SPORTS
7 THE TOWER
December, 2014
The Future of Dodgeball at Kean By Jaime Alicea III
Intramural dodgeball first started here at Kean University four years ago by a student named Stephen Barnes. For those of you who do not know what dodgeball is, it’s a sport in which players on two teams try to throw balls at each other while avoiding being hit themselves. “Stephen Barnes started intramural dodgeball here at Kean and we’ve continued it for the people who love the sport,” said Colin Dowling, a dodgeball player. All students have those stressful days where they want to pull their hair out or yell at a teacher. Dodgeball allows students to release the stress they’ve endured throughout their day on the dodgeball court. “I play dodgeball because the semesters can be long at times and it’s a great way to relieve stress,” Dowling said. The dodgeball events bring a variety of fun and competitiveness for all students. All participants, including girls, are treated fairly and with respect. The intramural sport has also made a student by the name of Ibrahim Hayek quite popular. Who could forget Ibrahim’s insane acrobatic spin in the air, as he dodged the ball thrown at him and threw one of his own while in the air to get his opponent out. The video of the spectacular ordeal went viral on YouTube, even appearing on shows like Comedy Central’s “Key and Peele” and MTV’s “Ridiculousness.” The intramural dodgeball members have also created Facebook and Twitter
Reflections on Eric Garner ByMak Ojutiku
It’s hard to assign a name to the mixture of emotions I felt when I first heard the news about the non-indictment in the Eric Garner case. About 3 PM, I was driving to my job when I heard it over the car’s radio: “The Staten Island grand jury dismissed all possible charges against NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, in the chokehold death of Eric Garner”. If I have to describe that emotion, I’d say it involved dejection, disgust, definitely some rage, exasperation, all washed over with a sense of deep embarrassment. It wasn’t embarrassment over the jury or the verdict per se. It was more of an embarrassment over the fact that I somehow genuinely believed that this case would be different. But it should have been different, right? It wasn’t like the case of the shooting death of Michael Brown down in Ferguson, where we only had the words and accounts of witnesses and the police officer who pulled the trigger. No, with the Staten Island case, we had a full and seemingly undeniable video recording that showed Pantaleo choking and killing Garner. But obviously, that video didn’t matter. The case ended up the same way the Brown one did, and the same way that countless other similar cases in America’s history did. No indictment, and no jail time for the police officers responsible for destroying a black life. The natural and human reaction to an injustice like this is outrage. Like many other young people, both black and nonblack, I took my outrage out to a protest. The night after the grand jury announcement, I, and many students of Kean University, peacefully marched around the school’s campus, and let our voices be heard. It was a beautiful sight, and many beautiful and intelligent things were said during that protest. During one of the speeches, a very important question was brought up. Who exactly should our outrage be aimed at? Which powers are responsible for the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, and countless others? Some in the media, and outside of it, are determined to place the blame on the victims. People who have this opinion love respectability politics, which basically insinuates that
if black people stopped sagging their pants and got college degrees, everyone else would stop discriminating against them. Former NBA player and current basketball analyst Charles Barkley recently got in the news for expressing these sentiments. Anyone who holds this opinion is obviously ignoring the fact the fact that Martin Luther King Jr was murdered, by a racist, while wearing a suit. They’re ignoring the fact that Henry Louis Gates, a black Harvard University professor and Yale graduate, was arrested in 2009 for attempting to enter his own home. And as someone who’s been harassed by police while wearing the uniform of my academically respected upper middle class private high school, I can personally say that respectability politics are not based on anything that occurs in this reality. Some think the media itself is partially responsible for things being the way are. To be fair, it doesn’t seem to help that almost every black victim of police brutality ends up being sentenced to a trial by the media. Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old in Cleveland who was shot by a police officer, purportedly for waving a bb gun, recently had his short life examined by the media, or more specifically by the Northeast Ohio Media Group, and Cleveland.com. The news website wrote an article that detailed the criminal history of Tamir’s father. According to the site this was done because “people from across the region have been asking whether Rice grew up around violence.” The news website did not explain how Tamir growing up around violence, contributed to the police officer’s decision to shoot Tamir roughly two seconds after arriving to the scene and exiting his vehicle. The most direct place to look is at the police departments themselves. The problem is there isn’t much to look at it. As it stands right now, there are no national or state registries that keep track of how often police shoot and kill civilians. That fact does a good job of showing the problem. Some say that police just need to be retrained slightly, or be forced to wear cameras. To get real progress, the entire police system and culture needs to be rehauled and reexamined. And we all need to start caring about these injustices. All of us.
A dodgeball game last year.
Photo: Kean University Youtube
groups, named Kean Dodgeball. The Kean dodgeball Facebook and Twitter groups allow members to see important event dates, canceled dodgeball sessions or even do a little smack talking before playing on the court. The dodgeball Facebook group has almost 200 members now and continues to grow every day. “I play Dodgeball every week because of the nostalgia factor,” Myles Jenkins said. On Dec. 6, two teams from the intramural dodgeball group traveled to a sports complex in Mahwah, and represented Kean in a cash prize dodgeball tournament, with proceeds going to the Ocular Melanoma Foundation. The tournament was sponsored by a dodgeball group named Elite Dragon.
In defense of President Farahi and Kean’s newest table By Robert Lerner
I am an alumnus of Kean University. I graduated in January 2014. I was a full-time student throughout my entire undergraduate career. Now, before you go thinking that I was one of the “super seniors” who had to attend Kean extra semesters because of credit insufficiency, please consider an alternative possibility. In reality, I was actually able to graduate a semester early from Kean, thanks in large part to a proper academic program advising, which was the fruit of the labor the man who is scorned throughout the campus community, President of Kean University, Dr. Dawood Farahi. I have never seen an individual be able to take as many shots and brush them off as well as Dr. Farahi has. To be honest, that is probably the quality about him that I find most admirable, his resilience. But why does this man have the stigma across the campus that he is apathetic to the campus community? I could not tell you one definitive reason, but I could tell you that apathy is one quality that he does not have. I do believe that one attributing factor to this stigma is the lack of truthful information about him, his intentions, or what he has accomplished. Some say “Dr. Farahi faked his resume” or “He doesn’t care about us, where is our parking deck?” Those issues were raised countless times during my time on campus. But what I ask you, is have you ever actually spoken to the man yourself? Have you gone to Kean Hall to sit down with him? Or, better yet, talk to him when you see him on campus? He is always around, he is not a hidden figure. He is also very approachable, he would probably buy you coffee at Starbucks. We as a campus community are far too quick to believe hearsay and gossip rather than any attempt to fact find on our own. If one takes the time to talk to Dr. Farahi, or do some independent research, you may find some information that surprises you. You may find out how much better the physical campus is since he has taken office in 2003. (Look at yearbooks from before his administration. You can find them on the library’s website. A lot of dirt paths right?) You may also find how much better the schools services have become. Academic advising, faculty office hours, and a student involvement network that is second-tonone have all been products of his work. A school-wide commitment to community service that has received numerous prestigious awards has become the culture at Kean. (If you don’t believe me, walk up the stairs in the University Center once in a while, you will be shocked.) His accomplishments with the China project alone should create some admiration. So we come to this issue about a table. I believe the Kean Conference Center in the Green Lane Building will work out, in time, to prove that Kean is becoming a school of a higher level. As an institution, Kean has been advancing, rapidly, because of the vision of Dr. Farahi. If his vision is for the university to have a world-class conference center, then it may be a good idea to get behind him and run with the idea. Is it totally unreasonable to think that a school that is trying to establish its Global Business School and Global MBA program should have such a facility? Students in the athletic training and physical education programs utilize Harwood Arena. Theater students have the opportunity to utilize Wilkins Theater. So why shouldn’t Kean have another world-class facility? Do not rush to judgment or join the angry mob. Before you grab your pitchfork, talk to the man. I did, it changed my perspective. I am not saying that truth lies somewhere in the middle between one side’s accusations and another side’s defense. What I am saying is to see through biased parties and find answers for yourselves. It’s easy to listen and get mad, but it is right to investigate and think critically. - Robert Lerner is a former graduate of Kean University. He is currently a first-year student at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law.
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