The Lantern - April 20 2017

TUESDAY

THURSDAY

HEART RESEARCH

P2

OSU scientists work to find cause of heart-rate irregularities through revived hearts.

FALLEN FRUIT

P4

A Los Angeles duo to plant fruit trees in addition to display made at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

CLUB BASKETBALL

P7

Teams set to compete this weekend in the national intramural championships.

CORNERBACKS

P8

Kerry Coombs believes the Buckeyes have as much depth as ever, even after losing top talent.

The student voice of the Ohio State University

Thursday, April 20, 2017

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Year 137, Issue No. 26

Critics question energy deal merits Deal details only fully public after successful passage by Board of Trustees RACHEL BULES Senior Lantern reporter bules.7@osu.edu Earlier this month, the Ohio State Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve the Comprehensive Energy Management Project privatization plan, despite the financial details of the plan not being fully revealed to the public.

As details become public, some people are disputing the merits of that deal.

Bruce Weide, professor emeritus in the Department of Computer and Science Engineering, filed a lawsuit for the records relating to the deal with the Ohio Supreme Court on the Tuesday before the Friday vote. He and his lawyers received a 2,268 page-long, heavily redacted PDF of the agreement from OSU via email on Wednesday evening.

Weide and his lawyers characterized the deal essentially as a loan, and called into question the intended practice of using the money from the deal for noncapital projects — such as student financial aid — that a traditional loan couldn’t be used for.

The deal results in the university receiving an upfront amount of $1 billion from ENGIE-Axium — the new energy partners — as well as $150 million to put toward

“Every decision we make can affect our mental health, not just the obvious stuff.”

Alec Sewall Fourth-year, strategic communication and Spanish

ASHLEY NELSON Sports Director nelson.1217@osu.edu

JACK WESTERHEIDE | SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

Critics of the energy deal have likened it to an off-the-books loan. academics, such as financial aid for students and compensatory enhancements for faculty.

OSU, in turn, is set to pay ENGIE-Axium $45 million each year, which will increase annually 1.5 percent to cover inflation, as well as an operating fee starting at about $9.2 million to cover the

cost of maintenance and a variable fee tied to unknown capital investments.

According to Weide’s lawyers’ calculations, over the contract’s 50 years, the rates on the annual payments will compound to reach between 6 and 7 percent, which Weide asserts is far higher than

OSU would pay on a loan obtained in a more conventional fashion.

Due to the agreed upon interest rate, OSU will end up paying an additional $1 billion on top of repaying the principal $1.1 billion, the lawyers said.

“It looks like OSU is basically ENERGY CONTINUES ON 3

Military and Veteran Services picks first military student of the year GHEZAL BARGHOUTY Senior Lantern reporter barghouty.5@osu.edu The Ohio State Office of Military and Veteran Services has selected Gretchen Klinger, a second-year in anthropology and Arabic, as the university’s first Military Student of the Year.

Klinger said she was surprised to have been selected for the award because of the all the contributions other student-veterans are making to the community both on and off campus.

“I felt like it was really humbling that there are so many people here at Ohio State, so many veterans that do amazing things, even things that aren’t involved on campus — there’s so many

Mental Health Matters Week celebrates second year of outreach

talented people,” she said. “I felt like I was really proud to be a part of something that was just an outstanding program here, and just an outstanding program for veterans.”

Mike Carrell, assistant provost and director of the Office of Military and Veterans Services, said Klinger was selected by her peers for her dedicated work with veterans on campus.

“Whatever it might be, from our orientations for new students to social events to academic support events, she’s at those events, she promotes those events, she encourages other students to go (and) she encourages other students to get involved,” Carrell said.

MILITARY CONTINUES ON 2

Thursday, November 17 Every Thursday 9pm to 1am

COURTESY OF GRETCHEN KLINGER

Gretchen Klinger, a second-year in anthropology and Arabic, is the Office of Military and Veteran Services’ 2017 Military Student of the Year.

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Students and faculty organized the second annual “Mental Health Matters Week,” which over the past few days has focused on mental-health awareness and education through a series of events focused on relaxation.

Members of the Ohio State Greek Life community created the week of events to raise awareness for mental-health issues and to advocate for reduced wait times for students seeking counseling from OSU. Alec Sewall, a fourth-year in strategic communication and Spanish, said he joined the executive planning committee for Mental Health Matters Week because his friends and acquaintances have been directly affected.

“We’ve seen our classmates affected, I’ve seen members of the Greek community around me struggle with mental health, so as a community, we had to come together and say that this was something that needed to be addressed,” Sewall said.

Sewall brought Mike Lutzenkirchen, executive director of the nonprofit Lutzie 43 Foundation, to OSU to talk about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse and their relationship with physical and mental health. Lutzenkirchen started his foundation and began speaking to college students after his son, Philip Lutzenkirchen, died in a car accident involving alcohol in 2014.

MENTAL HEALTH CONTINUES ON 2

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Researchers use revived hearts to study atrial fibrillation AURORA SONG Lantern reporter song.1144@osu.edu Ohio State researchers are seeking to find the cause of heart-rate irregularities with the help of hearts that have already stopped beating.

Vadim Fedorov, an associate professor in OSU’s Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, developed a system to make a donated heart beat without the human body. Fedorov is able to then observe the heart and its beating using a high-resolution technique to better examine the upper sections of the heart, known as the atria, by forming a 3-D structural image to help understand the cause of a common irregular heartbeat problem called atrial fibrillation.

“What we created here — this high-resolution, optical-mapping system with four cameras — is only available at the Ohio State University,” Fedorov said. “No other group yet can do this atrial experiment and recover the heart and make it beat again to study it for another 12 hours.”

Fedorov explained that atrial fibrillation is a specific heartrate irregularity experienced by millions of people in the United States. It’s a leading cause of strokes and causes dysfunction of the heart and brain.

Four years ago, Fedorov and his team developed a program where they collected living hearts with a

history of atrial fibrillation from the hospital.

“We put this living heart in the ice and bring it to the lab,” Fedorov said. “Then we do a special surgical procedure while we put a tube in the artery of the main core atria and infuse a special solution inside of the atria to put the heart at the normal 37 degrees Celsius, after which the heart will beat again.”

However, this process only enables researchers to see the physical and chemical activities. To see electric activities of the whole heart, a special fluorescent dye is injected to reveal the electric waves, Fedorov said.

“We cannot see by our own eyes, but the electric activity can be seen by our high-resolution cameras,” Fedorov said. “We have four cameras focusing on the heart from different angles, each of them have 100-by-100 pixels, which means each of them can record, simultaneously, 10,000 recordings. We have 40,000 simultaneous optical recordings.”

Brian Josef Hansen said those recordings and observations made using the dye can take researchers past what can be seen with the human eye.

“Heart cells are connected to each other and an electric current moves through the cells to make them contract,” said Brian Josef Hansen, a graduate student in the OSU Medical Scientist Training Program, “Usually this starts in

COURTESY OF OHIO STATE

Vadim Valerievich Fedorov, an associate professor in Ohio State’s Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, has developed a system to examine and map a human heart while it beats outside the body. one place then spreads and stops. patients, but their techniques are However, in re-entry circuits, the very limited because they have to electric wave gets stuck in a circle access the heart through the pathat never stops which causes the tient’s veins which leads to a limfibrillation.” ited view,” Hansen said. “In our Fedorov said he believed the system, they can see the electrical team’s techniques could help oth- waves as they move through the er doctors more precisely define heart and, combined with the use the source of atrial fibrillation in of (MRI), we can help the doctors /OSUBuckeyeTV their patients. to determine the structural charac“Right now, the doctors are try- teristics of the re-entry circuits.” ing to find these re-entries within

MENTAL HEALTH FROM 1

MILITARY FROM 1

“Bringing Mike here was important, because I feel like his message is better and more authentic than someone coming in and saying ‘Don’t make these decisions,’” Sewall said. “Every decision we make can affect our mental health, not just the obvious stuff, so I think it was important for people to hear Mike’s story.”

Wednesday night, an interactive round table with students, faculty, wellness coaches and psychologists discussed mental-health stigmas, trends in mental health among students and young adults and strategies for wellness. After the roundtable, a yoga session was held on the Oval.

The final event on Friday is a community cookout on the plaza adjacent to the Wexner Center for the Arts to wrap up the week and to discuss the next steps in improving the community’s approach to mental health.

Jake Severyn, a first-year in finance who attended the first two events of the week, said he hopes first-year students specifically can learn how to cope with the difficulties that come with being new to the college environment.

“We have a lot of issues on college campuses relating to (mental health), especially being a firstyear student. Not everyone adjusts well their first year, and mental health is something that is obviously going to be a topic of con-

OSU announced the award last week, although Klinger technically received it at the annual Military Ball held in February.

A West Liberty, Ohio, native and U.S. Air Force veteran, Klingler joined the military in June 2009 and spent six years training and working as a tactical systems operator. During that time, she attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where she spent two years learning Iraqi Arabic.

During her time serving, Klinger was deployed to Afghanistan twice. After completing her time in the Air Force in June 2014, she came to OSU. Klinger is the president of Vets 4 Vets, the Student Veterans of America chapter at OSU, and has nearly tripled the group’s membership in her first term, Carrell said. She also serves as the secretary of the Undergraduate Anthropology Club and has recently received a grant through the Global Mobility Project for her research in anthropology.

Klinger’s research involves working with immigrant Iraqi women in Ohio and California and studying their experiences as immigrants or refugees, as well as their experiences adjusting to life in the U.S. Klinger said much of the inspiration for her research came from hearing her teachers’ stories in

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Mike Lutzenkirchen speaks during Mental Health Matters Week.

versation in moments of tragedy, so in a year like this we have a more increased focus on it,” Severyn said. “That being said, let this week really shine a light on the fact that it is an ongoing thing and something that affects you every single day, and that there are places for you to get help.”

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language school.

“After listening to my teacher’s stories, all of my teachers were Iraqi — they were all from Iraq — they were of different faiths (and) different ethnicities, and hearing them talk about their experiences, both the experiences they spoke so passionately about and one’s that they said they wish they could forget, it really spoke to me,” she said.

Once her research proposal was approved, Klinger began to teach a beginner’s English-as-a-secondlanguage course for adults, specifically Iraqi immigrants and refugees, every Friday. Klinger said her experience with Iraqi Arabic helped her bond with her students.

“I went down there and I started talking to people and it amazed me how much I remembered, but it also amazed me how amused they were by me speaking their Arabic, not just the Modern Standard Arabic, which is the literary language,” she said. “They just thought that was the coolest thing, and it made me want to keep going back.”

Klinger is preparing for a monthlong trip to Malta — located in the Mediterranean Sea — this summer, where she will be attending the Expeditions Ethnographic Field School, and hopes to gain experience doing ethnographic interviews — interviews which involve talking to people

on a deeper level and immersive observation.

She will also be completing a second research project in Malta, which will deal with refugees and the realities of immigration today.

Next fall, Klinger will be continuing her work with veterans on campus and starting her second term as president of Vets 4 Vets, but said she also hopes to present her research next year at the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum and at least two conferences.

Klinger said a lot of what she’s doing today goes back to the influence of her teachers at the Defense Language Institute, and she hopes to bridge the major culture gaps of today through her research.

“It pushed me to where I am today, because I learned more. And now I want to help other people learn more, whether that’s people from the Middle East learning about American culture and about English, or whether it’s people from the United States who only know English, learning about Middle Eastern culture or about Arabic,” she said. “I just think that learning to understand each other’s cultures is so important right now, and it’s really why I do what I do.”

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A professor sued Ohio State to obtain public records of the Comprehensive Energy Management Project. just giving a billion dollars to this foreign consortium just for the privilege of being able to borrow this money without putting it on their books as a loan,” said Jeff Vardaro, one of Weide’s lawyers.

OSU officials disputed Weide’s loan characterization, highlighting the performance standards that OSU can hold ENGIE-Axium to as part of the deal.

“This is not a loan,” OSU spokesman Chris Davey said in an email. “This project includes significant operating responsibilities for the partner, which must meet our high performance standards or face significant financial penalties.”

Public access to records After receiving the documents, Weide and his lawyers discovered nearly half of it was redacted. A copy of the documents obtained by The Lantern via a public records request was delivered unredacted. That request was submitted before the vote on the deal, but was delivered after the deal had been approved.

“The No. 1 issue is this: Why did this all happen secretly?” said Fred Gittes, one of Weide’s lawyers. “If this was an honest, fair, arm’s-length deal, why did they prevent the faculty, students, staff, taxpayers, news reports, general public from knowing the details months, if not years ago?

It puts a cloud over all of it. Sending out a 2,200-page contract with half of it redacted doesn’t remove the cloud.”

Davey said much of the details of the deal were unable to be shared before the vote in an effort to protect trade secrets.

Weide and his lawyers also disputed the manner in which the redacted documents were distributed. They said that the documents were not published anywhere else.

“I think it’s pretty easy to say it was sent only to us as a direct result of us filing the lawsuit,” Vardaro said. “It was a courtesy.”

When asked why the records Weide received weren’t proactively available on a university website before the vote, Davey said, “That is false.”

Davey said that multiple documents were available on the project website associated with the deal, and said that they did not release the documents given to Weide because of the lawsuit, saying any delays were due to necessary reviews before release.

However, Davey declined to answer multiple requests asking to provide The Lantern with the link to those documents, clarify where they were on the website, or how the public would have accessed them.

Davey also originally said there were “dozens” of public meetings regarding the deal. But during a special session of the University Senate — called in response to the announcement that the deal would go before the Board of Trustees — Vice President and Executive Provost Bruce McPheron said there had been only three meetings.

Davey later clarified that public input was sought through multiple committee and organizational meetings with various stake-

holders, though McPheron was correct in that truly public meetings only occurred three times.

Weide’s concerns After having nearly 24 hours to review the agreement, Weide sent a letter to the Board of Trustees outlining his concerns with the agreement.

“From the stuff that wasn’t redacted, it was possible to find the essence of the deal,” Weide said. “It just strikes me as what looks like an act of desperation from the OSU financial folks to borrow money from a private entity for operations at predatory interest rates compared to what OSU can get on capital markets. I’m at a loss to understand why they did it.”

Weide’s letter pointed out what he saw as several red flags with the agreement. He took issue with OSU selling public assets to the private for-profit energy consortium known as Ohio State Energy Partners — the name under which ENGIE-Axium is operating in the deal — in return for the energy consortium to pay OSU $1.1 billion.

The financial structure of the deal outlines three separate streams of annual payments that OSU will pay to OSEP to repay the $1.1 billion over the next 50 years.

“A preliminary analysis of each stream shows that this is a terrible financial deal (for OSU) in which OSU is borrowing massive amounts of money from a foreign consortium rather than borrowing via the usual bond markets,” Weide’s letter to the Board of Trustees states.

Despite the repayment process, Davey insisted that “there is no borrowed money.”

Weide’s letter to the Board of Trustees emphasized that OSEP does not appear to take any financial risk on the deal, but will collect a tremendous, well-above-market return on its investment.

“OSU may believe that suffering through this arrangement will somehow protect its credit rating, so it can borrow even more for other projects in the future,” Weide’s letter states. “But can the bond-rating agencies really fail to notice that OSU is incurring 50-year commitments here to pay off over $1.25 billion in loans that just happen to fall outside the usual credit markets?”

Weide’s letter was not mentioned during the Board of Trustees meeting when the vote on the energy deal occurred. Davey said that OSU did not have enough time to add Weide’s concerns to the agenda, despite saying the release of the redacted documents to the public and Weide was “made at the appropriate time.”

“We don’t know what the trustees knew when they voted, we don’t know what they were told, we don’t know whether they actually read the entire agreement, but they certainly have not gone out of their way to invite or encourage other viewpoints because they kept it secret,” Gittes said. “How can they expect to be well-informed if they want to hide from anybody raising questions?”

ARTS&LIFE

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RECORD STORE DAY The tenth annual event will celebrate local, independent record stores. | ON PAGE 5

Fallen Fruit picks up Columbus community OLIVIA BALCERZAK Lantern reporter balcerzak.13@osu.edu While comparing two people can be like comparing apples to oranges, bringing those people together may be as simple as giving them apples and oranges.

That is the vision of David Allen Burns and Austin Young, who travel the country to plant fruit trees and put together historical art exhibitions in various communities as part of a project they call Fallen Fruit.

In the lower level of the Wexner Center of the Arts, the duo installed floral wallpaper decorated with photographs and memorabilia to represent the history of Columbus.

In addition, on April 23 and April 30, Burns and Young will plant apple trees in the Weinland Park Berry Patch and South Side Fruit Park, respectively.

“Fruit does some funny things, it’s just very neutral, everyone’s OK with it, and that’s the same thing with fruit parks,” Burns said. “You’re not going to protest against an apple, so it’s a gift, it’s always a gift. It’s a universal gift and that’s true for everybody, it doesn’t matter if you’re 3 years old or 99.”

Fallen Fruit is a collaborative effort that began in 2004 in Los Angeles by as a way to use public space to improve the community, Young said. “(We are) sharing fruit in public space,” Young said. “Questioning if we can use

“You’re not going to protest against an apple, so it’s a gift, it’s always a gift. It’s a universal gift and that’s true for everybody, it doesn’t matter if you’re 3 years old or 99.”

David Allen Burns Fallen Fruit founder

OLIVIA BALCERZAK | LANTERN REPORTER

The wallpaper with pictures hanging in the Wexner Center for the Arts can be seen near the Heirloom Cafe restaurant on the lower level of The Wex. public space for something like sharing a resource, instead of planting ornamental trees that don’t do anything.”

Burns said the floral-decorated wallpaper was custom-made for the city of Columbus and the pattern for the design was inspired by photographs taken in the South Side and Weinland Park.

“It’s expected you’re getting a wallpaper if you invite us to your city,” Burns said.

“We were interested in creating an exhibition that speaks back to the neighborhoods which we are introducing a new thing … so the gallery itself is in conversation with the

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Hanging on the wall on top of the wallpaper are historic photographs from Columbus during the Depression era which were retrieved from the Ohio History Connection and the Library of Congress. Burns said the photographs they chose were unusual because they portray groups of average people doing leisure activities in a turbulent time when cameras were usually reserved for the rich.

“One of the things that’s unique about these photographic archives is that in the Depression era, really until the 1950s, you

don’t see snapshots — they just don’t exist,” Burns said. “It’s the people documenting the people of their neighborhood enjoying activities that illustrates what is going on during the Depression.”

Young said the images were found in boxes labeled “black” and “white” based on the race of the people photographed, so the two hung the pictures on the wall in that same fashion, meeting in the center. In an effort to resemble the era further, Young said the two included kitchen plates found at thrift stores that might have been used in 20th century homes.

However, despite the separation, the way Columbus took care of its people from the Depression into present day is something FRUIT CONTINUES ON 6

COLUMBUS’ OWN

Lights Go Out illuminates mental illness through music

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(Left to right) Cameron Harris, Zac Baaske, Justin Steed and Alex Arseneau make up Lights Go Out.

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Ohio State alumnus Zac Baaske likes loudness. Absolute deafening loudness. But Baaske’s loudness — and that of his band, Lights Go Out — isn’t just for the sake of being noisy. Rather, it’s a platform for talking about deeper issues.

“For this band, (music) has been an opportunity to talk about mental illness,” Baaske said. “It’s kind of this idea of struggling, and it being an ongoing thing and learning to coexist or overcome it.”

Using music to talk about the tough issue of mental illness is something Baaske said he started doing during his junior year

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at OSU when his friend, who was receiving treatment from the university, died.

“It was a really personal experience when that happened,” Baaske said. “It was incredibly striking … there was a lot to process. So conceptually the band is very much about (mental illness) and personal growth.”

Since 2013, Lights Go Out has released an album, undergone member changes, broken up and gotten back together. The current lineup since October is Baaske on guitar and vocals, Justen Steed on bass, Cameron Harrison on drums and vocals and third-year in architecture Alex Arseneau on guitar.

In a sense, Baaske said he believes the LIGHTS CONTINUES ON 6

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Thursday, April 20, 2017 | The Lantern | 5

Columbus record stores gear up for 10th annual Record Store Day EMILY REAL For The Lantern real.6@osu.edu In 2007, a group of independent record-store owners dedicated a day to celebrate the sense of community found in record shops — one they feared would fade away as listeners turned to the internet for their music needs.

In the 10 years since, Record Store Day has spread to cities around the world, including Columbus, with hundreds of limited edition records released each year to independent record shops.

Record stores across the city will celebrate Record Store Day’s 10th anniversary on April 22 with live music, storewide sales and special releases.

Some of this year’s nationwide releases include David Bowie’s “Cracked Actor” and a 7-inch single of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Columbus record stores will also feature the fourth edition of “Columbus Blood,” which is a compilation of music from a variety of Columbus bands.

Availability of titles varies from store to store, said Kyle Siegrist, owner of Lost Weekend Records.

“Unfortunately, some (titles) are stupid limited,” Siegrist said. “There’s (usually) five, six, 8,000 copies of something, (so) most stores are going to get 15 or 20 copies … but then there’s always something stupid (where) there’ll be 500 copies (total) so you get like one.”

Lost Weekend Records was involved with Record Store Day from the beginning, and Siegrist said he witnessed the event’s growth firsthand.

“The first year, it was announced so late that a lot of stores didn’t even get in on it,” he said. “There wasn’t much coverage, so it just kind of happened.”

However, as the years went on and more people became aware of Record Store Day, the event started to pick up speed, Siegrist said.

Siegrist recalls Lost Weekend’s third Record Store Day, when one of his employees noticed a group of people camping out on the hillside near his store just before they were about to open. Now, the line outside the store is usually about a hundred people deep for the first hour or so, he said.

“Each year it’s just grown,” he said. “It gets to the point now that there’s usually somebody camping out by midnight.”

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Friday April

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Sunday April

An Evening with Matt Bellassai, 7:30 p.m. at the Archie Griffin Grand Ballroom in the Ohio Union. The comedian known for his “Whine About It” webseries will visit Ohio State via OUAB. Tickets are available, two per BuckID. Tosh.Show, doors open at 7:30 p.m. at the Schottenstein Center. Daniel Tosh, host of Tosh.0, now in its ninth season on Comedy Central, will perform a night of stand-up comedy. Tickets start at $35.42 including fees.

Cody Jinks, doors open at 7 p.m. at EXPRESS LIVE! at 405 Neil Ave. The country music artist is set to perform with opening artist Ward Davis. Tickets are $27 in advance and $32 the day of the show, not including fees.

EMILY REAL | FOR THE LANTERN

Independent record stores such as Used Kids Records will be celebrating the 10th annual Record Store Day on April 22.

Siegrist’s situation is no anomaly. Both Steve Louis, owner at Records Per Minute , and Greg Hall, owner of Used Kids Records, said lines stretched down the block by the time they opened their stores at 8 a.m. last year.

Louis said finding and listening to music digitally lacks the gratification that comes

with purchasing a physical record.

“Music itself is physical,” Louis said.

“The more physically engaged you are, the more connected you are with it.”

Siegrist also said the experience of buying a record in a store is more memorable than buying music from iTunes or Amazon.

RECORD CONTINUES ON 6

Be SMART for SUMMER

Heathers: The Musical, 7:30 p.m. at the Thurber Theatre in the Drake Performance and Event Center. The final night of the musical based on the 1980s teen cult classic, presented by the OSU Department of Theatre.

Tickets are $15 for students and $25 for the general public.

Dog Show on the Oval, noon to 3 p.m. on the Oval. Dogs are invited to participate in skill, costume and obstacle competitions. Admission is free, but donations are accepted and will benefit Operation Smile.

Scarlet and Grace Notes Spring Cabaret, 7 p.m. at the Saxbe Auditorium at the Moritz College of Law. Performances will feature solo and small group acts, as well as group songs. Admission is free and the event is open to the public.

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6 | The Lantern | Thursday, April 20, 2017

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Puppy playdates lead to creation of student organization FALLON PEARL Lantern reporter pearl.18@osu.edu The swarm of dogs that takes over the Oval on sunny, spring days does far more than simply entertain groups of students on their way to class.

What began as a simple way to convene and organize playdates for the group’s energetic dogs has turned into the creation of the student organization, Oval Dogs.

The group will host a fundraiser on Thursday on the Oval.

“Coincidentally, there was a group message that was started through GroupMe about four years ago. We all just met up on the Oval one day with our dogs and realized that the dogs liked each other, so why not meet up at the same times,” said Tanvi Kumar, the group’s president. “We also wanted to do activities like hikes and make this more legitimate, so we created the student organization.”

Kumar, a third-year in biology andin Spanish, said though the organization was just formed in early March, so the group’s leadership is working on several plans it is passionate about fulfilling.

These include volunteering at animal shelters, fighting breed-specific legislation and supporting fellow dog owners.

Two dogs on the Oval. In March, a new club, Oval Dogs, was founded.

“We’ve set up some volunteering opportunities with the Franklin County Dog Shelter … which I believe is going to involve spending a day with a dog, walking them and showing them what it’s like to be owned,” Kumar said.

“We’re going to feature that on our Instagram and put it out there to then have people try and adopt these dogs.”

While the organization works to finalize details for its volunteering

opportunities, members will be pairing up with the Phi Delta Epsilon fraternity on Thursday to put on the event “Popsicles and Puppies.” This will allow the fraternity to fundraise for the Children’s Hospital, while bringing attention to the student organization.

“We’re still trying to put our foot in the door and make a name for ourselves, so we’re going to be bringing our dogs to the event, and that’s going to advertise us a

LIGHTS FROM 4

band itself is dealing with concepts of change and growth similar to what its music focuses on.

“We’re still working with a lot of the same old material,” Baaske said. “But we’re also very much figuring out our new sound and who we are as these four people, versus who we were before.”

Although Baaske writes the majority of the lyrics, the final product is still very much a collaborative effort, Baaske said.

“Even with Zac writing a lot, we add our own stuff and make our own decisions so it’s not like one person doing everything,” Harrison said. “We each add our own twist.”

The group finds its influences in a lot of different local bands, including Delay and the Sidekicks, but believes its sound is pretty true to garage punk rock styles, Baaske said.

“I’ve always called (us) a punk band because of what punk means to me, genre-wise and ideologically,” Baaske said. “It’s this idea of all these bands not really being the most learned musicians, but doing it anyway because they’re creative and they like it.”

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Even though Baaske said he thinks think the group falls under the category of novice musicians, Lights Go Out has played a number of shows around Columbus, including ones at the Summit, the Donatos Basement and Double Happiness.

“We try to do two or three shows a month, sometimes more, sometimes less,” Baaske said.

“We wouldn’t want to overdo it.”

Harrison also said he believes less is more when it comes to playing shows.

“It’s important to make (playing shows) an event for people and a special experience,” Harrison said.

Still, regardless of if the band plays in public or just at private practices, one thing holds constant — the lyrics tell others they aren’t alone in their struggle.

“The loudness is the best part (of music) for me,” Baaske said.

“Sometimes there’s nothing that can make you feel better than deafening loudness.”

Lights Go Out’s next show will be Friday at Double Happiness.

The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets are $5.

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COURTESY OF CATHERINE AYRES

little bit,” said Brian Miele, Oval Dogs secretary and a first-year in sociology.

Aside from the other goals of the group, members’ primary goal is to provide a support system for one another through dog sitting and giving training and care advice, Kumar said.

“Owning a dog is like having a kid,” Kumar said. “It’s really hard.

From having a busy class schedule and having to run back home

in between classes to let them out, to football Saturdays where everyone is outside and your dog is either crated or at home. It’s rough, it really is.”

Kumar said caring for a pet might be challenging, especially during the academic year, but that is what Oval Dogs is all about.

“I met all of these people who told me you don’t have to sacrifice everything for your dog, and told me that there are other people that will help you do what you need to do,” she said. “Meeting those people made my life a lot easier and made me a lot happier.”

Miele said he wishes he had a resource like OSU Oval Dogs when he got his first dog.

“Everybody knows something that you don’t, and everybody has something that they’ve gone through that can help a lot of other members,” he said. “I think that’s one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to get involved. It’s more than just reaching out to shelters, because it’s hard owning a dog, and especially a puppy.”

The “Popsicles and Puppies” event is set to take place from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the Oval on Thursday.

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FRUIT FROM 4

RECORD FROM 5

that distinguishes it from other cities, Young said.

“I’ve noticed coming here that Columbus takes care of people in a different way than we’ve seen in other cities,” he said. “These were all (pictures of) disenfranchised youth that needed help, so (the city) did theater productions, sent them to summer camps, did all sorts of activities and they were so well-documented.”

The two will be planting trees with volunteers in Weinland Park, located on 1550 N. Fourth St. on April 23 and South Side Park, located on 337 to 399 Reeb Ave. on April 30. Young said all are welcome and encouraged to help plant trees with the community.

The wallpaper will be on display in the lower level of The Wex until May 7.

“When you’re shopping and buy something … you have a memory with that,” he said. “When you go online, it’s not like ‘I remember at three in the morning, I went to Amazon and bought this Clash album,’ you know. It’s just not there.”

Hall said there is a sense of isolation that comes with listening to music on a phone or computer.

“There’s nothing wrong with having quiet time and hanging out,” he said. “But I guess I think the physical stuff kind of creates a culture where people can interact … I think Record Store Day is a cool celebration of that.”

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Thursday, April 20, 2017 | The Lantern | 7

Club basketball teams set to compete nationally FALLON PERL Lantern reporter perl.18@osu.edu The Ohio State men’s and women’s club basketball teams, the Ballstars, are set to compete Friday through Sunday in the 2017 National Intramural Recreational Sports Association National Basketball Championships, which are being held at the RPAC for the second consecutive year.

The men’s team earned the title of Men’s Club National Champions at the tournament last year. Bryce Spees, men’s club team president and fourth-year in logistics management, said they are hoping to uphold their status as defending champions.

The women’s team lost last year to Wisconsin in the final four after beating the team in the regular season.

The men’s team has been focusing on different areas, both offensively and defensively, that will lead them closer to their goal of maintaining their status as champions, Spees said.

“We’ve been working on playing as a team and always playing with intensity because we’ve struggled to do that a little bit,” Spees said. “We’re just making sure we’re engaged all of the time, but I feel like the past couple of weeks we’ve been doing a really good job of that.”

With an abundance of talent on the offensive side of the ball, Spees said he believes that efficient shooting shouldn’t be the team’s main concern.

“Ryan Murray and Marquis Gaines played extremely well in our tournament a couple of weeks ago, and they were both FOOTBALL FROM 8

Coombs said, and that once Sheffield decided he was going to transfer from community college, the coaching staff knew they were going to push hard to add him to the team.

“As soon as I found out that he was becoming available again — I can’t remember exactly how, if it was internet or whatever – I reached out immediately,” Coombs said. “I began the process of recruiting him at Blinn right away really hard, and thankfully, he chose to become a Buckeye.”

The oldest of the newcomers, Sheffield brings in an element of experience that many of the younger cornerbacks lack. As a junior college transfer, he had time playing in game situations, and Schiano said the key for him will just be to get the hang of things the more he participates.

Freshmen might be counted on quite a bit in the defensive backfield in 2017 with no TENNIS FROM 8

back,” Di Lorenzo said. “It’s important just to finish out these two matches strong and not let Indiana and Purdue go by us. They’re two tough teams and we’ve got to be ready for anything they throw at us. We’re working hard in practice this week and, hopefully, it will show this weekend.”

Players have worked to focus on solidifying their own skill set, but they’re also aware that there will be tough competition this weekend. Indiana senior Paula Gutierrez and sophomore Madison Appel are two players that have been on the Buckeyes’ radar, Di Lorenzo said.

“They were pretty tough for us to compete against last year, so those are definitely some girls we’ll be looking out for,” Di Lorenzo said, “But whether we’re playing Florida, who is No. 1 in the nation, or we’re playing a team that’s maybe not as highly ranked, we play every match on our terms and stay intense throughout each competition.”

No matter what opponent the Buckeyes compete against, they focus on staying

FALLON PERL | LANTERN REPORTER

The Ohio State men’s club basketball team scrimmages at JO South in preparation for the NIRSA Championships this weekend. on the All-Tournament team for this tournament last year, so we’re definitely hoping for a strong performance out of those guys again,” Spees said.

On defense, however, communication and rebounding are points of emphasis..

“As long as we take care of the things that we can control, like, taking care of the ball, taking good shots and playing good defense, we’ll be happy,” Spees said. “The main goal is to win the whole thing. We did it last year, and we know we have the guys to do it again this year.”

The women’s team, on the other hand,

owns a record of 26-1 this year, its only loss being the first game of the season. The team is looking forward to competing and possibly being able to have a rematch with Wisconsin.

“We knew we could beat them, but it was just a different time and a different game,” said women’s club team president and fourth-year in exercise science education Megan McKean.

In order to better prepare for the tough competition it will face this weekend, the women’s team had the opportunity to scrimmage the OSU women’s varsity basketball

team during a training session Tuesday.

“It’s just great competition,” McKean said. “We’re trying to get better people in here because we’re not beating up on each other enough. We’re also making it very adamant that people attend practice because just having good attendance here allows us to have more effective drills and better practices.”

At the tournament, games will be played constantly from Friday through Sunday, which can make it feel like the club team’s equivalent to March Madness, said Sandra Dickos, fourth-year in marketing.

“You’re playing a lot of games in a short amount of time, so sometimes your legs aren’t there, especially for the last games,” Dickos said. “People get hurt, people get in foul trouble because they get tired, so it’s like an entirely different dynamic as you go further down the bracket.”

Though the back-to-back games can be taxing, the women’s team hopes it has learned from its Final Four knockout last year.

“We have a threat for every position, and our bench is really, really good,” McKean said. “They could be our starting five, which is why I believe we have a lot of depth and ability, and a lot of skill. Hopefully we can win it all, because the goal is always to be able to put our year on the banner.”

The NIRSA Basketball Championships begin Friday at the RPAC at 4 p.m.

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one player really standing above the rest of the pack.

If those four incoming freshman are going to find success, they will not only need to familiarize themselves with OSU’s defensive style, but also work on making the transition from pure athletes to specialists at their respective positions.

“In high school, you can get away with just being a great athlete. You can do it the way you’re coached, or maybe you can do it another way and still get away with it,” Schiano said. “Here, the people they’re going against are so good that if they don’t do it exactly the way they’re instructed, it’s hard to be successful.”

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@LanternSports healthy, stepping up and staying aggressive, which De Santis said they have been doing a great job of in these final weeks of regular-season training.

As long as the team performs this weekend and continues to improve as it transitions from regular to postseason, it is expecting to be ready for the championships, Di Lorenzo said.

“We’re looking to do well at NCAAs,” Di Lorenzo said. “That’s what we’ve been practicing for and that is one of the big goals that we wrote down at the beginning of the year. As long as we’re ready for NCAAs, that’s all that matters.”

The Buckeyes are set to compete Friday against Indiana at 3 p.m., and Sunday against Purdue at noon. The competition will be at the Varsity Tennis Courts next to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

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8 | Thursday, April 20, 2017

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DAMON WEBB The coaching staff said the veteran safety is playing at his highest-ever level in his final year. | ONLINE

FOOTBALL

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Lattimore and Conley gone, depth still present OSU hopes to remain undefeated in Big Ten conference EDWARD SUTELAN Lantern reporter sutelan.1@osu.edu

On April 27, Ohio State will watch its top cornerbacks from the 2016 season, Marshon Lattimore and Gareon Conley, learn their NFL destinations in the first round of the NFL draft.

But the task of replacing those corners was set in motion when the season ended.

The team has lost its top pair of corners, but cornerbacks coach Kerry Coombs said the position has the most depth he’s seen since his arrival at OSU in 2012.

“I’m extremely excited about the totality of the room,” Coombs said Wednesday.

He added that he is not sure exactly who will play. Junior Denzel Ward and redshirt sophomores Kendall Sheffield and Damon Arnette are all in the mix, as are sophomore Rodjay Burns and freshmen Shaun Wade, Jeffrey Okudah, Marcus Williamson and Amir Riep.

Defensive coordinator Greg Schiano said he is unsure of how the younger corners will perform, and that while the team knows what to expect from of Sheffield, Ward and Arnette, there is an element of mystery with some of the

younger players.

“There’s so many responses that we don’t know yet, because they haven’t been in that position with us,” Schiano said. “How will they respond when they get beat for a touchdown? How will they respond when they have an issue in class or an off-the-field issue that distracts them? Will they be able to come out here and block it out? Those are all things you learn about newcomers that we have to wait and see.”

The perk of having such depth at the position is that there does not always have to be a bonafide set of starters downfield. Last season, though Lattimore and Conley were deemed the starters, Ward frequently rotated in with the pair and, in the end, received nearly the same number of snaps as the two future first-round corners.

Arnette, though he participated in fewer snaps compared with the other three, also found himself in on the action for much of the season.

The strategy of rotating the corners to keep all of them fresh for nearly the whole game proved successful. But Schiano said there is no guarantee the defense will use that same game plan next time, though he and the rest of the coaching staff would like to try it

FALLON PERL Lantern reporter perl.18@osu.edu

ALEXA MAVROGAINIS | PHOTO EDITOR

OSU redshirt sophomore cornerback Kendall Sheffield (10) chases down sophomore running back Demario McCall (30) during the spring game on April 15. out.

“I could see that happening again this year, but it really depends on the development of our corners and how they do,” Schiano said. “We’re very, very hopeful between our incoming guys, between our guys who were here, that we will be able to have that rotation at the corner spot.”

One important piece to the

cornerback puzzle will be the development of Sheffield, who was rated as the No. 1 junior college cornerback transfer by ESPN before landing at OSU, and was considered a five-star prospect before enrolling at Alabama and later Blinn Community College.

Sheffield was highly sought after by OSU out of high school, FOOTBALL CONTINUES ON 7

MEN’S GYMNASTICS

OSU hits road to NCAA championships DANEYLIZ RODRIGUEZ Lantern reporter rodriguez.681@osu.edu Returning from the Big Ten championships with their 14th conference title, the No. 3 Ohio State men’s gymnastics team prepares to hit the road for the NCAA championships. The journey, however, might not be the only thing on the minds of the athletes, as the Buckeyes mourn the loss of former team member, Larry Mayer, who passed away Monday evening.

“We recently lost a member of our gymnastics family, and it was very hard for us,” said OSU coach Rustam Sharipov. “Larry Mayer was bright and a great athlete ... Our thoughts go to his family and we are thinking of him. As for (the) NCAA championship, we’ve had some rough patches this season ... but the guys work very hard and we are ready.”

Mayer, 24, graduated in 2015 with a successful season, placing 10th on vault at the Big Ten event finals and seventh on vault at the team finals. He also won vault with a 15.150 against Michigan, and tied for second place on vault against Penn State with a 14.900.

He was a two-time Academic AllBig Ten selection and a three-time

“We’ve had a great season, and I just want to do the best that we can to earn the title. If we all go in with this outlook, I think we’ll do great.”

Seth Delbridge Junior, Ohio State Gymnast

AARON TOMICH | SENIOR LANTERN REPORTER

OSU redshirt junior Sean Melton hangs firmly above the mats during his attempt at the still rings on Feb. 4 OSU Scholar-Athlete.

The NCAA championships start on Friday at the Christl Arena at The United States Military Academy at West Point.

The championships qualifier begins Friday with two pre-qualifying sessions. The top three teams will advance to Saturday’s final session.

Last season, the Buckeyes advanced to the 2016 NCAA championships with a second-place finish at the NCAA pre-qualifier at St. John Arena. However, it was Oklahoma who took home the title with a team score of 443.400 points. Stanford finished second with 434.050, while OSU placed third with 433.050.

The Buckeyes will enter the championships ranked third in the all-around, second on pommel horse, third on rings, third on parallel bars and fourth on high bar.

“We’ve basically just been making sure that everyone is healthy and everyone feels ready to go this weekend, but we’re actually so prepared that athletes who haven’t competed much this season will compete during the qualifier to give other guys a break,” said junior Seth Delbridge. “We’ve had a great season, and I just want to do the best that we can to earn the title. If we all go in with this outlook, I think we’ll do great.”

OSU will compete in the first pre-qualifying session on Friday at 1 p.m. Team, all-around and event finals will take place on Saturday.

After a season filled with weeks of challenging training sessions and intense matches, the home stretch is in sight for the No. 5 Ohio State women’s tennis team (23-2, 9-0) as it hopes to continue its undefeated Big Ten conference streak this weekend.

The team is set to compete against its final two conference foes this weekend, facing off against Indiana on Friday and Purdue on Sunday.

The final two regular-season matches are not only important in regard to competing against conference competition and improving the team’s record, but they will also serve as a way to honor the seniors at their final regular-season home matches.

The team will be graduating seniors Ferny Angeles Paz, Gabriella De Santis, Miho Kowase and Sandy Niehaus, so it isare looking forward to celebrating those players this weekend, sophomore Francesca Di Lorenzo said.

“We’re super excited to play,” Di Lorenzo said. “It’s our senior weekend for our four seniors, so it’s a pretty big weekend for them and for all of us to hopefully be able to close out the Big Ten going 11-0 and secure the Big Ten regular season title on Sunday.”

In order to prepare for the competition that the Hoosiers and the Boilermakers will bring this weekend, the team has been breaking down into smaller groups during training this week to hone in on certain skills, head coach Melissa Schaub said.

“This week, we have actually switched things up … And it’s always good when you get a chance to do that,” Schaub said. “These guys have hit so many balls at this point of the season, so you’re just trying to fine-tune certain things and get in there with our strength and conditioning coach to make sure that the fitness is staying up to the level that it needs to be as well.”

Though the Buckeyes have been largely successful throughout their season, with a 23-2 record overall, this weekend’s competition is not to be taken lightly, Di Lorenzo said.

“Everyone is working on something different in their game whether it’s aggressively, defensively or just getting the footwork TENNIS CONTINUES ON 7