11-28-17

The Pitt News

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | November 28, 2017 | Volume 108 | Issue 75

Professor unearths Israeli heritage

STEEL CITY ROLLER DERBY PG.6

Zoe Pawlizeck Staff Writer

Professor Jodi Magness embarked on a mission in 2011 to excavate the Huqoq synagogue in Israel with little idea of its contents — and with only an ancient village as its possible location.

Unsure of whether they would find anything, Magness’ team randomly picked a square as their first dig site and discovered archaeological fragments. Eventually, the team unearthed mosaic pavings crafted on the synagogue’s foundation depicting biblical scenes relevant to the history of Israel. Since then, Magness has been working on the excavation and preserva(From left) Alyssa Quintanilla, Jamie Fargo and Alivia Martin stand in the middle of the flat rink at the Pittsburgh tion of the historical site in the ancient village of Indoor Sports Arena, where they practice and hold games. Anna Bongardino | ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR Huqoq, with the eventual goal of relocating the mosaics to public areas.

“I keep joking that when we finish this project they’ll be rolling me out in a wheelchair,” Monday night. Hosted by Pitt’s chapter of the themselves on the subject.

Jaime Weinreb Magness said.

Stains began by describing how in the United American Association of University Women, the For The Pitt News Pitt’s Jewish Studies program and NationStates, sex education is highly undervalued, as event focused on pornography and its relationAccording to the Pornhub’s 2016 Year in Reality Rooms program came together Monday schools are not doing enough to incorporate it ship with the feminist movement. night to host Magness and celebrate the 30th view, nearly 92 billion videos were viewed in on Stains, a biology student and the program- into the curriculum. As a result, many turn to anniversary of the Israel Heritage Classroom — the porn streaming website in 2016 alone. porn for guidance, she said.

“We’ve all watched it, it’s everywhere,” junior ming coordinator of Pitt’s AAUW chapter, led the 20th Nationality Room constructed in the Jeanna Sybert, a senior studying communia discussion about the issues surrounding porElena Stains said after presenting the statistic.

Cathedral. cations and political science and the secretary of About 10 people attended the “Let’s Talk nography across the country that people may not AAUW at Pitt who also helped guide the Magness — a University of North Carolina necessarily pay attention to. The discussion also See Heritage on page 2 About Sex: Pornography & Feminism” event See Repercussions on page 2 touched on the things people can do to educate

Students discuss porn industry repercussions

News Heritage, pg. 1

professor with a bachelor’s in archaeology and history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem — shared the current status of the excavation site at the Late Roman-era synagogue with more than 80 people during her lecture, “More than Just Mosaics: the Huqoq Synagogue,” in the Cathedral of Learning.

Magness and her excavation team have gone out every summer digging season since 2011 and unearthed a variety of partial and complete mosaic scenes throughout the stone foundations of the Jewish synagogue.

Magness showed the audience of community members, Pitt staff and students unreleased images of the dig sites and the mosaic pavings within — including scenes depicting biblical motifs and stories such as Noah’s Ark and Helios and the Zodiac Cycle, as well as figures including Dionysus and Alexander the Great.

“I do have one regret, and that is that the actual figure of Helios was not preserved,”

Magness said.

The surviving mosaics stayed preserved under dirt and stone rubble after the synagogue was abandoned due to unknown circumstances, she said. Magness and her team bury the artifacts again after each digging season.

“The only way to protect our mosaics from vandalism is to backfill them at the end of the season,” Magness said.

Russ Orme, a Pitt alumnus who had classes in the Nationality Rooms in 1933 and still occasionally visits them, was surprised to learn that these excavation sites are backfilled every year.

He also said he has been to Israel multiple times and would be interested in volunteering at a dig there in the future, which Magness’ lecture advertised as an opportunity for the public.

“I thought it’d be really neat to do a dig,” Orme said. “I’m always interested in history.”

Magness’ lecture concluded with several audience members’ questions before relocating the crowd to the Israel Heritage classroom

in 337 for refreshments and informal tours of the room.

Jonathan Pearlman, the head of the Israel Heritage Room Committee, said the Israel Heritage classroom reflects the designs found in first-century Galilean architecture and contains recreations, carvings and inscriptions of significant Hebrew literature and biblical imagery. It has minimal furniture and a foundation of Jerusalem stone and floor mosaic — a replica of one in the sixth-century Galilean synagogue of Beth Alpha, depicting Jewish wildlife and culture — that dominates the hybridized architectural style.

“You go into this room and you feel like you are in an ancient Galilean classroom,” Pearlman said.

Two rows of desks line the back wall of the room, facing classroom elements including a chalkboard and a professor’s table based on one found in Jerusalem’s first-century Burnt House.

In addition to its function as a Pitt classroom, the now 30-year-old room serves as a time capsule for the Israel Heritage Room

Repercussions, pg. 1 discussion, said her own experience with sex education was subpar.

“Sex education is a hot mess in the United States. I know my personal experience in high school was abstinence-only education, which does nothing but send everyone to the internet to find out about sex,” Sybert said in an interview after the discussion.

Stains started the session by playing a short clip from “Hot Girls Wanted,” a documentary that exposes corruption in the amateur porn industry. The clip showed a young girl who shared her experiences of being coerced into performing violent, sexual acts at the demand of a man.

Students gasped as they sat uncomfortably in front of the video screen. Debate sparked about how porn can sexualize rape, as shown in the clip.

Grace DuBois, a first-year student studying political science and biology, said people need to be clear with each other about what they are interested in and find acceptable in sexual situations to avoid being hurt.

“Communication is key. If you don’t communicate clearly, situations may arise where a guy

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Students watch a clip of “Hot Girls Wanted” during AAUW’s “Let’s Talk About Sex: Pornography & Feminism” event Monday night.

Thomas Yang | SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER oversteps his boundaries,” DuBois said.

Beside touching on what can be done to ensure sex is safe and consensual for all, the group talked about how specific groups of people are targeted and misrepresented by the porn industry. Stains said porn tends to exaggerate the sexuality of certain groups of people including teens, lesbians and black women.

The group agreed that porn generally revolves around what straight men want to see.

Lesbian porn videos on sites like Pornhub feature feminine women — who are usually straight —

acting out lesbian sex for the pleasure of a man, Stain said.

Sybert argued that porn can be just as damaging to men.

Sybert said watching porn conditions men to think that women desire violent sex and that men should act in a rough or violent manner. It also creates a stereotype for men that they should perform sexually at a certain level, or should have genitals of a certain size.

“Porn does a lot of bad for everyone,” Sybert

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Committee Collection and features six series of materials ranging from financial records to DVDs to timesheets collected during the planning and construction of the classroom.

Dedicated Nov 1, 1987, the classroom marked the revival of the Nationality Rooms Project — which Chancellor John Bowman started in 1926 by — after thirty years without construction on any rooms.

According to junior molecular biology major Jerrica Jamison — who works at the tour center and gift shop in the Cathedral of Learning — the room intentionally showcases designs and materials from several centuries of Israeli history, unlike other Nationality Rooms that take inspiration from isolated time periods, historical classroom designs or even entire continents like the African Heritage classroom.

Adam Shear, the director of Pitt’s Jewish Studies program, said the post-lecture gathering served as a way to bring together both Magness’ lecture and the Israel Heritage Room.

“This lecture and all of the lectures are where we bring scholars to the community and open up the doors of the university,” Shear said. said.

Weeding out the “bad porn” from the “good porn” requires a certain amount of effort from the viewer, according to Sybert. Amateur porn — the kind that often dehumanizes women — is easy to access, which is why many people choose to watch it, she said.

“People don’t talk about the negatives of porn because they just want it,” Sybert said.

In a Rolling Stone documentary, “Fresh Flowers, Plenty of Lube: Inside World of Feminist Porn,” shown after the discussion, students got a chance to learn more about the ethics of feminist porn. The documentary noted that specific feminist porn industries value ethical practices such as giving workers lunch breaks and paying fair wages.

Students agreed that variations in body type and physical appearance also make porn “feminist,” and more realistic. Examples included portraying plus size women as desirable, not fetishized, and including women of different appearances in videos, rather than just “hot women.” Sybert suggested that porn should place a greater emphasis on women’s pleasure.

For DuBois, the answer to making porn more feminist is simple.

“Have women direct it,” she said.

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November 28, 2017

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Opinions from the editorial board

column

Port Authority police on T trains would be a wreck

Don’t make students foot the bill for tax cuts

Even though many Pitt students don’t even know it exists, Pittsburgh’s humble commuter light rail might soon look a lot more like the transit systems of New York, Los Angeles and Miami — but only as far as security measures go.

The Port Authority of Allegheny County put forward a proposal earlier this year recommending, among other changes, placing armed Port Authority police on Pittsburgh Light Rail trains, which run from the North Side through Downtown and into the South Hills. According to Port Authority spokesperson Adam Brandolph, the policy would potentially address difficulties in collecting the $2.50 fare to ride the train.

“Really, we do not have much enforcement capability at the present,” Brandolph said in a phone interview Monday.

Despite its stated aim to crack down on fare evasion, the policy has brought forth complaints from some community members that it might do more harm than good, including questions of whether police on the T would subject riders to racial profiling or threats of deportation.

Just last Friday, the Pittsburgh Public School board publicly announced that it agreed with these objections to the proposal.

“We have immigrant[s] and refugees from all over the world who now call Pittsburgh their home,” the board wrote in a letter to incoming Port Authority CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman. “Using the current proposed system, PAT would essentially be creating a fare-evasion to deportation pipeline.”

The board brings up an important consideration — one the Port Authority has yet to respond to, beyond promising

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a place for community input in the policy planning process. Regardless of the problems the T currently faces, it’s hard to see how extending the presence of PAT police officers will fix much.

Anyone who’s ridden the T before would likely agree with Brandolph that the fare system is “confusing, to say the least, for the average rider.” Riders may be required to pay getting on or getting off the train, and at kiosks at the station or on the train itself, depending on which direction the train is going, the time of day and what station it is.

Part of the plan would address this issue. And the Port Authority insists that its police are highly trained and disciplined. But even with that improvement, it should be obvious that flashing a gun in the face of a rider — particularly one who’s new to the United States — won’t be much help.

The risks the community would run by allowing armed police aboard trains would be enough of a reason by itself to oppose such a plan. It’s even harder to support the proposal because the Port Authority itself doesn’t seem to know to what extent the problem of fare evasion on the T even exists.

“We’re unable to say how much loss in ridership we have,” Brandolph said, referencing the Port Authority’s inability to measure evasion. “It’s hard to know if you can’t tell what you originally had.”

Perhaps PAT is right that widespread rider fare evasion is a pressing issue for Pittsburgh’s light rail system. The reasoning is understandable enough on its surface. But the question arises — why spend money on a problem you aren’t even sure exists?

Maggie Durward Columnist

As our fellow Pitt students once again embark on the often overwhelming journey that is apartment hunting for next year, the voters of Pennsylvania may be inadvertently raising our rental costs.

At the polls earlier this month, 54 percent of Pennsylvanians voted for a constitutional amendment allowing a change in how towns, counties and school districts statewide can collect property taxes. Where previously local authorities could exempt up to half a house’s value from taxes, local governments can now vote to exempt as much as 100 percent of a home’s median assessed value, essentially eliminating it.

If Pittsburgh opts for this route, don’t get too excited — it’s not free money. To make up for lost revenue, the City would likely have to increase taxes elsewhere. And it’s more than likely that students and other residents who don’t own homes will end up paying for the break given to homeowners — harming those who are least able to afford a rent hike.

The measure, called the Homestead Exclusion Amendment, doesn’t do anything itself to eliminate the property tax. It allows the legislature to write a law letting local governments get rid of their own property taxes if they so choose — something it previously couldn’t do.

With a state government that’s posting a $2 billion deficit annually, it’s obvious something needs to change.

One of the amendment’s most important distinctions is that it only applies to primary residences. If Pittsburgh were to pass a reduction or even a wholesale repeal, City residents could possibly see an increase in the property

November 28, 2017

tax on rental units to make up the difference.

Landlords would pass this expense along to their tenants through higher rents. The City could also raise local income and sales taxes or add taxes to items that aren’t currently taxed.

Students and other low-income earners, who don’t have much extra spending money laying around, would feel the added taxes most acutely. According to Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, added sales taxes wouldn’t only be unfair to low-income earners — they would be bad for everyone.

“You simply aren’t going to be able to raise revenue from folks who have the least income,” Gardner told City Lab in January 2015. “That’s a recipe for fiscal disaster.”

In many ways, Pennsylvania’s state government is already a fiscal disaster. While both state legislators and Gov. Tom Wolf have acknowledged the need to reform property taxes, their proceeds still finance some of the most important public services in the state.

More than 50 percent of the funding for education comes from locally collected property taxes, while only 36 percent of the funds come from the state. This low level of direct state support for public education places Pennsylvania among the stingiest in the nation, ahead of only Nebraska.

The state has several bills related to property taxes working their way through the legislature at the moment. None of them would solve the problem of how to fund public schools. One of these bills would add taxation of commercial, industrial and agricultural property as a source of educational funding. Another adds taxation See Durward on page 5

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Durward, pg. 4

Afternoon sun hits a row of houses on Dunseith Street in Oakland. John Hamilton | MANAGING EDITOR A tax cut always sounds like a good idea to members of the tax base. However, giving local governments the option to eliminate the property tax altogether will do nothing to ease the tax burden for those who need it

most — students and other low-income renters — and would leave a gap in funding for public services that would be difficult to fill.

Students already have it hard enough dealing with landlords and figuring out how

to cook and clean for ourselves. Why raise our rents any further?

Maggie primarily writes about social issues and economics for The Pitt News. Write to Maggie at mad338@pitt.edu.

The Pitt news crossword 11/28/17

of something as basic as food as a potential fix for the funding gap. None of them makes an attempt to redistribute revenue to help underfunded districts.

The state legislature is in no position to deal with funding gaps that could be caused by local governments losing funding gained from property taxes. Pennsylvania faces a $2 billion budget deficit and legislators have already spent more than four months attempting to patch the gap. Even if Harrisburg miraculously sorts out its budgetary problems and passes legislation allowing municipalities to eliminate the property tax, it’s still each municipality’s choice to participate or not.

That choice will only add to the inequality of the possible property tax cut by exacerbating the disparity in school funding.

Pittsburgh’s government has yet to say whether or not it will take advantage of the amendment and cut its property taxes on primary residences, so Pitt students living off campus in the City don’t have to panic just yet. However, there’s still a possibility that the City might decide to cut taxes for property owners in the future, passing the costs along to renters.

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Culture

ON THE FLAT TRACK:

New class of derby skaters train

Ellen Kruczek Staff Writer

While some people spend their free time reading, painting or curled up on the couch binge-watching Netflix, the ladies of Steel City Roller Derby spend their free time lacing up roller skates and slamming their bodies into each other.

Over the rubbery bark and chatter of skates, a new class of skaters practices in the Pittsburgh Indoor Sports Arena.

More experienced skaters on the Steel City Roller Derby team call these new members “fresh meat.” The women work on basic skills every Monday night — like quick recovery after getting knocked down and how to gridlock an opposing team member.

Practice leader Shannon Apostolec — also known as Amy Roundhouse — stood in the middle of the arena. Her presence was amplified as she shouted guidance over the noise.

“If anyone at any time is super uncomfortable, please sit out and let us know,” she said. “It’s fine.”

Though many have only known each other a few weeks or months, the 32 members at practice chat like old buddies about strength training and parties in the South Side. Their words and whoops mingle with the heavy scent of sweat and the occasional whiff of burning rubber.

Most members have partially dyed or shaved heads and are covered with tattoos. Helmets and shirts are plastered with stickers about Pittsburgh and politics — a sticker with bolded text on one helmet reads, “Yinz skate like jagoffs,” and another says “IMPEACH” over a picture of Donald Trump.

On the rink, Alyssa Quintanilla, a 26-year-old second-year English Ph.D.

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Alyssa Quintanilla, an English Ph.D. student at Pitt, joined the Steel City Roller Derby team after she moved from Colorado to Pittsburgh in 2015.

Anna Bongardino | ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR student at Pitt, goes by Slam Houston and is an A-team competitor and head of league outreach.

Quintanilla doesn’t remember where she first heard about Roller Derby. She didn’t notice the scene as an undergrad at the University of North Texas — located in the state where roller derby saw a revitalization in the early 2000s. Instead, she dabbled in it while getting her master’s degree at the University of Colorado Boulder and embraced it when she moved to Pittsburgh in 2015.

“I moved here and just fell in love with Steel City [Roller Derby],” she said. “And made so many friends immediately — it’s been great.”

But because the team fell low in the rankings and lost numerous members, SCRD is training a new class of skaters during their first ever off-season. Their team structure has also changed from a variety of teams with names like “The Bitch Doctor” to a standardized A, B and C team system. The changes are welcome after a difficult season of losing A-team veteran skaters to retirement and relocation.

Jamie Fargo is one veteran skater that stayed this season. Fargo, also known as Ally McKill, joined when SRCD was founded in 2006. She doesn’t plan on retiring any time soon.

“People know [Roller Derby] exists,

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and they kinda know it’s a thing,” Fargo said. “But they don’t really have an idea of how widespread it is, how many people play, and what exactly it entails. So a lot of what I do is sort of educating people on it.

I answer the questions: ‘What is this? How do you win?’”

They are not the simplest questions to answer. The 403 groups registered with the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association are international, spanning from Australia to Maui to Dublin. The contact sport has a history of being both athletic competition and theatrical event — with stage names and team themes.

The sport involves two teams of five lapping around a rink — also known as a flat track — in about a dozen short bursts, called jams. One member, called a jammer, from each team tries to pass the other team. The majority of the team acts as blockers, meaning they try to keep the opposing team’s jammer from passing.

It can get more complex than that, depending on the strategies of the teams and the heat of the game. And the changes the sport has seen in the last decade are even more complex. Fargo welcomes the changes — she enjoys how widespread derby has become and how seriously it is being taken. “[In the beginning] it was very theatrical. Not fake — the action was 100 percent real, but it wasn’t so focused on it being so athletic,” Fargo said. “But then … if you weren’t cross-training outside of practice and like focusing on nutrition and focusing on getting strong, you weren’t going to see play time because it became a lot more competitive.”

Fargo said she knows firsthand the competitive trials of the sport. After See Derby on page 7

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Steel City Roller Derby competes against the Charlottesville Derby Dames on April 29, 2017. Courtesy of Steel City Derby

Derby, pg. 6 being captain and co-captain of the Ateam Steel Hurtin’ for years, the 39-yearold lawyer suffered a foot injury during a 2016 practice. She’s been on crutches and in and out of doctors’ offices since. Now she now acts as a league’s representative, but with plans to be back on the flat track within six weeks. She said she looks forward to getting back to playing.

“It’s such a mixed jumble of people from every single background you could possibly imagine and, you know, not necessarily people I’d meet in my day-today life,” Fargo said. “Maybe we would have never been friends had it not been for roller derby, because we would have never met.”

Since its beginning, derby has had po-

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litical progressive undertones. WFTDA has an inclusive statement about gender on their site which states that nonbinary people, trans and intersex women are welcome to play.

“Gender doesn’t necessitate where you can play derby — just play derby,” Quintanilla said.

“To SCRD, derby isn’t just about winning and competition. It’s also about confidence and self discovery.”

Derby’s inclusion is about welcoming a variety of body types in addition to gender nonconforming members.

“Every single body type has a place on the track. Roller Derby is for everyone. There is no body type that doesn’t belong,” Quintanilla said. “When you’re looking at someone really small, and they’re like ‘Oh, you’re hitting other people?’ you’re like ‘Yes, because I take up

space and I know how to use my body in this way.’”

Other members agree. Alivia Martin, a 20-year-old communications sophomore at Pitt, credits who she is today to derby.

She joined the Pittsburgh Derby Brats — a team composed of 10- to 17-year-olds — when she was 16, and moved up to SCRD when she was 18.

“It’s helped me build my confidence a lot. It’s helped me figure out who I am as a woman. It’s helped shape my political beliefs and moral beliefs,” Martin said. “[I’m] around a community of women that are all really strong and confident.”

For Martin, it also helped her choose her career goals. When she recently became head of skater relations at SCRD, it solidified her aspirations to go into human resources.

“I just want people to feel safe and

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have someone to go to to talk about issues,” she said. “And feel … that I have someone to go to when maybe they don’t feel like they can talk to anybody else.”

Both Martin and Quintanilla expressed how difficult it is to juggle derby and school. However, they wouldn’t have it any other way. After helping at the fresh meat practice that Monday, Quintanilla drove back to Oakland. She went into detail about her thesis — an in-depth analysis on language used to describe immigrants and the Mexican border. But she said the work is easy compared to roller derby.

“Every time I have to do a presentation or something I’m worried about, I’m like — I get hit by women on roller skates for fun,” Quintanilla said. “I can do anything.”

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The Pitt News

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Sports

PITT’S BEST AND WORST MOMENTS OF THE SEASON

Dominic Campbell Staff Writer

From opening the season with an overtime win to closing the season with a victory over an undefeated team, the Pitt football team had some times to celebrate this season. But in finishing with a losing record and not qualifying for a bowl game, the Panthers played a few games they’d probably like to forget.

Here are the Panthers’ best and worst moments of the season: Top 5 1. Beating Miami Pitt showed once again how it can lose to terrible teams such as North Carolina, and then dominate the No. 2 team in the country for the final game of the season. The 24-14 win over the Hurricanes saw the Panthers gaining a sense of who their future quarterback is, as first year Kenny Pickett threw for more than 193 yards on 18-29 passing and ran for 60 yards, including a 22-yard bootleg touchdown to put the lead up to 24-7. It was second straight year that Pitt beat a No. 2 ranked team after beating Clemson last season. It was a great win for a program that finished with a mediocre 5-7 record and suggests next year may be a breakout season.

2. Darrin Hall’s performance against Duke With the Panthers 2-5 and in need of someone to step up, Darrin Hall did just that. The junior running back ran for a career-high 254 yards and three touchdowns in the 24-17 win over Duke. He had two long rushing touchdowns — one for 79 yards and one for 92 yards — and set a record for the longest rushing touchdown in program history.

3. Max Browne’s game against Rice Pitt was coming off the back of two ugly losses to Penn State and Oklahoma State and a bad conference defeat away at Georgia Tech. The Rice game provided some breathing room for the Panthers to get back on track with redshirt senior Max Browne. After losing the job to redshirt sophomore Ben DiNucci the week before, Browne threw for 410 yards and completed 28 of his 32 passes — including four for touchdowns.

It was a lone bright spot for Browne, who suf-

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Panthers’ choice to play man coverage against the Cowboys’ taller and more athletic receivers resulted in an embarrassing outcome on national television. But hey, at least everyone who stayed til the end got a free beverage!

2. Failing to score on the 1-yard line vs Virginia Tech Pitt was in need of a win to keep its nine-year bowl game attendance streak alive. The Panthers came to Blacksburg, Virginia, to take on a good Virginia Tech squad. The teams went back and forth throughout the game, with both teams playing great defense. On the final drive, the Panthers were down 20-14 and needed a touchdown to win the game. On fourth down and four, Pickett threw a pass to redshirt senior wide receiver Jester Weah, who broke two tackles and Redshirt first-year defensive back Bricen Garner celebrates after inter- ran 74 yards to make it to the one-yard line. cepting a pass in overtime secured Pitt’s win in its season-opening game With about a minute to go, Pitt had four downs against Youngstown State. on the one-yard line to score a touchdown that Wenhao WU | ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR would keep its bowl hopes alive. Unfortunately, Pitt failed to capitalize on its great position, running twice on the first two downs going for zero yards. After a failed quick pass to Weah on third down, the Panthers went in shotgun on the final down and, instead of passing it, Pickett handed it to junior Darrin Hall for a loss of three yards and turned the ball over on downs. The loss ended any hopes of a bowl game for the season and highlighted the Panthers’ season overall — not playing well enough when it mattered most.

3. Losing to 1-8 North Carolina Coming into the Thursday night game at Heinz Field, the Panthers were flying high. After starting the season 2-5, they got wins at Duke and at home against Virginia to give them hope for getting at least a bowl game. UNC looked like a team that would be a sure win for Pitt. The Tar Heels came in with a 1-8 record and hadn’t Pitt’s football team lost its game against Virginia Tech after the Hokies won an ACC game either, making the Panthers stopped the Panthers at the goal line at the end of the fourth quarter. confident they could snatch an easy win. BeginJohn Hamilton | MANAGING EDITOR ning with a UNC touchdown return, the two fered a season-ending injury to his right shoul- Oklahoma State senior quarterback Mason Ru- squads played a back-and-forth game. But Pitt der in the following game against Syracuse. dolph threw at will, ending the game with 497 failed to capitalize on scoring chances throughBottom 5 yards passing and five touchdowns before be- out the game, falling to become the ACC’s worst 1. Oklahoma State ing taken out in the third quarter. The Cowboys team with a final score of 34-31.

The worst moment of Pitt’s season was the scored 35 unanswered points to start the game, Find the full story — with five of the Panthers’ performance against Oklahoma State at home. including a 21-0 lead in the first quarter. The top and bottom moments — at pittnews.com,

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Reporter’s Notebook

REFLECTING ON PITT’S FOOTBALL SEASON David Leftwich | Senior Staff Writer

As I watched the Panthers upset No. 7 Miami to close out their season, I had the same thought as I did coming into the season — this team will be good.

Covering the Panther football team this year was as uneven as the team’s performance. Early on, I realized the team needed to make strides all over the field to even compete, and though the squad finished at a disappointing 5-7 overall, 3-5 ACC, I have renewed hope for next year.

While the team lost a strong senior class coming into the year — most notably quarterback Nathan Peterman and running back James Conner — I thought the Panthers still had talent on both sides of the ball. With the addition of a highly touted quarterback in Max Browne joining the team for his senior year, I expected a solid year.

After watching the Panthers get blown out by No. 9 Penn State, No. 18 Oklahoma State and Georgia Tech in the first four weeks of the season, I realized my preseason predictions were completely off base.

Defensively, teams did whatever they wanted to the Panthers.

No. 18 Oklahoma State gashed the Pitt defense for more than 500 yards through the air. The very next week, Georgia Tech exploded for more than 400 yards on the ground.

Defensive backs were getting burned on the outside, in part because the Panthers could barely generate a push up front — putting up only four sacks through their first four games. Teams could either run on the weak defensive line or expose Pitt through the air.

On offense, Browne didn’t pan out as quarterback. He played a safe, efficient game, but couldn’t make any big plays. Through four games, he threw for less than 500 yards and only one touchdown.

Redshirt sophomore Ben DiNucci even earned some time as quarterback, but the offense sputtered regardless of which quarterback took the field. DiNucci’s mobility helped generate a few touchdown drives against Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State but bad sacks and interceptions limited DiNucci’s success in both games.

From my vantage point in the press box, win or lose, these first four games were fun. No matter the score of a game, I sat in the temperature-controlled room, well-fed and surrounded by

professional sports experts.

A halftime hotdog could always comfort me after an ugly half from the Panthers, and week to week I even had chances to parse words with prominent sports personalities such as ESPN’s Joey Galloway.

But the team surprised me over the next eight weeks. Key players emerged and the team made improvements all over the field.

Against Duke, junior running back Darrin Hall stepped up with a 254-yard performance in a 24-17 win — solidifying himself as the team’s featured tailback moving forward. He went on to put up 100-yard performances in his next two games and racked up five touchdowns in that span.

Senior defensive back Avonte Maddox emerged as the leader of the Panthers’ defense, making two interceptions and forcing three fumbles throughout a year shortened by injury. Battling an arm injury he suffered against Duke, Maddox returned with a huge game against Miami.

Find the full story online at

pittnews.com

The Pitt News SuDoku 11/28/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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November 28, 2017

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I N D E X

Rentals & Sublet • NORTH OAKLAND • SOUTH OAKLAND • SHADYSIDE • SQUIRREL HILL • SOUTHSIDE • NORTHSIDE • BLOOMFIELD • ROOMMATES • OTHER

For Rent North Oakland 3 BR Apartment.

Available August 1, 2018. $1320-$1620 +gas & electric.

412-441-1211. info@ forbesmanagement. net. www.forbesmanagement.net.

3,4,6 houses available January and August 2018. Lawn St. Ward St. Call 412-287-5712.

4BR house, 2 bath.

Newly remodeled, wall-to-wall carpeting, equipped kitchen, on busline, 15 minute walk to campus. $250/ person+ gas/electric.

Call 412-548-2214.

6 or 7 BR House on N. Dithridge St. Available beginning in August 2018. 3 full bathrooms. 2 kitchens.

10 rooms total, on 3 levels, with one bathroom on each level.

Refrigerators, ranges, ovens, dishwashers included. A/C. Washer and dryer in basement. On Pitt and CMU shuttle routes. $3600/month + gas and electric. Owner pays water, sewer, and city garbage collection charges.

Please leave message at 412-372-9185.

pittnews.com

Employment • CHILDCARE • FOOD SERVICES • UNIVERSITY • INTERNSHIPS • RESEARCH • VOLUNTEERING • OTHER

South Oakland ** 5 Bedroom/2 full bath; HUGE HOMEduplex style, three stories. COMPLETELY REMODELED, 2 living rooms, 2 kitchens, 2 dining rooms, LAUNDRY and a huge yard to enjoy!

Huge Bedrooms!

Located on Dawson Street. PITT Shuttle stops directly in front of house, only 15 minute level walk to PITT/CMU. $3,495+.

Available 8/1/2018.

NO PETS. Call Jason at 412-922-2141.

Pictures- Info: tinyurl. com/pitthome

**AUGUST 2018: Furnished studios, 1,2,3,4 bedroom apartments. No pets.

Non-smokers preferred. 412-621-0457.

1 & 2 Bedroom Apartments. $1015 + electric, $1599 + electric respectively.

Available August 1, 2018. Louisa St. 412-441-1211. info@ forbesmanagement. net. www.forbesmanagement.net.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Bedrooom Houses.

August 2018. Bouquet St, Meyran, Semple, Neville, Chesterfield.

412-287-5712.

Classifieds

For sale

• AUTO • BIKES • BOOKS • MERCHANDISE • FURNITURE • REAL ESTATE • PETS

notices

services

• EDUCATIONAL • TRAVEL • HEALTH • PARKING • INSURANCE

• ADOPTION • EVENTS • LOST AND FOUND • STUDENT GROUPS • WANTED • OTHER

South Oakland

South Oakland

2-3-4-5-6-7 bedroom apartments and houses available in May and August 2018. Nice, clean, free laundry, includes exterior maintenance, new appliances, spacious, located on Meyran, Bates, Oakland, Semple, Wellsford, Dawson, Juliet.

412-414-9629.

M.J. Kelly Realty.

Studio, 1, 2, 3 and 4 Bedroom Apartments, Duplexes and Houses.

N. & S. Oakland from $750-$2500. mjkellyrealty@gmail. com. 412-271-5550. www.mjkellyrealty. com

4 BR Home - Semple Street, located near Louisa. Equipped Kitchen, Full Basement. New central air added. Renting for August 2018.

(412) 343-4289 or 412-330-9498.

Apartments for rent.

2,3,4, and 5 bedroom apartments available. Some available on Dawson street, Atwood street, and Mckee Place. Newly remodeled. Some have laundry on site.

Minutes from the University. For more info please call Mike at 412-849-8694 Before signing a lease, be aware that no more than 3 unrelated people can share a single unit. Check property’s compliance with codes. Call City’s Permits, Licensing & Inspections.

412-255-2175.

Oakland Ave. - Garden Court Apartments.

Charming 2BR, hardwood floors, free heat. Move in May 1 or Aug. 1, 2018. Call 412-361-2695.

Ward & S. Bouquet Streets - Studio, 1, 2 & 3BR apartments. Free parking.

Move in May 1 or Aug. 1, 2018. Call 412-361-2695

Rental Other 2-Three Bedroom townhouses-side by side, take one or both (6 Bedrooms total).

Renovated bathrooms and kitchens. Fully equipped, dishwasher, free washing machine and dryers, etc. Walk to Pitt, CMU and Carlow, two blocks to Magee Hospital. On Pitt shuttle route. $ 1,500/Mo + g&e each.

Available August 2018. (412) 983-0400.

R A T E S

Insertions

1X

2X

3X

4X

5X

6X

Add.

1-15 Words

$6.30

$11.90

$17.30

$22.00

$27.00

$30.20

+ $5.00

16-30 Words

$7.50

$14.20

$20.00

$25.00

$29.10

$32.30

+ $5.40

(Each Additional Word: $0.10)

Deadline:

Two business days prior by 3pm | Email: advertising@pittnews.com | Phone: 412.648.7978

Rental Other Available now- Student sleeping room, furnished, shared bathroom and kitchen $450 with utilities. call 412-480-4446

Employment Employment Other OFFICE INTERN Shadyside Management Company seeks person w/ min 2 yrs. college, for upcoming spring semester, to interview & process rental applicants, do internet postings & help staff our action- central office. Part time or full time OK. Starting in January; full time over summer. $13/ hour. Perfect job for current sophomores & juniors, graduating seniors set to enter grad school, returning grad students, and firstyear law students!

Mozart Management 412-682-7003 thane@ mozartrents.com

Employment Other Personal, professional masseuse needed.

Long term position.

2X/week. Washington County location.

Call 724-223-0939 or 724-229-8868 any time.

Services Services Other Phlebotomy Training Centerwww. justphlebotomy.org 2 evening classes weekly, 5 weeks + excellent Clinicals.

Call 412-521-7334.

Apartment for rent.

Highland Park area, 3rd floor, 1BR, private entrance, $700/ month +electric.

412-719-0321.

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pittnews.com

November 28, 2017

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