat percentage increase each year.

Currently, ASG-recognized student groups are given a label of either A or B Status — classifications that impact the amount of funding groups receive, said vice president for A-Status finances Isabel Dobbel.

Overhauls to the system have been in discussion for six years, Dobbel said, but did not gain any significant strides until last year, when she and vice president for B-status finances Shreyas Tallamraju collaborated with the previous VPs on an outline for the tier system.

Tallaraju said this new system will fix the funding discrepancy between the A- and B-status groups. In some cases, he said, 40 or so A-status groups would receive thousands of dollars in funding whereas 200 or so B-status groups would get almost nothing for events that cost a significant amount of money.

Tallaraju added that the new system will also help groups that were particularly affected by Northwestern’s budget deficit. ASG has already allocated over $26,000 to fill gaps in non-ASG

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Vice President for A-Status Finances Isabel Dobbel. ASG-recognized student groups will no longer be classified as A or B-Status starting in Spring Quarter, Dobbel said.

recognized student group budgets hurt by the five percent cut made to all academic units — now groups already funded by ASG will receive a financial bolster as well.

“I like to think of it as equality of opportunity,” Tallaraju said. “Any group can have access to (money they need), and in light of the deficit, I see it being even more of a need.”

ASG will also introduce a community building fund, comprising $45,000 taken out of the Student Activities Fund dedicated to groups representing students with marginalized identities.

This fund will ensure groups have money for bonding events that are important for their community — events for which funding requests have been questioned given their nature as community specific.

Gabrielle Bienasz, ASG vice president for public relations, said this fund will allow these groups that represent marginalized students to request funds for bonding events without being asked how these events serve the entire Northwestern campus.

Dobbel emphasized that although the overhaul will make the system more equitable for student groups, it will not negatively affect any of the current A-status groups, all of which will continue to receive more money from year to year.

The goal, she said, was to benefit every student group ASG supports.

“No matter your size, no matter whatever, you’re going to get more money,” Dobbel said.

The Daily Northwestern is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, except vacation periods and two weeks preceding them and once during August, by Students Publishing Co., Inc. of Northwestern University, 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208; 847-491-7206.

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

A QUARTER IN REVIEW

This fall quarter has been a memorable one, to say the least. Amazing speakers: from Dolores Huerta and Marc Lamont-Hill to Vanessa Bayer and Michelle Wolf. Carly Rae Jepsen and Smino at A&O Blowout. A ‘blue wave’ in the 2018 midterm elections and record numbers of women of color elected to Congress.

And that’s not even mentioning one of the biggest surprises of the quarter: Northwestern football’s Big Ten West Championship which earned the Wildcats a spot in Saturday’s conference championship game against Ohio State.

— Cole Paxton and Peter Warren

Daily file photo by Colin Boyle

Daily file photo by Noah Frick-Alofs

Daily file photo by Noah Frick Alofs

Daily file photo by Katie Pach

Daily file photo byColin Boyle

Daily file photo by Kristina Karisch

The Daily Northwestern

NORTHWESTERN VS. OHIO STATE SATURDAY, DEC. 1

Wildcats set off on maiden voyage to Big Ten title game.

8 GAMEDAY

The Daily Northwestern

Friday, November 30, 2018

NU set to receive major boost playing premier game

By BEN POPE

daily senior staffer @benpope111

When coach Pat Fitzgerald met Jared McGee on a recruiting visit in Fall 2013, he wasn’t exactly a celebrity at the now-senior safety’s suburban Dallas high school.

“I didn’t really know a whole lot about Northwestern until they came to my school and spoke with me,” McGee said this week. “I was like, ‘Yeah, Northwestern — what conference is that in?’”

Just five years later, the Wildcats’ name recognition has increased tremendously, in no small part because of two 10-win seasons during McGee’s tenure in Evanston. But Saturday’s Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis may well be the program’s biggest game since Fitzgerald himself was a player.

It’s hard to imagine a football player anywhere not knowing NU’s conference affiliation after this contest, and that will have implications well beyond the field in Lucas Oil Stadium itself.

Connor Foster, a three-star offensive lineman from Ohio, committed to NU in April before the Cats even began their dream 2018 campaign — though he insists he “already knew they were going to have a good season.” But now that his future team is playing his hometown Ohio State team for the Big Ten title, he’s expecting his recruiting class to grow sizably.

“I feel like some other recruits will see their

success and want to hop on board and try to make it even better next year,” Foster said.

Last year’s equivalent contest between Ohio State and Wisconsin, held annually in primetime, attracted 12.9 million viewers on Fox. The 2016 championship matching Wisconsin against Penn State averaged 9.2 million viewers.

Even if this year’s game doesn’t prove to be quite as nationally anticipated, it should still expose an unprecedentedly large audience to the NU brand. The Cats’ most-watched game this season, a September battle against Michigan, averaged only 3.6 million viewers. Even the 2013 regular season game against Ohio State, which was hyped up by a College GameDay appearance and aired in primetime on ABC, drew a substantially smaller audience of 7.4 million.

Of course, very few of the multi-million expected viewers will except NU to actually win, as Fitzgerald noted snarkily on Monday, but they will be watching nonetheless.

“I don’t think anybody outside these doors would pick us to win this game. My mom and dad I guess would, but I don’t even know if my sisters will,” the coach said, laughing. “But I don’t need them — I just need the 74 guys who are going to put on purple and white Saturday.”

Unsurprisingly, when other non-traditional contenders play in power-conference championship games, the combination of a very successful season — the prerequisite for playing in such a setting — and the added exposure generated by doing so typically improves recruiting.

After Colorado played in the 2016 Pac-12 Championship, its national recruiting rank (per

247Sports) leapt from 69th to 35th. Similar things happened after South Carolina’s 2010 SEC Championship berth (resulting in a yearover-year recruiting rank jump from 34th to 17th), Arizona State’s 2013 Pac-12 Championship berth (39th to 23rd) and Iowa’s 2015 Big Ten Championship appearance (59th to 47th).

More extraordinarily, playing in major postseason contests like Saturday’s game — and the Rose Bowl that could potentially follow — may also increase general undergraduate interest in the school. A 2013 Harvard study found that going from “mediocre to great” in football corresponds with a sizable 19 percent increase in total applications. That finding is directly applicable to NU, too: after the Cats went to the 1996 Rose Bowl, applications jumped 21 percent.

Regardless of the exact statistical effects, however, the Big Ten West division title will almost certainly lead to positives beyond the win-loss column. Athletic director Jim Phillips told The Daily this week he expects the accomplishment to reflect well not just on the football program or athletic department, but NU as a whole.

“Saturday, we’ll shine a light on a world-class university that is trying to change the world, trying to change lives, trying to educate, teach, research,” Phillips said. “The opportunity that football and sports brings to a university like Northwestern is that chance to show people that maybe do not know as much about Northwestern a little bit about (who we are).” benjaminpope2019@u.northwestern.edu

Sam Riche/TNS

Ohio State players celebrate in the 2017 Big Ten Championship Game. Playing on such a stage can allow teams to boost their national profiles.

Haskins, Buckeyes pose tough tests for Cats’ secondary

By JOSEPH WILKINSON

daily senior staffer @joe_f_wilkinson

Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins’ 2018 season is the best of any Big Ten signal-caller ever — and now he’s set to face Northwestern.

Haskins, named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year this week, has thrown for more yards and more touchdowns in a single season than any quarterback since the conference was founded 122 years ago.

Current NFL stars Drew Brees, Russell Wilson and Kirk Cousins all played at least one season in the Big Ten. Brees, the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards, played four, including three as a full-time starter. Haskins has surpassed all of them in his first year as a starter. And that’s not all. Among the 12 Big Ten quarterbacks who have attempted at least 200 passes this season, only two have thrown fewer interceptions than Haskins.

“If I had a Heisman Trophy ballot, I’d vote for him,” Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald said this week. “What jumps out is his poise, his accuracy, his understanding of the offense. He just does a phenomenal job of taking what the defense gives him.”

Tasked with slowing down the man who put together the best passing season in conference history: the seventh-best pass defense in the Big Ten this season, by yards allowed per attempt.

The secondary has been decimated by injuries throughout the season. Senior cornerback Montre Hartage, expected to play against Ohio State, has missed the previous two games with a lower-body injury. The man who started across from Hartage early in the season, freshman Greg Newsome, has been out for months. Newsome’s replacement, junior Trae Williams, hasn’t seen the field since the Notre Dame game.

Deeper in the defensive backfield, senior safety Jared McGee didn’t see any action on defense in the past three games, though he’s expected to be back at safety Saturday. McGee’s return will alleviate the burden on redshirt freshman cornerback Cameron Ruiz and sophomore safety Travis Whillock.

“It takes pressure off the young guys,” McGee

said. “They played their balls off. They went out there and got stops, and they made plays and created turnovers. They played like they had been preparing to start the whole season. That’s what we harp on here.”

McGee is expected to start alongside sophomore safety J.R. Pace, while Hartage and Williams are both expected to return at the starting cornerback spots, relegating last week’s starters — Ruiz and junior Alonzo Mayo — to the bench. Pace is the only member of the likely starters to play in every game this season.

Beside Haskins, the group will be lining up across from a fast, athletic group of receivers led by Parris Campbell (903 yards, 11 touchdowns) and K.J.

Hill (820 yards, six touchdowns). Campbell and Hill are far from the only weapons in a deep Ohio State receiving corps that boasts five players with more than 300 receiving yards. The Wildcats, for comparison, have only three players over 200 yards.

“They can all run. They’re all good with the ball after the catch,” defensive backs coach Matt McPherson said. “We’ve just got to get population to the ball and make sure that we keep it in front and make them execute.”

The Ohio State passing offense is coming off its best performance of the year, a 396-yard, 62-point decimation of Michigan, which has allowed the fewest yards per game in the nation.

Defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz’s man coverage scheme often relies on cornerbacks to make crucial plays, part of the reason why Hartage ranks third in the conference in pass breakups. The Wolverines employ a similar reliance on man-to-man defense and got burned for it. If something similar happens to Hartage, Ruiz and company, NU will be in trouble in its quest for a conference title.

“We’re going to make some big plays on defense, and on special teams as well,” Ruiz said. “Offense is going to need to make some plays. We’re going to need everybody to come together.” josephwilkinson2019@u.northwestern.edu

Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch/TNS

Dwayne Haskins throws a pass against Michigan. The Ohio State quarterback tore up the Wolverines’ secondary and will post a stiff test for Northwestern.

GAMEDAY Gameday Editors Cole Paxton Ben Pope

Writers

Designer

Ella Brockway Jonah Dylan Joseph Wilkinson

Katie Pach

Gameday is a publication of Students Publishing Co. A four-page issue is usually published on the Friday prior to Northwestern home games and a two-page issue is published on the Friday prior to Northwestern road games.

All material is © 2018 Students Publishing Co. Questions or comments should be sent c/o Gameday Editor Cole Paxton, 1999 Campus Dr., Evanston, IL 60208.

GAMEDAY

The Daily Northwestern

Friday, November 30, 2018

NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS (8-4) vs.

OHIO STATE BUCKEYES (11-1)

9

‘Cardiac Cats’ appear often, in Ws and Ls

By JONAH DYLAN

8

8

24 4

72

2

59

67

18

65

25

71

86

70

18

41 97

39

32

32

42

20

51 13

24

84 88

3

99

OHIO STATE

NORTHWESTERN

2

daily senior staffer @thejonahdylan

83 21 59 52 73

7

92

66

2

91

75 89

3

9

Northwestern Offense

Ohio State Defense

Northwestern Defense

Ohio State Offense

18 QB Clayton Thorson 25 RB Isaiah Bowser 8 WR Kyric McGowan 2 WR Flynn Nagel 88 WR Ben Skowronek 84 SB Cam Green 72 LT Blake Hance 59 LG J.B. Butler 65 C Jared Thomas 71 RG Tommy Doles 70 RT Rashawn Slater

2 DE Chase Young 67 DT Robert Landers 86 DT Dre’Mont Jones 18 DE Jonathan Cooper 39 LB Malik Harrison 32 LB Tuf Borland 20 LB Pete Werner 8 CB Kendall Sheffield 4 SS Jordan Fuller 24 FS Shaun Wade 3 CB Damon Arnette

97 DE Joe Gaziano 99 DT Jordan Thompson 92 DT Fred Wyatt 91 DE Sam Miller 32 LB Nate Hall 42 LB Paddy Fisher 51 LB Blake Gallagher 24 CB Montre Hartage 41 SS Jared McGee 13 FS J.R. Pace 3 CB Trae Williams

7 QB Dwayne Haskins 2 RB J.K. Dobbins 83 WR Terry McLaurin 21 WR Parris Campbell 9 WR Binjimen Victor 89 TE Luke Farrell 59 RT Isaiah Prince 52 RG Wyatt Davis 73 C Michael Jordan 66 LG Malcolm Pridgeon 75 LT Thayer Munford

FEARLESS FORECASTERS

vs.

WEEK 12 Picks against the spread

JONAH

DYLAN COLE

PAXTON ELLA

BROCKWAY PETER

WARREN

BEN

POPE JOSEPH

WILKINSON

Northwestern vs Ohio State (-13.5)

vs.

Utah vs Washington (-5)

vs.

vs.

Texas vs Oklahoma (-7.5)

Georgia vs Alabama (-13)

Ohio State 45 Northwestern 21

vs.

Pitt vs Clemson (-26.5)

Forecasting Record against the spread

41-24

Where’s Kain Colter when you need him?

Ohio State 30 Northwestern 17

37-28

A Buckeye coronation this is not.

Ohio State 41 Northwestern 31

33-32

Cats keep it close for a half, but then the Buckeyes run away.

Northwestern 32 Ohio State 30

32-33

NU lost to ND and UM, beat OSU and went to the Rose Bowl in ‘48.

Ohio State 30 Northwestern 21

31-34

After a 31-17 win over Wisconsin that solidified Northwestern as Big Ten West frontrunners, Clayton Thorson alluded to an old nickname for the Wildcats’ program.

“Around here, a lot of times we’re called the Cardiac Cats,” the senior quarterback said. “I don’t know how much we like that name. But we haven’t given anyone any reason not to call us that, so it’s nice to get a win like that.”

The 14-point margin — matched only in a 21-7 loss to Duke in early September — would stick as the largest in any NU game this season. The Cats have had 10 games this season decided by 10 points or fewer, while Ohio State, their opponent in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship Game, has had just three.

After NU commandeered a wild win at Notre Dame in 2014, longtime radio announcer Dave Eanet decreed that “the Cardiac Cats are back!” And they haven’t really gone anywhere since. Last season, NU became the first team in college football history to win three straight games in overtime. This season, win or lose, almost every game has been close.

But within the confines of his corner office in Ryan Fieldhouse, coach Pat Fitzgerald doesn’t plan for that.

“I would prefer it not to be that way,” he said this week.

“Trust me, that is not by design and/or for TV ratings. It just ends up being the way that it is sometimes.”

And though the Cats have had a successful season that has earned them a chance to play on the first Saturday of December, the close battles haven’t been confined to a particular outcome.

Against Rutgers and Nebraska, NU struggled through three quarters before finally picking it up at the last possible moment, much to the chagrin of the purple- and white-clad fans. But in close contests against Michigan and Akron, the Cats played well to start the day but faded down the stretch. In other words, there’s no science to why every game seems to be a close one: it just happens, game after game, year after year.

Some players though, relish the continuous stream of close games and have a more positive outlook on the nickname than Fitzgerald.

“To be able to win in the fourth quarter, with that Cardiac Cats nickname, it’s better to win a game in the fourth quarter than it is to lose a game,” defensive end Joe Gaziano said. “So I think we’re fortunate to have that nickname because it means we’re playing well in the fourth and executing down the stretch.”

Indeed, NU has relied on its defense to execute down the stretch in close games against Michigan State, Iowa and Illinois. But the Cats have also needed offensive explosions in key moments, like a 99-plus yard drive to tie the game with seconds remaining against the Cornhuskers.

Junior receiver Bennett Skowronek went so far as to say he likes the nickname.

“I like it. It’s just find a way to win,” he said. “It doesn’t always have to be pretty, we don’t have to blow every team out, but at the end of the day, in the fourth quarter, making those plays that make the difference.”

Defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz doesn’t particularly care about the nickname.

“Hey, whatever the fans think,” he said. “As long as we keep winning, we don’t care.” josnahdylan2020@u.northwestern.edu

For better or worse, NU does not do blowouts.

Ohio State 42 Northwestern 29

31-34

I watched OSU-Michigan. NU is not as good as Michigan.

STANDINGS EAST Ohio State Michigan Penn State Michigan State Maryland Indiana Rutgers

WEST (8-1, 11-1) (8-1, 10-2) (6-3, 9-3) (5-4, 7-5) (3-6, 5-7) (2-7, 5-7) (0-9, 1-11)

Northwestern Iowa Purdue Wisconsin Minnesota Nebraska Illinois

(8-1, 8-4) (5-4, 8-4) (5-4, 6-6) (5-4, 7-5) (3-6, 6-6) (3-6, 4-8) (2-7, 4-8)

Daily file photo by Allie Goulding

Drew Luckenbaugh is paraded by teammates. The sophomore kicker’s game-winning field goal against Nebraska was part of yet another close game for Northwestern.

10 GAMEDAY

The Daily Northwestern

Friday, November 30, 2018

SHAPING A SEASON Five moments that powered the Wildcats to Indianapolis

THE RETURN

Daily file photo by David Lee

THE COLLAPSE

Thorson has stayed in the background. He has put up gaudy numbers. He has awoken to make massive plays.

Never, however, has he so directly doomed the Cats as on Sept. 15. On that night against Akron at Ryan Field, Thorson turned into the Zips’ best scoring option. He threw two pick-sixes in the second half, one of which was returned 97 yards, and sandwiched them with a fumble that also ended in an Akron score.

The end result: Akron 39, Northwestern 34.

“We shot ourselves in the foot — me personally,” Thorson said that night. “I was responsible for three of their touchdowns.”

The loss dropped NU to 1-2. It marked a second consecutive home defeat to an unremarkable team after an uninspiring setback to Duke a week

Heading into week nine, NU was in flux. The team that had built a 17-point lead on then-No. 14 Michigan and defeated the country’s best rushing defense on the road at then-No. 20 Michigan State was somehow the same one that needed overtime to beat then-winless Nebraska and came dangerously close to losing to lowly Rutgers before pulling out a win.

Then Wisconsin came to Evanston.

The Badgers, then ranked No. 20, brought one of the nation’s best rushing offenses, led by running back Jonathan Taylor, who leads the country in total rushing yards.

The Cats rose to the occasion, claiming a 31-17 win over the Badgers on Oct. 27 for the first and only game they’ve won by more than 10 this season. NU’s defense held Taylor to a season-low 46 yards and the Badgers to a season-low 165 total rushing yards, and additionally recovered three Badger fumbles that

Daily file photo by Alison Albelda

— Joseph Wilkinson

earlier. The stretch had echoes of 2016, when the Cats started 0-2 with back-to-back home, nonconference losses.

For a half against the Zips, NU showed no signs of trouble. The Cats went ahead 21-3 at the break. Then the collapse began: The visitors, true to their name, zipped down the field with ease, as if NU’s defense was subdued by the late-summer air. Thorson gave away the lead with his fumble.

He then allowed Akron to extend its lead to two scores with his second pick-six, 64 seconds later.

The Cats never recovered in that game. But from it, NU may have recovered the season.

“That was the most important thing to happen to this football team,” senior linebacker Nate Hall said this week. “That was the turnaround point for our whole entire team.”

— Cole Paxton

Daily file photo by Noah Frick-Alofs

THE DRIVE

Thorson led his team onto the field in what seemed like a dire situation: two minutes left, no timeout, down seven points, 99 and a half yards from the Nebraska end zone.

But former Cats running back Justin Jackson, now in the NFL, was confident.

“I never had any doubt,” he said. “I know those guys. I know the type of players they are, and the type of heart they have. And they wanted to make sure that they went out there and left it all on the field, and they did.”

On the first play of the drive, the Cornhuskers committed a roughing the passer penalty. Flynn Nagel made a key third down catch, then Thorson connected with him for 32 yards to take NU into

Daily file photo by Alec Carroll

THE STATEMENT

Clayton Thorson stood in the backfield awaiting a snap. It was his 40th straight game as Northwestern’s starting quarterback.

But it was only the second game in his career in which there was any doubt that he would be there.

Only nine months earlier, he had torn his ACL catching a pass on a trick play in the Music City Bowl. Coach Pat Fitzgerald had been coy throughout the offseason as to who would start. But on Aug. 30, there was No. 18, four yards behind center Jared Thomas about to start his fourth consecutive season leading the Wildcats.

“It was exciting to go out there and play, to be back out there with my teammates,” Thorson said.

“There’s nothing like it.”

On the third play, Thorson dropped back and

completed his first pass of the 2018 season for seven yards to junior superback Cam Green. From there, it was business as usual. A short run and two more completed passes had NU deep into the red zone.

Three plays later, sophomore running back Jeremy Larkin was plowing into the end zone and the Wildcats’ offense was back.

“We came out hitting on all cylinders,” Thorson said. “I felt great all the way through.”

Thorson, of course, did not play the entire game.

He was replaced intermittently, starting with NU’s third drive, by junior T.J. Green. He didn’t lead every drive until NU’s fourth game. But that opening drive put everyone on notice: Clayton Thorson was back, ACL tear eight months ago be damned.

Nebraska territory. A Ben Skowronek grab brought the Cats to the Cornhuskers 5-yard line, and then Thorson found JJ Jefferson — the fourth different receiver of the drive — to even the score with 12 seconds to go.

Just minutes later, walk-on kicker Drew Luckenbaugh won the game for NU in overtime and the hosts avoided a potentially disastrous loss. The Cats would win their next five Big Ten games, but none as dramatically.

Thorson had a career-high 64 attempts for 455 yards, and Nagel had a career-high 220 yards.

“That’s the most fun football game I’ve ever been a part of,” Nagel said after the game. “Just trusting all these guys around me is what it comes down to.”

—Jonah Dylan

each set up scoring drives for the Cats.

The game also proved that freshman running back Isaiah Bowser, who shined in a 113-yard performance against the Scarlet Knights, was far from a one-week wonder. Bowser ran for 118 yards on a whopping 34 attempts and a touchdown against the Badgers; in each of NU’s four games since, he’s rushed for more than 80 yards.

After the upset win over Wisconsin, the rest of the country began to take notice of what was brewing in Evanston: on Oct. 28, NU received its first AP Poll votes since week two. In the five weeks since, the Cats have moved up as high as No. 20 in the AP and No. 19 in the College Football Playoff Rankings.

“There were some growing pains there early, it was painfully obvious to watch, but these guys have had faith,” Fitzgerald said after the win. “They’ve just stayed the course and had belief, and they’re getting a reward for that effort. They can’t stop now.”

— Ella Brockway

Daily file photo by Allie Goulding

THE CATCH

Skowronek didn’t know Thorson’s sequence of reads, Thorson just about overthrew Skowronek anyway, Fitzgerald couldn’t see anything that was happening, and the end result was the touchdown that sent NU to the Big Ten Championship.

In this most strange of seasons, perhaps it was fitting that Skowronek’s game-winning touchdown at Iowa was equally unlikely.

In the box score, it went down as a 32-yard touchdown pass to put NU ahead of the Hawkeyes 14-10 with 9:27 remaining. In reality, it was a prayer of a go route ending in a spread-eagle miracle catch in the back corner of the end zone, and it also turned out Skowronek wasn’t even expecting the ball, incorrectly thinking he wasn’t the primary target on the given play call.

“From my vantage point, I thought it was overthrown,” Fitzgerald said in the aftermath.

“Of course, I couldn’t see because it was blocked.

And then he gets up with the ball and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

The Cats’ defense held the Hawkeyes from ever threatening to retake the lead, and the night ended with a purple mosh pit at midfield of a frigid and once-packed Kinnick Stadium, celebrating the news that Purdue and Wisconsin’s losses and NU’s win had sealed the division title with two weeks left to go.

For Skowronek, the play proved to be the ultimate validation of his career.

“It’s why I came here,” he said. “I wanted to do something that hasn’t been done in a while.”

—Ben Pope

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS 11

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Public interest workers talk loan program changes

By DANNY VESURAI and ALEX WONG the daily northwestern @dvesurai, @alexalwwong

Over 28,000 public servants applied for a loan forgiveness program between last September and this April, and only 96 were accepted. The statistic is daunting, but public interest experts and workers said they were confident the numbers only represented a rocky start and would get better.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness forgives student debt for people working in the public sector after they’ve made 120 monthly payments under an income-driven plan. However, applicants are accepted under specific conditions, like working for approved employers and consolidating originally ineligible loans.

For Northwestern students interested in pursuing public interest work after school, the program provides a necessary safety net. Emily Powers (School of Law ’15) said she probably would not have attended law school if the program did not exist.

Some experts and workers said it’s likely people misunderstood the strict requirements needed to fit the program. Ninety-nine percent of applications were denied because applicants failed to meet requirements or had incomplete forms, an Education Department report found.

But requirements have become more transparent and easier to follow in recent years, which will likely allow more applicants to receive loan forgiveness, said David Stern, executive director of nonprofit Equal Justice Works.

Alec Carroll/The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern Career Advancement. NCA Director Mark Presnell cautioned students that PSLF is federally funded and may be entirely scrapped under the current administration.

“This is a new program that’s just getting off the ground,” he said. “We always knew there would be some hiccups because people were learning about how to enroll and how to get in the program.”

Stern has worked to familiarize public servants with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program through the nonprofit, which is dedicated to supporting public servants. He said it’s key for students to be able to pursue public service jobs

while being able to pay off their loans. “(The program) is the gateway,” he said. “It’s the key element to enable people in today’s high debt world.”

Powers believes she is on track to receive aid and that understanding the requirements has become easier, as the company in charge of organizing the program updates its website to clarify misunderstandings.

Still, Powers said she called Pritzker’s public interest associate director out of concern after she read the reports on how few applications had been accepted. The program required a lot of “troubleshooting” for Powers to make payments, she said.

Mark Presnell, executive director of Northwestern Career Advancement, said the low numbers aren’t surprising given the program’s complexity.

“It’s easy for anyone to miss a payment, to end up with an employer that doesn’t qualify,” Presnell said. “Ten years pass, as an alum you’re going to go through multiple employers, and making sure all those benchmarks are hit is pretty challenging.”

Although Presnell said he thinks the program works for some students, he cautions students that as a federal program, it may change — or be entirely scrapped — within the 120-month payment plan period. President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for 2018 included eliminating the program to save money. Last year, U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that oversees the forgiveness program, proposed a loan system overhaul that would eliminate the program.

For Powers, public service work is “invaluable,” and she’s grateful that the program has allowed her to pursue this career path.

“It’s crucial this country continues to value people who want to do that work,” she said. “It’s tiring and daunting, but it’s very rewarding. At the end of the day, I’m really glad I chose this path.” dvesurai@u.northwestern.edu alexwong2022@u.northwestern.edu

WRESTLING

Following big win, NU prepares for Las Vegas tournament play

After a shocking loss to unranked North Dakota State the week before, No. 23 Northwestern, (1-1, 0-0 Big Ten) tried something different in the lead up to its last game against then-No. 10 Virginia Tech. Upperclassmen led the team on an impromptu prayer circle, emphasizing unity and

strength.

It worked. The Wildcats shocked Virginia Tech 20-16 for their first win of the young season. A 19-6 major decision from sophomore Sebastian Rivera put NU up 4-0 to start the dual and the Cats never looked back.

Bolstered by the win at Welsh-Ryan Arena, the Cats head to Las Vegas this weekend to participate in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Invitational, their first tournament of the season.

Coach Matt Storniolo said he was disappointed in the team’s first result, but excited about the

emphatic way they came back against the Hokies.

This weekend’s tournament is different from the matches NU has seen so far because it involves multiple schools in one location. The team won’t be able to study their opponents as thoroughly as they would when prepping for a dual match.

They’ll also wrestle more, with multiple battles each day.

Senior Conan Jennings has started the season strong for the Cats, picking up two wins in the first two meets. Jennings said the action packed nature of a tournament seldom effects his wrestling style

or practice habits.

Storniolo said this weekend’s slate of matches will serve as an important indicator of where NU stands relative to other teams at this point in the season.

“When you have a chance to compete in tournaments like this one when the competition is at the highest level, it’s a great litmus test to see where we stack up against the best teams and players in the country this early in the season,” Storniolo said.

— Greg Svirnovskiy

12 NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

YOU

Each Y.O.U. site has its own staff consisting of a program manager, clinicians, AmeriCorps workers, part-time staff and volunteers who

Prioritizing Partnerships

Y.O.U. works closely with parents of the students, giving them a better understanding of the

participants’ backgrounds, Blinn DiNovi said.

“Without the parental buy-in, you can’t get anywhere,” she said. “We’re very transparent with parents about what might have happened in program today. Having a strong relationship with the parents just helps us do our work better.”

Support from community groups also helps enrich the program’s curriculum. Partners include Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, EvanSTEM — which seeks to improve STEM access to Evanston students who have previously underperformed or been underrepresented in STEM programs — and The Talking Farm, which teaches sustainability and urban farming.

Megan Orleans, director of elementary Out-ofSchool-Time programming, said Y.O.U. provides a place for students to take “safe risks” as they try new things and gain new skills.

“The plethora of opportunities that we’re able to offer is really unique, so youth can be a part of Y.O.U. but they can engage in STEM programming,” Orleans said. “They can engage in an artistsin-residence program. They can do all of that within the same week or throughout the entire course of the year.”

These opportunities continue into the summer, when partnerships are central to Y.O.U.’s summer program as well, Blinn DiNovi said. The summer consists of eight weeks of programming to help reduce summer learning loss while also offering

BUDGET

refused to answer detailed questions, instead offering short, unspecific statements that said the schools did not have to make layoffs.

Some administrators cancelled interviews after initially agreeing to them. Pritzker School of Law Dean Kimberly Yuracko did not respond to emailed questions after having to miss a previously scheduled interview to attend a student event honoring the victims of the shooting earlier this year at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

The forced budget cuts this year have been handled differently across schools and departments, as administrators point to their distinct financial conditions.

Smaller and well-funded schools see a more positive outlook, like the Feinberg School of Medicine and the

School of Education and Social Policy, while others like Weinberg and the School of Law have dealt with workforce reductions.

Holloway told The Daily the deans’ reticence was at his direction, as he instructed them to limit discussion with the media as administrators worked at constructing their message.

And while multiple University officials have referred comment to Craig Johnson, the senior vice president for business and finance, he has evaded interviews with reporters.

“Are you guys meeting with him regularly yet?”

Provost Holloway asked Daily editors in an interview earlier this month. Johnson has not personally responded to any requests for comment this quarter.

Adjustments to University operations this fall suggest cuts have yet to be finalized. Just this month, custodial services were reduced, and academic departments are still pulling back their programs.

As the Northwestern community feels more of the cuts, administrators may be pressed to give more answers.

“I do want to get to a place where you and the broader Northwestern community will have much more information at predictable times during the year,” Holloway said.

In response to Kanazawa’s presence at Northwestern, the psychology department faculty voted to send Weinberg Dean Adrian Randolph a letter expressing the department’s views on Kanazawa’s studies.

Although the faculty did not unanimously vote in favor of the motion, its statements represent the opinions of an “overwhelming majority,” Zinbarg said.

Kanazawa’s views on race are “reprehensible,” read the letter, sent on Oct.12. It also stated that his level of scholarship is not on par with that of the department’s, and his scientific integrity is lacking. It also addressed how Kanazawa’s presence makes many members of the department as a whole “uneasy,” and included an apology from Zinbarg for signing off on his initial application.

Taking it a step further, the psychology department faculty unanimously voted on Oct. 28 to include “a more stringent vetting process” for approving visiting professors in the future, Zinbarg said.This was in direct response to the flawed system allowing for Kanazawa’s approval, he added.

Finally, on Oct. 31 the faculty unanimously decided to add a new diversity statement to the department’s website. It was published this past Tuesday, November 28, and addresses the role of all psychologists to denounce pseudoscientific research claiming the inferiority of certain groups of people.

“Some have used psychological science in both intentional and unintentional ways to justify and normalize social inequalities and to underwrite the

cultural and economic dominance of white people,” the statement said. “The Northwestern Department of Psychology is making a commitment not only to better understand the challenges and opportunities that social diversity represents, but also to reject biases in and misapplications of psychological science that have imposed painful personal and societal costs on the members of historically marginalized groups.”

Zinbarg added that if Kanazawa contributes to “creation of a hostile work environment” at the University, the department will consider his removal.

Kanazawa did not respond to several requests for comment.

From page 1 11 different schools throughout Evanston, Skokie and Morton Grove. Y.O.U. operates offices within each of the schools, except for Evanston Township High School, which is serviced by the organization’s center located across the street.

Y.O.U. serves more than 1,600 students from third through 12th grade, striving to close the opportunity gap — the disparity in access to resources needed to have post-secondary and life success — and prepare them for post-secondary success. Its board president, Cindy Wilson, said it emphasizes social, emotional and academic growth to help them succeed regardless of factors like race, income and sexual orientation.

“Evanston schools have this wonderful mix of different ages and ethnicities and race, but also, there’s a big issue,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot of white privilege that happens in Evanston. There’s a lot of really big income swings in Evanston. It’s nice to see an organization that is trying to tackle and make sure that every child in Evanston gets equal opportunity in success and life experience.”

Specialized Programming

From page 1

“We do not share these kinds of details,” School of Communication Dean Barbara O’Keefe wrote in response to emailed questions about the school’s handing of budget cuts.

Many of the deans and department leaders hit hardest by the cuts have been difficult to reach for interviews. Weinberg Dean Adrian Randolph has not responded to multiple requests for interviews to discuss cuts to the school. Bienen School of Music Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery declined to comment, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Julio M. Ottino and O’Keefe

PROFESSOR From page 1

applications did not call for much vetting of the applicant,” Zinbarg said. “I was not aware of the controversial aspects of his work when I signed off on his application.”

Responding to his critics, Kanazawa tells his followers to “prepare to be offended.”

“If what I say is wrong (because it is illogical or lacks credible scientific evidence), then it is my problem,” he wrote on his LSE webpage. “If what I say offends you, it is your problem.”

“I do science as if the truth mattered and your feelings about it didn’t,” he added.

conduct age-specific programming to enhance youth education.

The bulk of the organization’s work happens during Out-of-School-Time programming, which provides student participants free academic and emotional support, free of charge. The first hour of programming usually involves homework assistance, said Y.O.U. CEO Maggie Blinn DiNovi, followed by enrichment opportunities specific to each school.

“Eighty percent of the kids’ time is spent out of school, so that time is really important,” she said.

At Dawes Elementary School, Hampton and her programming team incorporate social and emotional learning into the students’ lives through Pixar movies.

After watching 10 minutes of a Pixar movie, students complete a follow-up activity analyzing themes, such as facing adversity or being different from others, that correspond with important social and emotional skills.

“That’s kind of one component of our social-emotional learning that we try to integrate into the youth to make it fun for them, but then still relevant to the work we’re trying to do with them,” Hampton said.

Blinn DiNovi said this programming builds confidence and resilience in youth while changing the trajectory of their post-secondary lives.

engaging and fun enrichment opportunities, she said.

Student-Driven Advocacy

Each year, high school students in Y.O.U. choose a theme connecting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy to their own students’ lives. The 2019 theme is “Because of them, I can.”

Y.O.U.’s annual celebration of King, Diverse Communities United, embodies its mission to be a “youth-driven” organization, Orleans said.

“It’s youths tapping into historical figures, people that have meant a lot in their lives, people they look up to as role models,” she said. “We really want to make sure that we’re connecting meaning with action for youth. It’s also a call for action to the community.”

She said Diverse Communities United offers youth a “literal stage” to showcase learning from Y.O.U. programming, expressed through spoken word, dance, slam poetry and other forms.

Events like this, coupled with regular programming, help youth build confidence in who they are as they explore their identities, Hampton said.

“Just seeing the kids matriculate through my program and go through other Y.O.U. programs, hearing and seeing the impact that I had and that the program had in their lives, is really powerful,” Hampton said. clareproctor2021@u.northwestern.edu

Amy Li contributed reporting. aperez@u.northwestern.edu

rachelkupfer2021@u.northwestern.edu

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THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS 13

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

SKUNKS From page 1

There have been countless skunk sightings on campus in recent months, although there has not been a confirmed skunk attack. NU and Evanston leaders are looking for ways to combat the growing problem.

In 2010, the number of skunks trapped in the Chicago area sat around 6,700, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ most recent statistics. Six years later? The figure grew to nearly 13,000.

Last year, Nathan Karnik saw two or three skunks during his eight months on campus. “All of a sudden, on my walks from south to north, I see them all cropped up around the fraternity quad — and I don’t like them. They scare me,” the Communication sophomore said.

“Skunks are horrible, the scourge of the earth,” he added.

Karnik said he’s seen skunks throughout

Skunk Facts To ward off predators, skunks will perform a complex warning dance Skunk spray doesn’t just smell. It’s also highly flammable for some skunk species.

Most skunks only live to be two or three.

Skunks can shoot their spray up to ten feet.

open areas on campus. And other students have reported seeing groups — surfeits — of the nocturnal creatures throughout Northwestern: lounging on the Lakefill, biding their time by Bobb-McCulloch Hall, resting by The Rock and around the Allison Residential Community.

But they haven’t been limited to the Evanston campus.

Though Ald. Eleanor Revelle (7th) said she hasn’t received many complaints about skunks in her own ward, she’s heard of sightings in other parts of Evanston — and she’s even seen them around her own house.

Still, Revelle doesn’t view the animals negatively.

“I’m pro-wildlife and I’m happy to coexist with them,” she said. “They stay out of our way and we stay out of their way. So I think people get overly concerned about skunks.”

During a Human Services Committee meeting in May, aldermen clashed on the issue of skunks in Evanston.

Ald. Cicely Fleming (9th) compared skunks to rats, but Ald. Judy Fiske (1st) pushed back, defending the oft-maligned creatures.

“I think the greatest number of complaints I’ve had are either under someone’s front porch or that someone’s dog decides to initiate an interaction with a skunk which has happened to my own dogs and it’s not very pleasant,” she said. “Frankly I’ve been really amazed at how polite some skunks can be when you’re directly interacting with them.”

Unlike many other pests, she emphasized, skunks largely do no harm. Throughout the Chicago metro area, however, residents have reported damaged yards and damaged household foundations from skunks, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Though red foxes, wolves and badgers prey on the omnivores, skunks are seldom attacked presumably due to the possibility of being sprayed.

And some students, too, have taken extra steps to avoid being in caught in the mammals’ odorous mist.

Living on the corner of Sherman Avenue and Noyes Street, Celestine He was on her way home one night, walking through an alleyway. A skunk had been hiding around nearby trash cans — both she and it were startled.

“It looked like it was about to spray me, so I ran in the opposite direction as quickly as I could,” the Weinberg senior said. “I slipped on mud and fell.”

A year later, the “traumatic” incident still resonates, she said. If she spots a skunk now, He takes the long way around in avoidance. It’s even made her late to scheduled plans.

“I was walking down Foster — right where Foster and Orrington meet — there was this huge skunk. It was like two feet long (and) I’ve never seen such a long skunk,” she said recounting her walk over to a club event on campus. “I went back to Sherman and walked all the way down to University (Hall).”

Still, it’s “common to see increased skunk activity during the fall as they try to gain the extra weight they will need to survive the winter,” an Evanston Health and Human Services Department release said last fall.

The release included advice for Evanston residents in preventing skunk-related incidents including not feeding the mammals, keeping garbage cans indoors if possible and covering window wells.

But even the most deliberate precautions don’t always limit skunks’ impact.

Though Charlie Collar said he doesn’t usually see skunks on campus, he definitely smells them. One could often be found in the courtyard of his apartment complex last year. “It would frequently stink up my entire room if I left my window open,” the Weinberg and Beinen senior said. managing@dailynorthwestern.com

Graphic by Katie Pach

A map of reported skunk sightings on Northwestern’s campus.

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

SENIOR COLUMNS

Pope: Why I love inspiring stories and college sports BEN POPE

DAILY COLUMNIST

It’s a tradition here at The Daily’s sports desk that graduating seniors, in their final story for this publication, write a senior column.

Lately, they’ve been pretty depressing.

Bobby Pilotte discussed his complicated coming to terms with the “dark side of college athletics.” Max Schuman addressed his concerns about sports facilities diverting investments from more worthy venues.

Max Gelman maligned NU’s newfound athletic self-laudation.

That’s not the way college sports should be portrayed. The topic certainly isn’t without its fair share of moral quandaries — compensating players, diagnosing concussions, managing Title IX-mandated scholarship rules, diverting athletic revenues to non-athletic purposes, and so forth — but to focus on those is to seek out a few rotten apples in a healthy orchard.

Because in doing so, we overlook what college sports can do arguably better than anything else in human society: Unite us.

It’s no secret that I have often been one to spotlight the uplifting stories of sport, whether it be lacrosse videographer-turnedattacker Holly Korn’s inspirational career

turnaround, late NU football coach Ara Parseghian’s largely forgotten yet beloved legacy or 2017 men’s basketball captain Sanjay Lumpkin’s unheralded dedication to his team’s NCAA Tournament dream.

One of my most recent stories, on the movement in Sidney, Ohio, to support the local high school and its former star, Isaiah Bowser, might nevertheless be my favorite.

The synopsis is simple: a small manufacturing town, struggling economically and athletically, rediscovers its identity when a special person and a special team unifies the community. It’s an all-American story really, the type someone might expect a movie to be based on, with perhaps a little dramatic

”

When the Cats get a big stop on third down, I love everyone — even that despicably arrogant guy who sneered at me on every morning elevator ride freshman year.

license included for entertainment purposes.

But it’s no movie. It’s real life. And it’s a prime example of what sports can do.

Even at Northwestern, a school long known for its athletic ineptitude — so

much so that some alumni actually, apparently, miss it — and still undoubtedly an academics-centered institution at heart, I’ve watched the Wildcats bring together students of all different races, backgrounds, majors, interests, political affiliations and social groups to cheer, high-five and even shake keys together in support of a common goal: an NU win. When the Cats score, Bienen students don’t worry about their pitch; when opponents score, Medill kids boo out their bias; when the fight song plays, McCormick engineers sing as loudly as anyone else.

And sure, NU may not have the most fervid student support in the Big Ten (although I will die on the hill that its support is really rather normal, proportionally). When something truly important or interesting happens, this student body has shown it can love sports just as much as Badgers or Buckeyes.

Just look at the student turnouts when men’s basketball makes history, or women’s basketball is playing through a tragedy, or football plays for a championship.

This phenomenon happens all over the country, and we only have to look a few miles down Sheridan Road to see it an especially magical manifestation. The members of the Loyola basketball team, which went from irrelevant to a Final Four contender in a matter of months last spring, were recently named 2018 Chicagoans of the Year for their unintentional yet rousing unification of this great, imperfect city.

(April 2018 was Chicago’s lowest-crime April in at least two decades, and I know the Ramblers weren’t actually why, but I insist they played at least a small role.)

The pageantry, the unity and even the impassioned tribalism of college sports can be spectacular, and in this era of increased criticism toward the industry’s shortcomings and corruptions, it’s important that we not lose sight of that.

In this fall’s edition of Prof. Gary Saul Morson’s popular Russian literature class, the debate over whether “loving thy enemy” is humanly possible has featured prominently. I don’t get the sense Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy were big college football fans (side note: yes, I’m aware the time period is off ), but if they were, I think they would have realized the argument was a waste of time.

When the Cats get a big stop on third down, I love everyone — even that despicably arrogant guy who sneered at me on every morning elevator ride freshman year.

At least in that moment, we both want exactly the same thing, just like thousands of other students who otherwise hold their own unique identities in the world. In that moment, no one cares about multi-milliondollar fieldhouses or concussion risks or jersey licensing rights. In that moment, Northwestern is one.

Looking at the whole orchard, the (positive) power of college sports is unmistakable.

Paxton: Enjoy the victories NU fans. They’re special.

COLE PAXTON

DAILY COLUMNIST

When I first got into Northwestern sports, the Wildcats were pretty putrid. It was winter 2015, and I, a second-semester high school senior recently admitted to Northwestern, wanted a taste of Cats sports and something to do. So I watched a lot of basketball.

I liked it. I relaxed and learned about the NU team. It didn’t help that the Cats lost 10 straight games, including six in a row in January decided by single digits, but it was low-stress entertainment and plenty of fun.

Nearly four years after this first introduction, as I wind down my time in Evanston, I’ve thought often about the memorable NU sports moments since I’ve been here. They are plenty, they are significant and they are exhilarating. They are worth enjoying.

We should remember them fondly, and remember them happily.

Who knows when the Cats will have another era as glistening as the past threeplus years. There’s no telling when the best

thing about NU sports will be that there are games — and that they will be televised — like in January 2015.

Recent Northwestern performances have made it easy to rue what could have been, to find fault with an end result, to let the negative overshadow the positive.

Football won 10 games in 2015, but the season ended miserably in the Outback Bowl. Sure, the destruction by Tennessee left a lasting image and advanced statistics downplayed the Cats’ season, but accruing 10 wins and playing on New Year’s Day is a big deal for NU. I enjoyed it, and I hope I’m not the only one who did.

I could go on with dozens of other examples. The uncalled goaltend against Gonzaga in the 2017 NCAA men’s basketball tournament may evoke more visceral reactions than the call of Northwestern on Selection Sunday and Bryant McIntosh’s game-sealing free throws against Vanderbilt, but the latter are historic accomplishments. Those aren’t the moments that should become footnotes.

Same goes for women’s golf that spring, which launched a stunning semifinal comeback against USC but came up short against Arizona State. Baseball storming through that year’s Big Ten Tournament, then falling one game short of a wildly

improbable NCAA Tournament bid? Ditto.

Women’s tennis’ surprise run to the Sweet 16 last year before running into a buzzsaw?

Likewise. All of these teams experienced disappointments, and fans can feel that discouragement.

“

But if I’ve learned one thing from living and breathing NU sports in three-plus years, it’s this: A struggling team can be just around the corner, and the good times don’t necessarily last forever.

But if I’ve learned one thing from living and breathing NU sports in three-plus years, it’s this: A struggling team can be just around the corner, and the good times don’t necessarily last forever. That makes the uplifting moments all the more significant.

Actions off the field understandably lead to cynicism about NU sports. It can feel

icky to support Chris Collins’ team as serious allegations about his program remain unresolved. As many of my colleagues have accurately posited, a glistening $270-million practice facility strikes a dissonance as mental health programs and spaces for underserved communities don’t get the requisite support.

My writing here is not meant to discount these concerns. They deserve continued scrutiny and critical eyes, and I hope that will continue in the pages of The Daily. These issues do not, however, mean that we must discount every on-field accomplishment or view every victory as tainted. Social good and game wins are not mutually exclusive pursuits.

To the latter point: My next words in The Daily will come from Indianapolis, where the Cats are improbably contesting their first-ever Big Ten title game. It will make for an exhilarating weekend. If everything goes right for NU, of course, a trip to the Rose Bowl awaits.

Pasadena, California, on New Year’s Day would be hard to top. Then again, so is a season that would fall one victory short of that trip. It sounds quite a bit better than a 10-game losing streak. colepaxton2019@u.northwestern.edu

Wilkinson: Seeing college athletes in a new light JOE WILKINSON

DAILY COLUMNIST

I walked into Bobb Hall unsure of what to expect. It was move-in day my freshman year, and I was just another kid in a sea of freshmen.

As I made my way through my freshman hall, I saw a name I recognized two doors down from mine: “Clayton Thorson.” I admittedly didn’t know anything about Northwestern football, but I had at least seen the Stanford game. I lived down the hall from the starting quarterback who had just beat the No. 21 team in the country.

I knew the starting quarterback stereotype: pretty boy, aloof, no time for anything but partying and football. So it surprised me a few days later when there was Clayton Thorson, standing outside my door. We struck up a short conversation, and I knew that this school was different partially because I could just have a casual conversation with the

starting quarterback in a hallway. But also that he was different, a down-to-earth guy who just wanted to chill with his friends. Next to Clayton were Tommy Doles, Blake Hance, Ben Oxley, James Prather and Heath Reineke, all teammates and also my hallmates.

”

Living down the hall from six football players helped me see them as more than just people to root for on Saturdays, people to yell at for missed blocks or bad throws.

Clayton and I are not best friends, but we’re chill enough that when I saw him on Dillo Day last year, I could ask how he was doing after his injury in the Music City Bowl. When I asked him a question in a news conference referring to his freshman year, he, to the confusion of almost everyone else in the room,

referenced our shared hall in Bobb that year.

Three years later, the group has taken divergent paths. Clayton’s leading the Wildcats to the Big Ten Championship game, possibly the Rose Bowl and will likely be selected in the NFL Draft in April. Tommy and Blake might not get drafted, but they’ve been crucial cogs in a much-improved Northwestern offensive line this season.

Prather’s not an every-down player, but I’ve taken immense joy in all four of his career catches. Ben Oxley’s changed positions and now contributes to the Cats’ stellar defensive line play. Heath actually had a year of eligibility left, but graduated with a degree in computer science in June. Me? I’m still just another kid.

But I tell this story not to brag about knowing Clayton Thorson, but to humanize him. People make a mockery of the term “student-athlete,” and I am certainly not here to defend it. But living down the hall from six football players helped me see them as more than just people to root for on Saturdays, people to yell at for missed blocks or bad throws.

It’s a constant reminder that the guys on

the field are no older than me; they just happen to be incredibly gifted athletes. And it makes a lot harder to criticize the kids down the hall for a tough game when my main concern that same morning had been not drinking too many Bud Lights in a muddy backyard while theirs had been picking apart a Big Ten defense.

Maybe this made me a worse journalist. My friends would say I am the biggest Clayton fan outside of his immediate family.

Whenever Prather catches a pass, I get unreasonably hype. And it’s impossible not to root for Tommy when he’s the nicest guy in the world (the contrast between Tommy’s teddy bear personality and imposing 6-foot-4, 296pound frame could not be larger).

Maybe this is unique to Northwestern. I don’t know how many non-athletes Tua Tagovailoa, or even Nate Stanley, give the universal “sup” head nod to on a regular basis. But they’re still college students. College football is big business, but sometimes the people in the center of it all are just some guys from down the hall. josephwilkinson2019@u.northwestern.edu

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SPORTS

ON DECK DEC.

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ON THE RECORD

I get it they are here to play a sport as well, but our responsibility is to make sure they leave here with a degree.

— Jim Phillips, athletic director

Football No. 6 Ohio State vs. No. 21 NU, 7 p.m. Saturday

@DailyNU_Sports

Friday, November 30, 2018

WHEREFORE ART THOU

Wildcats look to shut down talented guard Romeo Langford

By CHARLIE GOLDSMITH

daily senior staffer @2021_charlie

The last time Northwestern faced a player as talented as Indiana guard Romeo Langford, the Wildcats were on the receiving end of Trae Young’s menace and 30-footers.

NU entered Norman, Okla. on Dec. 22, 2017, and the eventual fifth overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft stumped the Cats on his way to a 31-point and 12-assist performance and a 104-78 Sooners win.

It’s still uncertain if this year’s edition of NU’s team is superior to the one that went 15-17 last season. But seven games in, the Cats (6-1) are better equipped to handle Langford than they were Young. “(I am) just going to guard him like normal,” senior forward Vic Law, who intends to match up against Langford on Saturday, said. “I’m athletic too. I hope he’s ready.”

It’ll be like making up for lost time for Law, who watched last season’s Sooners game injured on the sidelines. Guards Bryant McIntosh, Isiah Brown and Jordan Ash faced Young frequently in the Oklahoma game last season, and they each could not keep up with Young as he darted around screens to set up shots at the rim or as he faded behind the screener to pull-up for a deep three-point shot.

Young finished the game with three open pull-up threes in the pick-and-roll after neither the big man nor the guard tagged the shifty point guard, and he made three additional ones from deep after no

Daily File Photo by Katie Pach

Northwestern vs. Indiana Bloomington, Indiana 12 p.m. Saturday

one picked him up in transition.

While Langford isn’t the same pickand-roll maestro as Young, his explosiveness off the dribble is better than any 2019 prospect who does not play in Durham, North Carolina. At 6-foot-6 with a 6-foot11 wingspan, Langford has the build of an archetypal bucket-getter and the creativity to keep defenses guessing.

He has excellent mechanics in catchand-shoot situations, which set up a series of hard to predict moves off the dribble including a polished finger roll and stepback pull-up.

NU isn’t the same defensive team NBA scouts saw devastated last year by an elite NBA prospect. Against Georgia Tech on Wednesday, NU conceded just 20 first half points, and the Cats have an impressive 88.6 defensive rating on the season — the 35th best mark in the country. Opponents are shooting just 50 percent at the rim and 29.7 from beyond the arc, and they’re only getting out in transition on 21 percent of possessions, according to Hoop Math.

According to coach Chris Collins, this all is an effect of the bigger personnel he’s been playing together and the lack of any weak link for a player like Langford to pick apart off the dribble. This year, Law has usually started possessions on the opponents best player, but if the Cats have to switch primary defenders or put high

NORTHWESTERN ATHLETICS

ball-pressure on the ball-handler, it’ll be an athletic player like freshman forward Miller Kopp, junior forward A.J. Turner, graduate guard Ryan Taylor, sophomore guard Anthony Gaines or freshman forward Pete Nance executing it.

“I’ve said it all along, our length and our athleticism allows us to be pretty active defensively,” Collins said. “When you throw lineups out there that have Vic Law, A.J. Turner, (Anthony) Gaines and Nance, those are big guys. We don’t really play any small guys. When we’re in our spots, when we’re in our rotations we can be very difficult to score against.”

If last year’s team were facing Indiana, Langford would likely be trying to isolate himself against a smaller guard like Brown or McIntosh, which Young executed to near perfection. Collins said throughout the preseason that McIntosh’s playmaking would be sorely missed, but the advantage to having him out of the fray is that it gives NU’s defense a better on-ball options against elite creators like Langford.

And as a result, the team has been playing some of the best defense it ever has under Collins.

“This gives us a very good picture of what the Big Ten is like,” Law said. “We have new players who haven’t played in this league yet and now have to play Indiana at Indiana and then play Michigan… this is going to get them ready. I don’t think you can play any two games that’ll be better for us and test what we have than these two games.” charliegoldsmith2021@u.northwestern.edu

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Phillips discusses NU’s Cats suffer first loss of the year rebuilding programs 52

By JOSEPH WILKINSON

By PETER WARREN

daily senior staffer @thepeterwarren

With only a few weeks left in the year, The Daily’s sports desk sat down with athletic director Jim Phillips ahead of the Big Ten Championship Game, where No. 21 Northwestern will playNo. 6 Ohio State with a potential birth in the Rose Bowl on the line. With the game wrapping up a big year for the athletic department, Phillips talked about rebuilding teams, analytics and graduation rates.

The Daily: When you look at programs that are going through a rebuilding phase — volleyball is a good example of where they were at a point and are on the upturn right now. How do you evaluate those years when there is a lot of losing?

Phillips: There are no quick fixes. There are no instant successes. You either build it to last or you don’t. And it just takes time.

It just does. People don’t want to hear that. I understand we are in a society where we want instant gratification and fulfillment. But, you have to really understand who you’ve hired, the program that they’ve walked into, how long it’s going to be, you have to understand the recruiting process. An example is volleyball.

When that staff walks in they can’t recruit any seniors, juniors or probably even sophomores because that’s recurring in volleyball. So they are recruiting freshmen in high school. That’s three years ago. They are finally getting a few of those kids to come. I love our direction. It’s value based. It’s the kinds of leaders we have.

And I do see progress. I just do — in volleyball and some of our other programs. It is just going to take a little bit of time.

The Daily: I hear the baseball team is doing some more analytics stuff and I know the National U18 team practiced here over the summer. What are some of the new things the baseball team are doing that you can tell us about?

Phillips: Across the department we are trying to do more analytics with not only performance and playing and hitting and some of those things in baseball but we are doing it in football — when you go for fourth downs, when you take a penalty. We have really worked hard with our group over at Kellogg and others to help us with some of those things. I think that is just the new wave, that’s just part of what you have to understand if you want an edge when it comes to making decisions or in recruiting, etc. The USA Baseball, the IHSA boys basketball tournament, those are other ways to get really high-level prospects on our campus. And we are going to continue to look for a variety of ways where we can get them — doesn’t matter what sport, what team, what gender — we want to get them on campus because I think that sells Northwestern as much as anything. You got to come here, you have to see this place, you have to look around and see the facilities, you got to meet that people.

The Daily: Northwestern was listed No. 1 in Graduation Success Rate. Is that what you are most proud of?

Phillips: I am. I really am. I really am.

Because that is why they are coming here is to graduate. I get it they are here to play a sport as well but our responsibility is to make sure they leave here with a great degree. … I can’t look a parent in the eye and tell them if you come to Northwestern you are going to get a great degree and graduate and all the rest of that and then not do that and not fulfill that foundational piece. I love going to Indianapolis. I love going to Salt Lake a few years ago.

I love holding the National Championship trophy. Im most proud of what these young men and women do in the classroom and those 550-560 hours of community service that they are doing per year. And I love to win and I’m for excited for Saturday and the rest of it, but if you peel it all back, that to me is what I’m most proud of. peterwarren2021@u.northwestern.edu

daily senior staffer @joe_f_wilkinson

Northwestern suffered its first loss of the season in brutal fashion Thursday, losing 52-49 to Pittsburgh in a game that spent three quarters making a mockery of the concept of offense.

The Panthers (5-4) picked up their first road win since Feb. 1 while the Wildcats (5-1) finished with their lowest point total this season. Entering the fourth quarter, Pitt and NU were averaging 10 and 9 points per quarter, respectively.

“We just got outplayed tonight,” coach Joe McKeown said. “We couldn’t make a shot, and I think it affected the rest of the way we play. We talk every day about, ‘Don’t let your offense be your defense,’ but it’s human nature whether you’re in college basketball, the NBA, high school basketball. And I think we saw a little of that tonight.”

The Cats, who were missing junior forward Abi Scheid and freshman guard Veronica Burton, put on a performance reminiscent of their disastrous 2017-18 campaign, finishing with the same amount of turnovers as made field goals (15).

Not to be outdone, the Panthers were just as bad — finishing with 18 turnovers and 18 buckets of their own.

Pitt shot 35 percent from the field, but fortunately for the Panthers, they held the Cats to just 26 percent from the field.

“They were in a 2-3 zone, so we have a lot of set plays to attack that,” senior forward Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah said. “We didn’t come out as strong as we usually do. We probably need to bring more energy from the jump and not try to dig back into games down the stretch.”

Kunaiyi-Akpanah was the lone bright spot for NU on Thursday, putting up 16 points and 10 rebounds

Pittsburgh

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to lead NU in both categories. It was a brutal day for sophomore guard Lindsey Pulliam, who leads the team in scoring, as she went 4-for-18 from the field.

Pulliam had a chance to redeem herself late, as she got an open, potentially game-tying look from the threepoint line with 22 seconds left. The shot came up short, leaving Pulliam 0-for-6 from deep on the night, and Pitt’s ensuing two free throws put the icing on the Cats’ first loss of the season.

“I would take that (shot), every day

of the year,” McKeown said. “Nobody really shot the ball well tonight, but I have a lot of confidence in her. She wants the ball in tight situations.”

In addition to missing Scheid and Burton, Joe McKeown’s squad lost sophomore guard Jordan Hamilton to an injury midway through the third quarter. Junior guard Byrdy Galernik and junior forward Bryana Hopkins struggled to run the offense in her absence.

McKeown, however, refused to use injuries as an explanation for his team’s disappointing performance.

“We had a lot of different lineups, players playing all different positions,” McKeown said. “But that could happen again, so we’ve got to be ready for that. We’re not going to make excuses about anything.That’s not who we are.” josephwilkinson2019@u.northwestern.edu

Daily file photo by Katie Pach

Lindsey Pulliam dribbles the ball. The sophomore guard shot 4-for-18 from the field on Thursday.