W e d n e s day, f e b r ua ry 5 , 2 0 2 0
first day of school former WhitE Sox Manager and OSU baseball player robin ventura returns to Stillwater as a student assistant
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Cowboy legend Robin Ventura back in the college swing Hallie Hart Staf f R epo rt er @hallieha rt
Grace Ventura insisted on capturing a photograph of her father on his first day of school. Robin Ventura, 52, stopped in front of the door at his house in Edmond. The left strap of his grayand-black backpack, which had contained pitching reports and hitting reports when he managed the Chicago White Sox, rested on his left shoulder. He said a picture wasn’t necessary, but he agreed his daughter, who graduated from college in 2017, could take it. “He laughed at me, but it was something I felt like I needed to get,” Grace Ventura said. Then her dad left and drove about 45 miles to Stillwater. It was Jan. 13, the first morning of the spring semester at Oklahoma State University, and Robin Ventura was embarking on an out-of-the-ordinary adventure in a place he knew well. After competing on a gold-medal-winning Olympic team, earning six Gold Glove awards and spending time in the major leagues, Ventura is resuming the college career he started in 1985 at OSU. He moved from Arroyo Grande, California, so he could become the Cowboy baseball team’s student-assistant coach. “It’s definitely not something that people would think, ‘That’s the normal path,’” Ventura said. “It’s not the normal path, but I’ve
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always done stuff that’s kind of a little off-center, and just picked something up and (done) it.” College has changed since Ventura studied business at OSU from 1985-88. Instead of trekking from one edge of campus to another, Ventura, who is enrolled in four courses, logs into his classroom portal and adds comments to discussion threads. Two of his classes are online, and his two independent study courses involve online work and meetings with professors. To prepare, Ventura went to the academic center in Gallagher-Iba Arena and devoted a couple of hours to learning about Canvas, OSU’s online learning management system. “I’m just trying to be as organized as I can,” Ventura said. “Because a lot of the time is spent here (at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium).” During the fall, Ventura visited
Stillwater and went to Cowboy football tailgates with a group that included several former OSU golfers. Sometimes, Cowoby baseball coach Josh Holliday joined them, and in September, they discussed the idea of Ventura’s returning to OSU. At first, they regarded it as a funny hypothetical scenario instead of a practical option. From 2012-16, Ventura managed the White Sox, and since then, he had spent leisurely time traveling and golfing with family members and friends. Coaching at his alma mater hadn’t been on his agenda, but each time Holliday suggested it, Ventura took it seriously. If Ventura were to come back to OSU, then he would fit the requirements for a student-assistant, Holliday explained.
Student-assistant coaches must enroll at the school where they most recently were student-athletes, according to NCAA rules. They either must have no eligibility left in the sport they played or must be unable to continue playing the sport because of injury. Unless they have one semester or quarter left and can finish their degree program as part-time students, they must be full-time students. When the White Sox drafted Ventura, he hadn’t finished his undergraduate program, but 32 years later, he could get his degree and become a student-assistant. “That was kind of the golden ticket,” Holliday said. Although Ventura had opportunities to return to professional baseball, he had been waiting for something else. “I wanted something totally different,” Ventura said. “And when this came up, I was thinking, ‘Well, this is totally different.’ This is outside the box.” He announced his unusual plan to Grace
Courtney Bay/OSU Athletics
Robin Ventura poses with Josh Holliday, the Oklahoma State baseball coach. Ventura has returned to OSU to be a student-assistant coach for the baseball team and get his undergraduate degree.
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Ventura, his daughter who lives in California, and she decided to go with him and stay in Oklahoma for a couple of weeks. Jan. 10, the Friday before his first day of school, they embarked on the drive from Arroyo Grande to Edmond. Folding chairs and a fold-out table have served as makeshift living room furniture until he has time to spruce up the house, but he has designated his home office as his study space. Although several of Ventura’s golf buddies live near him in Edmond, that isn’t the only reason he chose to live outside Stillwater. He said he enjoys driving, as he did when he managed the White Sox, so he can mentally plan his day while he is on the road. Marilyn Middlebrook, OSU’s associate athletic director/academic affairs and director of academic services for student-athletes, helped him design a class schedule that works with his travel routine and his coaching commitments. At 52, Ventura isn’t concerned about learning how to start a business. He is studying topics that range from agricultural leadership to brewing microbiology, which looks at craft beer brewing through the lens of science. “Because of his commuting back and forth and doing his job, he needed to have more of it online,” Middlebrook said. “And so I told him, I said, ‘Online didn’t exist when you were here, so we might want
to chat about what you’re going to have to do for an online course.’” When Ventura isn’t taking online quizzes or replying to classmates’ posts, he is sharing his baseball wisdom with the Cowboys. Rob Walton, OSU’s pitching coach and Ventura’s teammate in 1986, explained how Ventura’s evenkeeled demeanor translates from his playing days to his coaching career. “When he tells you something, you listen because he’s not one of those guys that likes to hear himself talk,” Walton said. “He’s going to tell you something that’s going to help you.” Ventura isn’t sure how long he will stay. Because not all of his credits from the 1980s apply to his curriculum, he is about two years away from earning his bachelor’s degree. He has no definite postgraduate plans, but like many college students, he is taking everything day by day. “I think it’s just part of the journey, enjoying where you’re at and what you’re doing,” Ventura said. “I’m not the normal student. They’re getting their degree, and they don’t really know what’s out in front of them. I don’t either, but I’m not sitting there thinking, ‘All right, I’ve got to graduate and I’ve got to find a certain kind of job that goes with (my) degree.’ Mine’s a little bit different, but I enjoy the learning part of it and just doing different things.” PAGE 2
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Q&A
Australian students talk about wildfires back home
J oe Calam or e O ’Co lly C ont r ib utor @ ocolly
In January, the Australian wildfires that started in September caught international media attention. The fires have now burned over 27 million acres of land and killed at least 29 people. The O’Colly sat down with Adelaide, Australia, natives and Oklahoma State University students Chloe Holliday and Justin Gerschwitz to learn about their experience seeing the tragedy unfold while in the United States. How did you first hear about the wildfires back home? Holliday: I just mainly found out online via social media. Eventually, I saw more news posts and just googled it to read about it. Obviously I chatted with friends and family back home about it as well. That’s where I mainly found out most of the information about them. Gerschwitz: I’m fairly similar. I was home for the first wave when it started back in October. From then it was just social media and getting pictures and videos from people back home. What was your initial reaction to the news? Holliday: I was so surprised when I first saw it because the pictures they were posting honestly looked like they were edited; it looked like the apocalypse. It was kind of scary to see people hiding in the water and all of that sort of stuff. I feel like if it was happening more in our state that it would have defi-
Joe Calamore/ O’Colly
Oklahoma State students Chloe Holliday (left) and Justin Gerschwitz (right) are natives of Adelaide, Australia.
nitely been more frightening. Gerschwitz: Seeing all of the pictures of all of the animals and that was really devastating. Has anyone you know been affected by the wildfires? Holliday: Not particularly. No one has directly been affected or anything like that. It has just been a lot of close calls. Gerschwitz: I am kind of the same way. My uncle and auntie know a lot of people who have lost their properties, lost everything really. Those people are obviously struggling, but fortunately there has been no direct impact for me. How far was the closest fire to where you are both from? Holliday: Adelaide Hills is only around a 20 minute drive from where we are both from. That burned down a lot of wineries and stuff. There is also an island off of the coast of south Australia called Kangaroo Island which is almost completely burned. My family and friends were actually on that island when it was burning around Christmas, so that was super scary. I had to make contact with them just to make sure
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they were still alive so that was scary. Gerschwitz: Yeah my family lives in a place called King’s Cove, which is the only part of the island which was safe. It was scary when it looked like the fires were all rushing toward that one town, but it all was all OK in the end. How does it feel to watch these fires from the other side of the world? Holliday: I mean I was with friends from home over Christmas, and they were going home afterward, and they were all terrified about going home because you don’t really know what you are going home to. I remember speaking with my mom over the Christmas period, and you could not even go outside because the smoke was that bad, which is awful. It kind of seems surreal being over here because I didn’t have to experience any of that back home. Gerschwitz: I have not seen a lot of it first hand, so being out here and hearing about it you just feel it may be being blown out of proportion, but if it were my hometown, I would be pretty scared to not know what I was going back to.
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OSU’s new Greenhouse Learning Center offers students hands on learning experience J T G rag g O ’C olly C o nt r ib utor @ jamestgragg
Although the new Greenhouse Learning Center’s grand opening was held this past August, staff and students were largely absent from the building until the start of this semester. Holly Pasmore, greenhouse manager, started working at the facility in early January. “I’m just trying to hold down the fort at the moment,” Pasmore said. Pasmore is a firm believer in hands on education for students and said the greenhouse is a “great opportunity.” The greenhouse caters mostly to students in the Ferguson School of Agriculture, but the College of Arts and Sciences also uses it for experiments. The complex is home to six separate greenhouses, a fully furnished classroom, office space, and the Southwood Landscape and Nursery Prep Area. The classroom and Prep Area have large tables for students to learn potting basics and work on projects. The Prep Area also contains a refrigerator for seed storage and three smaller rooms to house pots, soils and fertilizers. Each greenhouse is independently climate controlled using an automated micro-grow greenhouse system that continuously monitors conditions like temperature and humidity. Other state of the art
features include LED and high pressure sodium grow lights, rolling benches and automatic dark shades. Straight water and a premixed fertilizer solution is available on tap for either hand watering or drip irrigation systems. There are also several different hydroponic systems throughout the facility. Hydroponics is a relatively new field within horticulture and has many benefits like potentially increased yields, reduced soil usage and increased water use efficiency due to their closed nature. In one system, using Dutch buckets, plants are set in a clay medium and watered using a series of drip hoses in one large loop. Excess water and fertilizer drains through the bottom of the bucket and is collected by pipes bellow to be analyzed. A computer can then automatically change the concentration of fertilizer or pH of the solution before the plants are watered again. New technology was a major consideration in constructing the facility. Horticulture senior Molly Morrison is excited about the development. “It’s high tech,” Morrison said. “I’ve never had the opportunity to grow in a greenhouse before.” They mentioned how important the opportunity to conduct experiments is because “that’s how people learn.” Students are able to
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Adam Luther/O’Colly
The Greenhouse Learning Center, located behind University Health services, opened in August, but it didn’t start getting much use until this ssemster. The facility offers students an opportunity to get hands-on learning experience.
plan and carry out their own self-guided research using the greenhouse and its resources. Beatrix Haggard, an assistant professor in plant and oil sciences, laughed when describing how students are like a deer in the headlights when set loose to make their own experiments. “I try to let them pick everything,” Haggard said. It’s not just students who are excited about the facility though. Fransisco Ochoa Corona, a professor of the National Institute for Microbial Forensics & Food, and Bailey Norwood, a professor of Agricultural Economics, can attest to its necessity.
“The new Greenhouse Learning Center is a priceless addition needed to teach plant disease and pest symptoms,” Corona said. “We can start plants in the greenhouse to be transplanted in the garden at the end of the semester,” Norwood said. “This not only allows my students more time gardening for the food insecure, but provides them with hands on experience starting vegetables indoors”. As well as learning and teaching opportunities, the greenhouses can house and grow plants for sale. Currently, the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture has one greenhouse full
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with plants they will sell at their spring sale. Multi colored coleus cover benches spanning the length of the greenhouse casting bright colors on the acrylic walls. The actual greenhouses or the plants within, however, are not the sole attraction of the facility. Outdoor raised beds and crop area allows students, and the public, to experience agriculture on a small scale. In addition, Haggard said things will grow differently outside, highlighting how not everything can be grown in a greenhouse under perfect conditions. Haggard hopes this new space will expose people to agriculture throughout
the year with rotating crops. For the time being, they eagerly await spring planting and more funds for outdoor seating and picnic areas. In addition to donating $1 million to help build the facility, Greenleaf Nursery also supplied the greenhouse with new plants to beautify the exterior. Pasmore is looking forward to the Greenhouse Learning Center continuing to provided students and faculty opportunities for personal and professional exploration that goes beyond the classroom. “If I can help bridge that gap, that would be fabulous,” Pasmore said. PAGE 4
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Cowboys hope to not repeat mistakes against Horned Frogs J o se ph Fazio S taf f Repo rter @ Jo s ephD Fa z io
The Cowboys are constantly making the same mistakes and not adjusting. It’s the main reason why the Oklahoma State men’s basketball team is at its breaking point as it sits 0-8 in the Big 12 conference. When TCU comes to Gallagher-Iba Arena to face the Cowboys on Wednesday, it’ll mark the midway point of OSU’s conference schedule. In the Cowboys’ loss to the Horned Frogs in early January, it was a constant struggle on defense. TCU’s Desmond Bane lit up the Cowboys’ defense for 20 points including four 3-pointers. Coach Mike Boyton said he hopes to not have a repeat of last month’s loss. “It’s hard to fix a lot of things at once,” Boynton said. “When you really focus on something, they take on to that pretty good, but then you lose something else in kind of a sacrifice almost.” Boynton has preached this season as to how offense feeds off defense and the other way around. If one fails, the other cannot carry the weight of both. It has been an easy sight this season. There are games where the Cowboys’ offense is rocking, but then their defense is lagging behind. Boyton wants to find a way where both are holding their own. “Eventually, you hope that
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OSU guard Isaac Likekele will guard TCU’s Desmond Bane, who scored 20 points in the team’s previous meeting.
you keep our offense going and guys continue to make shots more consistently, but that your defense doesn’t then revert again because once you get both parts of the game plan well at the same time, we’ll have a chance to win,” Boynton said. OSU’s key assignment for the Horned Frogs is to lock down Bane. In OSU’s practice on Tuesday, freshman forward Keylan Boone wore a green shirt, acting as Bane for the Cowboys’ defense. Sophomore Isaac Likekele, who will guard Bane the majority of the game, said he knows how great of a player the TCU guard is. “In this game, we got to be keen on where he is
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020
on the floor at all times,” Likekele said. If Likekele is able to contain Bane, it’s still half the battle. The Cowboys cannot let opponents get early looks, similar to Saturday’s loss against Oklahoma. OSU left Brady Manek wide open and he took full advantage of it. If Manek was covered tightly when he shot nine 3-pointers in the first half, the game could’ve been a different story. Likekele said the coaches are helping the players not repeat their same mistakes. “They always try to put us in the best position to win the game and now it’s just up to us players to execute the game plan,” Likekele said.
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis
ACROSS 1 Twinings products 5 Wolf pack leader 10 Oft-misused pronoun 14 Hall of Famer Donovan, first woman to coach a WNBA championship team 15 One-piece dresses 16 Georgetown athlete 17 Compact 20 Outshine 21 Codgers 22 Shorthand writer, for short 23 Haus husband 24 “Apollo 11” org. 27 Solution for contacts 32 Decides 36 Attended, as college, with “to” 38 Fibula neighbor 39 Compact 42 Thumb one’s nose at 43 Air Quality Index factor 44 Old flames 45 Bench-clearing brawls, e.g. 47 Big fusses 49 Grammar, in grammar 51 Slices in a pie, often 56 Christmas show 60 Nutritionist’s unit 62 Compact 64 Soaks (up) 65 Aptly named 1955 and 2019 Disney dog 66 Oboe vibrator 67 Tupelo, e.g. 68 Chips in a chip 69 Mixes in DOWN 1 Subdues 2 Make into law 3 Common sprain site 4 Welcome at the door
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By MaryEllen Uthlaut
5 Snakes in hieroglyphics 6 Bodice trim 7 In favor of 8 Depend (on) 9 Daisylike fall flowers 10 Zoom (by) 11 Refine, as skills 12 Open hearing, in law 13 “24K Magic” singer Bruno 18 Familiar with 19 Force gas into 23 Word-guessing game 25 Cobbler’s tool 26 Swell places? 28 Margarita garnish 29 Goat with recurved horns 30 Start of many a workday 31 Revived Alton Brown cooking show “Good __” 32 Rip-__: thefts 33 Olympic vaulter’s need 34 Home run pace 35 Indecent matter 37 Stepped heavily
Tuesday’s Puzzle Solved
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40 Without a musical key 41 Self-awareness 46 Piano __ 48 46-Down, often 50 Difficult move in a busy intersection 52 One leading a charmed life? 53 Made an attempt 54 Needed to skip work, perhaps
2/5/20
55 Closing documents 56 “Hey, you!” 57 Deity with a bow 58 Stare in amazement 59 Otherwise 60 “The best is yet to __” 61 Concert gear 63 Bit of body ink PAGE 5
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Solution to Tuesday’s puzzle
Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit, 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit sudoku.org.uk
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Today’s Birthday (02/05/20). Anything is possible with teamwork this year. Strengthen foundations with disciplined planning. Winter introspection and rest prepare you for summer group changes, before an energy boost. Resolve a romantic barrier next winter with help from friends. Strengthen community bonds for growth, fun and love. To get the advantage, check the day’s rating: 10 is the easiest day, 0 the most challenging. Aries (March 21-April 19) -- Today is an 8 -- Discuss hopes, dreams, goals and ambitions with your inner circle. Help a relative achieve a seemingly impossible goal. Long shots can pay off. Taurus (April 20-May 20) -- Today is a 9 -- You’re especially quick, charming and intuitive. Aim your talents to take advantage of breaking news. Get into a larger conversation about a subject you love. Gemini (May 21-June 20) -- Today is an 8 -- Talk about what you love and dream about. What could be possible? Look sharp to catch a profitable and unexpected opportunity. Run with it. Cancer (June 21-July 22) -- Today is an 8 -- Talk about what you’re learning. Unexpected personal insights arise in conversation. Listen to your intuition, especially regarding a personal project. Grow what you love. Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) -- Today is a 7 -- Find a quiet place for dreaming. Envision an inspiring possibility. Notice an opportunity within reach and plan the steps to make things happen. Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- Today is an 8 -- A friend can get through where you can’t. Link arms to take advantage of collaborative opportunities. Social connections provide just the talents needed. Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) -- Today is an 8 -- Benefit from a positive professional surprise. Grab an unexpected chance for a career surge. Listen to your heart. Build structures with integrity. Discuss passions. Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) -- Today is an 8 -- A dreamy educational or travel opportunity presents itself. Hitch a ride with someone going the same way. Discover and learn about a beloved subject. Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) -- Today is a 9 -- Pull together to take advantage of an unforeseen financial opportunity for a shared venture. Contribute your talents, ideas and passion. It could get lucrative. Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- Today is a 9 -- You and a partner can accomplish amazing results together. Collaborate and coordinate for maximum value. Share your skills, talents and heart for a common vision. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) -- Today is a 9 -- All that practice is paying off. Grab an unexpected chance to raise your performance to the next level. Train for the work you love. Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) -- Today is a 9 -- Love beats any other card. Play the game to win. Take advantage of a lucky chance by watching for it. Let your heart guide you.
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