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The Pitt News

What is hurling?

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The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | December 5, 2017 | Volume 108 | Issue 79

Pitt professor HURRICANE BRINGS PUERTO RICAN LAW STUDENTS TO PITT

placed on Forbes’

‘30 Under 30’ Remy Samuels Staff Writer

Hao Sun sees little difference between monitoring the health of buildings and bridges and monitoring the health of human bodies.

“In the human body, we have the nervous system so when you feel something abnormal or if you’re sick, your nervous system can tell this information,” Sun said. “In terms of detecting building health, we install sensors on structures to formulate a sort of nervous system.”

Hao Sun, an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at Pitt, has developed a method that can help detect structural problems in infrastructure after an extreme event like an earthquake or a hurricane. Performing this kind of research at 29 years old earned Sun a slot on Forbes’ 2018 “30 Under 30: Science” list. Forbes considers thousands of submissions and accepts less than four percent for each category. Experts in scientific fields, along with “30 Under 30” alumni, vote on the finalists.

“I feel very lucky,” Sun said. “I know the selection process has been very competitive and they have to select exactly 30 people from the pool. I think getting [on] this list is really encouraging for me to do high-impact research in the future.”

Jeen-Shang Lin, an associate professor in the bioengineering department and one of Sun’s colleagues, said he thinks Sun’s success at such a young age is due to his solid academic training and his extreme determination.

“He graduated from Columbia with very good training and did his postdoc at

Second-year law student Rocio Alers elected to come to Pitt after hearing good things about Pitt’s law school and the City of Pittsburgh.

Issi Glatts | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Laura Howe Staff Writer

When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September, it left almost the entire island without electricity, and residents had limited access to food and water. David Canino was thankful for the bare essentials.

“Even though I didn’t have water or light, nothing happened to my house. So I really am grateful and lucky for that,” he said.

Canino said his situation after Maria was desperate because there was no drinking water and no phone signal for about two weeks. He lives with his mothSee 30 Under on page 2 er and dog but was unable to find out if

David Canino, a second-year law student, was offered temporary admission to Pitt after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico.

Issi Glatts | sTAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Sofia Mendoza Matos, a third-year law student, came to Pitt through a program by the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education.

Issi Glatts | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

his family on the other side of the island was alright for two weeks — the roads were blocked.

“It looked like a war zone out there. It was just devastating to look at,” Canino said. “A lot of people lost their homes and a lot of people died as well. I’m not sure of the exact number but I know it keeps rising.”

Canino is a second-year law student but was left unable to attend his classes at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law — until he received an email from his school offering a temporary solution.

The University of Puerto Rico emailed several law students shortly after Maria asking if they would be interested in continuing their coursework in the United

States. The opportunity came through a program set up by the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. They were given the option of attending various law schools in the U.S. mainland, form New York to Florida. About 35 students were accepted and 11 of those students, including Canino, arrived at Pitt in midOctober.

“It really has been a great experience,” Canino said. “I love the City, the experience in the law school has been great.

The professors are very amicable, the students as well. They have made us feel very welcome and warm.”

Sofia Mendoza Matos, a third-year See Law Students on page 2

News

30 Under, pg. 1

MIT,” Lin said. “I think he’s a very energetic and dynamic person and is solving a very important problem.”

Sun said he knew he wanted to pursue structural engineering during his undergraduate studies at Hohai University in China after noticing the mass of safety problems with buildings and bridges. He began developing a technique in 2010 while studying at Columbia that can find out if a structure has safety issues, and Forbes has since taken notice. He described the method for which he is being honored as having two major components.

The first involves developing a wireless sensor system that will be built into buildings and bridges, while the second involves data analytics. With his expertise in complex algorithms, along with help from other collaborators in fields such as civil and environmental engineering and computer science, Sun said his proposed method will use big data — extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns — trends and associations.

Lin said Sun’s method is more advanced than previous attempts because Sun’s technology can measure the performance of a structure before, during and after an earthquake hits, whereas seismographs only record data when an earthquake hits. “[Sun is using] sensors [that] measure the wind velocity, temperature and moisture,” Lin said. “So you measure what the environment is like and then you monitor the structure’s response.”

Law Students, pg. 1 law student from UPR, also decided to come to Pitt through the program.

She also described the people in Pittsburgh as warm, although she admitted the weather was not. She said beginning class in the middle of the semester was difficult but manageable.

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Hao Sun, an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at Pitt named in Forbes’ “30 Under 30: Science” list, poses for a photo in Benedum Hall. Elise Lavallee | CONTRIBUTING EDITOR With these different sensors, Sun said this system can suggest if a building needs to be shut down, repaired or receive maintenance. The sensors can detect the environment’s changing climate — an idea he was inspired to come up with when he worked on a project sponsored by Quid, a platform for scientists, designers and engineers to tackle technical problems using cutting-edge algorithms and technology. Sun worked on a project monitoring the health of buildings in the Quad Cities — a region in Illinois and Iowa that experiences a lot of temperature change. “[The] sensor system can tell people how this effect propagates and whether after, let’s say 20 years, this building is safe or not,” Sun said, adding that struc-

ture in the area should see his sensors soon.

Sun’s method has already been tested on a few real-world structures, such as the Cecil and Ida Green Building — an academic and research building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — and other buildings around MIT and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He said his team is currently monitoring the health conditions of these buildings and are awaiting results.

Radisav Vidic, a professor and the department chair for civil and environmental engineering, has known Sun since he interviewed for his teaching position at Pitt. He described Sun as an exciting presence in the engineering department.

“At first it was hard to adjust because we came in the middle of the semester, but then as we kept up with class and picked up the pace of the class,” she said.

“I adjusted well since most of our classes and seminars back home have readings in English.”

The students are taking up to nine credits at Pitt Law and then taking any more credits they were signed up for at

the beginning of the semester when the return to UPR. The program is set to run until the end of the fall semester.

Sheila Velez Martinez, a Pitt professor of refugee, asylum and immigration law and director of clinical programs at Pitt Law, was part of the group responsible for bringing UPR law students to Pitt. She also teaches as a visiting process at UPR, which helped expedite the

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On the subject of structural engineering, Vidic said he thinks the people building infrastructure are more focused on the design aspect of the structure than with safety — a problem Sun’s research can help fix.

“We build these buildings, and people assume that they’re gonna stand for 50 or 100 years without any problems, and they usually overdesign everything,” Vidic said. “We’re dealing with human lives living in those buildings.”

Both Vidic and Lin agree Sun’s research reflects well on the engineering department at Pitt and has the potential to make a global impact.

“I’m not surprised he was selected

by Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ list,” Lin said.

“Maybe next time he will be getting 30 Under 35. We have great expectations for him.”

Looking to the future, Sun said he hopes infrastructure will become technologically advanced enough that people will no longer have to be concerned about their safety after a natural disaster.

“Hopefully in many years our city becomes intelligent, so under the threat of extreme events like hurricanes or earthquakes you don’t need to feel too worried about it because you have such a system,” Sun said. “That’s my vision for the future.”

In this vision, Sun said he hopes his research can be used to study buildings on campus.

“For the future, I’m thinking of installing some sensors in our Cathedral of Learning,” Sun said. “I want to see how this building’s performance is, many years since its construction.” process to bring students to Pitt.

Martinez said the students are paying tuition fees to their home school, while apartment rental company Franklin West donated housing for the students this semester. Martinez helped make sure students could enroll in courses that would count toward their See Law Students on page 7

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Opinions from the editorial board

column

Senate tax bill sets dangerous precedents

Pipeline extension will only end in turmoil

With last-minute amendments being proposed left and right, deals being struck and an extensive tax bill being passed late into the night, the U.S. Senate floor might have been wilder Friday night than the streets of Oakland.

Under the leadership of Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., 51 Republicans, including Pat Toomey, R-Pa., voted shortly before 2 a.m. to pass a bill containing several handwritten revisions not much more than an hour old. A mixed bag of revisions to the tax code, the bill nixed some of the most objectionable portions of the House’s version — and at the same time attempted to add others.

One of the provisions not included in the Senate’s bill came from Toomey’s office 24 hours ahead of the bill’s ultimate passage — before being promptly swatted down. Toomey’s amendment would have exempted one specific college from a new tax in what outwardly appears to be an act of favoritism.

The school, Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in southern Michigan, has ties to both Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and GOP mega-donor Charles Koch. If Toomey’s amendment had passed, the school wouldn’t have been required to pay taxes on its sizeable endowment. But Senate Democrats took opposition to the proposal, voting it down.

“I can’t find anybody else in America who benefits from this particular provision,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Friday during a debate over the measure.

“That doesn’t strike me as right.”

Toomey’s amendment would have exempted Hillsdale from a 1.4 percent

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tax on all private colleges and universities with endowments greater than $500,000 per student, a new provision in the Senate’s bill. It’s unclear yet exactly what outcomes the measure will have — the money being taxed could potentially otherwise go toward scholarships for less affluent students.

For now, Swarthmore College is the only school in Pennsylvania that will actually have to pay the new tax. But Congress could easily use this bill in the future as a precedent for increasing taxes on academia in order to fund tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy.

Another feature notably absent in the Senate’s version of the tax bill is the rightfully maligned proposal to tax graduate students’ tuition fee waivers as income. The measure, included in the House’s bill, would have likely devastated graduate school attendance and research in the United States and it’s a relief that it’s absent from this version.

Now that both chambers of Congress have their own versions, legislation still needs to go through a process of reconciliation in order to send a single piece of legislation to President Donald Trump to sign. This means that, while the rules passed last weekend by the Senate might go to the president, they might also never end up seeing the light of day as law.

The legislation the Senate passed Friday night was crafted in secrecy, and it’s likely the uncertainty surrounding many of its provisions is at least somewhat intentional. The passage of this bill is largely inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that legislators shouldn’t fight to ensure that the final version avoids the worst aspects of the House’s bill.

Lexi Kennell

Contributing Editor Native Americans in the Dakotas faced police dogs, pepper spray and rubber bullets last year while trying to protect their homes from one pipeline — now parts of the region have nearly 210,000 gallons of oil spilled on it from another.

Last year’s clashes on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota temporarily halted construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline — a project that would have run from oil fields farther north in the state down to Illinois and then to Texas for export. But for those living in the region, DAPL isn’t the only environmental issue.

Running from Alberta, Canada, all the way down to the Gulf Coast, the Keystone Pipeline has been in operation since 2011. Last month’s spill in Marshall County, South Dakota, came as TransCanada — the company operating the pipeline — was waiting to be granted a permit from Nebraska’s state government for its planned expansion, Keystone XL. The issue of these pipelines is more than just a political stance — this is about the survival of our planet.

It sounds dramatic, but that’s the point. Even for those whose lands aren’t immediately at risk, there’s little more dramatic than the fate of the earth being in the hands of oil companies and corrupt politicians. We are allowing ourselves to destroy our home and poison our resources for nothing more than short-term economic gain — and the problems with Keystone and Keystone XL are already showing it.

You don’t need to be a scientist to understand that oil in water is bad for the environment. From middle school science classes onward, we are taught that oil and water don’t mix — and those experiments just used olive oil. Imagine what happens when the oil is petroleum and the water is home to millions of species. If that image isn’t

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potent enough, imagine drinking it.

Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, told The New York Times in an interview after the Keystone spill that the leaked oil posed no immediate risk of contaminating the drinking water of people living near the site. Yet even without their drinking water poisoned, locals will still have to be wary of negative health effects from breathing in polluted air and coming into contact with contaminated surfaces.

In comparison to other oil spills, South Dakotans got lucky — many spills occur in bodies of water and poison the water used by people living around the contaminated area. Individuals who use water polluted by crude oil for activities such as laundry and bathing experience dermatological problems ranging from mild rashes to malignant skin cancer, according to a 2010 report by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Those who ingest the oil, either through drinking water or consuming the meat of contaminated livestock, appear to have an increased risk of cancer and digestive issues.

Health problems and ecological issues are just two component of pipelines’ high price tags. But here’s the kicker — the benefit of the Keystone Pipeline that already exists on the U.S. economy is minimal. According to a 2015 analysis from The Washington Post, claims that the pipeline will create as many as 42,000 new jobs are significantly exaggerated.

“In the context of the U.S. economy, the impact is barely a ripple,” Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler said.

Some oil experts, like petroleum geologist Arthur E. Berman, also don’t consider the economic side of arguments to expand the pipeline to be realistic. In an analytical piece in February, See Kennell on page 5

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Kennell, pg. 4

The Keystone Pipeline was shut down Nov. 16, 2017, due to a leak that spilled thousands of gallons of oil in South Dakota. TNS where from $7 to $630 per gallon, depending on where the spill occurs, according to Resources for the Future, an environmental nonprofit. BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cost $62 billion — a figure it’s unlikely BP factored in when calculating how much money they’d make from the venture.

In his book, McKibben points out that the Koch Brothers — who have a combined wealth of almost $100 billion, according to Forbes — make their money in hydrocarbons. He adds that the brothers spent close to $100 million dur-

ing the 2012 elections on candidates who didn’t want to regulate carbon.

Outside of the Koch Brothers, a lot of money is given to candidates who support deregulating fossil fuel companies, the biggest source being the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — a businessfocused lobbying group. The group spend $90 million in lobbying related to climate change in 2014, more than any other organization, according to a Harvard Business Review analysis.

Between their minimal economic gain and their negative impact on the environment and

The Pitt news crossword 12/5/17

Berman suggested TransCanada was gambling on a demand for its product that might not ever materialize.

“The Keystone XL Pipeline is a bet on much higher oil prices several years from now,” Berman said. “It is also a bet that U.S. tight oil output will continue to grow and will need heavy oil to blend for refining. Both bets are risky.”

On the other side of the issue, environmentalist, author and journalist Bill McKibben documents the process of actively opposing the pipeline and trying to get politicians on board to vote it out in his 2013 book, “Oil and Honey.” Many conservatives, including Ben Shapiro, called McKibben and his supporters “radicals,” a term McKibben rejected.

“Radicals? They work at oil companies and coal companies and gas companies. They’re willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere to make money,” McKibben writes.

“No one has ever done anything more radical than that.”

Support for constructing a new pipeline also has to be predicated on leaving the extraordinarily high costs of oil spills out of the equation.

On average, cleaning up oil spills can cost any-

our health, the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines can’t be our best options for generating our society’s power — renewable energy is.

Our elected officials might recognize that — if it weren’t for the level of funding they get from the energy industry.

Even after former President Barack Obama rejected the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline in 2015 following a seven-year review, President Donald Trump undid all of the efforts to keep it at bay and approved it within the first few months of his presidency.

“It’s a great day for energy independence,” Trump said in a March 24 press conference. “[The Keystone Pipeline is] the greatest technology known to man or woman.”

“So sad that Obama rejected Keystone Pipeline,” Trump tweeted in November 2015. “Thousands of jobs, good for the environment, no downside!”

Whether it’s risks to public health, the poisoning of natural resources or fewer jobs than expected, it’s hard to pick just one downside. We need to stop voting for people who don’t have our best interests in mind to represent us. If our elected officials focused more on our well-being than their own wallets, we could create jobs in renewable energy and it would actually be good for the environment — no downside!

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Culture column

‘Milk and Vine’ mixes satire, substance

Henry Glitz

Contributing Editor There are certain places where inspirational quotes naturally end up — on a dorm room poster, above a desktop in an office cubicle or in an Instagram bio.

A less obvious a location is atop Amazon’s best seller list — yet that’s exactly where “Milk and Vine,” a poetry anthology subtitled “Inspirational Quotes From Classic Vines,” ended up last month. The book, authored by Temple University first-year students Emily Beck and Adam Gasiewski, combines two very different forms of social media in sparse poetry that would have been almost impossible to decipher five years ago.

Most millennials might recognize the poems in “Milk and Vine” as transcripts from some of the most popular videos on Vine, a now-defunct social media platform where users could post looping six-second clips that lent themselves to absurdist humor. “happy christhums / it’s chrismah / merry chrisis / merry Chrysler,” a page reads, quoting one of Christine Sydelko’s vines. “it is wednesday / my dudes / ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” another proclaims, quoting vine user JimmyHere.

The poems’ presentation mimics that of “Milk and Honey,” a 2014 anthology by another social media mainstay — poet Rupi Kaur. Small, Times New Roman font stands out against crisp white pages alongside the occasional line drawing. Kaur, a Canadian citizen of South Asian ancestry, boasts almost two million Instagram followers, less for her sense of humor than her musings on the internet’s other great obsessions — love, sex and relationships — all from a woman of color’s point of view.

That perspective has led many of Kaur’s supporters to decry “Milk and Vine” since it went viral last month. In an op-ed last month for Teen Vogue, freelance writer Aditi Natasha Kini called the book a symptom of “white mediocrity” and a “mockery of a South Asian woman’s writing about violence, femininity, and trauma.”

Others want to preserve space in a largely white

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and male literary scene for a voice speaking to an experience that’s neither.

Whether or not it was Beck and Gasiewski’s intent, their book of meme poems wades into this discussion of minority representation in

Raka Sarkar | SENIOR STAFF ILLUSTRATOR literary circles. It’s certainly vital to work for a diversity of perspectives. Yet it’s questionable to what extent Kaur’s poetry actually engages with that issue — something “Milk and Vine” plays off of as well.

Kaur’s poetry is undeniably a creature of so-

inspiring, and perhaps they should — it both feels and sounds like it belongs on a poster with a sunset in the background. Kaur herself would appear to agree. In an October profile in New York magazine by Molly Fischer, the poet explained her biggest ambition for her next project — finding a designer whose work “translates well across media — to different sizes, to posters, to digital.”

Yet while it has its own value, an inspirational quote does not equate to a representation of the South Asian female experience. To suggest it does would appear to give Kaur and her poetry a free pass content-wise, replacing authentic reflections with vague platitudes.

Of course, “Milk and Vine” isn’t perfect poetry either. Beck and Gasiewski have faced legitimate criticisms since their anthology went viral because of their failure to credit the creators of the videos they feature. The authors’ efforts to rerelease the book with proper acknowledgement are unquestionably necessary.

But even in its current, perfunctory form, the book provides a much-needed alternative to the kind of internet poetry that focuses far too much on appearances over content. That the vines included in “Milk and Vine” were largely produced by young people of color only demonstrates further how insufficient it is to cast Kaur as the poetic voice of everyone who isn’t white and male.

Instagram poetry and Vine comedy make an absurdly humorous visual pairing in “Milk and Vine,” but it’s not one that’s fundamentally all that surprising. Both forms of internet culture derive their minimalism from short attention spans and the mass production of relatable content. Vine was able to adapt to this while retaining a certain vitality, while Instapoets like Kaur coalesced into cliche and lost focus on content.

“Milk and Vine” isn’t going to single-hand“if you are not enough for yourself / you will edly turn every would-be internet poet into an never be enough / for someone else,” reads one original, introspective author. But using content from more seemingly lowbrow segments of inof Kaur’s poems in “Milk and Honey.” “you / are your own / soul mate,” another ternet culture — like Vine — provides important food for thought that you can’t get from a reads.

Some of her readers find writing like this diet of only milk and honey. cial media — vague enough to remain relevant to millions of followers, packaging complex emotions of love and rejection into neat boxes and reading more as a caption to an image posted online than anything else.

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Law Students, pg. 2 degrees back home by ensuring their course load met American Bar Association criteria.

“Some students were able to enroll in courses that were already happening,” she said. “Some students are already benefiting from independent studies with professors, some are enrolled in clinics. We have students enrolled in the securities of immigration clinic, and then low income tax clinic and the immigration clinic.”

Rocio Alers, a second-year law student, chose Pitt after she heard that Pittsburgh was a very nice and comfortable city, and because she heard good things about Pitt’s law school.

“I wasn’t doing anything, I work but I wasn’t able to work due to the emergency, it was really bad at that time,” she said. “It was a great opportunity that I took advantage of.”

Alers had stayed in a bunker apartment during Hurricane Maria and could hear the destruction happening outside, but had no idea it was “going to be that bad.”

“In the morning when we got out of that apartment, we saw everything was very destroyed. No green — Puerto Rico is very green, so there was no green, everybody was in shock,” she said.

Hurricane Maria — which was classified as a Category 4 hurricane when it hit Puerto Rico — left all 3.4 million residents without electricity if they did not have a generator. It caused extensive damage on top of the existing destruction left by Hurricane Irma, which had occurred two weeks earlier.

According to CNN, the current death toll from Hurricane Maria as given by the Puerto Rican government is 58, although that number may rise as more investigations are conducted. The damage estimate is $95 million.

But Canino said the situation in Puerto Rico has begun to head in the right direction. He said right before he left things had started to “normalize” as gas and water became easier to buy.

“I was able to contact my family members and the roads were a bit more cleared out, so it’s getting better, but it’s progressing slowly and it’s going to take a lot of time before we’re able to rebuild,”

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he said.

The agreement between UPR and Pitt, Alers said, is also helping her family back in Puerto Rico.

“I think I can help them better if I am here, because now I’m looking for stuff to send them in Puerto Rico,” she said.

“I look for stuff and send it there, like batteries.”

Alers expressed interest in extending the students’ time in Pittsburgh if the situation in Puerto Rico does not improve, but she was not sure how such an extension could be achieved. She hopes the emergency agreements, like the current one between UPR and Pitt, might help future students who experience crisis situations like Hurricane Maria by forming a more permanent agreement anticipating disasters yet to happen.

“We don’t know what else is going to happen in Puerto Rico ... this one was improvised because we didn’t know it was going to be like this, but this can be very good,” Alers said. “I don’t want anybody to pass through what we already passed, but just to have it as an emergency option.”

Alers said it was painful to leave her family behind, but they have assured her that what she is doing is best for her and her family.

“They feel happy that I’m here because they see a way out, like we’re gonna be okay, at least we have one member of the family out there,” Alers said. “I’m like the hope sign of my family.”

The Pitt News SuDoku 12/5/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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Sports

Pitt club hurling brings Irish sport to Oakland

Brandon Glass Staff Writer

Few people know what hurling is, and even fewer know that Pitt has a club hurling team that plays in multiple tournaments.

Every phase of the game resembles a different field sport, all of them mixed into a hodgepodge of open-field violence. Club members, such as sophomore engineering student Joe Koniszewsk, often run into the problem of having to describe hurling using more commonly known sports.

“I’ve had to do this with my whole family and friends back home,” Koniszewsk said. “I tell them it’s a mixture of lacrosse and rugby, with a little bit of soccer and football tied into it.”

As the setup begins, there is the faint specter of a soccer match in the positioning of both teams’ players. They stand around wearing helmets similar to those used in lacrosse — just with wider ear holes — waiting for the match to start. The ball is called a sliotar — white and laced like a baseball, but squishier.

Once it’s put into play, the hurlers race around like they would in a game of rugby.

The ball is flicked up in the air by the hurley — a club that resembles a field hockey stick with a flat, paddle-like end — and caught in an open palm. After four steps, it’s tossed up and down in a one-handed juggle before it’s thrown out to the hurley side and smashed toward a goal or crossbar.

Club hurling at Pitt is played on an allpurpose soccer field using soccer goals and long nets hanging from the ceiling to represent crossbars. Each team is composed of 15 players — one goalie, six on defense, two midfielders and six offensive players.

Pitt displayed its team Nov. 11 when the group played Purdue in the National Collegiate Gaelic Athletic Association Midwest Finals in the new Pitt Sports Dome. The Midwest division has only five teams, and the Panthers and Boilermakers are the only two with

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Pitt’s club hurling team played against the Washington, D.C., Gaels — an amateur Irish sports club from Catholic University of America — in the Pitt Sports Dome in November. Matt Hawley | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER any truly established footing.

“Our club is only five years old, and I think we’re the third-oldest team in college hurling,” said junior engineering major Alex Houriet, the president of the hurling club. “It’s very new. It’s still growing.”

The new dome offered a respite for the light smattering of fans bundled up in warm winter coats looking to escape the crisp Saturday morning mid-November weather. The building’s visitors watched Purdue crush Pitt in the championship with the help of some exceptional hurling talent.

The moment one of the Boilermakers’ two Irish players got loose with the sliotar, it was

sent flying through the air and over the crossbar for a point. Purdue won with a final score of 32-9.

“We knew about this one player that they had, and I was marking him because we knew he was really good,” sophomore engineering major Darragh Johnston said. “We had never seen that [other] guy before.”

To understand the culture surrounding the Pitt club hurling team, you first have to look across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland, the birthplace of the ancient sport.

The earliest hurlers are part of Ireland’s mythology. The legendary figure Cu Chullainn is said to have defeated a fierce hound in

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combat using hurling equipment.

Houriet said hurling started out as a form of tribal warfare, citing stories of ancient tribes killing their opponents after victory.

“Obviously, we’re not getting anywhere close to that far,” he said. “I just want to win games.”

The sport of war eventually turned into something of a game of pride. In modern Ireland, hurlers compete for their local counties without pay, and 14 of the 32 counties have a hurling team that competes in the All-Ireland Hurling Championship.

See Hurling on page 9

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Quadree Henderson to Chawntez Moss leaving enter 2018 NFL Draft Pitt football team Mackenzie Rodrigues Sports Editor

Pitt junior wide receiver and return specialist Quadree Henderson announced in a statement on Twitter that he will be leaving Pitt’s football team to enter the 2018 NFL Draft.

“My lifelong goal has always been to play in the National Football League,” Henderson said Monday. “After speaking with my parents, I have reached the decision to forego my final year at the University of Pittsburgh to pursue my dream and enter the 2018 NFL Draft.”

Henderson lettered as a first year, playing in nine games and leading Pitt with 504 kickoff return yards. His most notable performance from his debut season was his 100-yard kickoff return touchdown in the team’s game against Navy.

As a sophomore, Henderson demon-

Hurling, pg. 8 “They all have other jobs as well. You play for your county. Where you’re born is where you play for. You do it for free,” Johnston said.

“It’s a pretty interesting concept considering in the U.S. you’ve got players who are paid millions of dollars who are going wherever the money is, but in Ireland, it’s completely different.”

For some, the sense of pride in amateur teams and competition has carried over to Pitt’s club hurling team. Some club members

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strated his ability as a top return specialist. He recorded 2,083 all-purpose yards in his sophomore season and established himself as the team’s second-leading rusher. He earned Consensus First Team All-American, First Team All-ACC Kick Returner and FBS Leader in combined kick return yards and kickoff return touchdowns with 1,166 yards and three return touchdowns.

Henderson garnered even more ACC recognition in his third year with the Panthers, earning a spot on the second team as a specialist for a consecutive year. He put up 767 kick return yards to rank 15th nationally.

This is the second Panther to announce he will not be returning for the 2018 football season. The announcement of Henderson’s draft comes after news that sophomore running back Chawntez Moss is leaving the Pitt football team, also announced Monday.

Steve Rotstein

travel as far as Connecticut to represent Pitt in hurling tournaments.

“It’s a tribal thing that your team is your community. It means a lot to me personally,” Houriet said. “The Pitt team is my family. Basically, I want to win for my team.”

Koniszewsk missed the competitive aspect of high school sports when he came to college and was looking for a new team he could join.

“That was one thing that I really struggled with when I first got to Pitt,” Koniszewsk said. “Finding one, time to exercise, and two,

something to be competitive with, as opposed to studying and reading all the time.”

For Johnston, all it took was to find out that a club hurling team existed to pique his interest. He had seen hurling on TV because of his Irish relatives and finally got a chance to try it himself.

“Both my parents were born and raised in Ireland. Most of my family still lives there,” Johnston said. “I’m sure they didn’t expect there to be a hurling club at Pitt, but once I told them, they thought that was awesome.”

While hurling is prominent in Ireland,

Senior Staff Writer After missing six of Pitt’s final seven games of the 2017 season, sophomore running back Chawntez Moss will not be back with the team next year.

Moss said in a Twitter direct message Monday he decided to transfer on his own, contradicting a Pittsburgh PostGazette report that stated he had been dismissed from the team. Pitt athletics spokesperson E.J. Borghetti stood by that report when reached for comment Monday morning.

“He was dismissed from the program and that will be our only comment on his departure,” Borghetti said.

Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi suspended Moss indefinitely prior to the team’s 27-24 loss to Syracuse Oct. 7. The running back then missed the team’s next three games before returning for Pitt’s 3431 loss to North Carolina Nov. 9. Moss

December 5, 2017

touched the ball once in that game — a 3-yard carry — then did not appear in the Panthers’ last two games of the season.

After rushing for 227 yards and a touchdown on 42 carries as a true first year, playing behind James Conner in 2016, Moss aimed to compete with Qadree Ollison and Darrin Hall for the starting spot at running back in 2017.

But Moss didn’t appear in the team’s season opener against Youngstown State and Narduzzi declined to say why.

He then played in the team’s next four games but struggled to match his production from last season behind a depleted offensive line. He ran for 116 yards and two touchdowns on 42 carries and added five catches for 71 yards and a touchdown in the five games played.

Moss, who will have to sit out the 2018 season because of NCAA transfer eligibility rules, said he hasn’t yet decided what school he plans to transfer to. the club is trying to build popularity at Pitt through fundraising at local restaurants and the activities fair.

In the meantime, the small crew of mostly engineers will continue to spend their Wednesday and Thursday nights tucked away in competitive practice on top of Cardiac Hill. As they prepare for nationals, scheduled for the summer of 2018, they do so without much regard for who knows about them.

“The team is about 90 percent engineers,” Houriet said. “We’re the only people crazy enough to try it.”

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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

R A T E S

Insertions

1X

2X

3X

4X

5X

6X

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

South Oakland

South Oakland

Rental Other

2-3-4 bedroom apartments and houses available in May and August 2018. Nice, clean, free laundry, includes exterior maintenance, new appliances, spacious, located on Semple and Mckee 412-414-9629.

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.

Apartment for rent.

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

412-719-0321.

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, and 4 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 Available January 2018!

Spacious 2 bedroom apartment Newly updated, fully furnished kitchen Very close to campus on Atwood St. 24 Hour Emergency Maintenance Secured Building $1450/month Robb Real Estate Co., LLC Ph: 412-682-7622

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 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 624 Minnesota St Pittsburgh PA 15207.

3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath.

Newly updated2 blocks from Greenfield Bridge.

Large kitchen, Washer & dryer included. Rent $1100/ month. Call Jimmy 412-400-7997

Add.

Employment Employment Other Join KEYS Service Corps, AmeriCorps this January. Mentor, tutor, and inspire local youth. Full and part time paid positions with education award.

Perfect for December grads! Possible internship credit. Call 412-350-2739. www. keysservicecorps.org 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

December 5, 2017

Employment Other Personal, professional masseuse needed.

Long term position.

2X/week. Washington County location.

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

For Sale Merchandise Scott’s Hot Dogs now selling Christmas trees at Frankstown Avenue and Lincoln.

Veterans welcome.

412-310-3769

Services Services Other House cleaning: Oakland House, undergoing renovations, needs cleaner/ organizer one day/ week. References & background required.

412-414-7290.

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

Call 412-521-7334.

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