Temple U. senior guard Luis Guzman started all 35 games for the men’s basketball team this year. In the middle of the season, he also received his diploma – in three-and-a-half years.

Luis Guzman doesn’t have to wake up early on May 13 to make it to the university commencement ceremony at the Liacouras Center at 10 a.m. He doesn’t have to iron his gown and make sure to place the tassel on the proper side of his cap. He won’t shake the hand of any dean and receive a diploma.

He’s already done all that.

Guzman, a senior guard on this year’s men’s basketball team, graduated from the Fox School of Business with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree on Jan. 29 – three-and-a-half years after he started classes at Temple.

“I didn’t think of graduating in three-and-a-half years. They just told me that I could graduate,” said Guzman, who majored in marketing. “That was one of the best days of my life besides basketball. That was such a day for me and for my family. It was pretty emotional but also very happy.”

Guzman said that both of his parents cried throughout the ceremony, especially when Fox Dean M. Moshe Porat specifically mentioned his name. Guzman’s parents are first-generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic. They did not have the opportunity to attend college. Instead, they went right to work to give Guzman as many benefits as he could have from living in the United States.

“I did this for them,” Guzman said.

Guzman grew up in Bronx, N.Y., and attended Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, N.J. Paramus Catholic is the largest private school in New Jersey and ranks in the Top 1 percent of Catholic schools nationwide. It offers its students a Catholic, co-educational college-preparatory education in Newark’s archdiocese.

Guzman finished his senior year at Paramus as the school’s all-time leading scorer with more than 1,500 career points. He was selected All-Bergen County as a junior and senior, and he averaged 18.5 points, eight assists, nine rebounds and three steals per game his last year there. Rivals.com rated him New Jersey’s No. 9 prospect in the high school Class of 2006.

Guzman signed his National Letter of Intent with the expectation that John Chaney would be coaching him at Temple. Chaney retired on March 13, 2006. Coach Fran Dunphy replaced him a little less than a month later on April 10. One of the first things Dunphy did after his hire was call Guzman, who was Chaney’s last remaining recruit. The other two – Matthew Shaw and Mike Scott – opted out of their Letters of Intent. Shaw went to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Scott to the University of Virginia. Guzman stayed at Temple.

“[I originally wanted to come to Temple and play for Chaney] because of the guard tradition that they had,” Guzman said. “Their guards were successful. Coach Dunphy took the job, and he told me to hear him out, and everything worked out. I learned a lot from him. There’s nothing I won’t do for that man. He made me the man I am today.”

Guzman’s four years at Temple were not without their share of ups-and-downs, though.

In his freshman season, Guzman appeared in only 11 games and averaged just 0.7 points, 0.7 rebounds and 0.7 assists in 3.3 minutes per game. Frustrated about his lack of playing time, Guzman turned to then-senior forward Dion Dacons for advice. After one year playing professionally in Uruguay, Dacons returned to Temple men’s basketball last year as the coordinator of student development. Dacons could relate to Guzman. He too played sporadically his freshman season after graduating from Oak Hill Academy in Virginia.

“He went through a stretch where he wasn’t getting as much playing time as he thought he deserved,” Dacons said. “As my dad used to tell me, ‘The pine will change your mind.’ Sitting on the bench gives you a lot of time to think about stuff. I think he started to listen. He started to realize what Coach wanted from him and what Coach needed from him as far as a player. He started to open up his ears.”

Guzman started 27 of the Owls’ 33 games his sophomore season. He averaged 3.9 points per game and 2.3 rebounds per game. Last year, though, Guzman returned to the bench after guard Juan Fernandez joined the team in December 2008. Guzman played in 24 games last season but started only six of them. At the end of the year, Dunphy approached him about the possibility of transferring.

“What I said to him was, ‘If you’re going to be the same guy you were the first three years, it’s not going to work, so you might want to look into going to another school. I’m not telling you that you have to transfer, but if you’re going to do the same things that you’ve been doing the last three years … I need you to be a great leader who doesn’t care how many minutes he gets, somebody who doesn’t care about scoring points necessarily but really wants to help any way he can for the team,’” Dunphy said.

Guzman used Dunphy’s suggestion as motivation. He vowed that he would do whatever Dunphy asked of him during his senior season. Dunphy, in turn, told Guzman that he would write his name in the starting lineup.

“I said, ‘Listen, I’m going to put you in the starting lineup, but I can’t have you be anybody other than what I can count on every single day. Are you OK with that? If you’re expecting to come out here and shoot jumpers all day and drive to the basket, I can’t have that, so that starting assignment will go away,’” Dunphy said. “He said he understood and said he would be very good at that this year. He was true to his word. When he finally decided he was just going to do what he could do, then I think he blossomed into a guy that didn’t miss too many minutes of college basketball this past year. He was on the court a whole lot and at crunch time, and as a senior, he was as low maintenance in the classroom as anybody we have. He took care of his business.”

“That mindset when you’re in college is that, ‘Well, I can go somewhere else.’ I tried to tell him that if you leave, then that image of you from here is that you’re a quitter. You don’t ever want to be looked at as a quitter,” Dacons said. “His playing time struggled for a little bit more than mine, but I talked to him about why he’s not playing. I think Lou started to understand something that I tried to preach to him all the time. Early on in his career, he thought he had to score to make a difference. My biggest thing to him was that you can leave this game with zero points and nothing on your stat sheet, and you can be the biggest, most intricate part of the win. You have to accept not getting the limelight all the time. If you really, truly want to win, that’s what you’ll do. To be honest with you, I think he did that pretty much this year to the best of his ability.”

This year, Guzman started all 35 of the Owls’ games. He finished the season averaging 4.9 points per game and 4.2 rebounds per game. More importantly, he helped lead No. 12/13 Temple to a 29-6 record, Big 5 title and third straight Atlantic Ten Conference Championship. The Owls made it to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in Guzman’s four-year career, though they lost to Cornell in the first round.
In the midst of all the on-the-court success, Guzman achieved his greatest success off it. With his Temple career all but over athletically and academically, he said he now has time to enjoy college and be a “regular college student.”

Dacons estimated that student-athletes, at least men’s basketball players, dedicate 15 of the 24 hours in a day to academics and athletics. Guzman said that his freshman to sophomore year was his most intense. He took five classes per semester that year (he said he trimmed his class load to an average of four classes per semester after that). Guzman said a typical day his first year began by waking up at 8:40 a.m. every day for class. After that class, he would eat and then trek to his next one. Once that class ended, he lifted weights for about an hour then went to class again. Guzman said he had about an hour or two to relax before eating again, heading to practice, eating his final meal of the day and then spending about two hours in study hall. Guzman said the routine rarely varied during the last three-and-a-half years. Dacons agreed.

“That’s Monday through Friday, both semesters, four years,” Dacons said. “Time management is definitely the key for a college athlete, especially a basketball player. Basketball is the only sport that lasts both semesters. It’s a nonstop sport. Even when it’s off, it’s still on because the next person is working out, so you’ve got to work out as well to stay on top.”

In order to get ahead in his classes, Guzman enrolled in every summer session. Essentially, he never took a break.

“People don’t know that that’s one of the hardest things,” Guzman said. “We sacrifice our time into basketball. It’s pretty hard. Other people did it before me, though, so there was no reason why I couldn’t do it. You just have to stay on top of your books. It’s like having two jobs at the same time. If you have your head on right, then everything will work out.”

Dacons said that Guzman’s academic achievements probably resonate more among non-athletes than among the members of the basketball team, simply because non-athletes might not expect them.

“We’re regular students, too,” Dacons said. “We might be in the limelight a little bit more, but we have to go to class. We’re not stupid. We’re not out here being jocks. Teachers aren’t out here giving us breaks. Sometimes we have more problems with teachers than non-athletes because of traveling. But graduating in three-and-a-half years is awesome. That’s like one of those statements where people can say period and just leave the statement alone. What more can you say? I know people who it takes five years to graduate, and they’re not doing anything but school.”

Right now, Guzman is finishing up two health classes he needed to take to keep his scholarship. He still interacts with his teammates and has specifically taken a leadership role with sophomore guard Ramone Moore, sophomore forward Scootie Randall and freshman guard Khalif Wyatt. Guzman said that Dacons, Dustin Salisbery and Dionte Christmas took him under their wings, so he figured he should do the same, particularly with young players who may not have the opportunity to play as much as they would like to right now.

“I think a lot of his leadership wouldn’t be where I would look at it, see it and evaluate it,” Dunphy said. “I think a lot of his leadership may come at 10 and 11 p.m. at night, sitting down with one of these guys in the dorms. I think he has a lot of experience at the frustration piece to playing college basketball. If indeed some of those guys are frustrated, then Lou could go over, sit down and say, ‘You’ve got to keep plugging away. I was you two years ago.’”

Outside of Temple, Guzman has started reaching out to agents in hopes of establishing a basketball career somewhere, perhaps even in the Dominican Republic. He recently visited the island and spent time with his family there. The country’s poverty opened his eyes, and Guzman left basketball shorts and shoes behind when he returned to the United States. When he finishes playing basketball, Guzman said he might like to help out in the Dominican Republic and make a difference in the lives of the kids there.

For now, he said he just hopes to serve as a positive role model for his two younger brothers, ages 5 and 7. Guzman attended a recent parent-teacher conference with his mother, Vierka, and one of his brother’s teachers asked him who Luis Guzman No. 10 was. His brother had been drawing pictures of him, the Temple ‘T’ and basketballs. All Guzman wants, he said, is for his brothers to succeed more than he has as they grow up.

“One thing I always tell Lou is always be proud of your family. Be proud of where you come from. Be proud that you did it,” Dacons said. “He’s got two little brothers. I told him to tell them that he set the bar now, so they’ve got three-and-a-half years to get their college education. ‘You have three-and-a-half years to do what I did. You’ve got to get it done somehow.’ Even if they shoot for three-and-a-half years, and they get it done in four, they got it.”

It was 6:28 a.m. Tight end Colin Cloherty was walking into the Cleveland Browns weight room for a lift that was to begin in two minutes when his phone rang. A Browns representative told him he wouldn’t need to work out today. He had been cut.

Cloherty had until 11 a.m. to be out of his hotel room, where he had been living instead of an apartment. When you’re an NFL rookie with a week-to-week contract, life is just too unpredictable to put down a month-long lease.

Cloherty immediately rang up his agent and told him to start making calls. The agent contacted the Indianapolis Colts, the team with which he started the season.

“Indy was kind of delaying, saying ‘Well, we might take him. We might not take him,’ ” Cloherty said. “So I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and kind of hung out for a while.”

Eventually, he had seen all of the Elvis memorabilia he needed to see, and Cloherty got into his car — which held everything he owned — and started driving toward home in Bethesda, Md.

But midway through the drive, Cloherty’s phone rang. It was the Colts, and they wanted him in Indianapolis.

“So I hung a right,” Cloherty said, “and went out to Indianapolis — ran over a deer on the way — and got into Indianapolis late, late Monday night and then spent the rest of the season in Indianapolis.”

So much for the glamorous life of the NFL.

“I was thinking Cowboys of the 1990s, you know, parties and everybody knows who you are and media all over the place,” Cloherty said. “And that’s really not how it is. It’s football 90 percent of your life — from when you wake up to when you go to sleep. And then maybe once every other week or something, you get to go out with some of the guys and hang out on a Monday night.”

Last weekend, four Brown U. football players — David Howard, Bobby Sewall, Buddy Farnham and James Develin — earned their shots at making it to the NFL. One year ago, Cloherty was where they are now — trying to finish up final exams, go to rookie minicamps, graduate from Brown and secure a spot on an NFL roster, all within a few weeks. Though each NFL career is different, Cloherty’s experience offers some hint of what the latest group of Bears trying to suit up for an NFL team will face in the next year.

Manning: ‘Who’s this guy running the wrong route?’
During rookie minicamp, Cloherty had his first interaction with Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. Cloherty was running routes on one side of the field while Manning was practicing on the other.

“I was supposed to run five yards straight and then cut in,” Cloherty said. “And I ran six yards instead of five and cut in. And (Manning) started yelling at me from across the field. You know, ‘If they wanted it to be a six, they would have said at six. And it’s supposed to be at five. You won’t be around here long if you can’t count to five.’ … That was just kind of the start of catching hell for not knowing the offense as well as you should when you’re a rookie.”

Cloherty said Manning turned out to be “definitely a nice guy,” but whenever Cloherty made another mistake, Manning always reminded Cloherty of his new nickname, “Ivy.”

“He would always use it in the worst circumstances, like, ‘Who’s this guy running the wrong route and ruining my read on the play? Is that you, Ivy?’ ” Cloherty said with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘Yup.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, that Brown diploma isn’t what it once was, huh?’ And I’m like, ‘Uh. I guess not.’ ”

Out of necessity, Cloherty eventually learned the plays so that they were second nature. In the Colts offense, Manning may change the play three or four times at the line of scrimmage based on how defense lines up. That takes away any time to think about what the play is. Everyone just has to know it.

“The playbook is — I don’t know if it’s as hard or as thick as an orgo chemistry book, but there’s definitely a lot of info you have to know,” Cloherty said. “But after four years at an Ivy League school, you know what study habits work and what doesn’t and how many hours you need to put into something to know it.”

‘Pack your bags’
Cloherty stayed on the Colts practice squad, which he said was “kind of like redshirting in college.” In addition to the 53-man active roster on each team, eight people are on the practice squad. The practice squad players don’t get to suit up for games, they get paid less and they’re always teetering on the edge of unemployment.

When Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney got injured in September against the Dolphins, the team needed to make room for another defensive end on the roster. Cloherty was cut the Monday after the injury.

“The first thing I did when I got cut was come to Brown Homecoming,” Cloherty said. “It was good to be back.”

He was without a squad for two weeks, but then Cleveland called and said, “Pack your bags, you’re coming,” according to Cloherty.

But they never called back. The next week, Cleveland called again and said, “This time it’s for real.” But they told him to pack for one week.

“They didn’t give me a playbook. It was kind of obvious that I wasn’t going to be there for very long. They were just paying me to practice as opposed to trying to develop me into something more.”

Cloherty stuck around for three weeks before being cut at 6:28 that Monday morning.

When he got back to Indianapolis, Cloherty remained on the practice squad until the final week of the season. On the last play of practice on Thursday before the Week 17 game versus the Buffalo Bills, one of the tight ends ahead of Cloherty on the depth chart got hurt, so Cloherty was activated on the roster. Since the Colts had already clinched a playoff berth, they rested their starters, so Cloherty got to play just shy of 40 snaps.

He even got the ball thrown his way on one play.

“I knew I was going to get hit right afterwards and as soon as I caught it, I just tried to hold on really tight,” Cloherty said. “I got tackled pretty quick and it was like a two-yard catch on 3rd and 14, so I got up and had to come off the field looking upset. … And inside, I’m doing a little celebration, really excited.”

He stayed on the active roster throughout the playoffs but never got to play again. He did, however, get to be on a team that made it to the Super Bowl. He said “electricity was in the air” the night of the Super Bowl, but it short-circuited for the Colts in the fourth quarter, and especially in the locker room afterwards.

“You could hear a pin drop,” Cloherty said. “There was no one upset or yelling. Everyone just knew we just lost the biggest game of our lives.”

‘Right place at the right time’
Cloherty signed a three-year $930,000 contract when he got pulled up to the active roster. Nothing is ever guaranteed in the NFL, but he said the Colts are keeping him around until at least the start of next season.

For now, the tight end from Brown who signed a free-agent contract a year ago seems to have found his place in the NFL.

Brown Head Coach Phil Estes has seen a number of his players over the years try to make the leap to the NFL, and he understands how unpredictable the process is. Paul Raymond ’08 has bounced around to four different teams in the last two years and is currently a free agent.

“Is (Raymond) good enough to make it? Yeah, he’s absolutely good enough,” Estes said. “He just had to find the right fit. So he went from the Jets to Detroit — he went to a couple of different places to try to hook on, and it may not have worked for Paul. But certainly Colin was in the right place at the right time.”

Joe Leslie, Cloherty’s former tight ends coach at Brown, agreed that making it on an NFL roster requires “a little bit of luck and just getting a chance to show what they can do.” If Howard, Sewall, Farnham and Develin “get a chance to get on somebody’s radar, they all can do things that will make you step up and take notice. A lot of it is having an opportunity and just making the most of the opportunity,” Leslie told The Herald in February.

Cloherty hasn’t had a linear path to the NFL. He never knows when he’ll have to pack his car again and check out of his hotel. And his career is always at the whim of an injury — his or someone else’s.

“I definitely have had a different road than what you see on TV,” he said. “But you know, it doesn’t really matter what your path is once you’re there. It’s, can you play or not? It’s definitely a different experience from what I was expecting. But on the whole, I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been a crazy ride.”

Charlottesville, Va. police charged U. Virginia senior George Huguely with first-degree murder yesterday in connection with the death of U.Virginia senior Yeardley Love, who passed away early Monday morning.

Both Huguely and Love, members of the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams, respectively, were set to graduate May 23.

Charlottesville police officers were called to apartment 9 in the Camden Courtyard complex on 14th Street at 2:15 a.m. Monday to respond to a case of possible alcohol poisoning. Love was found unresponsive and appeared to have undergone serious physical trauma. Officials attempted to revive her, but those efforts were unsuccessful. Love was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police officials, who have yet to determine the cause of death, declined to discuss the nature of Love’s injuries but are treating the case as a homicide investigation.

“We referred the case to our investigation division, which arrived on the scene earlier this morning, and at that point, our attention was drawn to Mr. Huguely,” Longo said.

Huguely, who graduated from the Landon School in Bethesda, Md., was reported to have dated Love in the past, Longo said, and officials arrested him Monday morning. Longo declined to discuss the evidence that connected Huguely with Love’s murder.

“It’s clear that at some point, they were involved in a relationship, but what the status of that relationship was at the time is not yet clear,” Longo said.

UVA president John T. Casteen sent an e-mail to students early yesterday afternoon with news of the tragedy. He expressed condolences to friends and family of Love and indignation that the crime appears to have been committed by a University student.

“That she appears now to have been murdered by another student compounds this sense of loss by suggesting Yeardley died without comfort or consolation from those closest to her,” Casteen said. “We mourn her death and feel anger on reading that the investigators believe that another student caused it. Like students who have contacted us in the last few minutes, we have no explanation of what appears now to have happened.”

Love was a resident of Cockeysville, Md., north of Baltimore, and graduated from nearby Notre Dame Preparatory School. She has been a steady contributor to the women’s lacrosse team during the past four seasons and scored during her first career game as a Cavalier against Virginia Tech in 2007. She has played in 15 games this season as a defender.

With the postseason for both men’s and women’s lacrosse teams nearing, athletic department officials said they have not yet considered suspending the teams’ seasons. It was “not even entering our thoughts,” Athletic Director Craig Littlepage told ESPN.com yesterday. Officials were still shocked by the loss of Love, he said, “a person who was described as an angel by teammates and friends.”

The Love family declined to comment at this time.

University officials centered their response to the tragedy on ensuring students received all necessary support. In an interview last week, University spokesperson Carol Wood described the University’s course of action when responding to any kind of death or serious incident involving the University.

“We always start off with a narrower focus, offering assistance to the victim’s family and close friends,” Wood said. “Once we have provided as much support as possible for the individuals most affected, we shift our focus to addressing the greater community.”

Counselors and deans made themselves available for students and athletes affected by the tragedy. Love is the seventh student to have passed away this academic year.

No homicides, however, have been reported in the Charlottesville area since January, when the remains of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington were uncovered at a farm just south of Charlottesville. Harrington disappeared Oct. 17 last year after a Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena. No suspects have been located in the case.

Officials identified Huguely as connected with the crime almost immediately and had arrested him just hours after Love was pronounced dead. In incidents involving students who have been charged with a crime, local police usually forward information to the University’s Office of the Dean of Students and the dean can bring up University Judiciary Committee charges against the student. But so long as the student is jailed and not enrolled in classes, he will not face trial with the committee, according to organization bylaws. UJC or Honor Committee proceedings are the only methods by which enrolled students can be dismissed permanently from the University.

Huguely, who was charged in November 2008 with public intoxication and resisting arrest in Rockbridge County, currently is in custody at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail.

Students expressed shock and outrage at the murder as it garnered attention from press outlets across the country, many of which were drawn to the case because Huguely was a member of the University’s top-ranked men’s lacrosse program.

“It’s been especially tough on students because [the news] has hit the mainstream media,” Student Council President Colin Hood said. “I think students are trying to keep a sense of community here and are still in a period of mourning and grief; they are trying to fill the gaps of uncertainty.”

Two weeks ago, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona had the nerve to sign a bill that will instruct Arizona’s law enforcement officials to begin to actually enforce the law when it comes to illegal immigration.

The signing of SB1070 essentially makes it illegal in the state of Arizona to be an illegal immigrant in the United States.

The law, which will not be enforced until August, has been characterized as the toughest immigration law in the country. It has been roundly criticized from the President of Mexico to the Latino civil rights group La Raza, to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Even one of Arizona’s own congressmen, Democrat Raul Grijalva, has called for a boycott of his state’s businesses. In one of President Obama’s jabs at the law, he referred to SB1070 as “misguided.” But is it?

For starters, according to The New York Times, “More people and drugs cross illegally into the United States through Arizona than any other state.” ABC News reported that Phoenix, Ariz. is the kidnapping capital of the U.S. and only second in the world behind Mexico City.

This last weekend, a sheriff deputy was shot in southern Arizona by drug smugglers in only the latest example of the crime and violence flowing north. The problem of illegal immigration and a porous border is real, and Arizonans are the front line.

Those who condemn SB1070 always seem to forget the most important fact: Those who will be convicted under this law are here illegally. They broke the law.

Now, the ACLU and other defenders of illegal immigration want to use this country’s court system in an ironic attempt to shield those who broke the law, with the law. The hypocrisy of such lawsuits would be laughable if this issue was not so serious.

They argue that SB1070 is unconstitutional because a state cannot interfere with federal immigration power.

This is true. However, the only reason this law exists is because the federal government is not enforcing immigration laws.

If the ACLU was advocating against SB1070 and promoting real enforcement of immigration law by the feds, I would agree with them. But the defenders of illegal immigration are not fighting Arizona because it is stepping on the fed’s toes; they are fighting because they do not want immigration law to be enforced. They are fighting to prevent officers from even questioning a person’s legal status.

The ACLU also argues that the law invites racial profiling of Latinos. Yes, on its face, this law could absolutely lead to profiling. However, the text of the bill and its revised form have made it very clear that racial profiling can’t be used as the source for meeting the “reasonable suspicion” requirement it takes for officers to question suspected illegal immigrants.

It is important to understand this law does not mean police officers in Arizona can stop someone walking down the street and demand to see identification papers.

Officers can only inquire about immigration status after they have made contact with a suspect for a different legal reason – for instance, a traffic violation. Supporting SB1070 does not automatically equal support for racial profiling or the denial of a citizen’s civil rights.

I have a question for those who decry this law because of its potential to violate civil rights. What about the civil rights of 15-year-old Dani Countryman? She was raped and murdered by two illegal immigrants in Oregon City on July 27, 2007. Only nine months after being released from jail for his second DUII, one of the men stepped on Dani’s throat, strangling her. Dani’s brutal murder was bad enough for her family, but to find out that her murderers should not even be in this country is just salt in the wound.

What about the civil rights of the countless Latino citizens in this country who have been the victims of the crime and drugs brought north? What about the civil rights of Americans of every race and ethnic background whose lives have been destroyed as a direct result of the lack of enforcement on our borders?

Those who disagree with my argument will call me anti-immigration and racist. Actually, La Raza – making the most of their thesaurus – also called supporters of SB1070 “nativists,” “vigilantes,” and “extremists.” This default attack, however, is both false and intellectually lazy.

First, advocating for the enforcement of our country’s law is not racist. If the United States were facing a flood of humanity, drugs and crime from Canada in the same levels as it is from Mexico, I would feel the same way as I do now.

The color of the face of a person that pops up from underneath a fence, or of a person who overstays their visa, is not why I support the enforcement of immigration law.

I support it because the rule of law and the respect for the law is part of what makes this country great. If the first act of someone coming to this country is to break our laws, why should we believe that they would suddenly begin respecting them?

Second, I am a fourth-generation American and not “anti-immigrant.” My family paid for respecting this country and its laws, as do innumerable other families in some way.

Nearly a century ago, my great-grandmother sailed from Sicily with her younger brother and parents. After arriving at Ellis Island, her younger brother, crippled and in need of crutches, was told he would not be allowed into the United States because of his condition. My great-grandmother’s parents were forced to make an almost impossible decision. They chose to send their 13-year-old daughter alone to live with her older brother, hoping she could live a better life than the one she left in Sicily.

They then boarded another ship, which was bound for Europe, with their son. In one final blow, the young boy, weakened from the arduous voyage, passed away. They followed the rules and respected immigration law.

Finally, the attack on SB1070 is intellectually lazy because it is an easy cop-out. Why confront the facts and offer ways to fix the problem when you can just call the other person a racist?

Illegal immigration causes significant difficulties in areas ranging from violent crime and narcotics to health care and education. Calling everyone who draws attention to such difficulties a racist or anti-immigrant only makes the situation worse. There is something that can be done though.

The federal government has failed to protect this country, and states like Arizona, that are on the front line of this problem, have had to take matters into their own hands. Whether you agree with the Arizona law or not, most agree that our federal immigration policy needs comprehensive reform. So what’s the answer?

First, stop the bleeding. The U.S. needs to protect its borders, whether that means a continuous fence, aerial surveillance, extra manpower or a combination thereof. We have to first stem the tide in order to assess and tackle the rest of situation.

Second, go after businesses that hire and often exploit illegal immigrants for profit. Most people are coming to work, so cutting the access to jobs for illegal immigrants leads to less illegal immigration; because that is their reason to come.

Third, streamline the immigration process. The United States needs workers for the jobs many, including students like us, are too lazy or unwilling to do. The backbreaking work in the agricultural industry, for instance, still needs to be done, whether an illegal immigrant does it or not.

The federal government needs to make it easy for workers to come and go in a legal fashion. This would cut down on illegal immigration and reduce employers’ abuse of migrant laborers, because they are now part of an immigration system that they could report any abuse to.

Fourth, deport every illegal immigrant currently in detention at every level of government, no matter what the crime. If someone has come here illegally and decided to break another law, they have shown blatant disregard for our society and its values. Their own actions have proven that they are not worthy to be here, so they shouldn’t be here.

Fifth, amnesty, or the code used by Democrats: “A path forward.” Those already here who have lived within the law after their illicit entry should be brought out from the shadows. Some sort of “path forward” that brings these people into our society and guides them through the citizenship process should be set up.

Sixth, the U.S. government should support Mexico’s economic growth and law enforcement. Mexicans do not dream for the day they get to leave their families and culture to endure a grueling and often lethal journey to another country just to work a tough job for a meager wage.

However, in today’s Mexico, there is often no better choice for struggling families to survive. Also, the guns and money flowing south are fueling the drug war in Mexico, only making the country’s situation worse.

So is Arizona’s new law the ultimate answer to our problems? No, but in a state fed up with the ills of illegal immigration, they decided to act, and they should not be vilified for it.

It bears repeating: “More people and drugs cross illegally into the United States through Arizona than any other state.” In the end, the difference between supporters of SB1070 and opponents of it is that supporters respect the rule of law in this country and recognize the problems caused by illegal immigration.

For those who think Arizona is “backwards” or “xenophobic” for adopting SB1070, please pull your head out of the sand – illegal immigration and a porous border cause real problems.

Stop pretending those problems do not exist. Don’t waste your time griping about Arizona, boycotting the state and its business or wasting money in hypocritical legal disputes. Instead work to make the law irrelevant: Focus your resources on comprehensive federal immigration reform.

You showed that the hope for change might not be a pipe dream, so try again. Everyone will be better off for it, and I will be right there with you.

– Matthew Reiner is an Oregon State U. senior in political science.

Natural disasters are one thing, but oil spills and errors of that nature are like self-inflicted wounds.

And like any other bullet in the foot, they are completely preventable.

You don’t have to be a tree-hugger, a Greenpeace advocate, an animal lover, a “crazy” environmentalist hippie or – dare we say it? – a socialist to think this disaster is the result of a very corrupt and fallible system.

Any disasters that can be seen from space are of serious concern.

What makes this both terrible and frightening is we can’t yet tell what kind of damage there will be, or to what extent it will reach. What marine life will be affected? Which industries will suffer? What are the global effects? Or, most importantly, will we learn from this mistake?

Perhaps we won’t.

In 1978, the Amoco Cadiz split in two, spilling an entire 67.3 million gallons of oil into the ocean near France. In 1979, the Ixtoc I well exploded and lost 140 million gallons. In 1991, the oil tankers and wells destroyed by the Gulf War released an estimated 450 million gallons.

By comparison, the famous Exxon Valdez only spilled 10.8 million gallons, which had devastating effects on the environment.

The list goes on.

Until we build a better infrastructure, we can’t go on living the way we do and enjoy the technologies and perks of life in the 21st century without oil drilling.

But have we come to simply accept oil spills as a necessity, a part of the system that can’t be avoided?

These spills can and should be avoided. They aren’t accidents. They are horrendous crimes brought on by cutting corners and negligent activities in order for the oil executives to save a few million.

When are we going to get ourselves out of the clutches of the oil companies? Since they obviously lack in the ethical department, perhaps it’s time to impose stricter regulations and harsher penalties.

For crimes like these, on account of the magnitude of destruction their “mistakes” cause, they should be tried as murderers.

Fortunately, members of Congress are “demanding answers” and have launched an investigation of the incident.

We can only see one benefit from a disaster such as this: Another impetus to move in a different direction, away from drilling up ancient fuels and instead toward a cleaner, sustainable, human error-resistant method in which function isn’t affected by greed, and malfunction doesn’t endanger millions of people, animals, jobs and generations to come.

Just because there’s oil beneath us doesn’t mean we should keep shooting at our feet.

When he played linebacker at Ohio State U., Andy Katzenmoyer tried to hurt people. Now he makes a living by helping people.

Almost nine years after his promising NFL career was cut short by a neck injury, the 32-year-old Katzenmoyer now has his own family and his own business, LIFT Personal Training, which he and his wife Ashleigh started in 2008.

No longer remorseful about his brief career in the NFL, he has excelled while working and maintaining privacy in his hometown of Westerville, Ohio.

“I’m a homeboy,” Katzenmoyer said. “I’m creative in my domain. I’ve always been reserved, so I don’t miss being in the spotlight.”

Today, the man known as “The Big Kat” is larger and perhaps more intimidating than he was as a player. He’s also happier.

The intense, expressionless face he wore under his helmet has been replaced with a big smile, usually seen when he watches his 2-year-old daughter, Ava, happily wander around the workplace, trying to mimic exercise motions.

Now a devoted family man and fitness guru, he works alongside his wife and a close-knit group of friends, training everyone from aspiring athletes to middle-aged men.

While Katzenmoyer’s life is now relatively normal, it’s very different from the turbulent and well-publicized lifestyle he had grown accustomed to as a football player.

After winning the USA Today Defensive Player of the Year Award at Westerville South High School, Katzenmoyer made headlines as soon as he arrived at OSU in 1996 when he became the first Buckeye to wear the number-45 jersey since Archie Griffin, a decision that incurred the wrath of many Buckeye purists.

At the time, fans wondered aloud how this freshman could have the audacity to wear Griffin’s unofficially retired number.

But Katzenmoyer wasn’t just another freshman. He was a 6-foot-4-inch, 255-pound giant that looked more like a machine than a man. He played like one, too.

He became the first true freshman ever to start at linebacker for the Buckeyes, recording 12 sacks and 23 tackles-for-loss.

As a sophomore, he won the Butkus Award, given annually to the best linebacker in college.

Any questions about whether he was worthy of wearing the number 45 were put to rest.
Always the strong, silent type, his hard-hitting play was getting all the attention on the field, but off the field his actions were receiving plenty of attention as well.

A few months after being arrested for drunken driving, Katzenmoyer was featured in two articles and the cover of a Sports Illustrated issue during his junior year, which turned his academic shortcomings into a national joke as he struggled to maintain his eligibility.

“I was blindsided so badly by that article,” Katzenmoyer said. “I was a 20-year-old kid that didn’t think about the big picture. I was at Ohio State to play football. Other than that, I didn’t know where I wanted to go.”

Despite the negative attention, Katzenmoyer had another stellar season and was selected by the New England Patriots in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft.

After recording 107 tackles and 3.5 sacks, he was named to the NFL’s All-Rookie team, but what seemed destined to be a great career had already started to end.

During a game against the Buffalo Bills that season, Katzenmoyer collided head-on with Bills fullback Sam Gash, severely injuring his neck. The injury limited him to only eight games in his second year.

He underwent two operations to fuse two disks in his neck and was forced to retire. So began the unusual odyssey of his post-football life.

When he returned to Westerville, Katzenmoyer made money by selling houses with his mother and working construction, but the stigma from his shortened playing career was overwhelming him.

“Back then I was still in a funk, still depressed,” Katzenmoyer said. “I couldn’t get over it.”

To make things harder, he returned to OSU to pursue a sociology degree, only to be met with a lukewarm reception from some of the faculty, many of whom were familiar with the infamous Sports Illustrated articles from his junior year.

“Returning was harder because the professors had already made up their minds about me,” Katzenmoyer said. “For them it was a foregone conclusion about what kind of student I was, and I had to go above and beyond what was possible just to get a fair shake.”

But while training at a gym in 2003, things changed for the better when Katzenmoyer met his future wife, Ashleigh, who convinced him to begin studying in the exercise science program at Otterbein College.

He now had a goal to work toward, and a partner who supported him.

In 2004, Katzenmoyer was persuaded by his high school coach Rocky Pentello to serve as defensive coordinator at Westerville South High. Although he was reluctant to return to football, doing so proved to be a valuable experience that helped rekindle his passion for football.

“When I was first offered to coach I was nervous about being around it,” Katzenmoyer said. “I didn’t want to make a commitment after the way everything went down. But committing to teaching has been a really positive experience.”

With the plan of having another child in the near future, Katzenmoyer is working to expand his business and learn more training disciplines. After emerging as an excellent student at Otterbein, he plans to return to OSU and pursue the Personalized Study Program, focusing on sociology and exercise science. He said he also hopes to work in some capacity with the OSU football team and possibly continue coaching in the future.

To this day, Katzenmoyer is still bothered by neck pain. He’s also still bothered by the reputation he had as a “dumb jock” at OSU. But now, as a grown man who is no stranger to pressure, school is just another problem that he’ll have to tackle, and this time, it won’t be an issue.

News of the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has spread through campuses across the nation, and many students want to know how they can help.

Petty Officer Brandon Blackwell with the U.S. Coast Guard said BP, the company responsible for the oil spill, has set up several organizations to coordinate volunteer efforts.

People looking to volunteer can call the BP hotline and give the operator their information, Blackwell said. The information will then be given to a specific department depending on the volunteer’s personal skills. The department will contact volunteers and determine what they will be doing.

Volunteers are needed to pre-clean the beaches in case the oil reaches the coast. Blackwell said clean beaches are easier to clean oil from.

Blackwell said many people are interested in working to preserve wildlife, but working on the coast itself is just as important.

Ralph Portier, an environmental sciences professor at Louisiana State U., said he’s had several students ask about volunteering, but many are unable to help because they lack hazardous materials training.

Portier said an ideal situation would be training available to students after finals to create a bigger group of volunteers to clean up the spill.

Several areas of volunteering require training, but some don’t.

“There will be a lot of people needed for organization, administrative work, loading cleaning products onto trucks and other things,” Blackwell said.

There are currently response centers in Pensacola, Fla.; Venice, La.; Mobile, Ala.; and Pascagoula and Biloxi, Miss.

A Facebook group called LSU SCHOLR (Student Coalition to Help the Oil Leak Relief) was created by members of several student organizations to provide students with up-to-date information and a forum to discuss events and volunteer opportunities.

Students looking to report directly to BP to volunteer should call 1-866-448-5816.

The public has been warned for years about the dangers of texting while driving. Some scientists have even likened it to driving under the influence.

A new study by a U. Kansas professor shows most college students are well aware of the danger, yet choose to do it anyway. And it’s much more common among college-aged drivers than was previously thought.

Paul Atchley, an associate professor of psychology at KU, released the study last week that surveyed 400 college students aged 18 to 30.

Atchley found that 95 percent of the students were likely to either initiate or respond to a text message while driving, including those who did so while stopped in traffic.

“This study shows it’s far more common and it’s going to become far more common in the future,” Atchley said.

At least one KU student says that she knows how rampant the problem is.

“I’ve been behind people on the road that I thought were drunk, but I passed them and they were just texting,” Sheryl Miller, a senior, said.

The Kansas Senate has now passed legislation that would ban all drivers from texting on the road. The bill has yet to clear the House, but if passed, first offenses would come with a $100 fine and any subsequent offense would result in a misdemeanor. Twenty-four states already have some kind of legislation banning all drivers from texting while on the road.

During the Senate debate over the bill, Lt. Gov. Troy Findley said texting while driving was “a risky behavior, and Kansas needs a law to ban it.”

“People get arrested for drunk driving,” Miller said. They should probably be arrested for this kind of activity too.”

One surprising finding from the study indicates the people who do text and drive are generally aware of how risky of a behavior it is, yet they do it anyway. Atchley likened their mindset to those who are addicted to nicotine.

“People know this is a risky behavior, but they do it,” Atchley said. “We found if someone makes the choice to engage in the behavior, they perceive it as being less risky.”

According to Atchley, the college-aged group has latched onto texting as the primary form of communication, and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

“They will become safer drivers over time, but texting will still be how they communicate,” he said. “But even if texting and driving gets cut in half, that’s still almost half of all drivers that do it.”