Opinion
Page 2
Student section spirit in the slumps Our view HutchCC, as amazing as this school and its athletics are, has a student spirit problem. It’s been mentioned around campus and pointed out by various visitors that drop by games expect more hype from the student section. When asking various students for their input for the campus beat, several students, not included in this week’s edition, had absolutely no clue that HutchCC even had a homecoming. At games, the pep band does a great job with cheering, screaming and supporting the team, but the student section lacks that same school spirit. Maybe if the pep band was moved closer to the students and was no longer outcasted to the very outskirts of the bleachers. That way, peppiness would spread to the rest of the students in attendance. A large portion of HutchCC’s students aren’t
The Hutchinson Collegian Friday, October 27, 2017
Halloween Candy Cascade
even on campus to share in the school spirit, but that doesn’t leave those who do show up to games with an excuse to not make the bleachers shake beneath their feet with chants and cheers. What happened to the pep sections seen at high school games? Did that spirit die when everyone left and came to college? Are students scared to show rowdiness amongst their peers now? On a flip side of the coin, the cheerleaders and Dragon Dolls have amazing school spirit. Those gals and guys spend game after game cheering to the crowd and team all while facing the cold that is inevitable with games continuing later into the year. Hopefully students start getting more pride for HutchCC during basketball season, because the volleyball players have been a bit disappointed in the turnout of their recent home games. When they hear cheering of the crowd it motivates them, so it’s important to show team spirit.
Kourtney Sweet/Collegian Cartoonist
The unfortunate events of Brenna My broken tailbone experiences
Believe it or not, I have only broken one body part. The catch is that I broke it twice. What is this bone you may ask? That would be my tailbone of course. If you have ever broken your tailbone, then you will know my pain. For those of you who are lucky enough to have not broken it, you should know that tailbones are untreatable, therefore, they must heal on their own, without surgeries or prescriptions. All you can really do is sit on a donut cushion and ice. Pain medicine isn’t a bad idea either. I didn’t even go to the doctor both times because my mom, who seems to
know everything and also has a Certified Nursing Assistant and Med Aide license, told me that I had to just let it heal on its own. The first time I broke my tailbone, I was in sixth grade. I have a sister, Kylie, who is two years younger than me. The two of us are like fire and ice, complete opposites. We fought most of our childhood and it usually ended with me hurting myself in the process of arguing. I had a light-saber that I had gotten from a circus the year before. For some reason, Kylie and I were fighting over it. I was laying on my bed and she was standing
Columnist
Brenna Eller up. Guess who won. Kylie of course because we were playing tug of war with it and I held on while she pulled with impressive force. I fell right off my bed hitting the floor with a loud thud.
I sat on soft ice packs for a few weeks after that. I remember sitting in class one day and my mom came in with an icepack for me so I had to explain myself to my classmates. The second time I broke my tailbone, I was a freshman and in the gymnasium of my old high school. It was an open-gym day and there weren’t many people in the building. I did have one witness of this event, and that would be my best friend Rachel. I was climbing up the stacked bleachers to retrieve a volleyball that had gotten stuck. The bleachers weren’t too terribly high, so I thought that jumping down wouldn’t be difficult.
I thought wrong. My feet were supposed to catch me whereas my butt decided to hit the ground first. There went another few weeks of pain, ice packs, and toughing it out. Two years after that incident, I was in my weights class and I was doing sit ups. It appears that my tailbone is still not in the right place because as I was flat on my back sitting up, I felt it rubbing and was starting to hurt. I felt wetness on my lower back, but thought it was just sweat. After a few more sit-ups I couldn’t take it anymore and asked Rachel, who was my lifting partner at the time, to look at it.
She looked immediately grossed out and that’s when I went to the mirror and saw that my back was bleeding. The bump on my back caused by my broken tailbone had rubbed on the floor during weights which caused the skin to bleed. No wonder it hurt so bad. On the bright side, I have been much more careful jumping off of things now and when I fall down the stairs, I try to land on my side rather than straight on my back. Falling down the stairs at Puerto Rico was a rare exception because I was not at all prepared for that scenario.
Toxic masculinity and mass shootings
In the wake of the Las Vegas tragedy, more and more people are asking themselves why someone is able to do something so awful. Ideas ran through my mind as well, and it was hard to come to a clear answer as to why someone was able to kill over 50 people and then take their own life. Though every reason for committing an act so heinous is different, there is one specific factor that is impossible to ignore: it is almost always men that are carrying out these attacks. According to Metro, 98 percent of mass shootings and 90 percent of all murders are committed by
Perhaps correlation does imply causation
men. All statistics back up this fact, so is it to be assumed that men are just inherently more violent than women, or is it something much deeper? Most men are socialized at birth to fit the mold of what a “man” is supposed to be. Even before they get out of the hospital boys are socialized with blue and girls with pink. Boys are taught at a young age that to match up with society they are supposed to play with cars and trucks, become captain of the football team, and never back down from a fight. Men are taught that they are to be feared by other men, and this sense
The Hutchinson
Collegian
The Hutchinson Collegian is the official student newspaper of Hutchinson Community College. It is created by the Newspaper Production class each week during the academic year, except for when school is not in session, or during final exams.
of heightened masculinity only grows deeper as men get older.
Student Writer
Haeli Maas With video games so realistic it is easy for boys to picture themselves in those scenarios and learn
what they are supposed to act like through them. Movies create a stereotype of the “tough guy” and show men that it is okay to use violence to get through your problems. The question remains—what is it that is causing men to be involved in these awful crimes where women are very scarcely involved? Some people chock it up to mental illness and never look back, but it is important to understand that women suffer from the same kinds of mental illness that men do and yet very few women are going out and shooting innocent people.
Staff
Editor: Merissa Anderson Campus editor: Emma Cox Opinion page editor: Brenna Eller Sports editor: Lucas Barlow Online editor: Amanda Carney Adviser: Brad Hallier Staff members: Amaelle Caron, Cassidy Crites, Jack Greenwood, Allie Schweizer, Kourtney Sweet.
We need to step away from the idea that “boys will be boys” and look the problem in the eye and do something about it. The idea that men need to be masculine, hard, and aggressive people will never get anyone anywhere. Instead, people need to teach their sons that it is OK to deal with their emotions in a way that allows them to speak freely and handle their problems with words and instead of with guns. Men should not have to feel emasculated because they need professional help or because they want to talk about their feelings and care about the people around them.
If we end the stigma that surrounds men and what they are meant to stand for, I truly believe that we will see a much happier—and consequently less violent—generation to come. Breaking these social norms and telling people that we are refusing to ignore the statistics requires these problems to be faced head on with an open mind. Boys need an outlet for their frustration that does not involve aggression or violence, and they should be held to a standard that requires them to approach their problems with an open mind instead of a closed fist.
Letters to the editor: The Hutchinson Collegian welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must include the author’s signature, address and phone number. The Collegian reserves the right to edit letters for style, legality and length. Letters may not exceed 300 words. Send letters to hallierb@hutchcc.edu.