First Entry

Today is the first time I have entered anything in my blog. I'm just trying it out to see how I like it.

I plan to discuss all kinds of interesting things and use the blog as an outlet for some of my writing. I am a college student at Lewis-Clark State College who writes for The Pathfinder, LCSC's student newspaper.

I write a sports commentary called The Sports Beast. Below is the article I wrote for the November 5th edition, which has proven to be somewhat controversial.

Allen Hanson
Sports Beast
11/2/08

I’m out sick for a week and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.
First, let me apologize for my absence from the Sports Beast column and from the Pathfinder offices in general for the past week. This was due to my annual bout with a drug-resistant sinus bug and some interesting side effects due to wildly variable blood sugar. My illness was extremely ill-timed, which is about par for the course for me this semester.
When I gained the necessary strength to come back into the office this weekend, I learned that our intrepid editors wrote a controversial piece regarding a member of the LCSC baseball team. Then Bryce explained that certain members of the baseball team tried to prevent the story’s circulation by absconding with most of the issues of the October 29th edition of The Pathfinder.
When you come to LCSC, you soon learn that the baseball team is sort of a sacred cow here; the administration tends to take a “boys will be boys” approach to team members’ various misdeeds. The reason for this is that baseball is a big cash cow for the school and the community in general: The NAIA World Series, which LCSC is currently playing host to on a semi-permanent basis, pulls in a lot of money for the community. (It’s interesting how cash can render even the scrubbiest cows sacrosanct).
You may be saying to yourself, “Sports Beast, do you have any evidence of this? After all, that’s a pretty serious allegation!”
In fact, I have anecdotal evidence of this, which I will recount.
At a basketball game in Spring 2006, I had the misfortune of sitting in the Warrior Zone section with a group of LCSC baseball players. At first, it was kind of fun; I have long decried the tomb-like atmosphere at LCSC basketball games and liked being in a raucous mob cheering on the Warrior men’s basketball team. Team members were hectoring the other team’s coach, calling him “Tom Green” (the guy did resemble that untalented thespian), and the first few times they did it, it was funny. Then I became concerned: Certain members of the group began shouting profanities at the coach, then escalated to hurling racial slurs at certain members of the opposing team. How’s that for Champions of Character?
At that point, I told the group off and took my leave. Two of the players, whom I knew personally because I had taken classes with them, were intoxicated to the point they could barely stand. I won’t name them, because neither of them attends LCSC at this time. At the time, a member of LCSC’s Student Services staff applauded the team for supporting their fellow athletes.
When I worked at Southway Shell as a cashier in my three-semester hiatus from school, almost every weekend I had to deal with people I knew were on the baseball team trying to purchase alcohol for underage girls. They’d get mad when I asked for the girls’ identification, as I was required to do by state law and company policy. Sometimes, I had to throw them out, and once I had to threaten to call the cops.
I hate to slam the baseball team at large. I have met some outstanding young men through the team, like Carlos Fisher, Brad Davis, Allen Balmer, and Adam Ramirez, who became my friends. However, the current situation raises doubts within me about the baseball program. Is it really a way for student-athletes to change their lives and broaden their horizons? Or is it just a group of thugs raising funds for the school? In my opinion, this school’s administration needs to rein in the program, for the sake of the students and the LCSC community.