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University unsure TX 10 percent plan doable BAMN demands increase in minority enrollment
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Members of By Any Means Necessary protest during the regents meeting Thursday. The meeting was relocated after protestors began pushing past security guards. They later left the Union and marched down State Street to the admissions office.
BAMN protest temporarily shuts down regents meeting Schlissel restarts meeting in closed Fleming Building session By CLAIRE BRYAN Daily Staff Reporter
Carrying signs and shouting “Open it up, or shut it down,” about two dozen members of the organization By Any Means Necessary shut down the University’s Board of Regents monthly meeting Thursday afternoon.
The protesters pushed past barriers intended to separate the public from the table of regents and University’s executive officers inside the Union’s Anderson Room. They refused to be seated after interrupting remarks by recently inaugurated Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor just a few minutes into the meeting. “The University of Michigan can no longer ignore the growing segregation and intense hostility towards minority and women students unless they want a rude awakening on this campus,” BAMN organizer Jose Alvarenga said during the protest. “Actions
speak louder than words.” Several security officers struggled to hold protesters behind the ropes. Both plainclothed and uniformed officers stood with their arms stretched out, at times pressing against the small crowd to keep them from approaching the boardroom table. After a few minutes of protest, University President Mark Schlissel asked if the students would step back from the rope, but apart from those comments, the University did not directly ask the protesters to sit down or stop chanting. After staying for a few min-
By ALLANA AKHTAR Daily Staff Reporter
After the chants of about two dozen BAMN protesters forced University President Mark Schlissel to relocate Thursday’s meeting of the University’s Board of Regents, several BAMN members called on the University to increase its minority enrollment by guaranteeing admission to every in-state student in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. Despite the adoption of similar plans in Texas, California and Florida, it’s unclear whether such a policy would be feasible in Michigan. In recent years, the University has struggled to increase the representation of minority students, particularly since the passage of Proposal 2 in 2006, which
utes of the protest, the regents and executive officers left the room at the recommendation of public safety officers. According to DPSS spokesperson Diane Brown, additional officers were dispatched to the Union but made no arrests or ejections. BAMN — a national organization that advocates on behalf of affirmative action and immigration rights, among other issues — held a press conference near the entrance of the Union before the meeting and rallied on campus earlier this month, listing several demands directed toward the See BAMN, Page 2A
UMICH VOTES
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Journalist talks tobacco industry media coverage Charles Lewis says companies complacent in millions of deaths By IRENE PARK Daily Staff Reporter
Inside the Biomedical Science Research Building on Thursday, investigative journalist Charles Lewis discussed the history of investigative journalism in the tobacco industry during a lecture titled “The Truth About the Lies.” Lewis, a former investigative reporter for ABC News and producer of the CBS program “60 Minutes,” is the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, one of the largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations in the country. The center aims to expose corruption and abuse in both public and private institutions. He also co-founded the Investigative Reporting Workshop, an investigative news organization based at American University in
Washington, D.C., where Lewis is a tenured professor. In the discussion, Lewis expressed frustration with the tendency for the public to hear about wrongdoing only after it initially occured. “I looked at how often have we found out the truth months or years later instead of real-time,” Lewis said. “And I found that this happens a lot.” Lewis said misleading information from powerful groups could cause delayed awareness in the public, particularly in the case of the tobacco industry. He said smoking killed approximately 100 million people in 20th century alone, more than both world wars combined. Despite the harmful effects, companies advertised tobacco as harmless for decades before being regulated. “The CEOs of the seven tobacco companies said that tobacco is not harmful,” he said. “One of the CEOs actually said that it might be more dangerous to eat Twinkies than to smoke tobacco.” In addition to misleading See JOURNALIST, Page 2A
banned the consideration of race in admissions. The number of underrepresented minority students in this year’s freshman class remained roughly stagnant, though the proportion of minority students reflected a slight decrease due to the larger than average class size. Along with a list of several other grievances, BAMN has demanded that the University double its minority enrollment through an initiative similar to Texas’ “Top 10 Percent Rule.” In Texas, every public university automatically admits students who rank in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. LSA senior Tara McManus, a BAMN member who attended the protest, said the University uses the statewide ban on affirmative action as a cover for its failure to improve its enrollment of minority students. She said adopting a plan similar to the policy in Texas would increase minority enrollment while staying within the lines of the state’s See TEXAS, Page 2A
Campus votes for DPSOC reps., school gov. members JAMES COLLER/Daily
UMEC votes on changes to student government constitution
Students hold a candlelight vigil on the Diag Thursday to show support for 43 Mexican students that went missing. The students are asking for the Mexican government to give jusice for the missing men.
Student-held vigil honors missing Mexican students Friends of kidnapped 43 teens, others gather on Diag By TAYLOR WIZNER Daily Staff Reporter
Two months after 43 students went missing after being taken from Iguala, Mexico by police during a protest, University students commemorated the missing students’ lives during a vigil on the Diag
Thursday evening. Around 5 p.m., a group of students and Ann Arbor residents marched from Mason Hall to the Diag, carrying posters with the phrase “Vivos los Queremos,” roughly translating to “bring them back alive,” and a string of images depicting the faces and names of the missing students. They chanted: “Where are the 43 students? Where?” On Sept. 26, 43 students from Raul Isidro Burgo Ayotzinapa Normal School were protesting for education reform in Iguala when police
officers shot at the students and then rounded them up into police vehicles. They have not been seen since. Mexican government officials have since stated that the students were killed by a cartel, however their bodies have not been accounted for. The protest and vigil comes on the eve of a global day of action, which is slated to include more than 250 protests across the world. On the Diag, a group of about 30 people created a large circle around the block M as speakSee VIGIL, Page 3A
By TANAZ AHMED Daily Staff Reporter
The democratic process was in full swing this week at the University. From 12:00 a.m. on Nov. 19 until 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 20, students across campus voted in fall elections for Central Student Government representatives, as well as on a variety of individual issues. Engineering students could vote to completely replace the University of Michigan Engineering Council constitution. The entire campus also had the opportunity to elect a student representative to serve on the Department of Public Safety Oversight Committee. Additionally, students from LSA, the Ross School of Business, School of Information, School of Public Health, the Law School and Rackham Graduate School were able to elect representatives to Central Student Government. Results for all elections are See MIDTERMS, Page 3A
Making his mark For senior Alex Mitropoulos-Rundus, the chance to make an impact on Saturday comes off the field. » INSIDE
WEATHER TOMORROW
HI: 43 LO: 36
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JOURNALIST From Page 1A information disseminated by tobacco companies, Lewis said the truth is also obscured for political reasons. In 1994, the cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris filed a
TEXAS From Page 1A ban on affirmative action. “I believe the 10 percent plan works because to say that these students, the top 10 percent of students at these schools, aren’t intelligent enough or aren’t equipped enough to come here is just a complete joke,” she said. However, University President
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University’s administration. Most prominently, BAMN has criticized the University for failing to increase minority enrollment. According to the Office of the Registrar, the University’s population of underrepresented minority students remained roughly stagnant over the past year, totaling just above 10 percent. After about an hour, Schlissel reconvened the meeting inside the Regents Room in the Fleming Administration Building, noting the meeting had been adjourned for “public safety reasons” and a transcript of the reconvened portion would be posted online. “I certainly respect the right of the group to speak up and tell us their opinion about something important,” Schlissel said in an interview with The Michigan Daily after the meeting. “I’m disappointed that they chose to disrupt the meeting, but we were able to conduct the business of the University in this separate venue as needed.” The meeting in Fleming lasted about 10 minutes. The board quickly voted to approve the renovation projects listed on the November agenda, including schematic designs for the David
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M. Dennison Building and the new Biological Science Building. Though staff members of the University’s Office of Public Affairs alerted the media to the venue change and noted a transcript of the meeting would be made available to the public, a general announcement regarding the venue change was not made inside the Anderson Room. The University maintains that relocating the meeting did not violate Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, which specifies that decisions of public bodies — like the University’s Board of Regents — must be made at a meeting open to the public. Across Regents Plaza, signs on the Administration Building doors read, “The building is LOCKED.” Security officials initially declined entry to Michigan Daily reporters until a regent told the officers to permit entry. University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald confirmed that only news media were allowed into the meeting. Apart from the regents and executive officers, the only members of the public present inside the Regents Room were members of the media, Central Student Government President Bobby Dishell, a Public Policy senior, and public affairs staff. Though the Open Meetings Act says meetings must be held “in a place available to the public,” it is
likely the University could have legally excluded the protesters from entering the new meeting location. The law states, “A person shall not be excluded from a meeting otherwise open to the public except for a breach of the peace actually committed at the meeting.” After the regents had left the Anderson Room, BAMN group members shouted their demands to a half empty room for more than an hour. The group later marched toward the Student Activities Building, which houses the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and continued chanting as they moved up and down streets near the Union. BAMN has called on the University to adopt a “10 percent plan,” similar to a policy in Texas, where the top 10 percent of every in-state high school graduating class is guaranteed admission to any of the state’s public institutions. In addition to increasing minority enrollment, BAMN has demanded the University improve transparency related to sexual assault allegations. “We don’t want to wait another year to see the results of another failure of another committee, another failure of another language campaign, and see those numbers of minority enrollment drop again like they have
been doing over the last five to 10 years,” Alvarenga said at a press conference before the meeting. He said the efforts the University has made in response to their other requests have been inadequate. “The University’s solutions for this year are the same solutions the administration has been giving for years and years at this University,” he said. “They have just created more campaigns about inclusion but in reality they don’t address the real problem, which is that drop of minority enrollment.” In an interview after the meeting, E. Royster Harper, vice president for student life, said the board was trying to listen, but BAMN made it difficult. “I was disappointed,” she said. “They are talking about issues that are important to us, but in a way that makes it hard for them to be heard. I’m not going to hear you if I’m scared that you are going to hurt me. I’m just not going to hear it. That is the downside of the strategy.” BAMN has not requested a meeting with administrators, Harper said. “If you want to sit down and talk about the issue we can create an environment to do that to,” Harper said. “This isn’t a situation where people have asked for a conversation and they have been refused.
“Beyond the noise John Lynch and jplynch@michigandaily.com and the Akshay Seth Managing Arts Editors akse@michigandaily.com chanting, SENIOR ARTS EDITORS: Giancarlo Buonomo, Natalie Gadbois, Erika Harwood and Alec Stern very little ASSISTANT ARTS EDITORS: Jamie Bircoll, Jackson Howard, Gillian Jakab and Maddie Thomas got accomTeresa Mathew and plished,” Paul Sherman Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com she said. SENIOR PHOTO EDITORS: Allison Farrand and Ruby Wallau ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS: Luna Anna Archey, Virginia Lozano, AccordJames Coller, McKenzie Berezin, and Nicholas Williams ing to Carolyn Gearig and Dishell, Gabriela Vasquez Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com SENIOR DESIGN EDITORS: Amy Mackens and Alicia Kovalcheck the only Carlina Duan Magazine Editor statement@michigandaily.com involveDEPUTY MAGAZINE EDITORS: Max Radwin and Amrutha Sivakumar ment STATEMENT PHOTO EDITOR: Ruby Wallau STATEMENT LEAD DESIGNER: Amy Mackens CSG has Mark Ossolinski and Meaghan had with Thompson Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com BAMN SENIOR COPY EDITORS: Mariam Sheikh and Alisha Qiu Austen Hufford Online Editor ahufford@michigandaily.com was fundVIDEO EDITORS: Paula Friedrich and James Reslier-Wells ing a bus SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR: Brianne Johnson for them BUSINESS STAFF to travel to Madeline Lacey University Accounts Manager WashingAilie Steir Classified Manager ton, D.C. a Simonne Kapadia Local Accounts Manager few years Lotus An National Accounts Manager ago. Olivia Jones Production Managers “My Nolan Loh Special Projects Coordinator experience Jason Anterasian Finance Manager working The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by with them, students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may they don’t be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates necessarare subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must ily want to be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press. work with someone as much as use them as a platform after the protest, BAMN orgaand there is not really a lot of give nizer Kate Stenvig, a University and take there,” Dishell said. “I alum, said she thinks the group don’t see us having a strong work- got their message across. ing relationship with them in the “We won’t accept another year future.” of false promises,” Stenvig said. In an interview with The Daily “We want results now.”
$10 billion lawsuit against ABC alleging its “Day One” special report was libelous. The series — which also included another lawsuit, which resulted in the same settlement — reported that the companies used extra nicotine in their cigarette products to keep people smoking. Lewis said ABC not only opted to apologize for the report, but
also retracted another documentary on U.S. tobacco exports to other countries. “People in ABC were told to kill a half-million dollar documentary about how U.S. has been exporting tobacco outside the U.S. In the name of free trade, tobacco was allowed be grown, sold, manufactured and advertised to children and others around the world,” he said.
However, Lewis did not entirely place blame on institutions for delayed awareness of tobacco’s harmful effects on health. He said public apathy is also responsible, and he is concerned that the public is not as media-literate as it has been in the past. “News consumption and paid subscription has been going down in this country for more than
a half-century,” he said. “Does that mean the public is getting its news elsewhere? No. We have this disengagement that includes absorbing information and being interested in knowing the information.” Lewis said individuals must expose themselves to news media to remain aware of current issues, but the public must also pay atten-
tion to the quality of the sources as well. “Quality begets quality,” he said. “If you consume sophisticated, complex, interesting information about the most important issues of our time, you are probably more cognizant of those issues and actually understand the implications. You are what you read, and you are what you watch.”
Mark Schlissel said the University would not be likely to implement admissions strategies like a percentage-based plan, arguing they are ineffective in an October interview with The Michigan Daily. “I’m not sure that’s necessarily the answer, or at least there’s not strong evidence that that’s the answer in the context of our laws here in the state,” he said. The 10 percent rule was origi-
nally conceived to increase diversity on campuses after the Fifth Circuit Court outlawed other affirmative action policies in Texas during the 1996 court case Hopwood v. Texas. Hopwood was eventually invalidated by the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the use of affirmative action for a narrow interest like ensuring diversity. In 2009, the state legislature modified the law to allow only the University of Texas at Austin to cap admissions from the 10 percent plan when the numbers made up more than 75 percent of reserved spots for in-state students. The other 25 percent of enrolled students are admitted through a race-conscious, holistic review process. In the 2013 case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the Fifth Circuit Court, after having the case remanded back from the U.S. Supreme Court, decided that the university’s use of the “holistic,” race-conscious admissions process for the 25 percent of reserved spots was valid in addition to the effects of the 10 percent plan. Gary Susswein, director of University Media Relations at the University of Texas at Austin, said the original version of the law limited the university’s ability to have any discretion over the admissions process because automatically admitted in-state students were filling almost the entire cohort of each entering freshman class. The
modification went into effect in 2011. California and Florida have also implemented top 9 percent and top 20 percent plans, respectively, after those states banned affirmative action. Shortly before the Supreme Court ruled in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, both in 2003, the University issued a release responding to percentbased plans enacted in Texas, California and Florida. The statement argued that the plans failed to evaluate students holistically, encouraged racially segregated high schools, discouraged students from attending competitive schools and disadvantages universities with large out-of-state populations. The release also notes that adopting the plan would require a statewide university system, like the University of Texas or University of California system, which does not exist in Michigan. In Michigan, admittance to one publicly funded university does not guarantee admittance to another. According to University of Texas at Austin enrollment data, the policy has yielded mixed results. In the last two decades, the school has practiced several different admissions policies. In 1996, the university’s admissions office practiced affirmative action. That year, Black and Hispanic freshman enrollment was 4 percent and 15 percent, respectively. By 1998, the Hopwood decision
barred the university from considering race in admissions. After the legislature enacted HB 588, Black and Hispanic enrollment hovered between 3 to 4 percent and 14 to 16 percent, respectively. In 2004, with affirmative action upheld in the Grutter decision, Black freshman enrollment jumped slightly to 5 percent and Hispanic freshmen enrollment reached 16 percent. Though minority enrollment numbers have increased slightly at the University of Texas at Austin, this jump has been partly due to the reinstatement of affirmative action, which is currently banned in Michigan. In California and Florida, states with similar percentagebased plans, the results have also been mixed. Susswein, the director of media relations at the University of Texas at Austin, said automatically admitting the top 10 percent of in-state applicants allows hardworking students to attend a top state college or university. He noted the policy has resulted in improved attendance from rural parts of the state, historically underserved by the school. In addition to the policy, the school uses a holistic review process, provides financial assistance for first-generation college students and employs academic programs in underperforming high schools within the state. Though Susswein declined to comment on the efficacy of the percent plan — citing ongoing litigation in Fisher v. Texas — the
university’s legal brief in the case argues for the necessity of raceconscious admissions, noting that just relying on the 10 percent plan is not an effective method for achieving full racial diversity. The brief, which argues for the need to maintain an affirmative action policy in the absence of race-neutral alternatives, states that the 10 percent plan failed to significantly increase underrepresented minority enrollment. The brief also states the policy made it more difficult for underrepresented minority students to gain admission under the normal holistic review admission process. Law School Prof. Mark Rosenbaum, a visiting law professor at the University of California, Irvine and chief counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said percent plans in California had “no impact” on improving diversity at the state’s most elite “flagship,” like the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses. “In a state as segregated as Michigan and with Michigan at the bottom of the nation when it comes to resourcing K-12 public schools, particularly those in high poverty communities, a percent plan is unlikely to achieve much (of) anything in the way of diversity, and runs the risk of diverting focus from measures that might have some impact,” he wrote in an e-mail interview. Instead, he said he would encourage the regents to use See TEXAS, Page 3A
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VIGIL From Page 1A ers discussed the situation, speaking in English and Spanish. Jorge Najera Godinez, a math student from Guerrero — the state where the students disappeared — came to Ann Arbor in the fall to complete his master’s degree at the School of Education. He said he was shocked and saddened to hear that his friends and fellow students from the region were abducted and likely killed. “It was just really hard to concentrate on my studies so that’s why I went to ask for help and they helped organize it,” Godinez said in an interview before the vigil. “It’s important that everybody knows what’s happening in the city — especially my town — because this is not the first time that something like this has happened. Right now there are 43 students but before that there were many.” Godinez said the abducted students traveled to Iguala, an hour and a half away from their hometown, to raise money for the schools. He said every few years a few students go missing, and it is often blamed on the cartels. Without support from the government, receiving an education is a challenge for many people in the region where these students were from, Godinez said. He explained how many students live on mountains, sometimes hours away from the closest school, and have to walk there in extremely hot conditions. University alum Marta Valadez met Godinez a few weeks earlier and connected him with other Mexican students and community members outraged by the disappearance of the stu-
MIDTERMS From Page 1A expected to come out at midnight Friday. Engineering students to vote on changes to constitution and bylaws The Central Student Judiciary found the Engineering Council’s December elections invalid due to violations of its own constitution and bylaws in March. In response, UMEC General Council passed a resolution in April to create a constitutional convention to write a new constitution and set of bylaws. After the new constitution was created, the convention unanimously approved it and voted to place the new constitution on the Special Elections ballot in November. Copies of the proposed constitution were sent to all registered UMEC organizations before polls opened. “It’s (the constitution and bylaws) been around for a couple of decades and still has the same structure, but at the same time, the College of Engineering itself has changed dramatically both in size and in structure,” said UMEC President Max Olender, an Engineering senior. “We decided it’d be best to start from scratch, evaluate the needs of the College and our students to come up with a completely new
TEXAS From Page 2A University resources to help improve public high schools in low-income neighborhoods, as well as strengthen college preparatory programs in these schools. “What’s needed is not a 10 percent plan, but a 100 percent plan of commitment to students who must attend public schools that no state official would send his or her child to,” he wrote. E. Royster Harper, vice president of student life, said that even if Michigan were to enact a percent-based policy, it would not help increase the numbers of minority students who choose to enroll at the Ann Arbor campus. Harper noted that the factors that usually deter qualified admitted students from choosing Michigan include campus climate, class size and affordability. Efforts to increase enrollment numbers are to help convince admitted students to choose the University over other schools. “Our state legislature could put in place a plan that says the top 10 percent will be admitted
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dents. “To be able to support a student who comes from so far away, who’s very isolated, to be experiencing this where he’s here and he feels like he can’t do anything,” Valadez said. “This is an opportunity that feels like we can do this together. So for us to do it here, that’s very powerful for us … People are not going to be quiet. People are not going to be silenced in Mexico, and in the United States and around the world.” Valadez said the attack, which targeted a large group of students, resonated with many across the world. “They were being brought up to be critical thinkers and I think that a lot of the fighting of what’s happening there is because these students were speaking out against injustice and harm that was happening through the government’s responsibility,” she said. Eduardo Garcia, one of the protesters involved in creating Thursday’s event, said the purpose of the demonstration is to show the University community that there is a massacre happening in a neighboring country. “I think that the U.S. government has been really connected to the Mexican government and in this case the U.S. government should pressure the Mexican government. In the past few years, many Americans have also disappeared,” Garcia said. “We want to conjoin all the anger, direct it at something good, that will bring change.” During the vigil, Garcia said there were nearly 30,000 forced disappearances in Mexico over the past seven years. At its core, Garcia said Mexico is really having a crisis of student rights. “It’s a war against the people, a war against the poor, a war
against the youth, a war against the students,” Garcia said. Some of the speakers called for the United Nations to seek justice while others reminded each other that as long as the students were missing their families would have no peace. As the speakers recited the names of each missing student, many University students stopped to listen, take pictures and sign up for a mailing list to receive more information. LSA freshman John Mathew stopped to check out the protest and sign up for the e-mail list on his way to class. He said he had heard about the news, but didn’t know much about the ongoing situation in Mexico. “I think it’s an appealing cause to college students because they see the government taking advantage of the students,” Mathew said. “Almost like they are (being) put down, and not included as a member of the population.” LSA senior Tatiana Bravo met Godinez earlier while working on a class project and decided to attend the vigil to support him. While she was raised in the United States, many of her family members live in Mexico and she visits there often. She said the event has affected her greatly, as she is around the same age as the disappeared students and also fears the corruption in Mexico. “A lot of it is people are really fed up, people are disappearing in Mexico and it just gets thrown under the rug or people look the other way, that’s the norm and it shouldn’t be the norm,” Bravo said. “If 43 of my friends went missing on a school day on campus, the entire nation would know and it would be a huge deal, but there it happened and it’s OK.”
structure for the student government.” The new constitution differs from the old constitution in aspects relating to legislative body and executive positions. Engineering senior Kelsey Hockstad and Engineering graduate student Kyle Lady, who sued UMEC, claimed that UMEC elections violated their equal protection and democratic representation rights. Under the current constitution, the legislative body is composed of delegates from Engineering student organizations. To maintain eligibility for funding, these delegates were required to attend the General Council meetings. “You have a situation where individuals are almost forced to participate in this governing body and they may not want to be there, they may not be interested. It’s a rather ineffective method,” Olender said. “It also can make it fairly difficult for students who aren’t in or heavily involved in student organizations to have equal representation.” The new constitution calls for student-elected representatives for the legislative body and does not require representatives to be appointed by members of Engineering student organizations, unlike the design of the contested constitution. It has also reduced the number of members
on the executive board. DPS Oversight Committee student representative to be chosen LSA junior Michael Fakhoury and Law School student Alan Nagel are running to become the DPS Oversight Committee’s student representatives. The purpose of the committee is to respond to complaints and grievances against the department or campus police officers. The group can make recommendations to the executive director of DPSS on how to address grievances. Recommendations may include disciplinary action. The committee comprises of six members: two student representatives, two faculty members and two staff members. All members are elected by their peers. Student representatives are elected for one-year terms, while other members are elected for two-year terms. Last year’s representatives were Fakhoury and LSA senior Alexis Wyckoff. “When Michigan’s legislature made students one-third of the DPS Oversight Committee, they effectively made us one-third of the conscience for the primary law enforcement body on campus,” Nagel wrote in an e-mail to The Michigan Daily. “That’s a significant role for us and represents a significant amount of trust in our capabilities.”
to any university in the state of Michigan, but that doesn’t mean that more students would show up at U of M,” she said. “There’s nothing we’re going to be able to put in place that fundamentally changes students’ choices about where they want go to school.” She further noted how the University accepts more underrepresented minority students than those that choose to enroll. The University admitted 16,047 students this fall, roughly 40.5 percent of whom decided to enroll. Harper and Schlissel both noted steps to increase the number of minority admits who ultimately enroll. The University recently hired Kedra Ishop, who previously worked at the University of Texas at Austin, as the University’s associate vice president for enrollment management. The position was created this summer. The role of the enrollment manager is to increase coordination between the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the Office of Financial Aid, the Registrar and the Office of New Student
Programs in an effort to provide support and resources for newly admitted students. Harper said the role of the enrollment manager is to “court” students who are admitted to the University and deciding whether to attend. She said Ishop thinks about the process of choosing schools from the beginning to the end and is guides students considering the University with information such as scholarship options. Ishop could not be reached for an interview. Harper said many other universities ask prospective students to show them what other schools are giving them and attempt to match it — another initiative Ishop is looking into implementing. Harper said the University needs to better persuade underrepresented minority students to enroll at the University. “From the moment we see someone that’s really good, we’re not done until they say that they’re coming and they arrive on campus,” Harper said. “We’re not taking anybody for granted anymore.”
Friday, November 21, 2014 — 3A
Why we do this
O
n a recent night in Chesebrough Auditorium, dozens of engineering students gathered to hear Prof. Emerita Lynn Conway speak on a topic that was decidedly and unashamedly JULIA atypical for an ZARINA engineering lecture: gender dynamics. Conway, an electrical engineer credited with developing some of the design principles responsible for revolutionizing microelectronics and advanced computing, was speaking as part of the Own It keynote lecture, Leading Inclusion: Gender in Engineering. Own It is a student led initiative to promote awareness of social topics in the College of Engineering. Throughout her career as an engineer and prominent transgender activist, Conway has inspired radical changes in both the technological standards and social climates of her field. In addressing some of her own experiences as an acclaimed innovator at both IBM and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and as associate dean of engineering here at the University, Conway’s message to the audience gathered before her was clear: in your personal and professional lives, strive to be daring and adventurous in both what you do and who you are. It’s a point that speaks to one of the most elusive and rarely addressed issues faced by the engineering community: as people who are largely expected to define ourselves by our competencies, we often struggle with identity in the variety of forms in which it presents itself. On a societal level, we grapple with some of the issues Own It works to discuss. How do we reconcile our identities as diverse individuals with a culture that places the utmost emphasis on uniform technical capability? On an intellectual level, how do we balance our curiosity for the abstract with the concrete demands of real life? And on a technical level: how much do we value the less quantifiable, less practical, but more human aspects of the people we are designing for? When it comes to research in STEM fields, one of the biggest hurdles engineers and innovators face is relatability. Beyond the cultural stereotypes that all scientists are socially awkward recluses, translating what we consider to be beautiful and timely ideas into marketable, applicable products or systems comes with its own set of challenges. In a world motivated largely by financial and material gain, the usefulness and necessity of a venture is often framed and quantified in terms of its profitability, whether that be economic or otherwise. There is no more striking example of this external justification than the progression of our national space program. In the United States, space exploration has never been more widely or ardently supported than it was when it aligned with our national security interests during the Space Race. Even today, the upcoming Orion mission to Mars is often justified in the media as worthwhile because of the arguably feasible potential for interstellar mineral mining or as an alternate habitat in a not-so-distant future where our environmentally unsustainable habits have led to the destruction of Earth.
“
As political and social climates prove to be increasingly unreceptive to funding research programs, the success of appealing for public support is largely contingent on whether the ideas we seek to explore can turn a profit. Congress, Wall Street and our future employers all demand answers to seemingly important questions. Will that product be the next iPhone? Are we graduating enough engineering majors to keep up with India and China? What, exactly, is the point? Although these may be important considerations to stay grounded in, when taken alone they are misguided motivators that detract from the spirit and true potential of scientific discovery. Limiting the scope of what we are willing to research to areas we foresee to be imminently and materially profitable drastically limits the potential range of discoveries. As advocated by Conway, the future of engineering lies in challenging ourselves to ask the most fundamental and curious questions, even — and especially — when the answers are uncertain. Even from a strictly economic perspective, the foundations of many of the most significant innovations in the last century were discovered mainly by accident. Spin-offs of seemingly obscure and abstract research have resulted in products no one could have foreseen. Widespread use of GPS systems, cell phones and the Internet are all examples of extremely profitable indirect derivatives of space research — a field of study that politicians and policymakers have slammed in the years following the political power play of the Space Race for literally being too “out there” or irrelevant to life on Earth to be worth our time and money. In “Particle Fever,” a documentary about the experiments leading up to the identification of the Higgs boson in 2012, David Kaplan discusses his research as a particle physicist at the Large Hadron Collider and addresses some of the most biting criticisms the public has thrown at a project that has been 30 years and billions of dollars in the making. “Why are we doing it?” he muses in one segment of the film, “One answer is what we tell people, and one answer is the truth … He goes on to identify these two lines of reasoning with one being more grounded in the potential tangible outcomes and the other is simply that exploration is for the sake of understanding. “There’s nothing incorrect about the first answer, but it’s not the thing that drives (scientists) ... Basic science for big breakthroughs needs to occur at a level where you are not asking ‘What is the economic gain?’ You’re asking, ‘What do we not know, and how can we make progress?’” The experiments at the LHC are at the heart of this quest for understanding. The landmark observation of the Higgs boson was, at its essence, an attempt to answer some of these incredibly fundamental questions about the biggest system we are a part of: the known universe. Are the seemingly inflexible laws of nature that we are familiar with just a random statistical blip that has allowed life as we know it to exist in one of infinite multiverses? Are there unseen particles that provide an even bigger picture of the observable universe we think we see fully?
Research motivated purely by economic gain is, quite literally, unfathomably limiting. Even taken at a smaller scale, to explore the unknown simply for the sake of understanding is an eloquent and uniquely human undertaking. While we may be compelled to study finance and government to be masters of our own systems and rise above our peers, we are also compelled to compose new music and build new structures and explore the unknown so that we rise together both collectively and individually. Some of the greatest achievements in human existence have resulted from ventures where the risk of failure, or at the very least, the risk of no certain financial or material gain, has been highest. Putting a man on the moon, the search for clean and renewable energy and the experiments taking place at the LHC have all been truly diverse, collaborative efforts in which people were willing to put aside their arbitrary differences, instead using them productively to redefine and expand history and our own knowledge. As an engineer, I am interested in examining these vast, seemingly unsolvable questions in part because it puts our own systems and related problems in perspective. In an interview with The Michigan Daily last year, former Space Shuttle pilot Col. Jack Lousma likened our lives on Earth to the lives of crew members on a giant spaceship orbiting one of an infinite number of stars. Imagine sending a crew of different and diverse astronauts into orbit on a spaceship perfectly equipped with the conditions they need to thrive and the talents they need to be able to understand new and interesting information about our universe. Now imagine that instead of using these resources to work toward a successful mission, they instead start killing each other over who gets which corner of the spaceship, polluting the water and air supplies onboard, and suddenly some of the crew arbitrarily decide that their fellow, equally talented crewmates are inherently inferior and develop a set of rules that prevents them from effectively contributing to the mission. Obviously, such an outcome would ensure that no selfrespecting space agency would fund something similar again. It’s an interesting conclusion when you consider the implications of the metaphor in our own, actual lives on Earth where the very things that lead to war, pollution and political power in the first place are often motivated largely by whether they will produce material and personal gain. As engineers, we are conditioned to think practically, often to a fault. However, there is inherent value both to engineering as a profession and to wider society in focusing on the more abstract questions that seemingly have no answer. We need to be advocates and agents for continued support of exploration. Perhaps in doing so, we will be the ones to develop the next iPhone. Perhaps we won’t. But either way, in the process we will learn to understand ourselves — and the very systems we’ve created — better.
As engineers, we are conditioned to think practically, often to a fault.
— Julia Zarina can be reached at jumilton@umich.edu.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law” — President Barack Obama said during remarks announcing his executive action on immigration Thursday night.
Opinion
Page 4A — Friday, November 21, 2014
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com PETER SHAHIN EDITOR IN CHIEF
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
FROM THE DAILY
A united approach The ‘U’ has an opportunity to lead the prioritization of academics
A
common narrative of late surrounds the separation of athletics and academics at the University. President Mark Schlissel has accurately pointed out that “Athletics isn’t part of the mission statement of the University.” However, an attitude of disregard perpetuates a culture that allows the impact of the Athletic Department’s demands on studentathletes to go unchecked. It has been previously documented that successful collegiate athletic programs contribute many academic benefits to their associated universities, indicating that academics and athletics are not independent. Unfortunately, this reality creates incentives for the exploitation of student-athletes. The University is poised to upset this status quo and fix it with careful hiring of a new athletic director. Regardless of the lengths universities go to separate athletics from their academic principles, the two are deeply intertwined. Collegiate athletics provide universities with perhaps their most prominent and far-reaching advertising platform. The NCAA’s staggering television contracts highlight the value the nation places on collegiate sports, and this attention inevitably increases for universities with successful teams. The intimacy of the relationship between college academics and athletics cannot be denied; it has even been quantified in a study by Dong Chung, Harvard Business School assistant professor of business administration. His paper, “The Dynamic Advertising Effect of Collegiate Athletics” outlines that “when a school goes from being ‘mediocre’ to being ‘great’ on the football field, applications increase by 17.7 percent.” The leading example of this trend took place in 1984 when Boston College’s Doug Flutie threw a last-second, game-winning Hail Mary touchdown to trump the University of Miami. The so-called Flutie Effect caused the school’s application pool to increase by 30 percent in two years. Furthermore, Chung has found that the sports-induced attention drew a 4.8-percent increase in the average SAT score of admitted students, confirming the influence athletic success has on students of all academic abilities. A boost in the academic standing of a university is associated with a rise in ranking and thus a rise in funding. These benefits explain why a university would encourage good athletic performance. To deny the positive impact successful athletics has on our university would be unrealistic and irresponsible. Unfortunately, it seems that academics are often sacrificed for athletic performance. Earlier this year, CNN filed open records requests at 37 universities and found that 7 to 18 percent of revenue sport athletes players performed at elementary school reading levels as indicated by admissions exams such as the SAT and ACT. If these students cannot keep up with the rigorous curriculum of the universities, it is at the fault of the school for placing unprepared students in a no-win situation. The University of North Carolina’s solution to the issue of admitting underprepared athletes has been the most widely publicized. An independent investigator found that for about 18 years, UNC had its athletes take fake classes to inflate GPA to eligible levels. Some 3,100 student-athletes were found to be involved in the scandal. In 2009, similar athletic fraud occurred at Florida State University, involving 60 student-athletes.
In 2008, the Ann Arbor News released a four-part series highlighting the University of Michigan’s questionable practices, including pressuring student-athletes into certain majors. The report said, based on a 2007 audit, counselors even used athletes’ own login credentials to alter their schedules. In 2009, the University was found to violate the NCAA’s practice time limits — limiting the amount of time student-athletes had to devote to academics — and was placed on probation for three years. Many universities have removed the emphasis on “student” from student-athlete. If student-athletes are supposed to receive a top-tier education in exchange for the revenue they bring universities, it has been found that they are too often cheated out of this compensation by pressure from counselors and demands from coaches. This culture continues because of a lack of leadership from the NCAA and a universal cowardice from schools that has led to a textbook prisoner’s dilemma. As Schlissel stated, enforcing the NCAA limit on practice and workout hours would be ideal, but doing so would be “ridiculous” if other universities don’t follow suit. Enforcing the standards may lead to diminished athletic performance, and no university will act without the guarantee that all others will begin to comply as well. But there is hope. The Big Ten conference has provided a blueprint to solving the athletics-academics paradox with a unified approach that eliminates the cost of being the first and only school to prioritize academics. This year the Big Ten conference passed a resolution that guarantees scholarships to athletes of all its member colleges for the entirety of their academic careers. Given they are in good standing with the institution, this would no longer allow academic opportunity to be contingent on athletic performance and health. The Pac-12 has passed a similar reform. These guarantees are monumental steps in securing the educational compensation athletes are entitled to. Still, more needs to be done. It is unacceptable that, as Schlissel pointed out, nobody obeys the NCAA cap on practice hours. The University of Michigan is in a unique position to deal with these controversies: the athletic director is currently undetermined. There is an opportunity to hire a director who is dedicated to protecting and providing for the student-athletes as they deserve; one who is willing to spearhead reform and reach out to other universities to band together — as the Big Ten and Pac Twelve conferences have — to improve the welfare of our student-athletes.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Edvinas Berzanskis, Devin Eggert, David Harris, Rachel John, Jordyn Kay, Jesse Klein, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe
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I
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Breaking the business cycle
t’s a Tuesday morning, and I lie awake as my third snooze alarm goes off. It’s 9:08 a.m. and my class starts at 10 a.m., so I rush to eat breakfast, shower and get ready. I’m five minutes late, so I slide into the nearest seat. As my professor lectures, I fade in and out because MICHAEL I’m preparing SCHRAMM questions for an interview at one o’clock in the afternoon. As the lecture finishes I place my notebook with just three new bullet points in my backpack and power walk to my next class. I grab an open seat. This class has chargers, so I quickly slide my laptop out and begin answering e-mails. Class has begun, and I alternate between responding to e-mails and listening to lecture. As I finish the fourth e-mail, class ends, and I hurry to Lorch Hall where I’m scheduled to gather some information for a newsletter writing job. The interview finishes, and I walk to the UGLi. I have exactly one hour, and I need to study because I have an exam the next day. After studying, I make my way to office hours and spend the next two hours absorbing information and asking questions for my exam the next day. Now, it’s
five o’clock. I can’t spend any more money eating out, so I rush home to eat dinner before my meeting for another job at 6 p.m. Once I’m done, I realize walking will cause me to be late, so I drive instead. As I’m driving I put a song from my iPhone to play. I remember when I loved this song during middle school — a time where I could allocate two hours to lying in bed and listening to music. I get to my meeting a minute before it starts. It concludes at 8 o’clock, and I head to the nearest place to study for four hours. At 12 a.m. I’m too tired to productively review material, so I drive home and go to sleep. After two months straight of this business, I realize that I need a change. It’s now a Sunday morning, and I try to finish all of my work and meetings. It’s 11 o’clock at night when I finish, and I reward myself with time off. I sprawl out on my bed and open Spotify, doing nothing and thinking nothing and being nothing for two hours. In these moments I’m reminded that I’m not a robot. I’m a human, and I can’t spend my entire life checking things off my “to do” list. And though I have an exam, two writing assignments, a column, work for one job, side projects for the other job and general homework to do the following week, doing something that I love for myself grounds me in perspective. Everything will get done. Like it always has. Like it
always will. Scheduling time for myself has quickly become a necessity due to business this semester. It isn’t unproductive. It isn’t selfish. It isn’t wasting time. If I’m not giving myself time to recover, I’m bound to break down from the infinite forces pulling me in every direction. I need it — both to feel better and remind myself that I’m a human, not a robot. The idea of making time for yourself is also scientifically backed. Getting more sleep, napping during the day and taking time away from work are all associated with increased productivity. Evidence shows that we’re most productive when we spend no more than 90 minutes on a specific activity. If you don’t have time in your day to get everything done, sometimes the best solution is to spend less time doing things. You’ll be more productive in the long run. It’s tough on this campus. We all have student organizations, clubs, jobs, classes and responsibilities laying more commitments on us than ever before. But the solution isn’t to always work more. Sometimes, taking time to yourself allows you to get more done in a shorter time. After you finish this paragraph, get out your planner and make time for yourself; trust me, you need it. — Michael Schramm can be reached at mschramm@umich.edu.
LAUREL RUZA | VIEWPOINT
It’s On Us: A week of action
This week is the first National Week of Action for the “It’s On Us” campaign. “It’s On Us” is a campaign that was launched by the White House and the Center for American Progress’ Generation Progress, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., this past September. This campaign was launched in order to fundamentally shift the way in which we think about sexual assault. It’s an opportunity to say, “not on our campus,” “not anymore” and build off the amazing momentum that has already been generated by groups such as #CarryThatWeight and I Will. As President Barack Obama said when launching this campaign, “It’s on all of us to reject the quiet tolerance of sexual assault.” The goal of “It’s On Us” is to engage students across campuses in an effort to curb campus sexual assault and empower them to be part of the solution rather than passive bystanders to the problem. It calls on all of us to step up and pledge to create safe environments on our campus. Generation Progress made contact and a coalition of student leaders was formed. Given the current campus climate and the ways in which issues surrounding sexual assault have been handled in the past, we believe many students are becoming disheartened by what they are seeing. Based on this, we chose to lead a series of inclusive roundtable discussions to come up with tangible policy solutions on how to continue to improve sexual assault prevention throughout our college careers. We also aimed to evaluate our
responsibilities as individuals and as a community. In order to do this, the other student leaders and I felt it was best for this event to be removed from student organization affiliation and be a nonpartisan space where all students felt comfortable expressing their views and opinions. Throughout the week, I came together with other campus leaders and a wide range of students. The student groups ranged from freshmen still exposed to first-year sexual assault prevention programming to law students who have limited exposure to our University’s programming or misconduct policy. During the roundtables, we broke off into small groups with student facilitators leading the discussion, and brainstormed ways in which the University can ensure each student has and knows what resources are available for students on campus. We also dialogued about what we as students can do to create an environment where sexual assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported and empowered. Many action items were generated, including broadening the traditional narratives regarding sexual assault. The conversation currently tends to revolve around assaults committed by strangers or assaults that occur at fraternity parties. Yet, studies have shown perpetrators of sexual assault are often friends or acquaintances of the person they are assaulting. This conversation also needs to expand to include individuals with varying identities, including: non-binary genders, sexual orientation, racial and ethnic
minorities, ability status and religious affiliation. Our current conversations lack diversity and therefore inclusivity. We know that assaults affect already marginalized communities and many students often feel even more isolated and vulnerable after an assault. At the roundtables, we discussed University-sponsored annual sexual misconduct educational programming. The University has beneficial programs in place currently for freshmen, and expanding these programs would provide positive feedback as well as an opportunity for potential changes to increase their overall effectiveness. It’s on us to start the conversation, but more importantly, it’s on our campus community to listen and act. These roundtables were the start to inclusive productive conversations, but by no means are they our end goal. Conversations and policy solutions should be collaborative between survivors, the student body and administrators. Our collaboration is needed to authentically address the needs of survivors while acting in effective, legal parameters. There are steps we need to take, and the planners, facilitators and many participants will be meeting in the coming weeks to determine various impactful student-led initiatives moving forward. In the meantime, we all must pledge to actively intervene when we think our friends are in danger. We pledge to take our peers’ and our own safety seriously. It’s on all of us to change the culture on campus and prevent sexual assault. Laurel Ruza is a Public Policy senior.
STUDENTS ALLIED FOR FREEDOM AND EQUALITY | VIEWPOINT
A SAFE statement of intent
A similar version of this article was previously published on SAFE’s website. As students at the University of Michigan who are committed to the self-determination and humanity of all people, we, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, call for our University to stand by its history of supporting civil and social justice movements, as well as holding this institution to the high standard of leaders and best. We specifically call upon the University to divest from companies that profit from the systematic violation of Palestinian human rights. In standing by our moral obligations as University students, SAFE officially announces the launch of its #UMDivest campaign for the 2014-15 academic year. Palestinian suffering is thoroughly documented by scholars, human rights activists, and world leaders. Since 1967, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been living under Israeli military occupation. This occupation is recognized as illegal under international law, with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories subjected to a system of discriminatory and arbitrary laws. Segregated bus systems, restricted freedom of movement and routine incarceration without due process are part of Palestinians’ daily real-
ity. In clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Israeli government also forcibly removes Palestinians from their homes which are demolished to make way for illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. More than 500,000 settlers currently inhabit the West Bank in over 100 illegal settlements, which are subsidized and facilitated by the Israeli government. As part of the occupation, Palestinians in Gaza also face routine military assaults killing thousands of civilians. Most recently, this past summer’s Operation Protective Edge, a 50-day long war on Gaza in which the Israel Defense Forces killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, wounded 11,000 and displaced 500,000 Gaza residents. In the case of the University of Michigan, we are invested in multiple companies that aid and facilitate this system of violence and oppression against Palestinians. Two examples include Caterpillar and United Technologies. The following are examples of the crimes our University funds: Caterpillar “manufactures and provides bulldozers and civil engineering tools ... used in demolitions of Palestinians’ houses in the occupied territories, in the construction of the separation wall
and settlements on Palestinian land, in military incursions and as weapons. The Israeli army has used unmanned D9 bulldozers (Dawn Thunder) in the December 2008 attacks in Gaza” and in the murder of Evergreen State College student Rachel Corrie. United Technologies “produces Blackhawk helicopters which are used by the Israeli military to attack Palestinian cities, refugee camps and villages. Many civilians have been killed in these attacks.” As our University remains invested in these companies, we as students are complicit in human rights violations. SAFE calls upon the University of Michigan student body to reflect and learn more about the current situation. We announce a year-long series of events to educate our campus and allow for open discussion on the #UMDivest initiative. We refuse to be unwillingly implicated in the oppression of others and believe that any prospect for justice and peace begins with an unconditional respect for human life and dignity. In Solidarity, Students Allied for Freedom & Equality This article was written by members of SAFE.
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Friday, November 21, 2014 — 5A
TV REVIEW
TV REVIEW
Irrelevent ‘Newsroom’ By ALEX INTNER
The portrayal of stories like this one is what “The Newsroom” does best. It’s sometimes This season of “The downright thrilling to watch Newsroom” almost didn’t these characters maneuver happen. HBO spent months in through situations like covering negotiations the terrorist attack in Boston. with Aaron When Sorkin’s dialogue isn’t Sorkin relying on platitudes and (“The Social over-the-top philosophical Network”), ramblings and focuses instead who finally on fast-paced problem solving, Season 3 agreed to it elevates each sequence to a Premiere return for much higher level, as evident six final Sundays at 9 p.m. in the first few moments when episodes. The HBO they’re figuring out exactly what announcement happened so they could launch came after into their coverage. a problematic season with too many boneheaded and frustrating moments to make up for the truly special ones. Sorkin often has trouble reigning himself in, loading the dialogue with pretentious, broad claims about politics and America. While the final season premiere is a bit more controlled, “The Newsroom” still gets lost in the Intermixed with the Boston big statements. storyline was some shoddy setup “The Newsroom” follows for the season to come. Sorkin the inner workings of “News forms his story so that there are Night with Will McAvoy” on 30 to 45 second hints dropped the fictional network ACN. The throughout the premiere, and it premiere picks up after the all blows up in the final scene. Genoa incident wrecked the That last sequence essentially program’s reputation with them dumped a full episode’s worth getting a chance to “do the news of storylines in about seven correctly” during the week of minutes. It’s a strange choice for the Boston Marathon bombings. Sorkin, and it doesn’t quite pay In the premiere, the staff tries to off. There’s a way to structure figure out what happened on the this differently so that both day of the attack itself and the Neal (Dev Patel, “Slumdog manhunt that lasted for a week Millionaire”) committing after. espionage and Sloan’s (Olivia Daily Arts Writer
B-
The Newsroom
STARZ
A lot of sun action goin on here.
‘Missing’ navigates past and present New Starz drama springboards off strong main cast By MATTHEW BARNAUSKAS Daily Arts Writer
Starz’s new eight-episode miniseries “The Missing,” produced by BBC One, opens with Tony Hughes A (James Nesbitt, The Missing “The Series Hobbit”) Premiere in a French Saturdays at 9 p.m. pub as he Starz stares at a young teenager. He proceeds to ask the kid how old he is. “Thirteen,” the boy says. The boy’s mother looks back with apprehension. “I’m sorry, I have a son his age,” Tony tries to reassure her. However, Tony’s son Oliver (newcomer Oliver Hunt) has been missing for eight years, and a puzzle bridging the past and present begins to unfold. Alternating between the initial disappearance of Oliver eight years prior and Tony’s renewed search in 2014, “The Missing” lays its pieces expertly in its premiere episode “Eden.” Visually, “The Missing” immediately captures the dynamic between f lashbacks and the present. The past is rendered in bright colors, a vibrant life for Tony, his wife Emily (Frances O’Conner,
“A.I.”) and Oliver. As soon as Oliver goes missing, this ideal vision gives way to darker tones. The present, with muted colors, seems sapped of life and happiness for any of the characters. The welcoming French town of Chalons du Bois becomes an isolating place for the characters that return to it. Nesbitt is fantastic as a man grasping for straws in his search for a needle in a haystack. Nesbitt’s joy in the opening f lashbacks gives way to panic then transforms to quiet desperation in the present day. His situation is described by retired French detective Julien Baptiste (Tchéky Karyo, “The Patriot”), “Tony is in Chalons du Bois because there he can believe that his son is not gone — that somewhere he is now 13 years old and playing football and starting to think about girls.” As he wanders through the French town, Tony is a small, lost man dwarfed by the mystery around him and overwhelmed by the fanatical belief that his son is still alive. While Tony holds onto the past, others try to move forward. Emily seems to have started a new life with Mark Walsh (Jason Flemyng, “X-Men: First Class”). However, Oliver’s specter is a shadow over her and its hold on her is worsened as she becomes aware of Tony’s search. Although Julien discourages Tony from going any further when he says,
“This isn’t good for you,” he slowly finds himself climbing down the rabbit hole again. Tony’s obsession is a black hole that draws others in no matter how much they try and escape it. Written by Harry and Jack Williams (“Roman’s Empire”), “The Missing” skillfully handles its interlocking past and present. The mystery around Tony’s search begs the question “What will happen?” as Tony is joined by Julien to follow the one lead he has. Meanwhile, the state of the characters in the present asks, “What happened?” Both questions are equally enticing, and the secret of Oliver’s fate serves as the focal point — but just as intriguing are the reasons for Tony and Emily’s separation and the origin of Julien’s limp. “The Missing” drops hints in the present around the initial investigation eight years ago that naturally lead to curiosity about what went wrong, while events and details from the past echo hauntingly in the present. The title “Eden” captures the sanctuary of happiness for Tony’s family in the past that is ripped away suddenly. While in the present, the new gardens that people have made are in danger of being torn down by Tony’s temptation to find the truth. “The Missing” is a visually and cerebrally engrossing series whose answers may destroy any semblance of safety left for the characters’ past and present.
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Sorkin too interested in moralizing.
Munn, “Attack of the Show”) discovery of a potential hostile takeover of ACN’s parent company would both have a much greater impact. Those are both gripping ideas on their own; however, by forcing all the season’s framework into one scene, they lose their significance. In the premiere, Sorkin couldn’t shake one of the problems that plagued the series in its first two seasons. Throughout the episode, he tries to make statements about what makes quality journalism, and those claims don’t always resonate. He couldn’t help but bring in the John King mishap and show how his heroes don’t pass along the report because they couldn’t corroborate it. He also appeared to be flummoxed over how stories spread over the Internet, bringing in and dismissing Twitter coverage and other forms of online journalism at many points during the episode. These plot contrivances make “The Newsroom” frustrating. There’s a version of this program written by Sorkin that could be one of the best shows out there. However, Sorkin is too interested in the grand statements to worry about coherent setup for the season. That’s the problem with trying to tell an ambitious story; if you allow yourself to go too far into the truisms and lose some of the basics, you end up making television that loses its meaning.
TV REVIEW
‘Getting’ hilarious TV By HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK Daily Arts Writer
As a general rule, hospitals are serious places. In the public imagination, they’re cold and sterile, with their B+ fluorescentlit hallways, Getting On blanched Season 2 walls and Premiere wards that Sundays, radiate a 10:30 p.m. paranoid vibe of impending HBO doom — warranted or not. It’s no suprise that a hospital, with its literal undertones of life and death, is one of Hollywood favorite’s backdrops. In today’s long-lived medical dramas “House” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” hospitals are morbidly glamorous, with beautiful nurses and brooding doctors who perform miraculous procedures by day and enjoy Scotch by night, all while looking irresistible in latex gloves. What do these shows lack? Well, quite frankly, a reality check, because hospitals are awkward spaces without scripts on how to act. While death is often glamorized on TV, the dark reality is that death simply
happens — usually not due to an erupted vein in a simultaneous brain-heart-kidney transplant, but rather by an old fart just kicking the bucket. So where’s the show presenting hospitals in their unglamorized glory? Enter “Getting On,” HBO’s version of the British show of the same name, a darkly comedic series following the day-to-day happenings in a geriatric hospital ward. The show premiered in November of 2013 with a short sixepisode season. Despite its brief airtime, the series stirred up enough critical praise for it to be renewed for a second season, with the raving consensus that it captured the unfiltered reality of the hospital and its irritable patients and exasperated workers, addressing the futility of life in a darkly comedic way. The core crew is back this fall for season two, made up of fasttalking Dr. Jenna James (Laurie Metcalf, “The McCarthys”), a greedy and egotistical doctor who likes to use her patients for her own research purposes; Dawn (Alex Borstein, “Family Guy”), the emotionally unstable head ward nurse who is victimized by Dr. James; Didi (Niecy Nash, “Reno 911”), a grossly underpaid nurse who
is probably the most competent and empathetic worker in the ward; and Patsy (Mel Rodriguez, “Community”), the new, sexually-confused supervising nurse romantically linked with Dawn, whose modern ideas clash with those of Dr. James. “Getting On” continues to follow the working lives of the crew with zooming close-ups à la “Office Space,” a wink at the irony of a hospital being more similar to a corporate workplace than a dramatic stage. The geriatric ward of Mt. Palms Hospital is dull, run-down and overwhelmingly depressing, as if someone drained all the color from the walls, the croaking patients and their caregivers. In such a morbid place, with death literally knocking on the door, black humor is the only way to process what’s going on. Season two promises the same bleak humor that made the first season stand out — a unique blend of situations that are at once horrible and weirdly moving. “Getting On” is the kind of show that makes it both hard to laugh and hard to cry, where doctors aren’t heroic and patients aren’t sympathetic. It’s sickly, darkly and disturbingly funny because it’s real.
Arts
6A — Friday, November 21, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV NOTEBOOK
EVENT PREVIEW
The weird, amazing, freaky Deschanel duo By HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK Daily Arts Writer
COURTESY OF TONY LUCCA
“I hear CeeLo whenever I sing. I can’t help it anymore.”
Lucca brings his ‘Voice’ to Detroit Singer to host live performance ahead of album release By GREG HICKS Daily Arts Writer
Placing third on NBC’s “The Voice” in 2012, touring with Adam Levine and Kelly Clarkson in 2013 and Tony Lucca currently preparing for November 23 the release 8:00p.m. of his 8th Magic Stick, studio album, Detroit Tony Lucca has bounced from one end of the country to the next on his lifelong musical excursion, and now he’s taking a pit stop at the place where it all began. Before venturing off to Los Angeles to perform with the greats on “The Mickey Mouse Club” — Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, etc. — Lucca spent his adolescence growing up in the Detroit area. Sunday, the singer will play at Detroit’s Magic Stick with opening act Honor By August. Though Lucca was born and raised here in the Midwest,
moving out west to LA and recently down south to Nashville has given the singer a multitude of influences to draw from. “They’ve all had exceptional impacts on my career,” Lucca said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. “But it’d probably be easy for me to say Nashville (was most influential) just because within my first year being down there I’ve been working at a much stronger level. I’m only bummed I didn’t get down there sooner.” Lucca’s writing has recently stepped up its real-talk. With his most recent EP release, Drawing Board — the precursor to his upcoming full length album — the singer has taken his music in for a long confession session. “They’re very honest songs,” Lucca said. “It’s probably the most honest release I’ve had yet. Getting ready to make a full length album, I was trying to consider songs that would all fit together and I had this small handful of tunes that really just seemed to fit nicely.” Lucca is looking forward to highlighting these tracks in his show at The Magic Stick. The acclaimed Detroit venue has hosted shows by The White
Stripes, Jack Johnson, Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse and Childish Gambino. Tough acts to follow are no pressure for Lucca, however. The singer proved that performing in front of the masses (including the watchful eyes of Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, CeeLo Green and Christina Aguilera) is no reason to falter, even during the most virtuosic of performances. Lucca’s opener, Honor By August, has previously opened for acts ranging from Bon Jovi to Imagine Dragons. The group has yet to play a show in Detroit, but the band’s frontman Michael Pearsall says the city’s fans are in for the perfect musical combination. “(Tony and I) are friends, and there usually winds up being a little bit of collaboration onstage, which is something I think the fans really enjoy,” Pearsall said. “Especially when you’re on tour with another act that you get along with, you’re more excited to play and you kind of inspire each other to get out there and give it your all.” Lucca and Pearsall both currently reside in Nashville and are sure to bring their Music City mindset up to the Motor City for this Sunday’s show.
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Friday, November 21, 2014
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
In an interview with Emily Deschanel, Conan O’Brien asked whether she and her younger sister, Zooey, were competitive growing up together, considering they’re acting on the same TV network. “Well we get along very well now,” Emily said slyly. “I would kind of torture her. I was the older sister, and it was just the two of us. So I would play mental games with her. My favorite one was where I would tell her that I was from Neptune (that I was Neptunian) and I’d killed her sister, taken over her body, and I was going to kill her next.” I’d expect no less from the woman who has become, at least for me, the living embodiment of Temperance “Bones” Brennan on FOX’s nearly decade-old crime comedy-drama “Bones.” The eldest Deschanel debuted in 2005 as the brilliant, highly rational and sometimes cold anthropologist, who works with her sexy FBI sidekick to solve crime murders in the D.C. area. Her partner, Booth, is usually in charge of the more “personal” side of cases, like talking with mourning families. Bones, on the other hand, scorns relationships and cuts the crap when it comes to feelings, a sore subject between the two. Once, exasperated with her hyper-
DOWN 1 Feelings
2 Make official 3 Suit material 4 “Shame on you!” 5 Excellently 6 Vet sch. course 7 TV monitor 8 Rectangular links area, usually 9 Minor roads 10 Lasso 11 Steam 12 Curling slider 13 Legendary guy traditionally wearing black boots 15 What mayo might be 21 Grand style 23 Gamut 24 Make dirty 25 Wine choice 27 Kind of map 29 Social worker? 30 Island garland 31 Cook’s supply 33 Pester 34 Norm: Abbr.
35 It might be electric 36 “__ you happy now?” 38 Any day now 39 Young raptors 43 Spring bloomer 45 Loads 46 Renée Fleming’s field 47 Spring time 48 Brings in
50 Drive forward 51 Western omen 52 “__ go!” 54 Rounded tool part 55 Smell 58 Old films channel 59 “The __ Sell Out”: 1967 rock album 60 Nurse
By MARA MACLEAN Daily Arts Writer
Following Detroit’s historic bankruptcy ruling on Nov. 7, the Grand Bargain’s approval
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them.” Who’s that girl? It’s Jess! More specifically, it’s Jessica Day, the “adorkable” lead of FOX’s “New Girl,” played by Emily’s four-years-younger sister, Zooey. When Jess’s character was imagined for the sitcom’s premiere in 2011, FOX envisioned a unique female lead who would’ve been a side character in other shows. Zooey, already cast, requested not to be the “classic wife” character,
Detroit: an emblem of fashion and attitude
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FOR RENT
“I would torture her ... I would tell her I was from Neptune.”
but instead play an exaggerated version of herself: a bumbling dork with unbridled optimism who happily wears her heart on her sleeve. After finding immediate success in 2011, the show is now in its fourth season. So what is it about these two contrasting doe-eyed LA sisters that’s so remarkable? How are they different from the pale princesses Dakota and Elle Fanning? Or the twin terrors Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen? It’s because the Deschanels are weird. Like, Neptunian weird. When I first started watching “Bones” in middle school, Emily made plucking eyeballs out of an elevator shaft look cool. Then “New Girl” came along in high school and Zooey called out a judge, saying, “I brake for birds. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it just slightly cuter. And that doesn’t mean I’m not smart and tough and strong,” making me suddenly want to pull out my thick glasses again and let down my carefully headbanded bangs. Bones and Jess may be stark opposites of each other, but they’re similar in their freakiness. Whether they’re alien or Californian, two things are certain: the Deschanel sisters are true to themselves and their TV characters. And they just happen to live in sideby-side set trailers on FOX, plotting their takeover.
DAILY STYLE BEAT
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 One may be under a jacket 5 Drift on the breeze 9 Military group 14 Basically 16 Storyteller of a sort 17 Where dogs chat? 18 Sobriety symbol 19 Hosp. test 20 Pilot’s stat. 21 Manifest 22 Harsh 24 Where donkeys make noise? 26 Fight a cold, say 28 Ages and ages 29 King of Naples in “The Tempest” 32 Fed. property overseer 33 Traveling, in a way 37 Where horses are treated for laryngitis? 40 Scrabble piece 41 Singer DiFranco 42 Alias 43 Small matter? 44 Freudian topic 45 Where lions practice intimidation? 49 Not upfront 53 Show 54 Historic opening? 56 Guernsey sound 57 Savage 58 Where birds sing? 61 Drivel 62 Most tacky 63 Pace product 64 Coltrane collaborator 65 Entreaty
realism, Booth snapped, “Hey, you know what, you really need to learn how to speak to human beings.” Predictably, Dr. Brennan retorted, “I speak six languages, two of which you’ve never heard of.” Now let’s take Emily Deschanel’s character and imagine Brennan’s complete opposite: a whimsical elementary school teacher who loves children and singing, lives with three male roommates in a quirky LA loft and is looking for love. A girl who says things like, “I know I’m gullible because a lot of people tell me that and I have no reason not to believe
Do the crossword, then order one. store.michigandaily.com
sent a sigh of relief throughout the city and surrounding suburbs. With Michigan’s Comeback Kid, Rick Snyder, at the helm, and a horde of young creatives hoping to take part in Detroit’s revitalization, the city is brimming with potential. And with energy and creativity comes innovation; Detroit is experiencing the unique and rare moment where fashion meets attitude. As Ben Affleck said in a recent interview, Detroit has that “Hey, we’re on the comeback” kind of spirit. But Affleck is tapping into an artistic process that has been in the works for decades. Companies like Made in Detroit and Detroit vs. Everybody, among others, have emerged as leaders in the proDetroit movement. The Michigan Daily spoke with the founder of Ink Detroit, Paul Marcial, to talk about the motives and ideas behind his company. Marcial noted that the idea came about when he and his partner, Steven Mansour, realized the need for Detroit pride T-shirts that were positive, as opposed to earlier concepts that portrayed a more negative image of the city. “We wanted something fun and gritty at the same time, something that reflects the character of the city,” Marcial said. Marcial, who has roots in Detroit, constantly promotes the city as the Paris of the Midwest. He believes there is a reason Detroit natives have remained proud despite the bankruptcy and negative media coverage in the past two years. “Creative people in the area — the ingenuity and the engineers — when you get a lot of creatives and entrepreneurs together and people that can actually make things, it’s amazing what you get,” Marcial said. In order for growth to accelerate, suburbanites need a reason to come to the city — something that makes it cool and stylish. “That’s a key element, when you get all of those creative people moving downtown and making areas like Midtown a
hot spot, that’s what you need to rebuild a city,” he added. Because of Detroit’s unique mix of business owners and artists, there is a pro-Detroit shirt to reflect a variety of opinions on the city. For a Detroiter born to represent, Made in Detroit creates pieces to advertise a city that was built with forearm and hammer, a place that is proud of its automotive heritage. For a simple concept that holds a strong message, “Detroit vs. Everybody” garments sport a saying that demands the respect Detroit deserves. To echo the idea, Big Sean, Eminem, Danny Brown and others recently collaborated on the single “Detroit vs. Everybody,” released Nov. 10.
“We wanted something fun and gritty at the same time.” For those tapped into the Detroit art scene, Aptemal Clothing, founded in 2007, promotes artists who have dedicated their lives to investing in re-building Detroit with their “Detroit Hustles Harder” T-shirts and crop tops. Finally, Ink Detroit provides a positive yet gritty representation of the beloved city. Their “I Heart Detroit” crewneck and “Detroit Skull” T-shirt are the company’s bestsellers. Ink Detroit and Aptemal Clothing are just a few companies that have provided Detroiters with the unique opportunity to dress to reflect the feelings and energy of the city. Whether one sports the classic “Detroit City” like Ben Affleck or a “Made in Detroit” like Kid Rock, Detroit supporters everywhere are sharing their pride through their style choices. What better way to promote growth than stamp it across your chest?
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Friday, November 21, 2014 — 7A
Wolverines survive Detroit By MAX BULTMAN Daily Sports Writer
Bogged down by a sloppy start, the Michigan men’s basketball team found itself tied with Detroit, 52-52, with just five minutes to play. The Titans had just chipped away a nine-point Wolverine lead on the back of guard Juwan Howard 62 DETROIT Jr. — son of MICHIGAN 71 Michigan great and Fab Five member Juwan Howard — and were in position to make a late push for an upset. But the Wolverines simply wouldn’t let it happen. Michigan’s “big three” — junior guard Caris LeVert, sophomore forward Zak Irvin and sophomore guard Derrick Walton Jr. — put up 16 of Michigan’s final 19 points down the stretch to put away Detroit, 71-62. LeVert led Michigan (3-0) with 21 points, nine rebounds and three assists, and Howard led all scorers with 24 points. Coming off a sluggish start in the first half, LeVert and company made their presence felt after the break behind 17 second-half points from the junior captain, who scored 10 straight to give Michigan a 43-34 lead and all the momentum. “I got an easy layup in transition, and I felt my rhythm coming back a little bit,” LeVert said. “I took it upon myself to be a little more aggressive. The coaches put the ball in my hands and had a great deal of confidence in me. I just wanted to come through for the team.” The Wolverine run started when Irvin and redshirt freshman forward Mark Donnal forced a turnover on a trap behind the arc, and while Irvin missed the transition 3-pointer,
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
The Michigan women’s basketball team was blown out in its first road game.
Red-hot Pittsburgh offense downs ‘M’ By JACOB GASE Daily Sports Writer
TERESA MATHEW/Daily
Junior guard Caris LeVert scored a team-high 21 points as the Wolverines pulled away late to beat Detroit, 71-62.
the increased energy on defense made a noticeable difference. Donnal added a block on the next Detroit possession, and LeVert took a steal coast-to-coast for a lay-in two minutes later to give the Wolverines a 35-34 lead that they would relinquish only momentarily on Howard’s and-1 layup to tie the game. Over the course of LeVert’s takeover, the Michigan defense held Detroit without a point for six minutes. “That was something definitely, at halftime, that was an adjustment we wanted to make,” Irvin said. “Just heat ‘em up a little bit. When our defense turns into our offense, we’re pretty good.” In the first half, though, Michigan showed no reason to believe an offensive outburst was coming. The Wolverines started slowly and didn’t break out of it until the half’s final minutes,
ultimately shooting just 10-for29 from the floor and 3-for-12 on 3-pointers in the first half. Still, midway through the frame, they found themselves up by a bucket despite their sloppy play. Even Irvin, usually a surehanded shooter, wasn’t able to get going initially, starting 1-for8 from the field. “We really just weren’t making shots,” Irvin said. “We got sped up a little bit with the way they were playing defensively. “We figured we were going to see that — pressuring the ball a lot, (trying to) take away our offense. We’ve just to stay poised and stay in the flow of our game and not get sped up.” Irvin sank two triples to give the Wolverines a lead late in the first, but a put-back jumper at the buzzer by Detroit guard Anton Wilson sent the Titans into the break up a point, 28-27. Riding some carry-over momentum, the Titans came out
firing the second frame, putting up six points in the first minuteand-a-half. But once Michigan turned up its defensive intensity and LeVert got going, the Titans had to rely on Howard to keep them in it. And for a while, he did, but the Wolverines quieted the Detroit comeback with a decisive 11-point run on the shoulders of their big three. LeVert, Irvin and Walton combined for 45 of the team’s 71 total points. After his slow start, Irvin finished with 18 points on 4-for10 shooting from three, while Walton posted six boards to accompany his 16 points. But ultimately, it was LeVert’s takeover that swung the game for Michigan. “He’s one of those guys that’s multi-dimensional,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “He’s so quick and he can get into the paint. … That was big for us.”
Michigan opens B1G play vs. Penn St. First meeting since Nittany Lions ended Wolverines’ season in 2013-14 By JEREMY SUMMIT Daily Sports Editor
This weekend is personal for the Michigan hockey team. The Wolverines (4-5) will open Big Ten play with a bitter taste in their mouths when they host Penn State (6-2-2) for a weekend series. While Michigan hasn’t had the start it would’ve liked to begin the 2014-15 campaign, the ending of last season was far more tormenting. The simple utterance of ‘Penn State’ might still haunt some Wolverine fans after the Nittany Lions, who won, 2-1, in a double-overtime loss against Penn State in the inaugural Big Ten Tournament. The loss left multiple Wolverines with tears in their eyes. “That was a tough loss for our team,” said junior forward Andrew Copp. “If we win that
game, we’re in the (NCAA) tournament. There’s some shoulda, coulda, woulda in our minds leaving that rink. … A lot of guys in that room remember that feeling.” All signs point toward a hostile meeting between these two conference foes, especially after the Nittany Lions, in their first-ever season as a Division-I hockey program, were surprisingly the ones that owned the Wolverines. Penn State had just four conference wins all year, but three of those came against Michigan. “That doesn’t go forgotten,” Berenson said. “They were a hard team to play against. They probably had their best games against us, and we’re a team that has to bounce back. We know a lot more about them now than we did a year ago. We’re a different team, and we’ve got to be a better team than we were last year.”
A fresh season doesn’t help erase the melancholic memories, though. And now, these two teams are poised to meet while trending in opposing directions. It would have been hard to predict the Nittany Lions would be atop the Big Ten Standings while Michigan lingers near the bottom as it stands now. This weekend will determine whether Penn State’s success is legitimate and whether Michigan’s funk is a thing of the past. The Wolverines are coming off a weekend sweep of lowly American International in which defensive concerns continued to run prevalent. The Yellow Jackets scored five total goals over the weekend despite averaging just 2.30 per game all season. Michigan’s blue line corps is far from elite, and that’s a cause for concern when it will face off against the
“We know a lot more about them now that we did a year ago.”
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Zach Nagelvoort made 63 saves against the Nittany Lions in the 2014 Big Ten Tournament, but the Wolverines lost, 2-1.
Nittany Lions. “We saw some breakdowns last weekend where we weren’t as detail-oriented as we need to be,” Berenson said. “Maybe because we had the lead, but regardless we’ve got to play better defensively. We can’t be giving up three goals a game and expect to win.” Penn State ranks among the nation’s best in goals scored with a hefty average of 3.80 per game. It boasts the nation’s leading scorer in forward Taylor Holstrom, too, who has 16 points thus far with three goals and 13 assists. But if Michigan’s blue liners aren’t able to stymie the Nittany Lions’ potent attack, there might be one man who can. Sophomore goaltender Zach Nagelvoort picked up his first two wins of the season in net last weekend, and with that came some much-needed confidence. Most importantly, he has a respectable track record against Penn State. In the same heartbreaking loss to the Nittany Lions last year, Nagelvoort set a school record for saves in a single game. The Holland native stopped 63 of 65 shots in a remarkable outing when the defense in front of him couldn’t do much to keep opposing shot attempts off target. “(The game) was disappointing,” Nagelvoort said. “There were a lot of guys that played really well in that game. … No one was giving anything up easy, so it was good but at the end of the day they came out on top, and I don’t think our guys are going to forget that. “I think that’s going to be something that will be fueling us for not just this game, but every time we play them this year.” But this Penn State squad isn’t the same one that broke the Michigan players’ hearts last season. They’re much improved, which will mean an even larger uphill battle for each Wolverine that wants to fulfill the sweet feeling of revenge.
In its first two games, the Michigan women’s basketball team has struggled to rebound the ball but has escaped MICHIGAN 64 with two PITTSBURGH 85 victories by outshooting its opponents. In the Wolverines’ first road game of the season against Pittsburgh, the script completely flipped. Led by senior forward Cyesha Goree’s 16 boards, Michigan dominated the glass, outrebounding the Panthers, 45-29. But the offensive battle was a different story. Despite having four players in double figures for the thirdstraight game, the Wolverines (2-1) shot just 38 percent from the field. Pittsburgh (2-1), on the other hand, knocked down over half of its shots — including 13 of 26 3-pointers — en route to an 85-64 victory. “(The Panthers) definitely shot the ball really well,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “Every time we did make a run, it was like they hit a dagger three, and then easily followed it up with another three.” Though they won the war in the paint, frequent turnovers prevented the Wolverines from getting momentum, save for a 9-0 burst to start the second half. Freshman guard Katelynn Flaherty had six turnovers despite her 13 points, and Goree had five before she turned up her game in the second half. Overall, the Panthers picked up 31 points off of turnovers. “If we took care of the ball a little more, coming in and winning the rebounding battle, it would’ve been a different ballgame,” Goree said. “(Progress) comes from taking care of the ball, making smart decisions, being disciplined.” Pittsburgh’s offense came out strong from the get-go, and Michigan simply couldn’t match its energy level. A quick 17-7
opening run left the Wolverines battling a double-digit deficit for the majority of the game. Even Michigan’s second-half surge was snuffed out when the Panthers responded with a 15-4 stretch. On the other side of the court, Pittsburgh did most of its damage from beyond the arc. Point guard Brianna Kiesel led the team with 27 points and six 3-pointers, while guard Fred Potvin came off the bench to deliver five 3-point daggers of her own, burying the Wolverines in the second half. The Wolverines’ shooters went
“It was like they hit a dagger three, then easily followed up with another.”
uncharacteristically cold, which prevented them from getting back into the game. Sophomore guard Siera Thompson went 0-f0r-6 from the floor, snapping her record streak of 36 straight games with a 3-pointer to start her career. Flaherty threw up 17 shots, but only five found the net. Senior guard Shannon Smith scored a team-high 17 points, and junior Madison Ristovski added 11 off the bench, but neither could energize an offense that came out flat from the start. “I hope that’s something our younger kids will really see,” Barnes Arico said. “You can’t go on the road (and win easily), especially when a team is coming off a loss and not shooting the ball very well and playing at home. (The Panthers) had their crowd, they had their energy and they really came out of the gates. They had a lot of confidence.” As the Wolverines head back home to face Western Michigan on Sunday, Barnes Arico said they will look to increase their effort and intensity to avoid a repeat performance. “It’s a wake-up call, not only for the freshman but for us seniors as well,” Goree said. “We’ve got to put everything together or it’s going to be a long ride.”
8A — Friday, November 21, 2014
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November 22, 2014: Maryland
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L A S T
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TABLE OF CONTENTS UP 3B CATCHING WITH STEVEN THREET: The former QB has firsthand experience of tough seasons.
BAND 4B FROM TO GRIDIRON:
Michigan will celebrate 12 seniors Saturday, including some you don’t know.
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BREAKING DOWN THE TERPS: Can the Wolverines end the home slate on a positive note? We think so.
PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
Saturday could mark Michigan football coach Brady Hoke’s last game at Michigan Stadium. Last year, the Wolverines’ 19-game home winning streak ended.
The Daily football writers do their best to predict, against the spread, what happens in the 2014 football season. (Disclaimer: Please don’t follow our advice.)
Alexa Dettelbach
Alejandro Zúñiga
Greg Garno
Max Cohen
Maryland at Michigan (-5)
Michigan
Michigan
Maryland
Maryland
Colorado vs. No. 2 Oregon (-32.5)
Oregon
Oregon
Wake Forest
Oregon
Boston College vs. Florida State (-19)
Florida State
Florida State
Florida State
Boston College
Vanderbilt vs. No. 4 Mississippi St. (-30.5)
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt
Mississippi St
Mississippi St
Indiana vs. No. 6 Ohio State (-34.5)
Ohio State
Ohio State
Ohio State
Ohio State
Oklahoma State vs. No. 7 Baylor (-28.5)
Oklahoma State
Baylor
Baylor
Baylor
No. 8 Mississippi (-3.5) vs. Arkansas
Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi
No. 19 USC vs. No. 9 UCLA (-3.5)
USC
UCLA
UCLA
UCLA
Rutgers vs. No. 11 Michigan State (-22)
Michigan State
Rutgers
Michigan State
Rutgers
No. 12 Kansas State vs. West Virginia (-2.5)
Kansas State
Kansas State
Kansas State
West Virginia
Washington State vs. No. 13 Arizona State (-16)
Arizona State
Arizona State
Arizona State
Arizona State
No. 15 Arizona vs. No. 17 Utah (-4)
Arizona
Utah
Arizona
Utah
No. 16 Wisconsin (-10) vs. Iowa
Iowa
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
No. 20 Mizzou vs. Tennessee (-3.5)
Mizzou
Tennessee
Mizzou
Mizzou
Kansas vs. No. 21 Oklahoma (-25)
Kansas
Kansas
Kansas
Kansas
Georgia State vs. No. 22 Clemson (-40.5)
Georgia State
Georgia State
Clemson
Clemson
No. 25 Minnesota vs. No. 23 Nebraska (-10)
Nebraska
Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota
No. 24 Louisville vs. Notre Dame (-3)
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
The State News vs. The Michigan Daily (-10)
TMD
TMD
The State News
TMD
Overall
85-95
86-94
87-93
84-96
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FootballSaturday, November 21, 2014
For Threet, tough season not unfamiliar Threet started for the Wolverines under Rich Rod in 2008 By GREG GARNO Managing Sports Editor
People such as Brady Hoke, Jake Ryan and Jack Miller are all correct: No one knows what the Michigan football team is going through this season. They don’t know about the distractions off the field that pop up like a surprise quiz. They don’t struggle with the learning curve — which can feel more like a mountain — that comes with a new offense. Nor do they know about handling thousands upon thousands of fans who are quick to speak out. But if there’s one person who does know, it might be Steven Threet. Yes, the same guy who played one year with the Wolverines may be one the people most familiar with what this year’s team has had to handle. Because if anyone has had to experience a team in a down year with a new offense and the expectations that come with one of the most recognizable programs, it’s him. For nearly every fan who has criticized the program this year, Ryan, a fifth-year senior linebacker, has been there to say, “Fans don’t see what we do at Schembechler Hall. They don’t know what we do behind the scenes.” And Threet is here to tell you he’s right. “The locker room always tends to come together in times of difficulty, or any time you get some adversity,” Threet said. “There’s a lot of turmoil outside of the football building, and in times like that, it’s good to look inward to guys who are going through the exact same situation and work hard for each other.” Indeed, Threet says he did the same thing when Michigan
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Former Michigan quarterback Steven Threet understands to some degree the frustrations of this year’s football team. He suffered through a 3-9 season in 2008.
finished 3-9 in 2008, his lone year in the program. That season, Threet listened as fans complained about a coach, losing to rivals and the abysmal record. He heard people call for the other quarterback, Nick Sheridan, to take his place. Now, many of those same complaints have come back, as the Wolverines sit 5-5 facing the scenario where losing out would mean missing a bowl berth. They’ve lost to rivals Notre Dame and Michigan State in humiliating fashion, and face the possibility of losing to Ohio State. “These guys want to perform at their best,” Threet said. “But there’s the added motivation of having your back against the wall and your coach’s back against the wall that plays into it.” After both coaches who recruited him at Georgia Tech took jobs elsewhere, Threet
“The locker room always tends to come together.”
transferred to Michigan, only to find that the program was going through a change of its own. But he stuck with new coach Rich Rodriguez’s team for another year, which he would later say was like “coming to Michigan to go to be a doctor, and then they get rid of the medical school.” A pocket passer by experience, the No. 9 recruit in 2007 by Rivals.com out of Adrian, Threet didn’t fit the spread offense Rodriguez implemented. His 6-foot-6, lengthy frame was perfect for throwing long strikes down the field, not running around the line for a first down as he was asked to do. Much like Threet, fifthyear senior quarterback Devin Gardner, too, has had to pick up a new offense that doesn’t fit his skillset. This season, Gardner has thrown for over 200 yards
only once and has otherwise been contained from running out of the pocket to make plays. It’s not that the switch can’t be made, but it’s not easy to do it so suddenly, especially when you’re thrust into the role like Threet and Gardner both were. “It’s like learning a new variation of a language,” Threet said. “There’s a whole learning curve, and repetition plays a role in that. “It takes time to hone that and get that system down.” Certainly, neither is the only quarterback to make such a radical change in offense in program history, but they have been some of the unfortunate two who have made the transition first. Now working in consulting in sports content development, Threet has watched as this year’s group goes through its
“It’s about trying to make the best outcome you can.”
unprecedented season. And in a down year, Threet isn’t one to rally the troops or come aiding in their defense. After all, he opted to leave for his third team, Arizona State, after his lone year of playing in Ann Arbor. But he speaks from experience when he says that handling this season and winning isn’t as easy as it may seem. “At this point in the season, it’s about trying to make the best outcome you can with what situation you’re in,” Threet said. “You can’t change what happened in the first 10 games of the year, but getting the opportunity to accomplish some positive things is a big motivator. You want to leave a positive taste in your mouth at the end of the year.” He, as much as anybody, would know how much of a difference that would make.
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FROM HIGH SCHOOL BAND TO THE MICHIGAN WOLVERINES By MAX COHEN Daily Sports Editor
When Alex Mitropoulos-Rundus was a teenager, he spent his fall weekends playing in the shadow of Michigan Stadium at Pioneer High School. The fifth-year senior defensive lineman on the Michigan football team is one in a long line of Wolverines to have played at Pioneer, where college football dreams and the block ‘M’ loom over each snap. Some of those players at Pioneer — like Michigan redshirt sophomore running back Drake Johnson — spent their time in high school envisioning scoring touchdowns in the Big House, where thousands would roar at their arrival in the end zone. But for Mitropoulos-Rundus, the dream was never to play in the stadium across the street. Though he was present on the football field every weekend, he marched to the beat of his own drum. Literally. When he stepped onto the field at Pioneer, he didn’t wear shoulder pads, a helmet or even a football jersey. He wore a marching band uniform. Mitropoulos-Rundus didn’t play football at Pioneer. He played the drums as a full-fledged member of the drumline with a quad set of drums hanging by his waist. Saturday, that kid in the Pioneer marching band will be honored on Senior Day for his three years on the Michigan football team — one as a tight end and two as a defensive lineman. He’ll be in equal standing with his teammates, some of whom are the faces of the program, the ones who have played football ever since they can remember. So how does a high school percussionist become a Michigan football player? How can the steady cadence of a drum turn into the constant thumping of football pads? Sometimes, the path is so confusing the coaches don’t even understand it. *** Football had been a part of Mitropoulos-Rundus’ life before he was in the Pioneer band; he had played the sport from sixth to ninth grade. He had always loved football but didn’t feel the same way about the Pioneer program, so he decided to pursue other interests.
Despite his separation with football, his desire to play a contact sport hadn’t subsided. Mitropoulos-Rundus chose rugby, a sport with hitting that rivals that of football, only with fewer pads. The raw roughness of the sport kept him going, filling the void that football had created. Mitropoulos-Rundus spent the spring season playing rugby for the Washtenaw Rugby Football Club. “I loved rugby,” Mitropoulos-Rundus said. “When I picked up rugby, it became my favorite sport at the time to play, but I never lost a love for football.” But his love for football manifested in different ways when he wasn’t playing the sport. While he was able to dish out punishing hits in rugby, the marching band also had its similarities to football. Being a member Pioneer’s top drumline as Mitropoulos-Rundus was during his junior and senior years of high school was no easy task. It took time, and a lot of it. The members of the drumline gave up their summers each year to get ready for the season. Instead of football camp, Mitropoulos-Rundus went to band camp. “(Football players) call it team, we call it ensemble. I think those things are so transcendent,” said David Leach, the director of bands at Pioneer. “We want to work together for a common goal.” Just like the football team, Mitropoulos-Rundus and the rest of the drumline spent their summers in the scalding heat, repeating drills over and over again so they could be on cue once the season began. And the work paid off. According to Leach, Mitropoulos-Rundus became a “very fine percussionist.” After high school, Mitropoulos-Rundus’ love of sports won out over his love for music. But, it wasn’t the Michigan football team that he joined. Freshman year, Mitropoulos-Rundus became a member of Michigan’s club rugby team. While it was a continuation of his high school experience, something was missing. The team didn’t have the discipline or organization he desired. Mitropoulos-Rundus “wanted something more.” That year, a friend mentioned Rich Rodriguez’s tryouts for the football
team to Mitropoulos-Rundus, thinking it might pique his interest. Though he had entered Michigan with no thoughts of playing football, Mitropoulos-Rundus had always been a diehard Michigan football fan. He still remembers huddling around his television with his friends in 2004, watching Braylon Edwards dominate Michigan State in the triple-overtime victory. Every win over the Spartans and Ohio State was sweet as a fan, something he could only imagine being a part of. So he spent hours upon hours in the weight room, working on increasing his strength and explosiveness during his freshman year, in preparation for the time he’d be able to try out for the team. *** Mitropoulos-Rundus received the opportunity in January of his sophomore year, after the 2011 Michigan football season. Without tapes of him playing football in high school, the Wolverines had no information on Mitropoulos-Rundus. Marching band and rugby videos would be of little use. His tryout took place around 6 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. The early rise was the first test to see who would have the fortitude to make the team. The team’s graduate assistant coaches did the evaluations, and MitropoulusRundus remembers the morning going by quickly. About 20 players participated in the tryout; Mitropoulos-Rundus found out he was one of four to make the team three days later. “I was shocked at first; I was really happy,” Mitropoulos-Rundus said. “I was like, ‘I’m ready to get to work.’ If they saw that in me, then I want to show them what I have, and I want to put in the work to be on this team.” But Mitropoulos-Rundus knew the harder part had yet to come. He needed to prove he belonged. Bob Lopez — then the director of football operations — and the graduate assistants knew he hadn’t played high school football, but Mitropoulos-Rundus isn’t sure to this day if the message had been passed up the chain of command to the other coaches. He hoped to play hard enough that nothing would arouse their suspicions. His plan worked.
“I didn’t know when he first started,” Hoke said Wednesday. “I had no clue.” As it turns out, Hoke didn’t find out that Mitropoulos-Rundus hadn’t played high school football until this season. *** The first few workouts of Mitropoulos-Rundus’ football career at Michigan were difficult, different from anything he’d ever experienced. But with the football team, he found what he’d been searching for. “It was unlike anything I’d ever done,” he said. “Just the discipline and how everything needs to be a particular way, something as trivial as tucking in your shirt. If that came undone, they would yell at you and say, ‘Get that in line.’ They made you focus on the little things.” But it was also the big things that challenged MitropoulosRundus. Big things like Taylor Lewan, who became an NFL first-round draft pick. As a scout team player, Mitropoulos-Rundus regularly went against Lewan and Michigan’s other offensive line starters in practice, mimicking the defensive schemes of the Wolverines’ opponent. Each day was a challenge. After being away from the game for three years, MitropoulosRundus was facing some of the game’s
best. “To think that I competed with them and went against them every day, it’s an experience I feel like a lot of people can’t say they’ve had,” Mitropoulos-Rundus said. But those challenges are what Mitropoulos-Rundus appreciates most about being a Michigan football player. “Once in a while, they put us through a workout that’s meant to be mentally tougher than it is physically,” Mitropoulos-Rundus said. “It’s something you just don’t think you can do. You look at it and you say there’s no way.” These tests of mental strength have fueled Mitropoulos-Rundus. Through the trials and tribulations, the rewards have eventually come. And after sitting on the bench for two years, Mitropoulos-Rundus’ hard work paid off when he saw his first game action in this year’s season opener against Appalachian State. His playing time was brief and he didn’t record any statistics for the
stat sheet, but that was of little consequence. What mattered was that he could play for his beloved Wolverines, the team he’d loved his entire life. As his career has progressed, the coaches have recognized his impact every day in practice. Hoke now considers the kid who never played high school football to be “one of the best scout team players” he has. Though he has appeared in only one game, the memories he has made entering his final game at Michigan Stadium are special all the same. One of his favorites is the first game he ever dressed for, the 2012 victory over Michigan State. Another was last year’s Ohio State game, when he was inspired by his teammates’ efforts as underdogs. He admired the seniors’ decision to go for the two-point conversion with the game on the line. If a similar situation were to arise this year, Mitropoulos-Rundus would be part of that decision-making group, with the number of snaps played irrelevant. When speaking with the senior class, Hoke includes both the walk-ons and the stars. Saturday, Mitropoulos-Rundus plans to enjoy the scene during his final game in the Big House. He’ll be honored on the field with his family and senior teammates before the game, taking in all of the sights and sounds that are now familiar to him. At the end of the first quarter, he’ll look over to the corner of the end zone, in front of the student section. It’s a moment of appreciation each game for Mitropoulos-Rundus, a time to remember where he came from and how happy he is with the way things have turned out. The drumline will be playing.
PHOTO BY PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
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FootballSaturday — November 21, 2014
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Friday, November 21, 2014 // Football Saturday
PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
The Michigan defense had its best performance of the year against Northwestern. They’ll be tasked with stopping C.J. Brown and a talented recieving corps, though the Terps have a below-average rushing attack.
Behind Enemy Lines: Terps QB C.J. Brown By ALEXA DETTELBACH Daily Sports Editor
This isn’t the first rodeo for Maryland sixth-year graduate quarterback C.J. Brown, who has struggled with injuries throughout his tenure in College Park. And while Brown is finally healthy, the Terrapins’ starting quarterback is struggling — throwing nine interceptions and just 11 touchdowns on the season. But through 10 games, the Michigan native is the team’s leading rusher and has the ability to keep defenses on their toes with his mobility. The Daily sat down with Brown at Big Ten Media Day in July to discuss his return to his home state. The Michigan Daily: What
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are you most excited about with Maryland joining the Big Ten? C.J. Brown: I’m just excited for the new opportunities that we have, the new attention on our institution and how we can represent it in the big light. I think joining the Big Ten gives us a lot of opportunities. Obviously, it brings us revenue, a media rise in the market that we are in and the ability to advertise our athletic ability as well as our academics. TMD: How do you think the Big Ten can help Maryland’s program and bring it into the national spotlight, something it struggled to do in the ACC? CB: It’s by recognition. Everyone knows the Big Ten, especially in terms of football, and that’s huge for us. To go into Ann
FootballSaturday, November 21, 2014
Arbor, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, just all the different venues that they have and become more recognizable. I think we were recognizable in the ACC, but now we come to the
“There was no ‘go blue’ in our house. It was all ‘go green.’ ” Big Ten and you understand the upper-echelon games that they have really helps us. TMD: You’ve had a history of
injuries, what’s it been like getting your body and play to where you want it to be for the season? CB: For this season, it hasn’t been too bad. In the past, it’s been challenging to get knocked down and then get back up. At times, strength, mobility, confidence, it takes a wear and tear, but going into my sixth year I understand what I need to do to be successful, to make it through the season by taking every opportunity I can as it comes. TMD: You grew up in Troy, Michigan; did you grow up a Michigan fan? CB: I was absolutely not a Michigan fan. There was no “go blue” in our house. It was all “go green” in my house. Both my parents are alums of (Michigan) State, and then my sister is
studying there in the fall. TMD: How does it feel to have them on the schedule though? Are you excited to play at the Big House? CB: Absolutely, my whole family is very excited. That was the first thing we looked at when the schedule came out. Where do we play? Where do we get to go visit? We get Wisconsin, the Big House and Penn State, we get them all. So, I’m excited for the opportunity, and now I’m just ready for the season to start. TMD: Will your parents be there? CB: I’m pretty sure they’ll make the trip to that one. Honestly, they’ll probably be rooting for Maryland more than anyone else there because they have two reasons to.
Text Friday, November 21, 2014 // Football Saturday
PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
Fifth-year senior linebacker Jake Ryan will be tasked with keeping Maryland’s offense at bay, which otherwise hasn’t been better in one area or the other at making plays.
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PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
Fifth-year senior quarterback Devin Gardner hasn’t been consistent this season by any means, but he should see a Maryland pass defense that lacks depth beyond defensive back Sean Davis.
Breakdown: ‘M’ better in most areas Having lost three of last five, Maryland offense can’t keep up By ALEXA DETTELBACH Daily Sports Editor
Let’s not beat around the bush: If the Michigan football team wants to make a bowl game, it needs to beat Maryland this weekend. A matchup with rival Ohio State looms large next weekend, where they’ll be on the road against a top10 team, so the Wolverines need to take advantage of their last home game of the season against the visiting Terrapins. Michigan (3-3 Big Ten, 5-5 overall) is coming off a bye week and two straight victories, but Maryland and its offense could pose some challenges despite having lost three of its last five games. As a new member of the Big Ten, the Terrapins (3-3, 6-4) haven’t played at Michigan Stadium since 1990, when they lost, 45-17. But with Michigan native C.J. Brown leading Maryland under center, the Terrapins are ready to challenge the Wolverines’ chances at a bowl berth. Here’s a breakdown of Michigan’s
Senior Day meeting with Maryland. Michigan pass offense vs. Maryland pass defense For better or worse, fifth-year senior quarterback Devin Gardner will be playing his last game at Michigan Stadium, so expect it to be an emotional one. Gardner struggled against Northwestern two weeks ago, but the offensive line kept his jersey clean for the first time all season. The biggest question mark for the Wolverines will be junior wide receiver Devin Funchess, who has struggled with drops in recent games. And while the emergence of redshirt sophomore wideout Amara Darboh has opened things up, it could be Funchess’ last game in the Big House if he opts to head to the NFL, so expect him to do everything he can to get back on track. Michigan’s offense could also be helped by a Maryland defense that ranks No. 84 in the nation in points against and allows 238.5 yards per game through the air. But defensive back Sean Davis is fourth in the conference in tackles (94) and held Michigan State’s top receiver, Tony Lippett, to 46 yards last week, in what was his least productive game of the season. Davis will probably
shadow Funchess for much of the game, but he won’t be able to shut down the Wolverines alone. Edge: Michigan Michigan rush offense vs. Maryland rush defense The Wolverines are continuing their running back-by-committee approach and will have sophomore De’Veon Smith and redshirt sophomore Drake Johnson splitting carries until one gets the hot hand. Whoever gets the majority of the carries should have an easy time getting by Maryland’s defensive line, though. The Terrapins allow nearly 200 yards on the ground, so both backs should be able to keep up their recent production on the ground. Gardner said Monday he has gotten healthier over the bye week, so the threat of his feet could also help the backs. Edge: Michigan Maryland pass offense vs. Michigan pass defense Sixth-year graduate quarterback C.J. Brown should lead Maryland’s offense on Saturday, but the question is if he will finish. Brown has struggled mightily this season, throwing nine interceptions to 11 touchdowns while hovering
around a 50-percent completion percentage. The Terrapins top weapon, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, was ruled out for Saturday after reportedly suffering a lacerated kidney. While Maryland’s second receiver, Deon Long is a strong player, he lacks the explosive game-changing abilities that Diggs brings. For Michigan’s secondary, this game has been circled. Senior cornerback Raymon Taylor is playing his last home game for the Wolverines, while Maryland native redshirt junior cornerback Blake Countess will be facing off against his hometown team. Edge: Push Maryland rush offense vs. Michigan rush defense Michigan is eighth in the nation in total defense, and its crown jewel is its rush defense. The front seven ranks seventh in the country, allowing just 103 yards per game. Brown will keep the defense on its toes with his mobility, but the quarterback is the Terrapins’ leading rusher with a paltry 375 yards on the year. Maryland lacks a true starting running back and has no other players that have rushed for more
than 300 yards on the season. The Wolverines lost senior defensive end Frank Clark when he was kicked off the team for alleged domestic violence charges, but junior Mario Ojemudia and sophomore Taco Charlton should be able to make up for Clark’s absence. Edge: Michigan Special teams This is the one area where Maryland truly holds the edge. The Terrapins sport kicker Brad Craddock, who is a perfect 14-for14 on field goals this season. He’s the only kicker in the Big Ten that’s perfect on field goals, but conditions might be difficult Saturday with high winds and rain expected throughout the day. Edge: Maryland Intangibles This is as big of a must-win game for Michigan as it gets — Senior Day with a postseason bid on the line. And after the Wolverines’ tumultuous season, they need to close out the home slate on a positive note. Edge: Michigan Prediction: Michigan 24, Maryland 10
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Friday, November 21, 2014 // Football Saturday
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One final chance to succeed at home By ALEJANDRO ZÚÑIGA Managing Sports Editor
During Brady Hoke’s first year as the Michigan football team’s coach in 2011, he could do no wrong. Ace the introductory press conference? Check. Pull out a miraculous comeback against Notre Dame, a major rival? Check. Successfully run a fake field goal to help blow out a good Nebraska team? Check. Beat Ohio State? Check. Make a BCS bowl game (ahead of Michigan State, no less) and win it? Check. Almost every break fell Michigan’s way that season. The Wolverines recovered 20 fumbles and lost just six. Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller overthrew a wide-open receiver to miss what would have been a game-winning touchdown for the Buckeyes, and Michigan somehow converted an ugly botched field goal against Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl. But three years have passed, and things aren’t quite so rosy anymore. Saturday marks Senior Day at Michigan Stadium, when the program will honor the 12 studentathletes who will play in their final home game. It might also be Hoke’s last game there, too. Since that honeymoon year, things have only gotten worse for Hoke and his team — on the field, at least. Off the gridiron, the Wolverines insist they’re more tight-knit than ever, and Hoke expects to be fueled by emotion Saturday. “You look at guys who have worked their tails off for four or five years,” Hoke said Wednesday. “You look at guys as a coach and as a mentor (and) how they’ve grown, not just from a football standpoint but guys are graduating, guys who’ve grown as men, so there’s always that. I don’t know if you get emotional about not being able to coach this guy again, that part of it, but the relationships that you’ve built, I think those things really are the emotional part of it.” Saturday marks the final home game for fifth-year senior quarterback Devin Gardner and fifth-year senior middle linebacker Jake Ryan, among several others. And while this season hasn’t featured much winning at the Big
House, the group is determined to end on a positive note. “I’m just really excited,” Gardner said. “There’s a lot more at stake than just my last game at Michigan. It’s never been about me, and it’s not going to be about me on Saturday. I’m just going to go out and give it everything I have, like I’ve always given, to try and get a win for the team.” But the opponent is no cupcake. Maryland (3-3, 6-4) boasts road wins over Iowa and Penn State, so it shouldn’t be fazed by Michigan Stadium. The Terrapins aren’t statistically dominant in any category; they rank 67th overall in passing offense, 67th in points for and 84th in points against. Most notably, they average just 113.7 rushing yards per game, good for just 114th in the nation. That should play well into the Wolverines’ strength. They rank seventh in the nation in rushing yards allowed (103.2) and have surrendered fewer than three yards per carry. But Michigan’s defensive line will be tested in its first game without senior defensive end Frank Clark, who was dismissed from the team Monday amidst allegations of domestic violence. In his place, junior Mario Ojemudia and sophomore Taco Charlton will likely each see more time at the position. “Taco, we all know Taco. He’s made some really good plays already in his young career,” said defensive coordinator Greg Mattison on Monday. “Mario, I mean, if you really focus, Mario’s done some unbelievable things, and Brennen Beyer, you don’t have to say much about him. And there’s more and more guys. That’s just the guys at that position or at that category, so we just keep going.” Mattison did praise Maryland’s passing attack, which is led by quarterback C.J. Brown, and receivers Deon Long and Marcus Leak. However, the Terps’ best offensive threat, star wideout Stefon Diggs, will miss the game with an unspecified injury. And that might just be enough for Michigan’s veteran defense to dominate Maryland and — four seasons after Hoke’s tenure began — end the 2014 home slate on a positive note.