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Volume 57, Issue 48 | MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2023 | ndsmcobserver.com
SMC athletes host youth girls sports clinic Girls ages 6 to 12 gather at Angela Athletic Facility to practice their favorite sports with college athletes By AIDAN THOMAS Sports Editor
On Friday evening, Saint Mar y’s College hosted a National Girls and Women in Sports Day clinic. They welcomed about 125 girls, ages 6-12, from the South Bend communit y to participate in four 30-minute sessions w ith various Belles’ athletes. Athletes from all eight Saint Mar y’s varsit y teams spread out across the Angela Athletic Facilit y, prov iding a series of fun drills and games for the participants. A head of the event, Saint Mar y’s athletic director Julie Schroeder-Biek spoke to the girls, emphasizing the importance of getting
to celebrate the day. Biek noted, chuck ling that she was ‘dating herself’, that while she was their age, there were no organized sports for girls and they had to play w ith the guys if the guys let them. The concept was met w ith a gasp from the assembled participants. “It was just heart warming to me. That’s just what I just wanted to tell you … that’s just going to stick in my brain forever,” Biek said. “I think that we have come to a time where they can’t imagine life w ithout girls sports.” After the welcome, the girls split into various groups, attending the sports they had listed as their preferences ahead of
the clinic. Across various sports, the activ ities varied, w ith the Belles’ athletes teaching basic concepts of their sports and mix ing in different games to keep the kids engaged. Lacrosse started by going over some basics of handling a lacrosse stick, while on the volleyball courts, some of the athletes helped the kids work on ser v ing the ball over the net. The basketball set up events like a dribble relay race and some shooting drills. The softball team set up various hitting and throw ing stations around their section of the g y m, and tennis athletes soft-tossed balls to girls see CLINIC PAGE 3
RYAN VIGILANTE | The Observer
One of the clinic participants practiced her tennis skills with pointers and instruction from athletes on the Saint Mary’s tennis team.
Poll reveals public opinion Author discusses incarceration on Irish unification By GABBY BEECHERT New Writer Editor
A recent poll conducted in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland revealed information about public opinion regarding the unification of Ireland and other related items. The poll was a combined effort of the Irish Times and the joint research organization A nalyzing and Researching Ireland North and South (ARINS). The organization is a collaboration between the KeoughNaughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame and the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. According to director of the Keough-Naughton Institute, Patrick Griffin, after the United Kingdom left the European Union, the institute was approached by the Royal Irish Academy and asked to help research the ways in which both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were going to be affected by
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the development. Brex it created many challenges for not only the British state, but also for the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Griffin said. For the first time since the Good Friday Agreement, the border has become a live question. “Brex it necessitates a border in some way, shape, or form. With it, unless you change the status of Northern Ireland w ithin Britain, you can’t have the free f low of people and the free f low of goods. The Good Friday agreement relied on f luid movement between north and south. Some are concerned that the agreement w ill be strained,” Griffin said. “And people have been really kind of stretching their brains to tr y to figure out a way of squaring a circle of ensuring that you could have Northern Ireland be in the European Union, but not really in the European Union. Can Northern Ireland be bound to Ireland
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but also bound to Britain at the same time? That’s the question people are tr y ing to figure out.” The recent poll asked 1,000 respondents in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland how they would vote in a referendum based on their current v iews and related questions. Voters in Northern Ireland would have elected to stay in the United Kingdom. Of those who answered this question, 50% of pollers said they wanted to stay in the U.K., and 27% of pollers would support Irish unification. 66% of pollers in the Republic of Ireland support Irish unification. This means there is more than t w ice as much support for Irish unification in Ireland compared to that in Northern Ireland. But voter opinion becomes much more complex when asked certain questions about what see IRELAND PAGE 4
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By PETER BREEN News Writer
Reuben Jonathan Miller, a MacArthur “Genius Grants” Fellow and University of Chicago sociologist, spoke Friday evening in Geddes Hall about carceral citizenship, a condition of rejection borne by those with criminal records. Miller is the first of four guest speakers in the Center for Social Concerns’ spring lecture series on mass incarceration. Portraying “mass incarceration’s afterlife” and thinking about what the journey home from the U. S. prison system entails, Miller began the lecture by calling upon his muse: American singer-songwriter and political activist Nina Simone. For Miller, Simone’s version of the spiritual “Sinnerman” captures the experience of what it means to be rejected because of one’s position within the “social body.” The song considers how being marked by a criminal record and being called a criminal alters a
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person’s life. “The sinnerman runs to the rock, to the river, the sea,” Miller said. “The sinnerman runs to the good Lord. The rock says, ‘I won’t hide you.’ The river bleeds. The sea boils. When he gets to God, God says, ‘go to the Devil.’” Throughout the rest of his time on stage in the Andrews Auditorium, Miller chronicled the lives of three men on their way out the door of the U.S. prison system, reinforcing his arguments about carceral citizenship with statistics concerning criminal justice in the land of the free. To understand how justice is administered in the country, Miller said, it is essential talk to the unprotected. Miller met a man he referred to only as “Jimmy”, who epitomized the sinnerman, on his first day out of prison after serving eight years for grand larceny. Jimmy, who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, spent his years behind bars without access to treatment. Per his conditions of release, see BOOK TALK PAGE 4
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