2015-11-13

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Friday, November 13, 2015

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FROM THE DAILY

Wake up and pay attention Institutional racism must be acknowledged By THE MICHIGAN DAILY Editorial Board

The University community is no stranger to protests in recent years with several student groups calling for the administration to improve race relations and increase diversity on campus. Therefore, the events of this past week at the University of Missouri should be of no surprise to anyone paying attention to the realities that Black students face each and every day on college campuses across the nation. But therein lies the problem: Not enough people are paying attention. Too many deny the existence of institutional racism. That must change now. The School of Social Work People of Color Collective led a demonstration on the Diag Wednesday evening to stand in solidarity with the Black community at the University of Missouri. Hundreds of University community members gathered to share personal experiences and show their support. The demonstration comes after months of racial tension on Missouri’s campus, which culminated in the resignation of the Missouri system’s president, Timothy Wolfe, on Nov. 9. A prominent student activist group at Mizzou, Concerned Student 1950 — which refers to the first year Black students were admitted to the university — led an aggressive push for Wolfe’s resignation after it became evident he was incapable of dealing with racism on campus. The group also called for a formal apology from Wolfe along with eight other demands of the administration. These efforts echo similar actions taken by the University of Michigan’s Black Student Union, which led a protest in January 2014 that garnered national attention about issues of race on college campuses. In the cases of both Missouri and Michigan, student groups criticized the inaction of their respective university administrators and called for reform to increase education about race in course curricula, enrollment of ethnic minorities and accessibility to safe spaces on campuses, such as multicultural centers. There’s no denying the differences in the cultural climates at the University of Missouri and on our campus. But the overarching commonalities in these demands illustrate the urgent need to address the institutional racism ever-present in our nation that takes shape in many forms: lack of minority representation and inclusivity on college campuses, discriminatory criminal justice policy and voter registration laws, police brutality and so much more. This week, our University hosted the Diversity Summit to collect opinions on how to devise a campus-wide plan to improve inclusion and diversity on campus. These efforts — along with those aimed at increasing minority enrollment, expanding education about race in curricula and improving the Trotter Multicultural Center — demonstrate a legitimate attempt to stimulate a broad conversation about race on campus and create tangible change. But there’s a long, long way to go. For starters, the entire campus community must listen to, sympathize with and learn about the very real and urgent struggles that Black students — and all students of color — face in 2015. In other words, wake up and pay attention.

DELANEY RYAN/Daily

Darlene Nichols, foundations and grants librarian at the University Library, facilitates a discussion on diversity in staff and faculty at the Michigan League on Thursday.

Staff, faculty discuss steps to bolster ‘U’ workplace diversity During event, employees give feedback on August report

student experience, such as hostingdialogues on campus climate and packagingadmissions and financial aid decisions in an effort to enroll more lowincome students. However, a dialogue hosted Thursday by the Staff Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion focused entirely on staff and faculty. The event, part of the University’s week-long diversity summit, largely

By SAMANTHA WINTNER Daily Staff Reporter

Many of the University’s recent efforts to improve diversity on campus have focused on the

centered around a report released in August by the staff committee, which was charged with gathering data and crafting recommendations on staff hiring, promotion and work climate. Darlene Nichols, a committee member and the foundations and grants librarian at the University, said the report found that about 75 percent of the staff surveyed felt good about working at the University. See DIVERSITY, Page 3A

Dark, challenging meta-comedy in ‘The Pillowman’ By GRACE HAMILTON Daily Arts Writer

“The Pillowman” is a complex play about violence, politics and the power of art. Confidently confronting issues such as child abuse and The fratricide, the work is a feat Pillowman for both the Walgreen playwright Drama Center and his Nov. 13 and 14, audiences. It is perhaps 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. even more of Free a challenge for the actors who must plumb the depths for their representation, particularly when those actors work under the constraints of limited resources and limited time. “Come and expect to laugh. And then leave shaken to your core,” School of Music, Theatre

& Dance senior and director Jacob Sam Rich said of “The Pillowman.” Comedies can’t get any darker than this. Basement Arts, a studentrun theater organization that has provided free entertainment to the University for over 20 years, has never shied away from challenges such as these. In fact, the group actively seeks cutting-edge work that continues to push the boundaries of both its own previous productions and the rest of the University’s theater world. Most audiences can’t get enough of it; some of their notable productions like “A Very Potter Musical” and “Me and My Dick” have even reached national success. This Saturday, Basement Arts is putting on its production of Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman” with a cast of four. After its debut in 2003, the play has been produced on Broadway and London’s West End and earned the 2004 Oliver Award for Best New Play. The play is set in an See PILLOWMAN, Page 3A

Detroit Police assistant chief to assume role in early 2016, pending vote By SHOHAM GEVA Daily News Editor

There’s a new chief in town. The city of Ann Arbor announced Thursday that James White, an assistant police chief with the Detroit Police Department, has been appointed the new Ann Arbor Police Chief. The selection pends approval by the Ann Arbor City Council, which will vote on the recommendation at their meeting Monday. White will replace John Seto, current chief of the Ann Arbor Police Department, who announced his retirement in May. Seto was appointed chief of police in 2012, and served for 25 years with AAPD. He

has since accepted a job with the University as the director of Housing Security. City Administrator Steve Powers, who is responsible for making the recommendation, wrote in a press release that White’s skill set prepared him well for the job. “I’m confident that James’ broad management experience and abilities will be an asset to the Ann Arbor Police Department, which has a well-earned reputation for excellence,” he wrote. “James has a keen understanding of law enforcement challenges and opportunities and I’m confident he will serve the Ann Arbor community well.” If approved as chief, White will have to face the ongoing controversy over the fatal shooting of Ann Arbor resident Aura Rosser a year ago by an AAPD officer. The shooting has prompted multiple protests in the city, See CHIEF, Page 3A

POEMS FOR CHANGE

ARTS PREVIEW

Basement Arts stages Martin McDonnaugh’s acclaimed play

Council to approve new police chief on Monday

GREG GOSS/Daily

Ann Arbor resident Ady Powell performs during the during the Poems for Change event hosted by the Groundcover News U-M Student Group on Thursday.

CAMPUS LIFE

Women share experiences at third annual Abortion Speak Out Hundreds attend event hosted by Students for Choice By CAITLIN REEDY Daily Staff Reporter

Amid an ongoing national debate over abortion rights and Planned Parenthood, about 300 students gathered in the

Michigan Union on Thursday night for the third annual Abortion Speak Out. The event, which invited people to share their personal experiences with abortion, was hosted in collaboration with the 1 in 3 Campaign, a national group that aims to make abortion a less taboo topic. “I thought it was very powerful and I’m so grateful that all of these people were

so brave and able to share their stories,” said LSA junior Kelsey Almony, a member of Students for Choice. “And I hope that other spaces can be created like this for other people to share their stories.” During the speak out, only individuals who had an abortion were permitted to share, and organizers placed restrictions on recording or social media See SPEAK OUT, Page 3A

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2A — Friday, November 13, 2015

MONDAY: This Week in History

TUESDAY: Campus Voices

WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers

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LEFT: Protestors hold signs as a part

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of a march organized by Ann Arbor to Ferguson on Monday in protest of police violence on the one year anniversary of the shooting of Aura Rosser by Ann Arbor Police Officer David Ried. (ROBERT DUNNE /Daily) RIGHT: LSA junior Sahithi Akasapu dances at Tulana, a production showcasing Indian classical music and dance presented by Michigan Sahana at Stamps Auditorium. (SAN PHAM / Daily)

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CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES

Polish film festival

Careers in nonprofits

Why Aristotle Webster is not an egoist reading series

WHAT: For $6, students can attend showings of Polish films all weekend. WHO: Copernicus Program in Polish Studies, the Polish Cultural Fund WHEN: Friday through Sunday WHERE: Michigan Theater

WHAT: A networking event for students to speak with alumni in the nonprofit sector. WHO: The Career Center WHEN: Today 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. WHERE: Wolverine Room, Michigan Union

WHAT: Professor Mi-Kyoung Lee of the University of Colorado will discuss her book “Aristotle on Justice.” WHO: Department of Philosophy WHEN: Today 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: 1171 Angell

Chocolate crawl

Sustainable Technology systems forum and music

WHAT: The Graduate Society of Women Engineers is leading a chocolate crawl. They will go to Kilwins, Cupcake Station, Frida Batidos, and The Melting Pot WHO: Society of Women Engineers WHEN: Today 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. WHERE: Meet at the Diag

WHAT: A discussion led by Marco Bruzzano on different forms of sustainable energy and the probability of shifting away from greenhouse gases. WHO: Center for Sustainable Systems WHEN: Today 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: 1040 Dana Building

WHAT: A class led by sound artist and composer Andrea Parkins on using technology to create music. Parkins uses the Fluxus style to create her own tunes. WHO: School of Music, Theatre and Dance WHEN: Today 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. WHERE: Earl V. Moore Building

WHAT: Hannah Louise Poston and Helena Smith will present their work. WHO: Helen Zell Writers’ Program WHEN: Today from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. WHERE: Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium

Azaya dance performance WHAT: An annual cultural show featuring Indian dance from 240 performers. WHO: Indian American Student Association WHEN: Today 6:30 p.m. WHERE: Hill Auditorium Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@ michigandaily.com.

THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY

1

The University of Missouri chose Michael Middleton to serve as interim university president after former president Timothy Wolfe resigned amid protests on campus, The New York Times reported Thursday.

2

Under-recruited and often overlooked, senior guard Spike Albrecht enters his final year with the Michigan men’s basketball team with his sights set high. >>SEE TIP-OFF, PAGE 1B

3

A clinic in Cleveland will become the first to offer uterus transplants for infertile women, The New York Times reported Thursday. Ten women will participate in the initial study. The transplants are temporary and will be removed after having a child.

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Model to help patients at risk for stroke select the best drug University research aims to determine most cost-effective treatments By JALAL TALEB For the Daily

University researchers have developed a new model to help individuals at risk of stroke select the best preventative drug — based in part on cost effectiveness. The model, co-authored by Dr. Geoff Barnes, a clinical lecturer of cardiovascular medicine and vascular medicine, and Deborah Levine, an associate professor of internal medicine, focused on drugs for one type of irregular heartbeat — nonvalvular atrial fibrillation — which can lead to strokes. This irregular heartbeat happens when disruptive electrical activity triggers unusual contrac-

tions of the heart’s main pumping chambers, called the ventricles. When the ventricles are triggered, the heart doesn’t pump blood through the body as efficiently, which can cause clotting. These clots, in turn, make their way to vessels in the brain, potentially forming blockages that lead to strokes. Currently, two classes of drugs are available to treat the condition — a cheaper anticoagulant known as a warfarin, which has been around for decades, and a new, more expensive line known as dabigatran. Barnes said the two treatment options have left many Americans with irregular heartbeats facing a difficult economic choice. Beyond the drugs themselves, he noted the issue has also been challenging because prescription prices vary depending on health care coverage. Barnes said this makes a cost-conscious model especially important. Their model is unique, he said, because it also

considers the patient’s perspective on cost, as opposed to prior studies that only considered cost from a societal or insurance perspective. “The importance of this decision comes from a patient’s perspective, as we discuss with them the affordability of these decisions based on their personal situations,” he said. Along with patient perspective, the model draws on several other factors — how well the drugs prevent stroke, the possibilities of side effects and the cost of the pills — to determine the advantage and disadvantages of each. Overall, Barnes and Levine said the team found that the prescription drug coverage a patient has matters most in terms of cost and benefits. Those without coverage, according to the study, could pay thousands of dollars for more effective drugs such as dabigatran, which may not always be worthwhile. Barnes said many patients in that category are those who receive coverage through Medicare Part D. Under Medicare Part D, throughout much of the year, patients’ prescription costs are covered; however, at a set point, patients’ prescription coverage is exhausted and they must pay out of pocket. “For the first part of the year, our patients have good coverage,” Barnes said. “By the late fall, when faced with the ‘donut hole,’ many patients will pay thousands of dollars per pill … unfortunately, patients will try to stretch out their prescriptions, not taking them every day, skipping doses.” However, the study found that patients with prescription drug coverage, including Medicare Part D, had overall costs savings when choosing the more expensive dabigatran over warfarin. This was primarily because of the effectiveness both drugs have on stroke, and also because they eliminated the need for more frequent blood draws and visits to the clinic that users of warfarin sometimes require. However, Levine said she See STROKE, Page 3A

MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Daily

Daphne Koller, president and co-founder of Coursera, speaks about the website as a part of the Academic Innovation at Michigan series at the Michigan League on Thursday.

Coursera co-founder talks impact of open online courses University faculty have taught 22 classes on the platform By BECCA SOLBERG For the Daily

Technology continues to transform learning, both outside and inside the classroom, Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller told a group of 50 at the Michigan League on Thursday. Koller’s presentation, hosted by the Office of Digital Education and Innovation, discussed the impacts of Coursera, a platform for hosting the massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered by a variety of universities. The University was one of the first four colleges to run courses through Coursera, and has offered about 22 courses on the platform for more than 3.6 million users. Koller, who is also a professor

of computer science at Stanford University, began by describing the impacts of Coursera both on the universities that offer courses and the professors who teach them. In particular, she emphasized how online courses encourage professors to alter and improve their teaching techniques to best serve their students, who have the option of walking away from an online site at any moment compared to the more captive audience of a classroom. “It caused me to completely reshape the way I thought about teaching,” she said. “And to think, ‘Why should the learner care?’ which is not a question I would ask myself before.” As part of Coursera, instructors are given quantitative and qualitative feedback and are constantly able to improve their course. After negative feedback on a lesson, a professor is able to alter the lesson immediately rather than having to wait a semester, like with traditional college courses. In an interview after the

event, Information Prof. Charles Severance, who instructs a class on Coursera, said he often alters his teaching style for the online platform. “When you’re on campus, we’re sort of in a hurry,” he said. “So online I always add a lot of extra stuff for the students. They really like it. For example, when they are learning programming, (we) show some video interviews of people like Daphne (Koller), and say, here, this is what a programmer has done with her career.” Koller added that for colleges overall, especially those that were first on the platform like the University, hosting MOOCs broadens the institution’s reach. “They’re reaching new audiences who are now aware of the quality of scholarship the University has to offer,” she said. Koller also spoke to the benefits of teaching a more diverse population of students in MOOCs than in a traditional classroom. According to Coursera, more than 1 million students in 196 See COURSERA, Page 3A

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PILLOWMAN From Page 1A

Friday, November 13, 2015 — 3A

M A R C H T O R A I S E M I N I M U M WA G E

unnamed dystopian society with its main character, Katurian, as a short-story writer. After detectives discover an eerie similarity between the gruesome violence of Katurian’s stories and several recent child murders, he is brought in for questioning. When Katurian hears that his brother Michael has confessed to the murders, including sharing details on their twisted upbringing, Katurian suffocates him as a kind of mercy killing. His mission is to save his stories from destruction. Many of these stories are recounted within the play. With two weeks to put together this five-week production, Rich casted the show based on the ability to capture the emotional depth of these highly complex and troubled characters. “Each character is so specific and different in what they’ve gone through in life, and really an understanding of that and an understanding of drama is what I was looking for from actors,” Rich said.

one as recently as last week, and prompted calls for change in the department. The officer was found to have been acting in lawful selfdefense by the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office in January, who chose not to press charges. On Oct. 4, the city’s Human Rights Commission released a 42-page report on strengthening police-community relations in Ann Arbor specifically citing Rosser’s death and including a number of recommendations for the department. In an interview Thursday, City Councilmember Kirk Westphal (D-Ward 2) said he was still reflecting on the recommendation, but that White left a good impression during prior opportunities Council had to meet with him. “He struck me as being very thoughtful and professional, and highly experienced,” he said. Speaking to some of the current events surrounding the AAPD, namely the HRC’s report, Westphal added that White noted having experience in such situations. “He expressed having experience collaborating with citizen committees, and look(ing) forward to working with one here, if that’s the direction we go in,” he said. Incoming City Councilmember Zachary Ackerman (D-Ward 3), a LSA senior, said he thought White was highly qualified for the job. Ackerman will formally assume his position at Monday’s Council

STROKE From Page 2A thought many of the patients facing issues with Medicare Plan D will see some changes moving forward due to recent changes in federal health care policy. “Under the Affordable Care Act, this coverage gap known as the ‘donut hole’ will slowly be closed by 2020,” she said. In terms of how a physician might use the model, Levine said she hoped clinicians would consider criteria for selecting a drug beyond going only physical well-being, and include metrics for cost and patient affinity. “Certainly, we have to weigh the patient’s values and preferences when making these decisions about which drugs to choose,” she said.

COURSERA From Page 2A countries currently use the platform. She gave an example of Diane Kleiner, a professor of art history at Yale University, who teaches a Roman Archaeology MOOC. While Kleiner was already well-traveled, she was able to learn even more about her field from pictures her international students sent her. Koller also addressed the other side of the Coursera platform — the type of individuals who take the course. With MOOCs, she said, there are three different types of learners: college-focused learners, enrichment learners, and career-focused learners. The college-focused learners, she said, take Coursera not as a substitute to college courses, but rather to prepare for a different level of education or to supplement a college course they are currently taking. Engineering student Karen Lin, who attended the event, said she was an example of a college learner — as an international student from China, she took four Coursera courses in order to prepare for American college courses. “The reason I took it was because I wanted to apply to (an) overseas school, but I didn’t have any experience in overseas classes,” Lin said. “I thought I would gain education experience in some U.S. institution.” The majority of users, according to Koller, are the career-focused ones, who are largely 25 to 35 years old. MOOCs, she noted, especially help millennials who switch jobs early on in their career, a trend she said is growing. “Think of marketing,” she said. “Most people, when they learned marketing a decade ago, learned all about how to post ads in newspapers. Now they don’t learn that. They learn how to post things on Twitter.” Overall, Koller said, no matter the type of learner category they fall into, Coursera has made a large difference in many participants’ lives. She cited, in particular, a Coursera user from Alabama, Scotty Rushing, who was poor and living out of his car. Taking MOOCs — including one of Severance’s— turned his life around. Severance said for him, hearing Rushing’s story served as a reminder of how meaningful the courses can be. “For the students, this is something very, very special,” he said. “With so little effort on our part, we can share this with so many people and affect so many of their lives.”

CHIEF From Page 1A

SPEAK OUT From Page 1A

DELANEY RYAN/Daily

LSA senior Dominic Sweeney participates in the Million Student March, which is in support of tuition free public college, cancellation of all student debt, and a $15 minimum wage on the Diag on Thursday.

DIVERSITY From Page 1A “That’s a great thing,” she said. “However, it’s not perfect. Particularly for those staff who identified as racial or ethnic minorities, they question the University’s commitment to diversity, because when they looked around, they didn’t see a lot of people like themselves reflected among their colleagues, among the leaders in their departments or at the University administrative level.” In Fall 2014, 69.9 percent of employees at the University’s Ann Arbor campus were white. When only considering faculty, the population is 72.5 percent white. Women made up 41.2 percent of the faculty. During the discussion, attendees broke into groups to give the committee feedback on their process and final report. Laurita Thomas, associate vice president for human resources who lead the staff committee, said feedback would be incorporated into the committee’s strategic plan. “When we do the strategic planning action planning next term, we will reflect what we learned today and that should influence the overall direction of the strategic plan,” she said. The report chiefly suggested the University include the concerns and aspirations of staff members in University’s larger diversity strategic plans. They also touted efforts to increase awareness about the value of diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as respect, in the workplace. In particular, they recommended the University invest in training for staff involved in recruitment, hiring and promotion processes. Along with training, they requested the University enhance current leadership training to include elements of diversity, equity and inclusion. Nichols noted that because of the University’s status as a federal contractor,

it is an affirmative action employer. That means it has target numbers for hiring underrepresented groups. However, in the 2013-2014 fiscal year, it only hired four members of those groups out of a target of 27. The committee’s recommendations also called for the creation of an independent ombuds office, responsible for resolving the concerns of staff members. The aim: encourage staff to feel comfortable addressing workplace issues. During the dialogues, many attendees said they were excited by the training and ombudsperson proposals because of their potential to be measurably implemented and achieve tangible results. Event facilitators requested that the Michigan Daily not directly quote or record the small-group discussion portion of the event. Speaking during the event, Linh Nguyen, associate director of the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, said there was a need to create a confidential ombuds because not all units have an environment where staff and faculty feel comfortable talking about experiences with bias or discrimination. “(It’s the) need to have someone who can hold that in confidence, support you through that, and connect you to the resources you need so that they can bring that to a larger space,” she said. “And that the unit or the department can really address it intentionally and specifically so we can actually move and resolve issues that were experiencing as staff, because we know that that impacts the rest of the campus climate.” Overall, Thomas said from her perspective, the proposal for an ombuds and for increased training were the most mentioned during the event. Other proposals were met with a more muted reaction, based on concerns that some of the committee’s recommendations could be more difficult to initiate in ways that would hold

individuals accountable for success. Multiple attendees also said though they thought the work of the committee was insightful, they worried the University would still be grappling with the same issues in the future if their recommendations failed to take hold within the larger University community. Residence educator Miriam Rosado, who attended the event, said she thought the conversation was valuable because it seemed more substantive than past discussions. “Right now, we have sort of the overall comprehensive formula, where we can really start the kind of work that we really need to do around diversity,” she said. “So I think this is much more comprehensive than other initiatives that I’ve seen — and that’s what really excites me. Because we have all the information and the data, we know where the barriers are and the challenges, and so then we could really begin the work.” John Lofy, an assistant campaign director in the Office of Development, said he thought the dialogue was a valuable experience. “It was a terrific opportunity to hear what the University is planning, to hear from my colleagues around the University who really care about this and want to do right by the University and its staff,” he said. Thomas said she thought the Diversity Summit overall is an instructive experience for the University. “The challenge that we’ve heard, the anger that we’ve heard, the stories that have been told, the enthusiasm we’ve heard for the way (Schlissel) is doing it this time is very, very encouraging,” she said. “This president has said that he wants to hear everybody’s voice, and therefore we’ve created a process of diversity, equity and inclusion strategic planning that should give everybody an opportunity to be heard about the Michigan we want to be.”

to protect and respect the privacy of those sharing their stories. Microphones were placed both at the front and back of the room, providing individuals the option hide their identity by speaking from behind the crowd. Many speakers said they were driven to share their personal experiences in light of the national debate surrounding calls for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, as well as the prospect of the Supreme Court taking up Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole. If the justices uphold a lower court ruling in the case, almost half of Texas’s abortion clinics would close. The case considers whether Texas legally enforce laws that would have the result of limiting the number of abortion clinics. Caroline Kagan, a Music, Theatre & Dance senior, said she had heard about the speak out since she was a freshmen, but this year felt particularly compelled to attend. “I thought it would be interesting to come and hear everyone’s stories,” she said. “I wanted to come and support people who had actually been through a very serious issue that maybe Planned

meeting. “I think (White) brings an incredible amount of diverse organizational skills, tactical skills, civil rights knowledge and psychology education,” Ackerman said. “And I think the four of those things, when brought together, will be incredibly valuable to the department.” City Councilmember Sabra Briere (D-Ward 1) echoed those sentiments, noting that in meetings with Council White had expressed an interest in having a position in the department to foster community relations. She added that she thought his experiences in Detroit, including operating under the increased scrutiny of an emergency manager while the city was emerging from bankruptcy, would be beneficial in building trust in the community. White has served in his current position with the Detroit Police Department since February 2013. He began as an officer with the department in 1996, and has also served as deputy chief, commander, lieutenant and sergeant. The Detroit Police Department said Thursday afternoon that they would not have a statement on White’s selection until Monday. He received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Wayne State University and is currently finishing a master’s degree from Central Michigan University in counseling, according to the release. If approved, White will begin the job on January 11. Daily Staff Reporter Emma Kinery contributed reporting.

Parenthood guided them in.” Business junior Nikki Yadon said she sees efforts to defund Planned Parenthood as a “bunch of political propaganda.” “I think organizations are getting a really bad rep for providing these services and that shouldn’t be happening,” she said. Many who shared their stories hoped to convey the various aspects of going through an abortion and the importance of having a right to choose. Others said they hoped sharing their stories would help them feel more at peace, as well as educate those in attendance — a key goal of the event. LSA senior Connie Gao, Students for Choice co-president, said organizations like Planned Parenthood not only serve women, but also people of all kinds of gender identities. She said Students for Choice plays an important role in furthering that mission. “We try to take a holistic approach to this issue,” she said. “We operate through a reproductive justice framework, where we recognize both a person’s right to choose and a person’s right to parent their child in a safe and healthy environment. I think having a campus presence that specifically reaches out to students is very important. I’m a strong believer in grassroots action.”

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Opinion

4A — Friday, November 13, 2015

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF

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The GOP’s Hillary complex

I

n every debate, there are winners and losers. Tuesday night’s fourth GOP debate in Milwaukee was no exception. Polls show a bump for Marco Rubio, Donald Trump dominated in terms of new followers and likes on social media, and Ted Cruz worked the audience like no other, with 13 minutes of speaking time littered with applause and laughter. On the other side, Jeb Bush failed to make any BRETT significant strides back GRAHAM into relevancy, and John Kasich was booed during his answer on bailing out banks. However, amid the fanfare and platitudes about what America is “really about” that typically accompany Republican debates, one candidate should feel pretty good about her position after this one: Hillary Clinton. Billed as the debate about jobs and the economy, moderators from the Fox Business Network and The Wall Street Journal broached a variety of topics, from Syria to who on stage would have his or her tax plan endorsed by God to which five departments of government Ted Cruz would cut (spoiler alert: two of them are the Department of Commerce). Only one talking point, though, made its way into everyone’s remarks, and that was the Democratic frontrunner. Hillary Clinton’s name was mentioned a total of 24 times in the two-hour debate, and at least once by each of the eight candidates (issues that were never mentioned, by the way, include race, making higher education affordable and campaign finance reform). She was called the worst secretary of state in history and the embodiment of cronyism. She was accused, along with Bernie Sanders, of not telling the truth about what’s hurting the middle class. She was challenged, in the third person, by Carly Fiorina. Clearly, a requirement for any candidate during primary season should be electability and the potential to win a general election against an opposing party. But when was the last time, without an incumbent president running for re-election, that one person has had such a permanent and unshakeable target on his or her backs with the election a year away? All of this made one thing clear: Republicans have a major Hillary Clinton complex, and it’s not going away any time soon. Why, then, does this make Hillary Clinton a winner? Simply put, constant attacks make GOP candidates look small, especially considering the fact that every charge leveled has been shrugged off by its target. The former secretary looks classier, more mature and more presidential with every dismissal of the clown car on the opposite side of the ticket next November. Not to mention the fact that in the long run, the American people are bound to tire of negative campaigning,

if that is to be a central tenet of Republican campaigns for the next 12 months. And with articles titled “Who Can Beat Hillary Clinton?” being written in the hours after the debate, she seems like more and more of an inevitability for the Democratic nomination (likely to the chagrin of Sanders supporters). Take how Fox moderator Maria Bartiromo began her question to Marco Rubio about whether anyone could compare to the “impressive resumé” of Hillary Clinton: “She was the first lady of the United States, a U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state under Barack Obama. She has arguably more experience, certainly more time in government than almost all of you on stage tonight.” Seconds into the question, the entire audience started booing loudly. There are two explanations for this: One is that the audience of likely Republican voters thought it to be a bad question and that the former secretary of state, senator and first lady’s resumé is not impressive (which would be clearly biased nonsense). Another is that they know the opposite is true — that Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president and the sheer mention of her qualifications causes a knee-jerk reaction of moaning and woe in conservatives. The simple fact of the matter is that primary season should be a time for candidates on both sides to connect with voters and determine the stances and issues that will resonate best with the people they are determined to lead, not a cage match to decide who gets to the title fight. As someone who is not registered with either political party and will not cast a vote in the primaries, I value the chance to see candidates get to know their base and how they steer their campaigns in certain directions based on the stories they hear and the people they meet. During Tuesday’s debate, though, it was difficult to see any of that, considering the only direction I saw from each campaign was straight to the White House and through Hillary Clinton. Instead, I saw what will be the most glaring weakness of the Republican field thus far. It’s not Jeb’s family name or Carly Fiorina’s business record. It’s not Donald Trump’s unpredictable aversion to political correctness or Ben Carson thinking the pyramids were built by Joseph to store grain, though all of these come in a strong second place. It’s the fact that they can’t stop talking about Hillary Clinton and start talking about the issues. It’s the fact that mentioning her name can change a poor answer to an applause line. It’s the fact that sooner or later, the parade of negative campaign material is going to get old for the independent middle, which doesn’t necessarily hate the former secretary. In case it wasn’t obvious, the constant demonization of one personality is not enough to base a winning presidential campaign on. Or at least it shouldn’t be. — Brett Graham can be reached at btgraham@umich.edu.

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Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe JOE IOVINO

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Living at home

reshman year, I joked to my younger brother, “You can be my roommate.” I wasn’t moving into a dorm, and I felt 100 percent OK with that decision. I didn’t have to worry about laptop theft, doing my laundry in coin-operated SUSAN machines or sharing a LAMOREAUX communal bathroom. Now, three years later, I’m happy that I can still live with my family — the way I did during my first fall semester at the University. My home is only about a mile away from Central Campus, and I’ve lived there for my entire college career so far. If anything, I believe it’s added to my personal experience of college and has made my time mean more by providing me with a calm, private place to go back to at the end of each day. Kelsey Murphy, a junior in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance, lived at home for her first two years of college and feels similarly. “The idea of living in a dorm just didn’t appeal to me at all,” she said. Though her home was a little farther from campus than mine, she still found it worth the trip back and forth each day. She continued: “I’m a very private, independent person, and I like having my own space to come home to at the end of the day and not having to share a space with someone I don’t know.” Living at home also means that I have neighbors — neighbors who aren’t all 20-somethings going to college or university. Actually,

many of my neighbors teach at the University or at other colleges in the area, and they never fail to remind me that I should be doing my homework right now. In a neighborhood that’s home to people of many ages, I also find that my schedule has more of a regulated structure than when I spend my whole day on campus. Without my family members and their activities to provide me with perspective, the day tends to float by, divided up between classes, study sessions and meals, either from a lunchbox or a take-out box, often eaten over a piece of reading due for something later that afternoon. Maybe the single most defining and important aspect of living at home is the cost — that is, the lack thereof. While Murphy was living at home, she was able to set aside money for the apartment she has now, which she finds a more desirable living situation than one that requires a long daily commute. “I want to be more involved on campus and take part in more social events,” she said. “So it’s great living so close to everything. It makes my classes a lot easier, too, because the time I would have spent driving back and forth between campus and home I can now use for homework or catching up on sleep.” That’s one of the drawbacks I’ve come up against as well — living somewhat far from campus makes it difficult to participate in extracurricular or late-night events. I don’t have my own car, so I’m reliant on the city bus system to get me to and from campus each day unless I arrange for a ride. It can also be difficult to meet up with friends or to plan spontaneously. But I don’t think that living at home has detracted from my “college experience” one bit — if anything, I believe it’s added deeper meaning to my time here.

Most importantly, it hasn’t left me coddled, which I think some people assume when I tell them about my living situation. If I use the kitchen, I have to wash my dishes. I do my laundry and help with vacuuming and other household chores, such as walking the dog (more of a highlight than a chore, in my opinion). I get to help haul groceries every weekend and also get to choose some of what food we have available during the coming week. When I’m home alone, I can play my music as loudly (or quietly) as I’d like, and on weekends and even during game days, I don’t need to worry about noisy partygoers. Of course, living at home just doesn’t make sense for students coming to the University from other states or internationally. I can also understand the interest in getting your very own apartment, dorm or room in a house during your college years. But it makes sense to me, in my own personal situation, to live this way, and it’s worked well for me so far. I stay up to date on what my family’s doing, have access to a familiar kitchen and food that I’m used to and get to raid my brother’s video game collection from time to time. Maybe best of all, I can study without having to trek to the library. (Actually, scratch that. Best of all is getting to pet my dog.) I’m on campus enough as it is; it’s nice to have a place to retreat to that’s far enough away to provide a big distance between my home life and school life. Murphy and I both agreed that for us, living at home for a year or two, or perhaps more than that, was the best decision we could make. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash my lunch dishes! — Susan LaMoreaux can be reached at susanpl@umich.edu.

JASON ROWLAND | MICHIGAN IN COLOR

The Weight of Your Words

I became exposed to the realities of racism during the relatively conflict-free and halcyon days of my childhood. Each year, I spent the months between September and June in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania — a supposedly progressive bastion in an increasingly regressive state. It was here where I learned about the Mayflower, Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt, but not Benjamin Banneker, Sojourner Truth and Marcus Garvey. My summers, though, were spent on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, at the site of what my grandparents told me was once Travellers Rest Plantation — a sprawling estate supposedly fueled by slave labor that produced wheat, corn and other staple crops. This land is where my grandparents settled down during retirement. Afternoon walks in Travellers Rest yielded the discovery of many vestiges of a bygone age. I vividly remember walking by long-defunct train tracks, now covered in tall grass, and asking my grandfather why no trains seemed to pass. It was then that I learned how Southern plantations grew the food that fed the rest of the country. On other walks, we would stroll past a long, willow-lined driveway. The driveway was so expansive, in fact, that the great distance hid whatever sat at the other side of it. Time after time, I would wonder what could possibly be at the end of that driveway. Eventually, I asked my grandmother. It was then that I learned about the elegant homes of slave masters and the depraved conditions the slaves lived in (I refrain from saying “the homes the slaves lived in” because that would be an insult to houses). Another time, we passed a memorial sign honoring Frederick Douglass, who, according to local legend, was born as a slave in the next town over before escaping and attaining his freedom. At the time, the name meant nothing to me, and my grandparents could tell. So there I stood, on an old plantation in the summer heat, receiving a history lesson about the abolitionist movement. However, when I returned to elementary school every fall, my classmates and I went right back to learning about the Mayflower, Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt,

but not Benjamin Banneker, Sojourner Truth and Marcus Garvey. It wasn’t until around seventh grade that we began to seriously talk about events like the slave trade, the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. But by then it was too late; my classmates had already developed their view of different races. Even though, thankfully, the vast majority turned out not to be hateful racists, they still lacked the history to understand the implications and repercussions of things as simple as the jokes they made toward me and other minority students. In 10th grade, we read a short story in literature class about the Klu Klux Klan burning down African American churches. After the teacher referred to the churchgoers as “Black” and “African American,” a classmate of mine raised her hand to inform the class that “they prefer to be called colored.” Obviously she meant no harm, but this just highlights the dangers of not informing children of the history behind racially loaded terms. In 11th grade, when an Indian friend and I were both on the computers in study hall, the substitute teacher approached us. “What grade are you guys in?” she asked. After finding out we were juniors, she asked my friend which colleges she planned on applying to. The teacher then turned to me and asked what I was planning on doing with my future. She then went on to describe the wonderful career her nephew made for himself in the army. She assumed that because I was a Black male, I was not qualified to move on in academia. I understand that she was trying to be helpful, but in doing so she made me feel as if I wasn’t talented or smart enough to be pursuing higher education, an unintentional side effect of her ignorance ­— of the weight of her comments. In 12th grade, I received my acceptance to the University of Michigan. Out of the more than 1,000 students of North Penn High School’s class of 2015, to my knowledge, I was the only one to receive an acceptance letter. This achievement gained me the nickname “Mr. Affirmative Action,” a superlative that still angers me to this day. My classmates belittled the work I put in over the past four years, attributing the fruits of my labor to nothing more than winning a ran-

dom outcome in a genetic lottery. It was just earlier this year when my sister proudly told one of her school’s faculty members where I was going to college. “Oh! What sport does he play?” the woman asked. Dumbfounded, my sister pressed for some context. It turned out that the woman assumed I was admitted to the University for some athletic ability and not for my academic achievements. “How is it possible for a 6’4” Black kid to not be good at sports?” she must have wondered. But in doing this, she was inadvertently asking, “How is it possible for a 6’4” Black kid to be good enough to get into Michigan? There must be another explanation.” Racism is like water; it seeps and thrives in every unguarded action and word. You may not know the water is in your ceilings until mold starts growing, and by then it is often too late. The ceiling must be torn down and a new one must take its place. More importantly, while the ceiling is down and the insides of the house are exposed, it’s essential to tackle the water leakage problem that caused the issue in the first place. This must be done with racism. We can’t deny the problem that racism exists because, just like mold, the situation will continue to build up and create an increasingly dangerous environment. Likewise, we can’t only offer solutions that replace the ceiling — designating areas as safe spaces or banning this word and that phrase — because it’s only a matter of time before our efforts are proven to be wasted and the problem returns. Instead, we must tackle the root of the problem by educating young child about the history of race relations. This can be done in many ways, from teaching children about race issues earlier in their lives to encouraging parents to have these hard conversations in an open environment with their young children — like the ones I received from my grandparents. While these measures may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to tackling the policies that allow for the proliferation of institutional racism, at the very least it will inform people so they will think about the consequences and implications of what they say before they say it. Jason Rowland is an LSA freshman.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

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Arts

Friday, November 13, 2015 — 5A

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

TV REVIEW

Enviro-folk from ‘MasterChef Junior’ fun despite its issues Jeremy Loops South African singer blends music and message By CATHERINE BAKER Daily Arts Writer

It’s seven in the morning and I’m woken up by the pounding of rain on my window. Panicking briefly that I’d left my car windows rolled down, I remind myself that I do not have a car here and I am not, in fact, still in high school. After this minor disruption in my heart rate, I soothe myself with the repetitive patter against my window and the sporadic flashes of light that illuminate my messy room. The beating of the raindrops is continuous and takes root inside my mind to make sure that I won’t get any more sleep tonight. And Jeremy Loops does the same. His use of new musical techniques and limited instruments create music that will linger long after it has stopped playing. Rain has always been associated with reflection, just like Loops’ lyrics on life, love and simplicity will make you think. Jeremy Loops, originally from Cape Town, South Africa, is a mod-

By MATT BARNAUSKAS ern folk singer and environmental activist. Speaking out for awareness through both his organization Greenpop and his lyrics, he seeks to battle deforestation and travels around Southern Africa teaching underprivileged schoolchildren how to better protect their planet. His important ecological advocacy follows the similar messages he portrays in his music, combining traditional folk instruments with contemporary lyrics. In 2014, Loops debuted at #1 on iTunes in South Africa and recently released his first full-length album Trading Change in August 2015. Since this recent claim to fame, he has begun touring alongside Twenty One Pilots in Europe. Trading Change’s opening track, “Sinner,” is characterized by a quick banjo and gravely vocals, with lyrics that create a feeling of community around the idea that humanity is full of sinners. Loops displays his vocal range right off the bat, looping his own voice and instruments to create interesting and original layers of sound. “Down South” was the first song from Loops I heard and the layered opening a cappella drew me in like a moth to a flame. Transforming into a full band sound while still maintaining a sense of simplicity is

a talent I have only found in Loops. The lyrics, “Remember how we say / Someday we’ll set sail / It took me so much to get where we are,” dream of looking ahead to the future and still pleading for stagnancy in the present. Combining all of these elements, “Trip Fox” utilized snaps, more banjos, strangely syncopated lyrics and dueling harmonicas. “Tell me you’re living free / Tell me we can do it again” reiterates the same themes of being content where you are while dreaming of a place far away. Brandishing a wicked banjo solo (trust me, that feels just as strange to write as it does to read), “Trip Fox” transcends the label of “modern folk” and becomes simply amazing music. “Running Away” showcases Loops’ versatility as an artist as he gets in touch with his rock roots, yet retains an aggressive harmonica in place of a bass line. As the title suggests, the song glorifies escaping from all responsibilities and taking to a life on the road, a sentiment that most of us can echo. I may not be in high school anymore, I may not have a car and I may not always be ready to move on from the past, but Jeremy Loops makes the future look pretty enticing.

STYLE NOTEBOOK

Balmain x H&M is style hype at its peak By JULIA DOYLE Daily Arts Writer

The highly anticipated, highly promoted release of Balmain x H&M featuring designs by Balmain Creative Director Olivier Rousteing occurred this past Thursday, Nov. 5 at 8 a.m. To many a consumer’s displeasure, by noon that same day the only item left on sale was a tiny, simple, white bandeau. So what’s the deal? Dedicated shoppers lined up for hours (and in some cases, days) outside of the various H&M stores lucky enough to carry the collection. Masses of people, men and women alike, waiting for those clear doors to open. Once they did, chaos basically ensued — onlookers videotaped the craziness of shoppers storming the racks. Comparable to a Best Buy on Black Friday, these H&M stores were completely run-through only minutes after the crowds stampeded. Online, the situation was far worse. The website was so flooded with volume that it completely crashed, and to shoppers’ disappointment, once it did go back online, all the items were gone. Sold out. Poof. Vanished. So, why all the hype? We chalk it up to two simple reasons. The first reason for the unprecedented success was the campaign itself — what many would call a genius fashion marketing campaign. If you have a social media account, the ads for this collection were everywhere. Not to mention putting Kendall Jenner’s face on anything at this point turns said item into coveted gold. But to use her face, name and brand alone wouldn’t have made this big of an impact. However, throwing in

PILLOWMAN From Page 1A The play is set in an unnamed dystopian society with its main character, Katurian, as a short-story writer. After detectives discover an eerie similarity between the gruesome violence of Katurian’s stories and several recent child murders, he is brought in for questioning. When Katurian hears that his brother Michael has confessed to the murders, including sharing details on their twisted upbringing, Katurian suffocates him as a kind of mercy killing. His mission is to save his stories from destruction. Many of these stories are

Gigi Hadid along with Jourdan Dunn was what added to the success of it all. But still bear with us, because that wasn’t what made it stand out. It was the entire production of the campaign. Lashy, high-fashion and constantly in your face — from a music video as edgy as the line itself, to a launch party so highly publicized by Kendall, Gigi and Jourdan themselves, to the sheer amount of star power at that launch party (Kylie Jenner, Ellie Goulding, Cameron Russell, among others), this campaign was buzzed about since May 2015. Given the six months of unmatched anticipation for this line to drop, can’t say I’m too surprised about the lack of hangers on the shelves. The second reason for such sold-out success is sheer quality product — the entirety of the line itself was fabulous. Yes, we established that Kendall Jenner could sell essentially anything. But had these looks not been as great as they truly are, there’d be no reason for fans to line up. Rather, they’d simply look online at the pretty pictures of Kendall and Gigi walking hand in hand down the red carpet at the release, which at this point is the only thing most consumers (including myself) can do with the line. Each piece encompasses the signature design, fit and look of Balmain as a brand, taken to new heights by Rousteing. The pieces aren’t for those looking for simple cocktail attire. From huge pops of bright color to decadent patterns to colorful faux leather and decadent fur jackets, each piece is bolder and more dauntless than the last. Clearly resolute in every piece from the collection, Oliver Rousteing does

a fantastic job of making the line effortlessly edgy from head to toe. Encompassing the trademark black and gold silhouettes that Balmain is coveted for, Rousteing is not afraid to put a twist on these designs, made for the modern and high fashion woman. While the collection itself is worth the hype surrounding it, it would seem that this collaboration between high fashion and mass produced retail, between Balmain and H&M, is anything but for the masses. That being said, my hesitation with this line is the pricing. Yes, this is Balmain, but this is also being sold at H&M — a retailer for the average person. When people shop at H&M, their intention is not to drop $500 on a cardigan. Collaborations between a top tier designer and a retail store like H&M are created to provide an affordable way for us “average peasants,” we non-Kardashians to wear designer-quality clothing. Clearly H&M is missing the point here. In the past, H&M has done collaborations with huge names. The list is endless and quite impressive: Stella McCartney, Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Isabel Marant, Alexander Wang, Beyoncé, David Beckham, Karl Lagerfeld and so on. So it would seem everyone who is anyone in fashion, style and pop-culture has collaborated with H&M. Yet in each of these lines, I saw prices that soared above $400. Clearly H&M knows they can profit on these lines. Unfortunately for us, the “average” consumers, we may just have to be content with looking at these designs from afar, because it would seem that apparently the prices are not going to change any time soon.

recounted within the play. With two weeks to put together this five-week production, Rich casted the show based on the ability to capture the emotional depth of these highly complex and troubled characters. “Each character is so specific and different in what they’ve gone through in life, and really an understanding of that and an understanding of drama is what I was looking for from actors,” Rich said. Although originally scripted as a cast of all men, Rich bent the gender of one of the detective characters in an effort to make the production more relatable to female audiences. The produc-

tion has innovated in other ways, too, in order to make such a multilayered play possible. “When I first started thinking about proposing this show, it was two years ago and I said to myself, ‘No, it’s too challenging of a piece,’ ” Rich said. “I didn’t know how I was going to do the stories, because I wanted to do each one a different way. So now, we have shadow play, we have puppets, we have lighting changes, and we have some that are just stories read aloud.” Expect laughs to turn to tears, breaths to be drawn and irresistibly uncomfortable moments to last too long. Revel in “The Pillowman” ’s bleakness and you’ll be just fine.

Daily Arts Writer

If there is one show that makes me feel like I’m underachieving in life, it’s “MasterChef Junior.” Entering its fourth B season, the pint-sized MasterChef spin-off of the hit FOX Junior show “Mas- Season 4 terChef” Premiere continues to present chil- Fridays at 8 p.m. dren of such FOX culinary excellence that it puts most of its viewing audience to shame. I may be able to cook a burger, but I highly doubt I’ll ever make something that looks half as good as eight-year-old Kya’s Wagyu beef burger with two kinds of cheeses. “I think it’s time for a girl to win ‘MasterChef Junior,’” contestant Avery says as she walks into the MasterChef Kitchen. For its first three seasons, male contestants have been the favorite sons of the series, with all three winners having been boys, along with two of the runners-up. This dominance stands in stark contrast to the adult-oriented “MasterChef,” which has boasted five female winners over the course of six seasons. However, the distribution of the final two contenders, seven females to five males, is far more balanced. This dynamic between the two shows brings an eyebrowraising dynamic. While the show seeks to share culinary knowledge with a young generation, it has become increas-

ingly narrow in its selection of elite contestants. The lack of young diversity is a shame considering the wider representation present in the flagship “MasterChef” program itself. By having one of its young competitors address the lack of female winners from the beginning, “MasterChef Junior” seems to be challenging itself to broaden its horizons as it looks for its next champion among a sea of bright young faces that burst with energy.

Stands in stark contrast to adult-oriented ‘Master Chef.’ It’s this enthusiasm and wonder that carry “MasterChef Junior.” Representation and gender politics aside, the show is still, in many ways, a joy to watch. Gone are the petty rivalries and cynical reality show machinations of the adult alternative, replaced by the sincerity of childhood. The common tendency of reality to turn characters that stand out. One contestant, Adam, emphasizes his Brooklyn origins and talks with the delivery of a stand-up comedian, while Avery, dressed in overalls, plays up her bayou roots with recipe a called the “Sportsman’s Paradise Burger.” These basic archetypes are common, but “MasterChef Junior” steers away from the

negative tendencies that typecasting usually resorts to in competitive reality shows. No child is made out to be a villain or a jerk; they’re just kids that want be the best cooks they can be. Even though it’s been on for four seasons, the show’s pervading positive attitude still makes for a nice refresher from the inherent nastiness of several reality competitions. The universal encouragement extends to the judging. Instead of resorting to putdowns and angry rants meant to artificially heighten drama, judges Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Christina Tosi (her first time on “MasterChef Junior”) bring valid constructive criticism. Tosi excels in the instance when presented with a marshmallow pie by contestant Alexander. The pie is, frankly, a mess and Alexander knows it, but Tosi searches for the good and offers necessary comfort for a young boy in a stressful situation. This goodwill towards innocence fosters a show with a constructive atmosphere. As Alexander and fellow contestant Kade are eliminated, the rest of the participants gather around for a big group hug. It’s a common scene on the show, but the comforting sentiment continues to carry over across seasons. “MasterChef Junior” still has issues of finding diverse champions; a challenge made even more difficult considering it’s hard for audiences at home to assess the abilities of the young chefs. However, the positive atmosphere continues to create a show that offers up the best in its young competitors.

Arts

6A — Friday, November 13, 2015

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TV NOTEBOOK

CULTURAL CURES COLUMN

Dear Gillian: How ‘PC’ shapes our TV watching The art of the nude PC culture has changed acceptable humor By SOPHIA KAUFMAN Daily Arts Writer

There is one phrase I use at least once a day that is guaranteed to make my roommate roll her eyes every time: “That’s not PC.” (Of course, it could be possible that she’s rolling her eyes in frustration at the fact that I say it a lot when she’s watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” but I’ll get to that in a minute). “Politically correct” is a phrase that has subtle differences in different contexts. If something isn’t PC, it’s offensive or non-inclusive; a common example would be using certain words to refer to a person’s identity (race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) that aren’t socially acceptable anymore based on their history. The qualifier “political” stems from the fact that not using the PC term for something is a great way to find yourself with your foot in your mouth, at best — not a very dignified or comfortable position. The concept of political correctness isn’t new. The third most popular definition of “politically correct” on Urban Dictionary is “the idealogy of weird left wing liberals who want society to be nothing but accepting of all perverts and freaks everywhere. The main basis is not to offend anyone with one little incorrect word,” written in 2003 by “John J. Cock Oiler” (The top definition was gross so I’m not retyping it). However, the level of group censorship based on political correctness has been rising — and so has the level of impatience from those who think political correctness just means tiptoeing around the truth (at best) or insidious

censorship (at worst). Intellectual communities like universities and think tanks have been engaging in discourse about how a renewed emphasis on political correctness is bleeding into our classrooms; Obama spoke on this himself recently in Iowa, disapproving of “coddling” college students. And with the rise of social activism on social media, PC culture is spreading. We could talk about the causes and effects of PC culture, and how they play into identity politics for weeks without running out of material, but something I have been thinking about recently — especially as the characters from my roommate’s shows like “It’s Always Sunny” or “30 Rock” are constantly screeching in my head nowadays — is how PC culture is affecting our TV shows and habits. When I hear some of the jokes that made it onto the final scripts for episodes of shows like those, I sometimes find myself laughing in shock at how not PC they are. I know that “30 Rock” is satire, but I still can’t help but wonder if many of their jokes that rely on tropes and stereotypes and would make the cut these days. This question is especially relevant for anything marketed as comedy. The line between satire and jokes that aren’t OK is becoming thicker and thicker. The first time I fully realized this was after I watched the first episode of Amy Poehler’s “Difficult People,” a newish show on Hulu, in which a horrible character tweets a joke about Blue Ivy soon being old enough for “R. Kelly to piss on her.” The joke felt uncouth, even though I understood that the writers meant it to be a reminder of how R. Kelly was accused of urinating on and having sex with a teenage girl in 2002. I could understand why Black feminists especially were angry — jokes at the expense of Black women’s bodies are still all too prevalent.

Yet the show was slammed much harder than it would have been had it aired even three or five years ago. Similar jokes have made the cut time and time again on older, more established shows. People are more likely now to watch their shows online rather than live, and more people engage in discussions publicly online about what they’re watching. But when shows with cult-like followings air, discussions about them often trend on Twitter immediately. So if something happens or something is said that isn’t PC, people quickly find out about it. PC culture is changing our TV viewership habits in that the population of a show’s audience that is likely to engage in critical analysis about what they’re watching is growing — and they have access to media platforms from which they can spread their ideas. People are more likely to take offense at things that weren’t meant to be taken seriously, and some feel that they’re being unfairly treated by those that police political correctness. What started out as trying to make sure everyone feels respected is sometimes turned into an exercise in hyperbolizing satire and at times silencing those who don’t hold popular liberal opinions. I have to bite my tongue sometimes and remind myself I’m not the PC police, but at other times I simply can’t help myself — I know, I’m everyone’s favorite classmate (or roommate — #sorrynotsorry, Rebecca). But I think that’s OK. PC culture represents good intentions that are sometimes taken to extremes, and it’s up to all of us to educate ourselves on what those extremes look like. Our TV shows are sometimes the best examples of where the bounds of PC culture should be: we should know when to point something out for not being PC, and when to just shut up and have fun watching the damn TV show.

Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Friday, November 13, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Dear Gillian, I love to paint, but all my best work is of nudes, and my mom doesn’t want to hang them up in the house. I feel like she does not appreciate my talent or worse — she sometimes seems embarrassed of my art. GILLIAN What should I JAKAB do? Artist Under Wraps ******* Dear Wraps, The first thing we need to figure out is whether your mom doesn’t like your art or doesn’t like the nudity in your art. If it’s the art, there’s not much you can do. Though I’m sure your art is striking, everyone is entitled to their opinion when it comes to art appreciation and there’s no accounting for taste. I would say just ask your mom straightup if she thinks your nudes are pornography or just poor artistry. But let’s assume it’s the former, then I’d say your job is to help her work out her hang up and hang up your work out in the open. Don’t settle for a wall in the guest-roomturned-storage-unit. Gallery space is difficult to score; you at least deserve prime real estate in your family home. While I can’t provide criticism on form and composition, I can comfort you with the knowledge that you are part of a timeless lineage of artists who have navigated the narrow straits between celebration and scandal when it comes to the nude subject (some have deliberately run aground on either side). Maybe your mom can take comfort in it as well. On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicts the Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve with two scenes in narrative sequence. On the left he paints the original couple

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blissfully nude, possibly in the middle of a shame-free sex act. On the right side is the moment after Adam and Eve have eaten of the forbidden fruit; the newly self-aware pair are leaving Eden shamefully covering their naked bodies. Art historian Kenneth Clark is great on the distinction between naked and nude: “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude,’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone … a balanced, prosperous and confident body.” This, Wraps, might be helpful in determining the interpretive framework with which your mother views your paintings. Are you rendering human vulnerability and eroticism, or do your canvases glow with divine idealized beauty? To follow one art historical thread down this path: Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is celebrated as an elegant and natural depiction of a nude, a goddess — an idealized form of a woman — and her sexuality is soft and unobtrusive. Titian’s Venus of Urbino takes one step toward the risqué plucking Venus from her heavenly surroundings and placing her in an earthly bedroom. Yet Titian’s soft application of paint and the graceful body language of Venus allow viewers to hold on to highbrow associations. Eduoard Manet steps defiantly over the nude/nakedness line with Olympia, first shown at the 1865 Paris Salon where it was met with harsh criticism and outrage. With the same composition as Venus of Urbino, it’s the black choker of a prostitute and challenging gaze that render Olympia overtly sexual and shocking — viewers are forced to confront the sexual naked body and can’t hide behind the pretense of ideal beauty. It gets worse with Sally Mann’s Venus After School (1992), but we won’t go there. I don’t know your gender or that of your nudes, but the naked/ nude division applies equally in depictions of the male body. From Michelangelo’s sculpted David in the early 1500s celebrating human beauty and excellence as those humanists liked to do in the Renaissance to Robert Mapplethorpe’s silver gelatin print Dan S. in 1980 that toes the line between art and pornography. No discussion about the history of nudity in art, not even in an advice column, is complete without a word about the gender dynamics of the artist/ subject relationship. I don’t know if the objectification of gaze is the right foot to start off on with your mom, but it probably affords the most insight into the topic. In the visual arts, it is usually the subject that is nude. But in some of the other creative disciplines, it’s the artists themselves. Dance is a stark example. The (sometimes controversial) dance critic Alastair Macaulay approves of nudity in dance where it advances the artistic intent of a piece, such as by conveying intimacy or highlighting musculature where those are among the choreographic themes, but condemns it where it is purely prurient, raunch for raunch’s sake. He repeated ballet dancer Robert Helpmann’s famous observation of the problem with nakedness in dance: When you stop on the music, not all the parts of your anatomy stop at the same time, which leads to the conclusion that slow choreography can be done nude but a fast dance, only buck-naked. So, my dear artist U.W., not to get too psycho-sexual, but as Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” teaches us, there can be engrained personal aversions to the human body. In the novel, Tereza’s greatest fear is being reduced to nakedness with no way to distinguish herself from anyone else’s fleshy body. If your mom’s aversion is not as deep-seated as Tereza’s, take the most nude and least naked of your works, bring images and source materials of the great nude works of the creative arts and open the

debate with your mom. I’m sure she’ll come around. Unless your work is all down by the naked end of the spectrum. That’s cool too, but you might have to get your own apartment. ******* Dear Gillian, I sent my boyfriend a nude photo of myself and he didn’t say anything back. Later, he replied via text message: “No thank you.” It’s hard not to take this personally. Should I try again? Maybe from a different angle this time? - Laid Bare ******** Dear Laid, I see how you would take this personally. Your gesture was one of giving and vulnerable commitment. In Federico García Lorca’s poem “Casido of a Reclining Woman,” he writes: “To see you naked is to remember the Earth, / the smooth Earth, clean of horses, / the Earth without reeds, pure form, / closed to the future, confine of silver.” Your body represents a lot, if not everything, and its gift should be accepted joyously and with wonder and gratitude. A nude photo may serve the same purpose, after a fashion, as Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself” in which he sings the song of himself, representative of his being, and shares it with the implied listener/reader of the poem: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” He, too, makes the distinction between naked (“I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked”) and nude (“Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude”) in this piece. So I completely understand your resentment and your instinct to refuse to take no for an answer. To my eye, L.B., your boyfriend’s response is not to the angle of the photo — I’m sure your photo was stunning — but rather is born of prudence. Perhaps he assumes you are opening up a graphic conversation in which he is meant to respond with a photo of his own nude body, and is rejecting the suggestion of this sext exchange. This particular art can be toxic, having felled its practitioners from teenagers — see the novelist Helen Schulman’s “This Beautiful Life” — to Congressmen, not to mention the effects on their loved ones. “Nudity quickly becomes unremarkable when generally practiced,” wrote the philosopher Martha Nussbaum in “Hiding From Humanity.” Compared to the feelings stirred in the midst of your physical presence, the effect of the nude photo might just not do it for him. Worse, the prospect of having it available all the time might rob your intimacy of its specialness. This, L.B., is not to say that nude selfies, well executed, cannot be artful and worthy forms of expression — they can. Look at the early expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Self-Portrait (1906) or Latoya Ruby Frazier’s Self Portrait United States Steel (2010). So maybe the solution here is to put your artistic all into your next photo, paying attention to lighting, focus and frame, not just exposure. Consider black and white or other monochrome effects. Try to achieve an image that conjures a mood much larger than the bare sum of the parts. Then, once you’ve got it firmly on the art side of the nude-naked continuum, send it via Snapchat! Send an email to DearGillian@ michigandaily.com or anonymously here describing a quandary about love, relationships, existence or their opposites. Gillian will attempt to summon the wisdom of the arts (literary, visual, performing) to soothe your troubled soul. We may publish your letter in the biweekly column with your first name (or penname). Submissions should be 250 words or fewer and may be edited prior to publication.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Arts & Sports

Friday, November 13, 2015 — 7A

TV REVIEW

Aimless ‘Donny!’ has yet to find its footing Uninspired comedy relies on tasteless jokes By SAMUEL ROSENBERG Daily Arts Writer

One of the most common tropes in television comedies also seems to be one of the most entertaining: famous people Cplaying fictionalized versions Donny! of themselves. Series Watching Premiere celebrities poke fun at Tuesdays at their fame 10:30 p.m. and fortune has become USA somewhat of a captivating concept for audiences. But while this formula has created some of the most critically acclaimed TV shows in history (“Seinfeld,” “Louie,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), it doesn’t always work. Unfortunately, USA’s new original series “Donny!” seems to prove that. Despite being sporadically funny, “Donny!” falters as an uninspired comedy that relies mostly on tasteless jokes about the media and celebrity culture. Playing the show’s womanizing eponymous protagonist, real-life TV personality Donny Deutsch certainly has some experience in the industry. Deutsch has led a successful career in business as an ad executive and in television as a judge on NBC’s “The Apprentice” and a former host of CNBC’s “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.” Though

Deutsch plays a fictionalized version of his real-life persona in “Donny!,” he exaggerates himself to the extreme and the results are neither as original nor as clever as they could be. In the pilot “A Sext Ruined My Life!,” Deutsch’s character is introduced as the host of a talk show called “Donny!,” which looks like a cross between “Dr. Phil” and “Maury.” On the show, Deutsch’s first guest is a young woman named Becky, whose racy sext photo has become a viral meme on the Internet and deemed her as the “Psycho Sexter.” Rather than sympathizing with Becky and her situation, Deutsch shows her picture to the mortified live audience, leaving her in tears and even more distraught. While this scene may have intended to satirize the exploitative qualities of talk shows, it doesn’t provoke any laughs nor offer any insight. Throughout the rest of the episode, Deutsch continues to squander every possible comedic moment with bland, insipid humor. In a brainstorm meeting with his thick-skinned associate producer Pam (Emily Tarver, “The Residuals”), Deutsch uses lesbians and cancer as ideas for topics to boost ratings for his show. Later on, while defending his relationship with his Russian girlfriend Galina (Tina Casciani, “Jane the Virgin”) to his concerned assistants, Deutsch suddenly breaks the fourth wall, promoting a product placement of Hak’s BBQ Sauce to the audience. Though this scene is probably a tongue-in-cheek reference to Deutsch’s real-life advertising repertoire, it feels incongruous with the show’s overall tone.

As Deutsch recently told Rotten Tomatoes in an interview, he is intentionally playing an “idiotic” version of himself on “Donny!” Deutsch does indeed play an idiot, but one whose stupidity seems more obnoxious than hilarious. In this episode, he continually misunderstands the difference between a visual sext and a “suggestive picture,” when they are clearly the same thing. In addition to denouncing Becky for her sexting situation, Deutsch takes a shirtless selfie, which is intended for Galina and accidentally sent to his daughter’s teacher. Of course, the racy selfie becomes viral like Becky’s and immediately causes bad publicity for Deutsch. At this point in the show, you would expect some sort of character growth from Deutsch, who would learn from his mistakes and recognize the irony of his actions. But instead of taking responsibility for his hypocritical behavior, Deutsch acts on this viral mishap for his own self-interest. When appearing on an MSNBC morning show, he markets the selfie as part of a made-up charity for carcinoma, dismissing the inherent issue of his sext, or what he considers a mere “suggestive picture.” Though Deutsch has the charisma and natural delivery, his character is in dire need of some development. The one aspect that is surprisingly refreshing about “Donny!” is the predominantly female cast. Deutsch and his young son Jagger (newcomer Jacob Thomas Anderson) are the only two male characters present in the episode. But even then, the women on the show are portrayed in a stereotypical, one-dimensional fashion. Deutsch’s snarky

two assistants Jackie (Hailey Giles, “Hustle & Flow”) and Zoe (Meera Rohit Kumbhani, “Weird Loners”) come off as mean-spirited and his newest assistant Violet (newcomer Jessica Renee Russell) acts naive and desperate to win Deutsch’s attention. His daughter Coco (Fiona Robert, “Law & Order: SVU”) is the typical spoiled, vapid teenager, who gets in trouble at school for cussing out a kid in Mandarin. During her brief screen time, Galina is a purely sexualized spectacle, canoodling with Deutsch and acting out a cheeky roleplay with him, in which she plays a Russian figure skater to Deutsch’s Vladimir Putin. Even Becky the “Psycho Sexter” from the opening scene is made out to be crazy and hysterical. However, as conventional and clichéd as these roles may seem, the one character who mostly subverts the female TV stereotype is Pam, who uttered the funniest, sharpest lines by far. While “Donny!” lacks the depth, heart and genuine humor of other meta comedies, the premise of a middle-aged, selfobsessed talk show host could potentially make the show interesting. But at the moment, “Donny!” doesn’t really know what kind of show it wants to be yet. “A Sext Ruined My Life!” plays out like any other generic pilot, rushing and overlooking small details and not giving any room to develop an intriguing storyline. Perhaps its late time slot and its presence on a television network filled with dramas that could be the problem. Nevertheless, “Donny!” fails to make a lasting impression, even with a celebrity at its helm.

FIELD HOCKEY

Lubbers a key to ‘M’ midfield By LELAND MITCHINSON Daily Sports Writer

Many athletes who come to Michigan from different countries go through a period of adjustment to get used to their new surroundings and the traditions that go along with them. For the Michigan field hockey team’s Veerle Lubbers, a sophomore from Arnhem, Netherlands, one American tradition has stood out as especially strange. “It’s definitely the pumpkin carving,” Lubbers said. “I found out about it this Halloween. I tried the pumpkin carving myself, and I do not have the patience for it, to tell you the truth. I got frustrated, but it turned out my pumpkin that I picked was not a good one because it was yellow. Maybe that was it, because it was really thick and I could not cut through.” Though some of the United States’ stranger holiday traditions may not make sense to Lubbers, the midfielder has had no trouble adjusting to playing in the States. “Especially in Holland, where she’s from, field hockey is their No. 1 sport,” said Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz. “They start playing field hockey when they are maybe 3 years old, so it’s like a basic motor skill for them. They learn it really early. Our players in the United States don’t really pick up a stick and play until they’re maybe 12, 13, 14 years old.” On the field, Lubbers had an instant impact despite being in a system with completely different tactics than the one she grew up playing in. Accoding to Lubbers, Dutch players spend a lot of time focusing on stick skills while her time at Michigan has been very

focused on being fit. Last August, Lubbers made her debut against then-No. 2 North Carolina and went on to start all 20 games for the Wolverines while setting the team record for assists in a season. This season, Lubbers has continued her strong play in the midfield — her nine assists in 19 starts this campaign are good for second on the team. “She reads the game really well,” Pankratz said. “Her instincts are really good and strong because she has been playing for so long at a high level.” Saturday, Lubbers will help lead the 10th-ranked Wolverines into the NCAA Tournament against No. 7 Wake Forest. Throughout her time at Michigan, her teammates have been there to support her any time she needed help, on or off the field. “My teammates helped me out really well,” Lubbers said. “I mean, of course transitioning to school was difficult with all the new words that I had to learn for all the subjects, especially for biology and all that, but they were really helpful.” In playing field hockey for an American university, Lubbers has an opportunity she wouldn’t have in the Netherlands. In her home country, academics and athletics are completely separate, making scheduling conflicts more difficult to work around. “Here, (athletics and academics are) connected, so they understand each other,” Lubbers said. “If we have to travel, the teachers understand I am on the team here and you can make up for it another time.” Lubbers is still transitioning to her new home, but pumpkins aside, it appears she’ll carve out a nice career at Michigan.

Michigan opens ‘M’ hosts Niagara after bye Wolverines face vs. Binghamton injury-plagued WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

By BRANDON CARNEY Daily Sports Writer

The Michigan women’s basketball team may not be opening with marquee opposition, but playing on back- NOTEBOOK to-back days is the type of initial challenge coach Kim Barnes Arico wants to see her team respond to. Binghamton will visit Crisler Center on Saturday for the Wolverines’ first game of the 2015-16 season. Michigan will then make the short trip to Detroit on Sunday to finish the weekend doubleheader. With the end goal of a return to the NCAA Tournament, a place they haven’t been since 2013, the Wolverines are hoping to grab momentum right from the start. Michigan already appears to be firing on all cylinders after several players put together impressive performances in last Sunday’s exhibition win over Ferris State. The Wolverines’ freshman trio of center Hallie Thome and guards Lauren ‘Boogie’ Brozoski and Nicole Munger had an instant impact against the Bulldogs. The freshmen showed no signs of wearing down against Ferris State, but Barnes Arico will monitor how her younger players deal with the fatigue of playing on back-to-back days. “With the freshmen, it’s going to be the grind of the season,” Barnes Arico said. “How much they can handle bouncing back from playing, then playing another game a few days later. That determines how ready they are.” Neither the Bearcats nor Titans are expected to put up a huge challenge for the Wolverines — the two teams had a combined 16-44 record in 2014-15 — but they will give Barnes Arico the first chance to evaluate her young players’ fitness. RULE CHANGES: Saturday will also be the first competitive

matchup for Michigan under the new NCAA rules package. Most changes are related to the switch from 20-minute halves to 10-minute quarters. There will be one media timeout at the first stoppage under five minutes in each quarter. Team fouls will also be accumulated by quarter, and teams reach the double bonus on the fifth team foul of each period. After made baskets or once possession is secured with under a minute left in the fourth quarter and overtime periods, teams will be allowed to advance the ball to the frontcourt when a timeout is called. The change is meant to add exciting possessions at the end of games, replicating a similar rule used in the WNBA. Other major adjustments include a reduction in the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds, a decrease in allotted team timeouts from five to four and a policy lessening the frequency of hand-check fouls on post defenders. SIGNING DAY: Michigan announced on Wednesday the signing of four players for its 2016 class. Guard Kysre Gondrezick has received the most national attention. The Benton Harbor, Mich., native was ranked No. 70 in ESPN’s HoopGurlz ratings and is regarded as the top-rated player in the state. Toledo Rogers teammates Akienreh Johnson and KeAsja Peace will stay together when they arrive in Ann Arbor next fall. Johnson, a 6-foot guard, and Peace, a 6-foot-3 forward, were each given three-star ratings by HoopGurlz and will add muchneeded height to Barnes Arico’s lineup next season. Rounding out the class is 6-foot-1 forward Kayla Robbins. The Maryland native is a natural small forward who has great rebounding and shooting ability. Robbins, rated No. 93 by HoopGurlz, will add versatility and athleticism to Michigan.

Purple Eagles in single game at Yost By MINH DOAN Daily Sports Editor

After the his team’s 4-0 loss to Robert Morris on Oct. 31, Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson said he wished the Niagara at Wolverines could play a Michigan game the next Matchup: weekend. Niagara 0-5-2; Instead, the Michigan 5-1-1 Wolverines When: Friday had 12 days 7:35 P.M. to prepare for their next Where: Yost Ice Arena opponent, Niagara (0-1- TV/Radio: 1 Atlantic MGoBlue.com Hockey Conference, 0-5-2 overall), which they will face Friday at Yost Ice Arena. But after Michigan’s first loss of the season, the bye week allowed the Wolverines (5-1-1) to regroup and work on individual skills. “I wish we could’ve come back and played the next weekend coming off the Robert Morris weekend,” Berenson said. “But we couldn’t, so we had to take it the way it’s scheduled. “I thought (the bye week) was a good combination of improvement and our team getting together with a little less pressure on them. Now we’re getting the team back to game mode this week, and I can feel a better sense of urgency this week from last week.” In addition to the individual improvement, at least one roster change will be made — senior forward Boo Nieves will return to the lineup after being held out against Robert Morris due to a concussion. Nieves’ return also allows the Wolverines to keep four separate lines, instead of shuffling players

JAMES COLLER/Daily

Senior forward Justin Selman will be back alongside Boo Nieves and Kyle Connor on a high-scoring line for Michigan.

between lines every shift, which should create more fluidity and chemistry among the four lines. “It’s good to have him back,” said senior forward Justin Selman. “He compliments me and (freshman forward) Kyle Connor very well. Having a guy like him playing in the middle so I can get back on the wing is great too. He brings a lot of speed to our line.” But for a team that has averaged just under four goals per game, creating offense isn’t the problem. Rather, the problem is that Michigan has also given up an average of four goals per game. While it hasn’t been entirely the goaltenders’ fault, neither junior Zach Nagelvoort nor senior Steve Racine has been able to establish himself in goal. “You look at our goalies’ goalsagainst (average), and it’s too high,” Berenson said. “It’s pretty hard for me to tell you that I like anybody’s game when our save

percentage is under .900 and our goals against is over 3.00.” But if there were any time for one of the goaltenders to get their game going, a game against a winless Niagara team could be it, especially for Nagelvoort. Last time the two squads met in 2013, Nagelvoort earned a 6-0 win for the first shutout of his Michigan career. In that game, junior forward Tyler Motte had a goal and two assists, while his line mate, junior forward Alex Kile, registered his first goal as a Wolverine. This time around, the Purple Eagles’ resume doesn’t leave much room for doubt that the result will be any different this time around. Niagara comes into the game winless after a late Penn State goal denied the Purple Eagles their first win of the season. The biggest problem Niagara has faced this season, though, is the injury bug, which has

“We don’t know too much of what to expect.”

forced underclassmen to play big minutes. One example is in goal, where freshman goaltenders Guillaume Therien and Joe O’Brien have split time between the pipes due to an injury to seasoned veteran Jackson Teichroeb, who started 32 of 37 games for the Purple Eagles last year. Niagara is also missing its top two centers, TJ Sarcona and Rob Angiolella, as well as a top-four defenseman, Matt Chiarantano. Despite all of the Purple Eagles’ struggles, Michigan won’t be taking them lightly. “They’re one of those teams that we don’t see very often, so we don’t know too much of what to expect,” Selman said. “They’re going to be excited to play us on the road, especially at Yost. They’ve tied two good teams in Penn State and Robert Morris, so we definitely can’t take them lightly.” And the Wolverines shouldn’t, because college hockey is an unpredictable game and anything can happen on any given night. Michigan will just need to work hard to make Niagara as predictable as possible.

Sports

8A — Friday, November 13, 2015

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

FOOTBALL

Breakdown: ‘M’ vs. Indiana By MAX BULTMAN

at their disposal.

Daily Sports Editor

Edge: Michigan

RITA MORRIS/Daily

Fifth-year senior Jake Rudock is coming off his best game of the season.

Indiana trip opens final stretch of year By MAX COHEN Managing Sports Editor

The doldrums of the college football season are a thing of the past. The final three weeks of the schedule typically represent a time of chaos, rankings turned upside down and upsets left and right. The No. 14 Michigan Michigan football team, at Indiana as evidenced by last-second Matchup: finishes against Indiana 4-5; Michigan 7-2 Michigan State and Minnesota, When: has already Saturday 3:30 P.M. endured its share of drama Where: this season. Memorial Stadium Now, with two games TV/Radio: ABC remaining before that big one on Thanksgiving weekend, the Wolverines will be tasked with staying on par for the course. First up for Michigan is Indiana (0-5 Big Ten, 4-5 overall). The Hoosiers, despite their lackluster conference record, have presented a challenge to some of their most difficult Big Ten opponents this season. Indiana took No. 3 Ohio State down to the wire, falling by just seven points. The Hoosiers also hung with No. 13 Michigan State well into the second half last month before the Spartans turned the game into a blowout late in the fourth quarter. Indiana is largely a threat to the Wolverines because of its offense. The Hoosiers have accumulated the second-most yards and fifthmost points of any team in the Big Ten this season, hardly statistics for a cellar dweller. The Hoosiers have scored fewer than 26 points on only one occasion this season, when Penn State limited them to just seven on Oct. 10. Though Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said Monday that he would make sure his team was aware of the larger implications of the final three games of the

season, his players feel as though Indiana is enough of a challenge to keep them from worrying about conference championships and the slim possibility of a playoff berth just yet. “Everything boils down to this game,” said redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Maurice Hurst on Tuesday. “We can’t focus on what’s up next, especially when we’re playing a team like Indiana that’s scored on everybody.” The Hoosiers’ defense, however, hasn’t lived up to its end of the bargain. The unit is last in the Big Ten in points (37) and yards (504) allowed per game. Indiana’s porous defense will give Michigan’s offense the opportunity to build off of its performance against Rutgers in which it compiled 487 yards. Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock played his best game of the season, completing 18 of his 25 passes for 337 yards and two touchdowns. Rudock’s performance inspired high praise from Harbaugh. “He even looked like an NFLtype quarterback,” Harbaugh said Monday. “You know, somebody who would have a future playing in that league.” This is a welcome development for the Wolverines, particularly after Rudock struggled from bouts with turnovers early in the season. A second straight good performance against Indiana would inspire further confidence as Michigan heads into the home stretch. A win against the Hoosiers would keep the Wolverines alive in the Big Ten race. Then comes another road game at Penn State, a place where Michigan has had some trouble in recent memory. And then, if things hold to form and the Buckeyes defeat the Spartans next weekend, the Wolverines will play their chief rival for the division title on Nov. 28. But things rarely tend to work out as planned toward the end of the college football season. Michigan will look to take care of its part Saturday.

For most of its season, the Indiana football team has had to settle for “close.” Already this season, the Hoosiers (0-5 Big Ten, 4-5 overall) have lost to then-No. 1 Ohio State by seven points and then-No. 9 Iowa by eight points. They trailed then-No. 7 Michigan State by just five with five minutes remaining, but couldn’t keep it together, losing by 26. They were in every one of those games. They just couldn’t finish. So when No. 14 Michigan goes to Bloomington on Saturday, the Wolverines will be taking on a team that’s better than its record suggests. Here’s how the Daily breaks down the upcoming matchup. Michigan pass offense vs. Indiana pass defense Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock isn’t the nation’s most exciting signal-caller, but Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said Rudock has stepped his game up lately, even saying he has resembled an NFL quarterback this week. Rudock had a career-high 337 yards against Rutgers, throwing for two touchdowns and running for one in his best game of the season. Indiana has given up the second-most passing yards per game in the nation the season, ahead of only Kansas. Junior tight end Jake Butt had a big game last week for Michigan, racking up 102 yards on four catches, and is a threat to replicate those numbers any given week in Harbaugh’s offense. Outside of Butt, redshirt junior wide receivers Amara Darboh and Jehu Chesson have developed into reliable targets on any down. Add in a screen game that continues to pay big dividends, and the Wolverines have many weapons

Michigan rush offense vs. Indiana rush defense On the surface, Indiana’s 48th-ranked rush defense doesn’t look too bad. But that average is buoyed by games against Florida International, Western Kentucky and Wake Forest. Outside of those games, the Hoosiers have been susceptible to the ground game. Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott rushed for 274 yards and three touchdowns against Indiana. Rutgers’ Robert Martin ran for 124 yards and three touchdowns. And Southern Illinois gained 248 yards rushing as a team. The Hoosiers are giving up 161 yards and two touchdowns on the ground to ranked teams this season, which could play well for a Michigan team that likes to pound the football and has the weapons to do so. Redshirt junior running backs De’Veon Smith and Drake Johnson provide a speed/power combo that, if both are healthy, can keep opposing defenses off balance. Unless Indiana can play its best defensive game of the year, Michigan should be able to do what it wants on offense, and that starts with the running game. Edge: Michigan Indiana pass offense Michigan pass defense

vs.

Though Michigan’s pass defense is giving up the thirdfewest yards per game in the nation, it has been vulnerable against great quarterbacks this season. Michigan State’s Connor Cook and Minnesota’s Mitch Leidner all threw for big yards against the Wolverines, and both would have beaten them had the Golden Gophers not been stopped

on a last-second goal-line stand. With that in mind, Michigan will need to limit Indiana quarterback Nate Sudfeld to have success on Saturday. Sudfeld has thrown for 2,229 yards through nine games, and wide receiver Ricky Jones has totaled 708 receiving yards. That means junior cornerback Jourdan Lewis will likely be tasked with covering Jones, fresh off a week in which Lewis broke the Michigan single-season record for pass breakups. Lewis has been burned in only one game this season — when the Spartans’ Aaron Burbridge caught nine passes for 132 yards — and even then, he made his impact felt, breaking up six passes. Edge: Michigan Indiana rush offense vs. Michigan rush defense If running back Jordan Howard can get going, the Hoosiers offense becomes quite intimidating. Indiana plays the fastest tempo Michigan will face all year, and if the Hoosiers can combine their tempo with a productive run game, the Wolverines could get worn out. Howard has been steady in nearly every game this season except against Ohio State, when he was held to 34 yards on 14 carries, and Michigan State, when he gained 78 yards on 11 touches. He has gained over 140 yards every other time out, but his subpar showings against two rush defenses on Michigan’s level do not bode well for him going into Saturday. Keeping Howard in check will be a concern all game for the Wolverines, and it will only be tougher if redshirt junior defensive tackle Ryan Glasgow can’t play. Glasgow’s status is uncertain after being in a sling this week, and if he can’t go, Michigan’s depth at the position

could become a problem. Still, the Wolverines have the nation’s No. 3 rush defense, and they should be plenty capable of staying tough, even without Glasgow. Edge: Michigan Special teams Behind new special teams coach John Baxter, Michigan has turned its special teams into one of the nation’s best units. Chesson has already returned one kick for a touchdown, and redshirt freshman safety Jabrill Peppers has been close on numerous punts and kicks. It feels like the Wolverines could break a big play on special teams at any time. Michigan and Indiana’s punting units are separated by just 0.1 yards per punt, but Indiana’s Griffin Oakes gives the Hoosiers a slight edge in the kicking game, hitting 12 of 14 on the season. Still, Michigan is ranked first in the country in special teams efficiency, and Indiana is 79th. That should tell you all you need to know. Edge: Michigan Intangibles The Hoosiers are talented enough to knock off any team in the conference, and the fact that they’ve fallen short so many times could boost their motivation against their final ranked opponent this season. Harbaugh has had the Wolverines prepared for every game so far this season, but if Indiana can finally put it all together, the Hoosiers could be a big problem. Edge: Indiana Prediction: Indiana 20

Michigan

34,

What to Watch For Saturday ‘M’ prepares to face Indiana’s up-tempo offense in fourth road game of 2015 By JAKE LOURIM Managing Sports Editor

The home stretch of the season has arrived, and the Michigan football team’s goals are suddenly within reach. The Nov. 28 rivalry game against Ohio State looms larger than ever, but first the Wolverines (4-1 Big Ten, 7-2 overall) must take care of business on the road. They play at Indiana (0-5, 4-5) on Saturday and at Penn State next weekend. The first test in Bloomington could be tricky, considering the Hoosiers have the offense to pile up points against anybody, even on a fivegame losing streak. Indiana has been on the brink of an upset multiple times this season, but historically, upsets have not come against Michigan for the Hoosiers. The Wolverines own the all-time series, 54-9, and have won 17 straight dating back to 1988. Even during their lean years in 2009 and 2010, they escaped with 36-33 and 42-35 wins, respectively. But once again, a victory on the road is no sure bet. With a few unknowns remaining, there will be plenty to watch for Saturday. Here are a few highlights. 1. Tempo, tempo, tempo. Indiana may not be the toughest test Michigan’s defense will face this season, but it will be unique. The Hoosiers’ no-huddle attack runs 2.73 plays per minute, ranking 17th in the nation. The Wolverines have not seen an up-tempo offense since their first two games against Utah and Oregon State. To make matters more complicated, redshirt junior defensive tackle Ryan Glasgow left last Saturday’s game with a shoulder injury and had his

ALLISON FARRAND/Daily

Redshirt junior defensive tackle Ryan Glasgow is questionable for Saturday’s game with an injured shoulder.

arm in a sling this week. If he can’t play Saturday, redshirt sophomore Maurice Hurst is the only nose tackle left on the depth chart. The Wolverines rotate often on the defensive line, so that could mean a bigger workload for redshirt juniors Matt Godin, Chris Wormley or Willie Henry. On offense, Indiana has enough weapons to spread the field and test Michigan’s defense. Nate Sudfeld, a third-year starter at quarterback, is healthy and has averaged 278.6 yards in eight games. Running back Jordan Howard, who missed two games earlier in the season, has rushed for 961 yards at 6.1 yards per carry. No team will run the Wolverines’ stout defense off the field, but the Hoosiers could at least make things interesting. 2. How does Michigan look on the road? The Wolverines’ results away from home have run the gamut. They opened the season with a sluggish, three-turnover loss at Utah. They dominated an outmatched Maryland team four weeks later, 28-0. And they escaped with a hard-fought 29-26

win over Minnesota two weeks ago in the most tightly contested of the three. The matchup with Ohio State on Nov. 28 only matters if Michigan can remain unscathed until then. Though Bloomington doesn’t fit on the same level as the top schools in the Big Ten when it comes to hostile road environments, the Wolverines must be wary. And they must make another trip to Penn State next week. The Hoosiers have lost five in a row, but they have been within one possession of a top-10 team in two of them. 3. Where on the field is Jabrill Peppers? The hype surrounding Michigan’s redshirt freshman safety has only increased as the season has gone on and Peppers has played more roles. In the past three games, he has made an impact in all three phases, and he now ranks third on the team with 470 all-purpose yards despite spending most of his time on defense. Last week, the coaches rolled back Peppers’ workload for the first time this season, putting

junior cornerback Jourdan Lewis on the kick return team in his place. He also sustained a thigh contusion last Friday on a collision in practice. Lately, Peppers’ snap count has risen, and against Indiana’s up-tempo offense, that might be tough to sustain. How much rest the Wolverines give him remains to be seen. 4. Can Jake Rudock keep making strides? The fifth-year senior quarterback’s teammates and coaches have been vocal all season about Rudock’s improvement, but the praise was louder than ever after Rudock’s career-high 337 passing yards against Rutgers last week. Michigan’s defense has played the biggest role in the team’s success this season, but Rudock will be counted on most during the final three games. If Saturday turns into a shootout, he may have to air the ball out. Indiana’s pass defense ranks 126th in the country and has allowed an average of 339 yards over the past three games. If Rudock carries over last week’s success into this week’s game, the Wolverines will be tough to beat.

K LI E S PI KE

TIP OFF

2015

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Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off

MI CH IGA N BASKETBALL

PREVIEW TIP OFF 2015-16 Daily Men’s Basketball Beat

At this time last year, the Michigan men’s basketball team looked poised for another run at a Big Ten title. Instead, the injury-riddled Wolverines missed postseason play altogether. This season, Michigan returns 11 of 12 scholarship players. Senior co-captains Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht have a chance to relive the glory of their 2013 Final Four run, and Michigan’s size, depth and backcourt talent make a trip deep into March a distinct possibility. But as last year shows, the Wolverines can afford to take nothing for granted.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

MICHIGAN’S MULLIGAN: The Wolverines suffered devastating injuries in 2014-15, forcing several young players into action. That prepared them well for this season.

4 8

LIKE SPIKE: Michigan’s senior co-captain was passed over time after time. But when John Beilein gave Spike Albrecht a chance, it paid off for both of them. POSITION BY POSITION: Michigan’s deep backcourt, led by Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton Jr., is the strength of the team, while the frontcourt gained experience last season.

Cover illustration by Allison Farrand, Design by Levi Kipke

Lev Facher, Jacob Gase, Kelly Hall, Simon Kaufman

Follow Daily Sports on Twitter: @theblockm No.

Name

Pos.

Ht.

Wt.

Year

Hometown

0

Brent Hibbitts

F

6-8

205

Fr.

Hudsonville, Mich.

2

Spike Albrecht

G

5-11

175

Sr.

Crown Point, Ind.

3

Kameron Chatman

G/F

6-8

215

So.

Portland, Ore.

5

D.J. Wilson

F

6-10

240

RS Fr.

Sacramento, Calif.

10

Derrick Walton Jr.

G

6-1

190

Jr.

Detroit, Mich.

11

Andrew Dakich

G

6-2

190

Jr.

Zionsville, Ind.

12

M. Abdur-Rahkman

G

6-4

185

So.

Allentown, Pa.

13

Moritz Wagner

F

6-10

225

Fr.

Berlin, Germany

20

Sean Lonergan

F

6-5

210

Jr.

Fishers, Ind.

21

Zak Irvin

G/F

6-6

215

Jr.

Fishers, Ind.

22

Duncan Robinson

G/F

6-8

210

RS So. New Castle, N.H.

23

Caris LeVert

G

6-7

205

Sr.

Pickerington, Ohio

24

Aubrey Dawkins

G/F

6-6

205

So.

Palo Alto, Calif.

32

Ricky Doyle

F

6-9

250

So.

Cape Coral, Fla.

34

Mark Donnal

F

6-9

240

Jr.

Monclova, Ohio

STAFF PICKS The Daily basketball writers do their best to predict what will happen in the world of college basketball this season. Michigan regular-season record Big Ten champion Big Ten second place Big Ten third place Big Ten Tournament champion Big Ten MVP Big Ten Coach of the Year Big Ten suprise team Michigan MVP National Player of the Year National Freshman of the year Michigan’s season ends here NCAA “Bracket Buster” NCAA Final Four

Lev Facher 22-9 Maryland Michigan Michigan State Maryland Melo Trimble, Maryland Eddie Jordan, Rutgers Rutgers LeVert Kyle Wiltjer, Gonzaga Jaylen Brown, California Elite Eight Northeastern North Carolina Maryland Virginia Villanova

Jacob Gase 23-8 Maryland Michigan Michigan State Michigan Melo Trimble, Maryland Mark Turgeon, Maryland Northwestern LeVert Wiltjer Simmons Elite Eight Valparaiso North Carolina Kentucky Kansas Virginia

Kelly Hall 23-8 Maryland Michigan Michigan State Maryland Trimble Turgeon Illinois LeVert Tyler Ulis, Kentucky Simmons Elite Eight Marquette North Carolina Maryland Virginia Kentucky

Simon Kaufman 24-7 Maryland Michigan State Michigan Michigan State Caris LeVert, Michigan Tim Miles, Nebraska Nebraska LeVert Ben Simmons, LSU Simmons Sweet 16 Colorado Maryland North Carolina Iowa State Kentucky

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C

Michigan’s blessing in disguise

aris LeVert is clutching his left foot in agony, a buzzer sounds, and the sellout crowd at Crisler Center is standing and cheering. It’s January 17, 2015, and everybody in the building is celebrating Michigan’s 56-54 win over Northwestern. Everybody, that is, except for LeVert. The prognosis LEV for the FACHER Wolverines’ leader in every meaningful statistical category and a nearcertain first-round NBA draft pick is initially unclear. But with the next day’s news that LeVert’s foot injury will force him to miss the rest of the season, Team 99’s hopes of contending in a competitive Big Ten are dealt a crushing blow. Lost in translation is the obvious advantage: Team 100 is getting a head start. Fast-forward two weeks, and Muhammad-Ali AbdurRahkman is putting on a show in East Lansing. The thenfreshman guard’s 18-point performance Feb. 1 brings a Michigan team without its starting backcourt — yes, Derrick Walton Jr. is also out of commission with a toe injury — to overtime against a bigger, more experienced Michigan State unit. Abdur-Rahkman was not supposed to play meaningful minutes in 2014-15. But by sheer process of elimination, Michigan coach John Beilein was forced to throw the true freshman into the fire, alongside classmate and backcourt accomplice Aubrey Dawkins. Dawkins, in his own right, also had no business putting up 16 points against Iowa four days later, or 31 against Rutgers and 18 against Illinois in consecutive games as the injury-riddled season mercifully came to a close. But with LeVert gone, the pair had no choice. Michigan needed scorers, it needed ball-handlers, and it was out of options. Enter Dawkins. Enter Abdur-Rahkman. Sometimes, they looked lost.

GRANT HARDY/Daily

Senior guard Caris LeVert missed half of last season with a foot injury, but he returned for his senior season and will lead a deeper, more experienced Michigan team.

Sometimes, Abdur-Rahkman rained down 3s. Sometimes, Dawkins made SportsCenter after posterizing players across the Midwest. Dawkins’ quiet confidence is apparent, and he doesn’t twist reality. He’s said he never expected to enter his sophomore year with this much experience, with this much confidence, with this much responsibility. Nobody did. All of a sudden, between Dawkins, LeVert, Walton, Abdur-Rahkman, senior Spike Albrecht and sharpshooting transfer Duncan Robinson, Beilein has more options than he knows what to do with in the backcourt. In a college basketball landscape dominated by ballhandlers, and in Beilein’s guard-heavy offense, expect a Wolverine onslaught. They’ll run, they’ll shoot and, perhaps most importantly, they’ll be fresh. With five guards with Big Ten starting experience and a potential weapon in Robinson, how could they not be?

They’ll play with poise and pace, too, in a way they never could have last season. The game moved too fast for the freshmen in 2014-15, Beilein has said. But ask Dawkins to list his single biggest offseason improvement, and he’ll tell you it’s his basketball IQ. Yet another break for Dawkins and the Wolverines: It’s harder to get smarter on the court if you’re never on the court. LeVert’s absence in the second half of 2014-15 doesn’t just shape Michigan’s newfound depth — it also means LeVert is spending this season in Ann Arbor. He wasn’t supposed to be here for his senior season. He was supposed to be playing in the NBA alongside three of his recruiting class cohorts: Mitch McGary, Nik Stauskas and Glenn Robinson III. Instead, he’s back, he’s among the early favorites for Big Ten Player of the Year, and he’s ready to bring the program back to the state in which he found it. If 2014-15 was the year that

never was, 2015-16 is the year that wasn’t supposed to be. After a spate of injuries last season, after unfathomable losses to New Jersey Institute of Technology and Eastern Michigan, the Wolverines have reached the point that last year was supposed to represent. It’s time to show once and for all they’re a program that reloads and doesn’t rebuild. After 2013’s Final Four run and 2014’s trip to the Elite Eight, Michigan had a chance to prove as a program that playing in late March is the expectation, not the exception. It became clear early on, even before LeVert’s injury, that it wasn’t meant to be, and the focus shifted. Dawkins has called his unexpected opportunity for growth a “blessing in disguise.” Beilein has often discussed the team’s “growth mindset” in 2014-15. Redshirt freshman forward D.J. Wilson, out of commission for nearly the entire season, took advantage of the opportunity to hit the weight

room. Sophomore forward Ricky Doyle joined him. Albrecht began the year as a backup point guard. By the season’s end, he was the team’s clear leader, its voice, its rallying point. The Wolverines return 92.5 percent of their scoring this season, the highest among teams currently ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. The pieces, improbably, are there. This season isn’t what it was supposed to be — the year Michigan recovered from losing LeVert, the year its second-year guards grew into their own, the year the next segment of the John Beilein era took shape. All told, it’s tough to complain. The infantry is bigger and better, and the cavalry is coming. This season is Michigan’s mulligan, but the green is shorter and they’re working with a better set of clubs. Don’t expect the Wolverines to miss twice. Facher can be reached at lfacher@umich.edu and on Twitter @levfacher.

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5B ALLISON FARRAND/Daily

Story by Simon Kaufman, Daily Sports Editor Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein wasn’t always so sure about Spike Albrecht. Beilein says that when he offered the 5-foot-11 guard a scholarship, he knew it would either be one of his best decisions as Michigan’s coach, or one of his last. After watching Albrecht play in an open gym on campus during his recruiting trip, Beilein invited him and his parents over to his house for dinner. Following the meal, he took them into his home office. “I was kind of intimidated, like, ‘Oh shit,’ ” Albrecht recalled thinking. “He was sitting there talking, then he paused. I could tell he was thinking, about ready to make a big decision. He’s like, ‘You’re either going to get me fired or make me look like a genius.’ And then he goes, ‘How would you like to come play basketball at Michigan?’ ” Spike accepted on the spot. Beilein did what no one else was willing to — take a shot on the little guy. Spike didn’t look like a Division I athlete, much less a basketball player. He had only one other offer to play, and an

Ivy League opportunity that fell through when he failed to bump his ACT score up a point. It was one point he’s glad he never got. *** Spike’s first neighbors adored him. When he was just 3 years old, the neighbors would bring company over and Albrecht’s dad to pitch to him. The neighbors wanted to show their guests how far Spike could hit a baseball — over the roof sometimes — even at just 3. Then his family moved, not too far away, to a different house in Crown Point, Ind. The new neighbors weren’t as excited about having a rambunctious little Albrecht running around. “I was the youngest brother, so I always wanted to be causing havoc, trying to get away with things,” Spike said. “There are a lot of good stories.” Like the time he upset his “crazy neighbor” Betty when he hit a ball onto her roof, and she stormed over to tell his father. Or the time the 10-year-old

and his friends stole a page from Billy Madison and put a bag of dog poop on a neighbor’s porch, rang the doorbell and ran. “We didn’t actually light it on fire,” he said. “We picked it up with a shovel, put it in a bag.” There was the day he stole $140 from his parents’ cupboard in grade school and announced to the whole class that he was buying ice cream for them at lunch. Or the time he hit golf balls across a busy street as a kid. “He just didn’t care,” said Stephen Albrecht, one of Spike’s older brothers, about Spike growing up. “Looking back on it at the time, there might (have been) something wrong with this kid.” *** Spike was born in Crown Point, a small suburb 50 miles south of Chicago. He was the third of four children born to Chuck and Tammy Albrecht. There was Chachi, six years older; Stephen, three years Spike’s senior; and then Spike, followed by the lone girl, Hannah.

As a youngster, if Chachi and Stephen did it, Spike wanted to, too. Stephen and his friends used to egg Spike on to curse. They thought it was funny to hear a four-letter word fly out of the mouth of a 4-year-old, and Spike would oblige. On the court, too, Spike wanted to be with his brothers. When Chuck coached Chachi’s 9-yearold team, Spike, just three years old at the time, would tag along. When those closest to him are asked when they first knew he had a knack for the game, they all tell the same story. It was in a youth-league game when he was in first grade and Stephen was in fourth grade. Stephen’s team was playing a team from Chesterton, Ind., that former Michigan guard and Albrecht family friend Zack Novak played on. Leading big late, Stephen’s team put Spike in at the end of the game. He got the ball, crossed over his defender and scored. “We give him crap to this day,” Novak said of Spike’s defender. With two brothers showing him the ropes, Spike caught on quickly.

He could swat a baseball, launch a football and pass a basketball like nobody’s business at a young age. He picked up everything easily. He never learned to ride a bike; he just got on it one day and was gone. “I was looking for the training wheels,” Chuck recalled. “And my dad was here, and he goes, ‘What are you doing?’ And I go, ‘I’m looking for those training wheels.’ He goes, ‘Spike’s already riding the bike.’ Just gone. He was down the street.” *** Playing against older competition his whole life set Albrecht up well. He turned heads on the hardwood and wowed spectators on the diamond. Spike, whose given name is Michael, got his nickname because he never took his baseball cleats off when he was younger — even when he went to church. But before high school, he decided to hang up his cleats for good. Baseball was too slow and bored him. He opted to exclusively pursue basketball and had his sight set on playing Division-I basketball at Notre

Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off

Dame. Spike made the varsity team at Crown Point High School his sophomore year and shined. In his sophomore season, they played Chesterton, which at the time had future Michigan teammate Mitch McGary. Purdue coach Matt Painter was in the stands to watch McGary, but Albrecht stole the show. Late in the game, after McGary was blocked, Spike took the ball the other way and finished with an and-1 play to help Crown Point win by four. He ended the game with 14 points and nine assists. In retrospect, Painter said, not looking more closely at Albrecht was a mistake. In fact, Painter said he recruited his current point guard, 5-foot-10 sophomore P.J. Thompson, with Spike in mind. Painter wasn’t alone in passing on Spike. During his senior season, 16 Division-I coaches came to watch a game against Merrillville, interested only in Merrillville players — none came to watch Spike. Albrecht scored a gamehigh 30 points and dished out five assists in a losing effort. After the game, Crown Point’s athletic director told Chuck they’d be getting a lot of calls from coaches that were there. Nobody called. Spike ended the season with conference MVP honors, 21 points per game and zero offers to play college basketball. As his senior season came to an end, Albrecht was unsure about his future. Notre Dame never bothered checking Spike out. He considered playing at Brown University, where Stephen played, but his ACT score was one point short of the school’s required mark. The coaches at Brown recommended he take a prep year at Northfield Mount Hermon (Mass.). There, he could play against some of the top high school talent in the country and work to get his test scores up. So he signed on with coach John Carroll and enrolled in NMH for a post-graduate year. Over the summer, Wayne Brumm reached out to Spike. Brumm coached the SYF Players, one of the top AAU teams in the Midwest. He had coached both of Spike’s brothers, and with Spike opting for a prep year, he was eligible to play over the summer. Brumm has an eye for talent. He also coached former Michigan players Glenn Robinson III, Max Bielfeldt and McGary, but even he

FILE PHOTO/Daily

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Spike Albrecht scored 17 points in the first half of the 2013 National Championship Game. Spike, left, used to practice with brothers Stephen and Chachi’s teams when the three were younger.

admits that the first time he saw Spike play — in middle school — he wasn’t sure what to make of him. “I was more amused than anything because he was really tiny, but he had game. He caught my eye, but I just — it was one of those reactions where you just sort of chuckle,” Brumm recalls. At the Pittsburgh Jam Fest tournament, Brumm remembers one play perfectly. Spike dished a left-handed, half-court bounce pass to a teammate by the basket who finished with a layup. A friend of Brumm’s who is now a scout for the San Antonio Spurs came up to him at the end of the game and asked, “Who’s that kid? That kid’s got game.” Spike played in just three tournaments with Brumm’s team before breaking his foot, but he left an impression on the longtime coach. Spike left for NMH with the broken foot, leaving him unable to play during the fall period. In the fall, before the college season begins, college coaches have the opportunity to check out players in person. Dozens of coaches would come to open gyms at NMH, and all Spike could do was watch.

COURTESY OF THE ALBRECHT FAMILY

“I was just pissed,” he recalled. “I’m a thousand miles from home — I came there to play basketball, wanted to get a scholarship. I remember I was just getting so fed up.” As fall turned to winter, though, Albrecht recovered, and was healthy in time for the start of the season. Just like his time at Crown Point, he turned heads. He was averaging nearly 10 points and seven assists per game against some of the best talent in the country, but it still wasn’t

good enough for to schools take a chance on him, and Albrecht had to reconsider his options for the following year. Playing with Stephen at Brown was out of the picture. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t manage the ACT score. So, midway through the year at NMH, father and son had a candid conversation. “I’m like, ‘I don’t want to play Division II or Division III basketball’ — nothing against it — that’s just not what I worked

for,” Albrecht recalled. “So I remember thinking, ‘Shit, I guess I’m just going to go to IU for school.’ ” That was the plan. He’d give up basketball, go to Indiana, study business and be a “rec-league superstar.” Then a phone call came. “All of a sudden my prep school coach comes up to me and he’s like, ‘Hey I got an interesting call today,’ ” Spike remembers. It was Michigan. “I was like, ‘The University

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Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off

COURTESY OF THE ALBRECHT FAMILY

Spike Albrecht earned his nickname through baseball, because he never took his cleats off when he was younger.

of Michigan?’ I was in complete shock and I honestly thought — I thought he was messing with me.” *** Back home, Brumm had been pounding the phones on Spike’s behalf, reaching out to college coaches. Brumm and Michigan assistant coach Jeff Meyer are longtime friends, and when Meyer mentioned Michigan needed a point guard because thenfreshman guard Trey Burke might take off for the NBA, Brumm didn’t hesitate to recommend Spike. “I felt Spike could play anywhere all along,” Brumm said. “But convincing (college coaches) is a different story.” Luckily for Spike, Meyer trusted Brumm’s word and came out to watch him play. In a game against Hargrave Military Academy, with Meyer in the crowd, Spike put up nine points and tallied 14 assists. He was worried it wasn’t enough to impress the coach. After the game, Spike remembers thinking, “Damn, did I just miss my chance with Michigan?” The next day, Beilein called. He’d had his eye on Spike from a distance and loved what he saw. Beilein was impressed with his play, so much so that he personally cut film of Spike — some 300 clips, he says — the most he has ever scrutinized

a recruit on video. Perhaps, in Spike, Beilein saw himself: an undersized, under-recruited guard with good handles. Beilein played at Wheeling College — a small Division-II school — and spent most of his time there on the bench. Despite Meyer’s report, Beilein still wasn’t sure. Back on campus one day in the spring of 2012, Beilein called then-Michigan junior Josh Bartelstein into his office and showed him film of Spike. “ ‘I want you to watch film with me for five minutes and tell me if I’m crazy or if this kid’s actually good,’ ” Bartelstein remembers Beilein telling him. “ ‘He’s got no other offers. People aren’t gonna offer him. People are gonna think I’m nuts, but I’m telling you, I see something in him.’ ” Bartelstein watched with Beilein, and could tell his coach was high on the little guy. Beilein wanted to see for himself. He met Spike in Crown Point for an in-home visit. He pulled onto the sloped driveway and Albrecht was standing at the bottom. “His coach told me he’s not going to pass the eye test,” Beilein recalls. “I was standing above him, and he was below me, and I’m looking, towering over him, and I’m saying to myself, ‘No kidding, he’s not passing this first eye test at all.’ ” The coach and player met and talked about the potential

opportunity of playing at Michigan. Beilein still hadn’t seen him play in person, though, so he later traveled to NMH to watch him play in an open gym. Beilein, along with other college coaches, including some from Appalachian State, which had recently extended an offer to Spike, watched him play pickup in an open gym. Spike played seven games and never lost. Looking back on it, that was hardly coincidence. “We kind of set the teams up in my favor,” Albrecht said. Regardless, Beilein was sold. He decided right then that he was going to offer Spike a scholarship, though he didn’t tell him that at the time. One week later, Spike was set to visit campus. At the airport, when he told a TSA agent why he was going to Michigan, the airport employee didn’t believe him. “He’s like ‘Michigan? Get the hell out of here,’ ” Albrecht said. “And he screams over to his friend Big Mike, ‘Yo, Big Mike. This little white boy says he’s going to Michigan.’ ” Doubters aplenty, Spike took off for Ann Arbor.

On his campus visit, Spike wanted to make a good impression, and Beilein was looking out for him. The story goes that Spike, Beilein, then-sophomore forward Jon Horford and some of the assistant coaches were out to lunch at The Chop House. After eating, the coaches insisted Spike get dessert. He didn’t want to, but they said they needed to beef him up. “He tried to order tiramisu and he asked what was in it,” Horford remembers. “I told him there was a little alcohol in it, and Coach Beilein freaked out like, ‘No, no, no you can’t have anything with alcohol in it. That’s not responsible of me.’ He made a big deal of it.” Later that day, Beilein had others keep an eye on Spike for him — this time in a players-only open gym. Due to NCAA rules, coaches cannot watch open gyms that are not mandated tryouts. Spike held his own, and after the practice, Beilein asked some of the players what they thought: Was Spike walk-on talent or a scholarship player? “Everyone was like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s a great kid; he’s really nice; he’s a pretty good basketball player,’ ” Horford said. “But literally, I was the only one who said that I thought he should be on a scholarship, and I didn’t know that until (Michigan assistant coach Bacari Alexander) told me later. He’s like, ‘You know, you were the only one.’ ” Bartelstein and former Michigan player Matt Vogrich claim that they, too, recommended Spike for scholarship, perhaps less vocally. The exact number is unclear, but what is clear is that not all of his future teammates thought he had the makings of a scholarship player at the time. The next day, Beilein made his decision final. He would offer Spike a scholarship. And so the unlikely marriage between Michigan and Albrecht began.

“No kidding, he’s not passing this first eye test at all.”

***

*** Twelve minutes, 17 points and one tweet. That’s what it took for

Spike to go from unrecognized to can’t-be-missed. Spike flew under the radar for most of his freshman year. During one game at Ohio State, he was late coming off the bus. When he tried to catch up with his teammates, a security guard stopped him and told him, “Players only.” He played in garbage time and whenever Burke needed a breather. He knew his role. Beilein had made it clear: He’d back up Burke, and the following year, when another guard named Derrick Walton Jr. arrived, Spike would likely back him up, too. That was OK with Spike. He remembered what his dad used to tell him: “Not everyone can be a superstar, but everyone can be a superstar in their own role.” But on that Monday night in Atlanta, on the biggest stage, in the 2013 National Championship Game against Louisville, Spike was the superstar. Burke committed two fouls early in the first half. Beilein took him out, and Spike went in. He knocked down his first five fieldgoal attempts, pushing Michigan out to a 12-point lead. The magic ended, though, as Michigan’s lead, and championship hopes, slipped away. But nobody forgot the night Spike had. His performance shocked everyone except those who knew him. “When that all happened, I was like, ‘This is what he did in high school,’ ” former Crown Point teammate and best friend Evan Langbehn recalled thinking. “I wouldn’t say I was shocked. … You always knew that he thrived in the big moment.” His former coach at Crown Point, Clint Swan was at the game and couldn’t hold in his emotion. “For him to overcome so many doubters and not just get a Division I scholarship, but to get a Big Ten scholarship, and not just to get a Big Ten scholarship but to contribute his freshman year, and not just to contribute but to make the All-Final Four team. It was almost more than I could overcome.” The day after the loss, Spike and some teammates were talking. One of them — Spike forgets who, but denies it was him — threw out the idea that he tweet at supermodel Kate Upton, who was at the game the night before. Spike didn’t love the idea.

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Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off

“I don’t want the coaches to be pissed at me or people to think that I don’t care that we just lost the national championship,” Spike remembered thinking. “Because obviously I would have traded all that in to have not played and won the national championship, that’s what mattered to me.” He checked with Bartelstein, and the captain gave him the OK. He pressed send and within minutes his phone was exploding. @KateUpton hey saw you at the game last night, thanks for coming out! Hope to see you again ;-) “I remember frickin three days straight my phone was just nonstop,” Albrecht said. “I remember after the first couple of minutes, me and (former Michigan player) Nik (Stauskas) were sitting in a room and we were laughing. Stausky, he was going nuts and I was like, ‘Dude, I don’t think I should’ve done it. This has gotten to be real bad.’ It was just getting stupid.” Bartelstein saw Spike’s status — not his ego — blow up. On campus, he was an overnight celebrity. The departing senior didn’t want that one game to be Spike’s only legacy. “Don’t let that half define the rest of your career,” Bartelstein told Spike afterward. “Don’t let that be the end of it.” Spike listened. His sophomore year, he helped Michigan to its first outright Big Ten title in 28 years. The year after, he was named a co-captain and played major minutes with two bad hips when other teammates suffered season-ending injuries. This year, he is on track to become one of the

winningest players in program history. Not bad for a guy pegged as a career backup.

myself. I thought that was pretty cool.” He’s still not used to the attention. He never will be.

*** *** It’s the Friday night before the Michigan football team’s game against Brigham Young and Spike Albrecht — like dozens of other Michigan seniors — is in a corner by the bar at Rick’s American Café. On the opposite side of the basement bar, former Yankees captain Derek Jeter is sitting at a booth with some friends. Jeter sits in a roped-off area, and dozens of Snapchatting students hover around to get a shot of the Yankees legend at their favorite campus hangout. Back on the other side, Albrecht and Caris LeVert — Michigan’s co-captains — pose for a picture with two giddy girls. Spike and some other teammates eventually sneak their way over toward Jeter, and the future Hall-of-Famer calls him over. Michigan’s co-captain and Captain Clutch meet and pose for a quick picture with some others. Just a couple of captains hanging out. “Stunningly, he knew who we were, so that was probably the highlight of my weekend,” Albrecht said. Asked if he was actually surprised Jeter knew him — one of the faces of Michigan athletics, someone who dropped 17 points in a national championship game — Spike didn’t hesitate. “Hell yeah, that does surprise me. I was shocked that he called my name before I even introduced

Two weeks before the season started, Michigan hosted an open practice followed by an opportunity for fans to take photos with the players. The line for Spike was twice as long as the line for any other player, and for an hour, he smiled and posed as they snapped. Colin Williams, 6, went to Spike’s line first. Dressed in his No. 2 jersey, he said that Spike is his favorite player. His dad, David Williams, says Spike’s a natural draw for his son. “They see Spike, and they say, ‘Hey, he’s not much taller than me. I can play just like him.’ ” Spike has heard that his whole life. “The things I do, I feel like a lot of people can do,” Albrecht said. “You don’t have to be a freak athlete or 6-(foot)-5 to do a lot of the things I do out there. So I think that’s part of the reason people can relate to me.” Standing next to him, it looks like that. The 5-foot-11 guard isn’t that big. That could be anyone. But the reality is, most people haven’t put in the work to do the things he

does. “He reminds me of that swan that looks so graceful out there on the water,” Brumm says. “But under water, he’s swimming like heck.” Perhaps Bartelstein summed up people’s natural attraction to Spike the best: “The legend of Spike Albrecht is that any kid can be him if you work hard at it.” *** It’s 10 days before Michigan tips off against Northern Michigan, and Spike sits in the lobby of the William Davidson Player Development Center, his back to a rare sunny November day in Ann Arbor. He’s relaxed. He tells stories about driveway hoops, swears that he’s the best ping-pong player on the team and says that he hopes that, in the future, he’s “making a lot of money.” Three of the five members of his freshman class are on NBA rosters; Caris LeVert, the fourth, is poised to join them next year. Spike couldn’t be happier for them. In fact, he says he knew from the first time he played with them that they’d all go pro. “I don’t get jealous,” Albrecht said. “It doesn’t make me mad or anything like that. They’re all great kids. Some of my closest friends who’ve worked their tails off to be in the positions they’re in,

“The legend of Spike Albrecht is that any kid can be him.”

and I feel like I’ve done OK with what I am or what I got. “You don’t see many guys like me playing in the NBA. You don’t even see many guys like me playing college basketball. So I’ve always been realistic with myself. I have tons of confidence in myself and I don’t doubt my ability, but those dudes, you watch the NBA at all? You see what those guys do. It’s a whole different animal.” He hasn’t ruled out playing overseas next year, but he doesn’t try to think about the future too much. “It just seems crazy that I’ve put in 20 years of work and busted my ass for this game, given everything I got, and then it’s just all gone,” he said. “So that’s going to be tough for me. … I’m sure if you ask anyone, it’s tough giving up what you love to do and what you’ve worked so hard at for so long.” Maybe he’ll play overseas for a few years. Maybe not. As for his future, no one’s totally sure yet. Vogrich jokes that he’ll work at Abercrombie and Fitch. His dad thinks he’ll make a career out of his people skills. He used to chat up so many people during his Little League days that they said he’d become the mayor one day. But enough about what’s next for Spike — he wants to talk about his coach’s future. Earlier in the day, Michigan announced it had extended Beilein’s contract through 202021, and Spike jokes that Beilein offering him a scholarship didn’t get the coach fired after all. It got him an extension and a raise.

Five-year-old Hunter D’Agostino, left, and brothers 6-year-old Gabriel and 9-year-old Ilan Seinfeld-Chopp practice dribbling with Spike Albrecht at the William Davidson Player Development Center on Tuesday.

ALLISON FARRAND/DAILY

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Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off

Wolverines deep at every position By KELLY HALL Daily Sports Writer

Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein has a lot of options at guard. Well, he has a lot of forwards, too. This team has no shortage of depth. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, though, it’s going to be difficult to figure out who goes where. “It’s like, one day somebody looks like a million bucks and the other guy doesn’t look (as good), and then they just switch spots the next day,” Beilein said. “Sometimes, (having) too many (players) makes it more difficult. If there was a bunch of veterans and a few freshmen, that could distinguish who plays because the freshmen are so far down the line. But that’s not the issue right now.” Coming off of a 16-16 season in which the Wolverines went 8-10 in the Big Ten, No. 25 Michigan is looking to make a splash after failing to make the tournament less than a year ago. If all goes to plan, and that’s a big “if” considering the injury-plagued roster of 2014-15, then Michigan will finally have a chance to display the talent on its roster. Point Guard After a toe injury from late November caught up to Derrick Walton Jr. in January, the thensophomore was sidelined for the rest of the season. Now, the 6-foot-1 junior is back, and emphatically so: against Le Moyne, he shot 5-for-6 for 13 points in the 20 minutes that

he played. Though Walton will start for the Wolverines, it would be unfair to forget about senior Spike Albrecht. The 5-foot-11 captain took the reins in early 2015, shooting 40.4 percent from the field and playing 30-plus minutes in 18 games. Having Albrecht is essential to Michigan’s roster, and the experienced combination of Walton and Albrecht will be hard to stop in Beilein’s two-guard offense. For now, Albrecht is still recovering from his offseason hip injuries, but you can expect a great deal from his senior season. Beilein doesn’t expect Albrecht to be at full force for a few weeks, at least, but he will be playing spot minutes until then. Behind Albrecht and Walton is Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, who will have to fight for minutes after playing plenty last season in the wake of injuries to the starting backcourt. The 6-foot-4 sophomore had four double-digit scoring games last season and averaged 19 minutes per game. Against Le Moyne, he went scoreless and played just 12 minutes.

the beginning of the season. Against Le Moyne, 6-foot-6 sophomore Aubrey Dawkins started but failed to impress, shooting just 1-for-11 from the field. Dawkins was given a chance after having a breakout freshman season that included a career-best 31 points against Rutgers in March. Adding even more depth is redshirt sophomore Duncan Robinson, who already appears to be a fan favorite as a Cinderella story from Division III Williams College. The lean, 6-foot-8, 210 pound Robinson doesn’t hesitate before throwing up 3-pointers, attempting (and sinking) his first shot as a Wolverine from beyond the arc just a minute after getting on the court. Forward/Center Zak Irvin is still recovering from an offseason back surgery. According to Beilein, the junior has been given the green light to play but won’t against Northern

Michigan on Friday. Beilein is waiting for the 6-foot-6 junior to give him the go-ahead. Irvin was the only Wolverine to start in all 32 games last season, averaging 14.3 points per game and 4.8 rebounds. Kam Chatman had a disappointing freshman season after losing his place in the starting lineup, but he has been repeatedly commended for his work ethic this offseason. The 6-foot-8 sophomore started in place of Irvin during exhibition but didn’t make much of an impact. He’s looked good in other preseason practices, however, and if he lives up to his coaches’ hype, he’ll be in competition for a starting job. Freshman Moritz Wagner has gotten almost as much attention as Robinson this preseason, even if it’s mainly because of his accent. The lanky, 6-foot-10 German has put on nearly 20 pounds of muscle this summer, but he still might take a redshirt this season. A year of conditioning for Wagner could be beneficial for the Wolverines, but Beilein insists that Wagner will

earn playing time if he continues to perform like he has in practice. After starting 19 games during his freshman year at center, Ricky Doyle started the exhibition on the bench behind junior Mark Donnal. The two 6-foot-9 big men have been battling it out all summer, and Donnal appears to have won this round. Doyle is still stronger than Donnal, however, and has a reputation for his dunks and defense. It would surprise most if Donnal actually starts for most of the season after losing the job last year. Redshirt freshman D.J. Wilson will need to find his place on the court if he wants minutes this season, but there’s a decent chance he’ll be fighting for time at both stretch forward and center. Beilein has credited Wilson with picking up things at both positions quickly, but admits it’s much easier to perform when you only have to know one. The redshirt freshman has added 25 pounds of muscle in the past year, and is a threat at 6-foot-10. Wilson will most likely get the bulk of his time backing up the big men.

Guard/Forward Caris LeVert is finally back after breaking his foot in the beginning of the 2014-15 season. Against Le Moyne, the 6-foot-7 senior showed exactly why he could have left Michigan for the NBA, scoring a team-high 22 points and shooting 4-for-9 from beyond the arc. LeVert is obviously a lock at the shooting guard position. Multiple players could see time at the small forward position during

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Junior guard Derrick Walton Jr. is healthy again after an injury-riddled 2014-15 season and will run the point for the Wolverines.