Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 24, 1987)
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, June 24, 1987 pinion beat a dead horse? Once again, prornfrient boosters, scandalous pay-offs-for-play and rigid NCAA penalties are back in the news, with Southern Methodist University capturing the sportsworld spotlight. Last week, four Methodist bishops released a 48-page report based on their investigation of SMU football improprieties involving stealthy slush funds, wealthy Dallas businessmen and even Bill Clements, who knew about illegal payments ^s chairman of the school’s Board of Governors, but decided tp wait until he be came governor to tell the world about his dimwitted doings. In February, SMU’s football program 'was' sentenced to what is known as the NCAA death penalty — and rightly so.The decision apparently was final. But because of new findings in the bishop’s report, an NCAA official has said the investigation could be reopened, al though this same official said he’s not sure if more sanctions would serve any purpose. New findings or not, measures beyond the death penalty would serve no purpose other than to further diminish SMU’s credibility —academic and athletic — by again placing the story back on the front page of every newspaper in this foot- ball-crazed state.SMU officials have predicted that the ordeal has causecLdonations to the school to drop by about $3 million. It’s time the NCAA leave further probes to the Methodists, who seem to be doing an adequate job of identifying the re maining guilty parties. The NCAA should leave well enough alone and concentrate its energies elsewhere. In light of the NC AA}s recent slap on the wrist to the University of Texas, re opening the SMU investigation is unnecessary and unfair. SMU’s ’football program has been dealt the crowning blow — it’s dead, defunct, dissoluted and deceased. It doesn’t get more final. SMU deserves to rest in peace. Hart and Rice riding on the seesaw of life Years ago, I spotted an ad in the classifieds for the sale of a never- used wedding gown. Thinking I would get a column about a wronged woman left weeping at the altar by some creep, I called the number. In no Richard Cohen time, I developed a fine disdain for the wretch but, boy, was I wrong. It was she who had left him, she who was cavalier about the matter and she who thought the situation was nothing less than a stitch and a half. I saw no ad for a never- used tuxedo. y On my desk at the moment are two magazines. People and Life, both featuring stories about Donna Rice. I know quite a bit about her now. I know she’s had breast-enhancement surgery and; also that she spent at least two weekends in the company of Gary Hart. Unlike yours, my mind is always in the gutter. Now, I grant you that sleeping with a married man is not in the same league as child molestation, but it is not something to boast about either. In fact, it used to be considered immoral and therefore shameful. But shame is the one thing that Rice seems to lack totally. Renowned for just one thing, she appears determined to capitalize on it, while uttering a Nixonian disclaimer that she is not a party girl. Hamlet’s rebuke to Ophelia — “Get thee to a nunnery” — has been rejected by this Phi Beta Kappa out of the University of South Carolina. What’s interesting about this state of affairs is how it stands conventional wisdom on its head. It echoes and amplifies all the wrong assumptions I made when I saw that classified ad for the wedding gown whose veil had never been lif ted. All the wonderfully Victorian emotions that I had assigned to the woman — rage, heartbreak and, above all, shame — were totally missing and found instead in the man. In the immediate aftermath of the Miami Herald story, Hart was denounced as a womanizer. The word was uttered — spat, may be closer to it — with all the contempt that some people can summon. Women especially used the term as if nothing more need be said. Like saying communist or arsonist, you don’t have to explain why it is bad. But I asked anyway. And I was told by women who are my colleagues that a womanizer is a bad, dishonest person. He lies to women, makes false promises, leads them on and uses them only for their bodies. I nodded halfheartedly to all of that, but then demurred a bit. There are women, I maintained, who do not have to be led on. There are those, such as groupies, who are colder, more calculating about sex than the men they sleep with. For this, I was roundly denounced and banished to my office to await a stinging editorial in Ms. magazine. But look at Rice. Where is the injured pride of the deceived woman? Where is the lady with the broken heart — the one who was promised one thing but got another? Where is the woman who went for love, but awoke to Find reporters from the Miami Herald and instant scandal? It is not there. Instead, it is Rice who has used Hart. His career isdn shambles and hers, at least for the moment, is on the ascent. For more than the next 15 minutes, she will be f amous. She has an agent for photos, yet another for a possible book, and her celebrity status was confirmed by an interview with Barbara Walters. This doesn’t conform at all to conventional wisdom. After all, if^ mpn who are supposed to do the using and women who are used. It’s men who — boys supposedly being boys — are forgiven this type of behavior and women who are denounced and scorned. Increasingly, though, tlirS is not the case, Fannie Fox hardly hid after her affair with Wilbur Mills was revealed; Elizabeth Ray did not slink away after she admitted that typing was not among the things she did for Wayne Hayes.' No, it is the men who are ridiculed and their careers destroyed. The scarlet letter is now written in neon and worn by the men. The women go bn their merry wa Y- ' Long ago, I concluded that se'Xual morality, like airline food, was an oxymoron. But I cling to outdated notions of who wrongs whom, and of what should be intimate and not public. I don’t expect double suicides, but ^ .■ shame is a different matter — the shame of immorality plus the shame of looking like a fool after being caught. At the very least, shame adds seriousness to an affair and marks the always thin line between romance and farce. But Donna Rice seems to have no shame. Maybe that’s why Gary Hart has it all. Copyright 1987, Washington Post Writers Group The Battalion (*JSPS 045 360) Meinber of Texas Press Association Southwp^t Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Soridra Pickard, Editor Jerry Oslin, Opinion Page Editor Rodney Rather,Lity Editor John Jarvis, Robbyn L, Lister, News. Editors Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor Robert W. Rizzo, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non- profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the aiithor, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing arid photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday arid examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per serifester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising'rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald. texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. ' POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station. TX 77frKMin ; ; ;—i Freshmen should experience college life before judging The incoming freshmen on summer conferences aren’t too bad until they become experts on areas about which they know little. I don’t feel superior to freshmen like a lot of upperclassmen feel. I realize they DA Jensen are learning the ways of an institution that is new to them. I help them on campus when I can and even try not to snicker when they pull out the map. This week I’m learning why freshmen get a bad name among upperclassmen. I was sitting at the bus stop waiting to go home when I heard a girl tell her mother that she wasn’t impressed with any of the speakers at the morning orientation . I was upset that this girl was judging the department speakers on orientation speeches. An orientation speech is meant to put the nervous, uninformed freshmen at ease with their new surroundings. It is not meant to dazzle. It is simple information. It amazed me that this girl was so cosmopolitan that she had a base on which to judge a college orientation. My next encounter was at the Off- Campus housing center. I sat down at a table with a young girl with her mother in tow. The daughter said she wanted a furnished apartment with her own room in Treehouse Village. The mother said she had a $125 per month housing budget. The girl sifted through at least 50 roommate cards. She rejected almost all of them. One girl was rejected because she was “stupid” because she added the rent total wrong. I’m not a real estate agent but I do know for a fact that it is impossible to live in the Village for $ 125 a month even if you share a room or live in the toolshed. Maybe the girl just never read the price listing of apartments that the housing center provided her. Maybe she can’t add either. $3 This same girl also had a negative comment about every girl in the file She has a lot to learn about living^ somenone and the art of compromise I’m glad 1 have a roommate. My last big gripe is hearingabouttli intelligence level of every freshman while I supply them with booksfromi bookstore. I understand that people are proiii of graduating at the top of their higk school class. I was also. Now if only status would carry over into college Unfortunately, most people who hay I h i I cct grades in high school don’t l, e S p Ur] succeed at being perfect in college. Hm to m Luckily, a sociolog\ professortaugbMiontv. H that everyone is good at something- lick hilm- no one is good at everything. ■eauh, | I know that the newcomersneedaR, his yea lable fi fey 1991 ApS will billion for th< ,1th advi |nt of Ht r. The ut 60 f tm on to adjust. I don’t deny them time.Ijiid want them to learn before they judges way of life that is totally differentfroE anything they have experienced in past. Int to d las: edu< Jig abuse ition/risk ends, sen D. A. Jensen is a junior journalism major and a columnist for The Battalion. le 51 n estim TV-Ill, of ther re is fot >etz, the [Bureau of i “AIDS led by tb he HT ittacks ar [rs in inc ion that |ne syste |lly cause nd tho physical syi s to oth [tna, pe |uth-pen TDS is pially we llso can fc'omen am k diffici About 7 Jmtry an pus drug We still have a way to go toward racial harmonfp- Mississippi State was playing Louisiana State in the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament in Athens, Ga. It doesn’t matter who won the game. What does matter is that a Lewis Grizzard But you would think you wouldn’t have to read about such a thing occurring in 1987. Ask blacks why racism obviously still exists and they will say it will never go away because a large portion of the white population still cannot accept the idea of black equality. I wondered what white people thought so I asked a few of them. Here were some answers: young white Mississippi State fan, according to news reports, began hecklirtg the LSU right fielder, who is black. When the fan began spitting out racial slurs, the LSU right fielder jumped over the fence and went after the fan, who grabbed a large board with which he planned to defend himself. “What bugs me is every time some black politician or bigshot gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar, he starts hollering about racism and blaming his troubles on whites. It’s such a convenient copout.” “It’s like because they’re black, they, you know, deserve everything handed to them on a silver platter.” “I don’t say ‘nigger’ in public 'a v. B anymore, but I say it sometimesan white friends.” “We have a black Miss America pageant. Why can’t we have a white America pageant?” “I work in downtown Atlanta.It'sa rare day when I walk to lunch witha friend and we don’t get some sexual remarks from black men on the street! resent it and it frightens me.” “A few blacks come in to my favorite bar. They don’t get hassled,to l; ( j ucat i ( if I went into an all-black joint, I don't |i ( i ren) j think I would be treated the same “Can you imagine what would happen to this country if Jesse Jacksoi were elected president?” The only conclusion that can be drawn from any of this is, yeah, we’ve |, e come a long way towards racial luded oi harmony. But sadly, we’ve still gota Thomas V ways to go. Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate >read of ate healtl Uring a munif he pa ternoon pi wiser with Health, D Texas Bureau of id Allen Health Di aple wit es. Dr. Brazo ■Uent, was But be< ubate i Ulg deteci y of kr ople cu: “We’re berg, t rg we i d. Walch cussior wscasts private ool sy: