Competing in her first NCAA Division I track and field championship, Chelsea Cassulo earned Arizona State University’s first ever hammer throw national title on Friday at Hayward Field.

With her family in the stands, the ASU senior stepped into the throwing ring for the last time as a college athlete.

“My timing was off all day and I knew I hit it but I didn’t know if it was going further than Brittany (Smith)’s,”Cassulo said “I was really praying.”

Cassulo — as well as the crowd — quietly waited for the official distance to show up on the score board, knowing that her last throw was far, but unclear if was far enough to beat Illinois State’s Brittany Smith’s leading mark of 224 feet and 9 inches and Alena Krechyk of University of Kansas State’s mark of 223 feet and 10 inches. Once Cassulo saw that the board read “226 feet and 9 inches,” tears began to form as she leaned over the fence to hug her coach and family members.

“I’m ecstatic, I’ve been working towards this all year and it’s a good way to end my senior season,” Cassulo said.

Coming into Wednesday’s competition Smith was ranked sixth but earned herself a third place position coming into the finals. Her third place quickly turned into first place after her first throw of finals. It was Cassulo’s last throw that took Smith’s potential national championship title away from her.

“I wasn’t expecting to get second but when I hit that big throw I thought I had a chance to win but she kind pulled it on her last throw,” Smith said.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon 12,816 spectators filled the stands of historic Hayward Field and watched world class athletes set 10 world-leading marks and five meet records in different events on the second day of the Prefontaine Classic.

The Women’s 400 meter dash started the running events off with an impressive performance by Amantle Montsho, representing Botswana, and Francena McCorory, a USA native. The two  gained control early into the race, separating themselves around five meters away from the rest of the pack around 200 meters into the race.

Fighting for first in the last 100 meters, Montsho edged out McCorory with a winning time of 50.01. McCorory finished with a time of 50.37. Also, while running in her first race of the season, 2012 gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross, who had toe surgery during the off-season, placed eighth with time of 53.77.

“I tried to stay in it mentally but when I got to the curve I felt strong but I tried to kick it but there was no speed there to make up the ground and felt a little bit discouraged coming down the final stretch,” said Richards. “But I’m happy to compete here, this is is just a fantastic place to compete.”

In the Men’s 5000 meter run, Kenyan Edwin Cheruiyot Soi fought off 2012 gold medalist Mo Farah in the final 200 meters of the race, setting a world leading time of 13:04.75. Former Duck and silver medalist in the 10,000 meters at the 2012 London Olympics, Galen Rupp, crossed the line in 13:08.69 placing sixth.

In a controversial finish, the Men’s 3000 meter steeplechase winner Kenyan Conseslus Kipruto overtook fellow Kenyan Ezekiel Kenboi in the last 50 meters of the race but only after the two exchanged elbow which caused Kipruto to step off the track. With his hands extended out away from his sides with disbelief of the outcome, Kenboi crossed the line after Kipruto.

“I think the race was fair, we had a good climax,” Kipruto said.

Kenboi would later be disqualified after officials reviewed the incident on the track. Despite the contact, Kipruto crossed the finish line in 8:03.59, setting a new meet record.

Mary Cain, 17, stole the show breaking the US High School National Record in the 800 meters running 1:59.51. With 200 meters to go in the race, spectators began to cheer louder as Cain started to pick up her pace passing two runners putting her in the fifth position.

Coming down the home stretch Cain ran stride-for-stride with four-time USA Outdoor Champion Alysia Montano, (1:59.43) but was unable to make the pass. The Burundian national record holder Francine Niyonsaba won the race with a commanding lead setting a new meet record and world leading time of 1:56.72.

“I’m just so thrilled, I mean I broke two minutes,” Cain said. “I was thinking nobody has ever done this before I’d be the first one to do it and it’s been my dream since I was in eighth grade.”

About an hour and a half into the Men’s High Jump competition, the former meet record — 7 feet and 8.5 inches — was broken by three different jumpers.

One of the three jumpers, Mutaz Essa Barshim simply described his day as “Good.” Barshim debatably had more than just a ‘good’ day after winning the Men’s High Jump with a meet record breaking mark of 7 feet and 10.5 inches. Barshim also set an Western Asain area record for his home country of Qatar.

“Today is good, you know,” Barshim said.

Former Duck Andrew Wheating and current Duck Anne Kesselring represented the University of Oregon on the first night of the Prefontaine Classic, Friday.

In a world-class field, Wheating ran a conservative time of 3:57.02, placing him fifth in the men’s international mile. Wheating sat in fourth place for the first three laps, only to be passed by another runner in the last lap. Kenyan James Kiplagat Magut ran a world-leading time of 3:55.24.

Later during the unofficially named Distance Night in Eugene, Kesselring ran for her home country of Germany and placed seventh in the 800 meter run in a time of 2:02.12. Running for U.S.A., Phoebe Wright won the race in a time of 2:00.85.

Two years ago, University Film Organization President Aaron Blanton decided to co-produce a short film over four months during the summer with a few friends. It wasn’t until the actors went back to Portland and the set had been taken down did he realize 75 percent of the 300 gigabytes of footage was corrupted and couldn’t be used.

“It was rough,” Blanton said. “It was not a good day.”

Some of the footage would cut out and turn into static halfway into the video, and for an hour and a half of the footage, the audio was completely gone.

The film, titled “The Makers,” was written and directed by former UFO President Brian Leonard. Blanton came on as a co-producer and director of photography.

“I felt in large part responsible for it. Being the director of photography, it was probably me who made the error,” Blanton said. “The cast and crew figured the film was a lost cause and disbanded to do other things.”

Left with 300 gigabytes of footage, only a quarter of which he could actually watch, Blanton got in touch with the film’s planned editor T.J. Broadbent, who uses a professional editing program called Avid. Broadbent told Blanton he might be able to recover some of the footage.

“As it turns out, his computer could read most of it. And so, suddenly we were down to 15 percent gone instead of 75 percent,” Blanton said.

Together, they ended up spending a year putting the somewhat recovered footage together through emails and uploading YouTube videos of the latest edits.

“When I got the initial footage and I looked at what we did currently have, I was able to assess pretty quickly this is not a project we can complete. I do not have enough footage to actually made the movie in the script,” Broadbent said.

Because they had to use film that had lost its audio and was completely silent, Broadbent and Blanton decided to use audio dialog replacement, which is basically lip-synching for the soundless footage.

After a year and a half since filming began, Blanton convinced the actors to come back and do a recording session. The actors were shocked to hear he was still working on the film.

Even though the director hasn’t seen a single cut of the final edit, Blanton contacted everyone to tell them the project was finally completed.

“Throughout my life I’m known to start really big projects and finishing them has been my weak point,” Blanton said. “And so, this sort of became a personal proving to myself — or turning a leaf — type of thing. So just the principle that we got it done is, honestly, more important to me than anything else.”

“The Makers” will premiere at the UFO’s Spring Film Festival on Friday, May 31 at 6 p.m.

Eugene cranked out four spots in the nation’s top 25 most bikeable neighborhoods as researched by Walk Score.

Based on a 100-point system — determined by bike lanes, hills, destinations and road connectivity and bike commuting share — Walk Score’s Bike Score places neighborhoods and cities into four categories, Biker’s Paradise (90-10), Very Bikeable (70-89), Bikeable (50-69) and Somewhat Bikeable (0-49). It provides a way to evaluate bikeability at specific locations.

The data covered more than 7,000 neighborhoods. The South Eugene High School area was one of six neighborhoods to receive a perfect score. West University followed right after, ranking seventh; Jefferson Westside and the University of Oregon campus were ranked 16 and 17, respectively.

Seeing publications praising Eugene’s bike friendly neighborhoods wasn’t anything new for UO Bike Program Coordinator Briana Orr.

“In a lot of ways,” she said, “I’m not surprised because I think we do have some the best bike friendly neighborhoods and infrastructures that I’ve seen.”

Before she graduated, she applied on behalf of UO for the League of American Bicyclist’s Bike Friendly University Award — the campus was awarded the silver title in 2011. The league also ranked Oregon third in the U.S. for most bike-friendly states, and Eugene currently has the gold title for the most bike friendly community.

“We were one of the first universities awarded a bike-friendly university award from The League of American Bicyclists,” she said.

The awards establish a benchmark for colleges and has helped the UO Bike Program focus on where things could improve.

One of the results is the bike program’s do-it-yourself maintenance shop where students have access to tools and the mechanical knowledge of staff’s mechanics.

“Barnhart and the University’s law school saw this infrastructure’s piece and got so excited they bought their own,” UO Bike Program Operation Coordinator Aaron Rourke said.

The program was started for students in need of a bicycle for transportation, refurbishing bicycles donated from Lane Transit District, Eugene Police Department and Eugene Parks and Recreation; they offer the bikes to students to borrow for one to three terms, charging $20 per term. Rourke hopes the program will increase the number of students riding bikes.

Blue Heron Bicycles employee Alexander Hongo is happy with the UO’s efforts to increase the number of bicycle riders. A couple of years ago, he started a once-a-month community ride titled The Moonlight Mash. Riders bike around Eugene under a full moon and listen to music from his modified Bakfiet CargoBike. When the monthly ride started out, only a handful of people would show up, but he said the last couple of rides the number has met or exceeded 100 riders.

“I feel like in the past, to be an American on a bicycle,” he said, “the only two identities that you could adopt were that of ‘the roadie,’ ‘the cyclist’ or that of ‘can-collector man.’ You don’t have to be a hobo or a racer — you can just be a person on a bicycle.”

For the first time ever, students will have an opportunity to enroll in either first-year or second-year Arabic courses over the summer. These courses rely on enough students being enrolled to cover the costs of even offering them.

Students will be able to complete a full-year’s worth of Arabic language studies over the course of the summer. The courses became available Sunday, May 19, after the recent increase of students attempting to enroll in the language.

Arab Student Union Co-Director Hussein Abu-Hamdeh said, as of last week, the University of Oregon added Arabic as a minor for students.

“Interest in the Middle East is becoming more popular and Arabic is widely used there,” Abu-Hamdeh said.

At around 11 a.m. Tuesday, Eugene Fire Department officials responded to a reported fire in the basement of Dunn Hall in the Hamilton Complex.

“It started in a janitor’s closet in the basement of the Dunn (Hall),” spokesperson for the University of Oregon Phil Weiler said. ”The fire alarm went off just about 10:57 a.m. this morning; by 11:13, the fire was put out.”

First responders have not identified the cause of the fire; they did find the remains of a burnt wash bucket among the damage. (Sam Stites/Emerald)

By 11:40 a.m., the complex was evacuated, and firefighters had the blaze under control.

UO students Jacob Argueta and Sam Babbitt were in their room when the alarm went off in the Hamilton Complex.

“We thought it was an alarm,” Argeuta said, “so we walked out and sat on the curb for a little bit — and then we saw, like, five fire trucks drive up.”

There are about 48 students that currently live in Dunn, and these residents will likely not be allowed into their rooms until late Tuesday afternoon, according to University of Oregon Police Department spokesperson Kelly McIver.

EFD is in the process of releasing the smoke from the building.

“It started in the basement,” Weiler said, “and the smoke went up the stairwell. So, (EFD) want to be able to keep all that smoke out of people’s rooms, so their rooms don’t smell like a smokey fire.”

Fire investigators have not yet determined a cause of the fire. There is not yet an estimate of the damage, but no injuries were reported.

University of Oregon Political Science Graduate Teaching Fellow Jack Edward McDowell was taken into custody outside his home at approximately 3:22 a.m. Saturday, according to a press release sent by Eugene Police Department Sergeant Ron Tinseth.

After being awoken by gunfire, four neighbors in the East 18th Avenue and Columbia Street area called 911 and reported hearing gunshots from within McDowell’s home. EPD responded to his home where he was taken into custody. Several firearms were seized from inside the residence.

The investigations have revealed he was allegedly shooting guns into the ceiling of his home. At least 39 gunshots were fired. He is currently lodged at the Lane County Jail on 39 counts of Unlawful Use of a Weapon and Disorderly Conduct 2.

The rumors are true, coaches do get paid a whole lot of money.

In 41 states, they are the highest-paid, active public employees, according to Reuben Fischer-Baum from Deadspin.

Fischer-Baum posted the info-graph depicting each state’s highest-paid active public employee. Oregon’s highest paid active public employee — among 26 other states – is a football coach.

The info-graph is not based off each of the state’s salary database or the bonuses coaches get for winning games, any bowl appearances, not losing every game or other more expected job obligations.

“This analysis ignored those bonuses and focused on guaranteed money, ” Fischer-Baum wrote in his article, “as it’s impossible to guess at whether a coach will hit his benchmarks. And we’re not even touching the ridiculous amounts of money coaches can get if they’re fired before their contract ends.”

With handmade signs, water bottle maracas and chanting “Contract now,” the University of Oregon’s faculty union — United Academics  — held a demonstration outside the Knight Library in support of their negotiating team and their efforts to complete negotiations with the UO administration regarding their contract proposal.

The faculty negotiating team proposed the collective bargaining agreement to the administration in November of last year but have been unable to come to an agreement.

“We’ve worked since last summer putting together what we think are thoughtful, well-crafted proposals to go into the collective bargaining agreements and these are going to set the working conditions for the bargaining with the university administration,” said Yvonne Braun, a United Academics negotiator.

The union is working to reach a fair agreement with the administration before the end of spring term to provide enough time to implement the collective bargaining agreement before the 2013-2014 academic year begins.