ur first gen-
be held at
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lark at 847-
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in 404 Kud-
sociation: A
) p.m. in 165
II Rose Ann
ibic at 696-
vorship, fel-
8 p.m. at All
ion call I Alia
r devotional
Taps will be
er Fountain.
847-2144.
lions will be
ptember 9th
jn and audi-
:eneral meet-
Govemance
ig. For more
at 862-1974.
show will be
it of Rudder
all Chris Riv-
5-0737
5-2624
5-2625
5-9655
5-4511
5-7826
Sports
A&M soccer team wins first tournament of 1994 with a two
game sweep over Centenary and the University of New Mexico.
Page 7
Opinion
JOSEF ELCHANAN: It is vital that our country reassess its objectives
for defense and projecting American power around the world.
Page 11
■P
Aggielife
Rap group Public Enemy returns
with a bad 'Mess Age.'
Page 3
TUESDAY
September 6, 1994
VoT. 101, No. 7 (12 pages)
"Serving Texas A&M since 1893"
University responds to booster s accusations
Bowen doubts
NCAA will
reinvestigate
By Michele Brinkmann
The Battalion
Texas A&M President Ray Bowen
said Monday he does not expect the
NCAA to reopen its investigation into
the summer jobs scandal involving
banned athletic booster Warren Gilbert,
which led to the Aggie football team’s
five-year probation.
“We don’t anticipate the NCAA will
reopen the case,” Bowen said, “but all we
can do is wait.”
Gilbert told the Dallas Morning News
in a copyrighted story Sunday that for
mer A&M vice president Robert Smith,
A&M head football coach R. C. Slocum
and other A&M officials encouraged him
not to meet with NCAA in
vestigators.
He also said Smith and
Slocum continued to contact
him even as the University
told the NCAA that Gilbert
had ceased communication
with A&M.
According to NCAA
rules, evidence of institu
tional representatives being
untruthful during an
NCAA investigation would
be grounds for the NCAA to
reopen the probe and possi
bly sanction those involved.
University officials met Monday to
discuss Gilbert’s allegations and to issue
a statement in response to the charges.
Texas A&M officials said the Univer
sity will not respond to “rumor and innu
endo” and will continue to work closely
with the NCAA.
Bowen said the University stands be-
. I
said. “If these statements were true, it
seems like he would have said them ear
lier. I do not think there is any truth to
these charges.”
Gilbert said he went
public with the charges
because he thought he
was being used as a
scapegoat for the scandal.
He said A&M officials
intentionally laid the
blame solely on him to
avoid greater penalties.
In January the Uni
versity disassociated
— Dr. Ray Bowen, A&M president Gilbert from A&M ath-
"The tinning seems a little odd. If
[Gilbert's] statements were true, it
seems like he would have said them
earlier. I do not think there is any
truth to these charges."
hind its investigation, and he did not un
derstand why Gilbert decided to make al
legations now, nearly nine months after
the NCAA investigation was completed.
“The timing seems a little odd,” he
letics in order to comply
with sanctions handed
down by the NCAA after
the organization found he paid nine
football players for work not done from
1990 to 1992. As a result, the NCAA
placed the athletic program on five
years probation.
In the article Gilbert said he was
aware that if he implicated A&M offi
cials in any cover-up, it could lead to fur
ther penalties against the University
such as a potential NCAA sanction that
could suspend the football program.
“I didn’t want to do one thing to cause
the death penalty to the University,” he
said. “That is one reason I delayed ever
wanting to testify before the NCAA.”
The Gilberts told the Morning News
they agreed to talk about what they per
ceived to be a cover-up because of out
rage over the University’s initial refusal
to send them their allotment of four sea
son tickets.
Pattie Gilbert, Warren Gilbert’s wife,
received her tickets Wednesday, but was
told by the University that if her hus
band used the tickets then NCAA rules
would be violated.
Bowen said he was unable to contact
NCAA officials Monday because its office
was closed for Labor Dav.
'mm.
tistisi
liil!
Steady... steady.
Tim Moog/THE Battalion
Sophomore chemical engineering major Denise Bean of San Antonio performs a hand stand on the
beam in gymnastics class Monday. Bean won a gold medal at a national competition on the bars.
Tiffany’s heist nets $1.25 million
Two gunmen overpower guards, rob Manhattan landmark
NEW YORK (AP) — Two gun
men wearing black ski masks
forced their way into the Tiffany
& Co. store in midtown Manhat
tan while it was closed early
Today's BATT
Aggielife
3
Classified
6
Opinion
11
Sports
7
Toons
9
Weather
9
What's Up
10
Monday and made off with $1.25
million in jewelry, police said.
The robbers took one hour to
overpower guards, pick out jew
eled watches, bracelets and
rings, and take security video
tapes before disappearing into
the empty streets, said police
Capt. Sal Blando.
“They were very, very profes
sional,” Blando said at a news
conference.
Detectives were questioning
the guards and other employees
to determine if the robbery was
an inside job, Blando said. The
Tiffany & Co. store was closed
Monday and officials could not
be reached for comment.
The unarmed guards told po
lice that the heist began about
midnight as one of them arrived
at the store’s employee entrance
A&M’s student loan default
rate ranks fifth among SWC
By Constance Parten
The Battalion
Texas A&M had the fifth low
est student loan default rate in
the Southwest Conference in
1992 with a rate of 4.7 percent,
financial aid officials said.
Jack Falks, assistant director
of Student Financial Aid, said
many of the students in default
at A&M are not trying to avoid
paying their loans.
“Lots of the students in de
fault are already making month
ly payments and are simply not
aware they need to make pay
ments to other loan institutions
as well,” Falks said. “When we
contact them they start paying
immediately.”
Baylor University led the
SWC with a 4.1 percent default
rate, followed by Rice with 4.2
percent, the University of Texas
Student Loan Defaults
The following is a list of the percentage of loan
defaults for seven out of eight of the Southwest
Conference schools.
The state average for Texas isl 8.8 percent.
The national average is 15 percent.
£
Percentage of 41
default
10.6
with 4.3 percent and SMU with
4.4 percent.
Texas Tech and the Universi
ty of Houston had the highest
student default rates in the con
ference with 9.2 and 10.6 per
cent, respectively.
These figures are markedly
lower than the statewide de
fault rate of 18.8 percent and
the national average rate of 15
percent.
Please see Defaults, Page 6
Poll shows Texans unaffected
by religious right affiliation
DALLAS (AP) — A recent poll of Texans shows
that a candidate’s affiliation with either conserv
ative Christians or the religious right would have
no bearing on the votes cast by more than 50 per
cent of those surveyed.
“Clearly this is not a resonant issue with most
Texans,” said Candace Windel, director of the
Texas Poll, which surveyed 1,005 people last
month. “It’s not something they’re talking about
at breakfast.”
The Harte-Hanks Texas Poll indicates that a
politician’s affiliation with conservative Chris
tians would not affect the voting decision of 56
percent of those surveyed, while an affiliation
with the religious right would make no difference
to 51 percent.
The poll has a margin of error of 5 percentage
points. It sought to measure how Texans view
two phrases commonly used to describe religious
conservative activists. When asked what they
thought of the two labels, the most common an
swer from those surveyed was that they did not
know or had not heard of them. At least 25 per
cent of those polled answered that way.
The poll also shows that although the news
media sometimes uses the two phrases inter
changeably, to the public the religious right and
conservative Christians are not the same group.
And while some political leaders have com
plained that the media’s use of the phrase reli
gious right sounds derisive, the poll found that
the group is viewed as favorably as conservative
Christians.
Still, far more people consider themselves con
servative Christians. Two-thirds of those ques
tioned consider themselves conservative Chris
tians, while one-fourth say they are part of the
religious right.
Analysts said that’s probably because that la
bel sounds the most benign.
“It’s kind of like, ‘Are you a freedom-loving
Ameriqan?’ ” said Dr. Maxwell McCombs, profes
sor of mass communications at the University of
Texas. “Not too many say, ‘No, not me.’ ”
for his shift.
The gunmen ordered the
guard to tell two on-duty guards
that they were his cousins and
needed to use the bathroom.
Once inside, the robbers tied
up the three guards, plus a
fourth who arrived minutes lat
er, before snatching about 300
pieces of jewelry, police said.
Finally, the men forced the
guards to take them to a second-
floor security area to get the sur
veillance tapes. After the robbers
fled, one of the guards worked
himself free and called police.
Initially police said the stolen
items were worth at least
$250,000. But Sgt. Edward Caro,
a police spokesman, said later
that Tiffany officials had revised
their estimate upward to about
$1.25 million.
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Silver Taps will be
held in memory of ten
Texas A&M students
tonight at 10:30 p.m. in
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m I
front of the Academic
Building.
The campus will be
darkened at 10:20 p.m.
for Philip Gerard Bochat,
21, a junior biochemistry
major from Moulton;
Reginald Glenn Broadus,
21, a senior psychology
major from Dallas;
Steven Michael Claborn,
21, a senior wildlife and
fisheries major Randolph;
Chris B. Hart, 18, a
freshman business ad
ministration major from
Huntsville; Gea Renee
Jones, 19, a sophomore
agricultural science major
from Columbus; Chad
Robert Kovar, 19, a fresh
man agricultural develop
ment major from Snook;
Crystal Yvette Miller, 21,
a junior accounting major
Carrollton; Jalyn Forrest
Orr, 22, a senior business
administration major
from Dallas; Juan Carlos
Valdes, 21, a senior me
chanical engineering from
Eagle Pass; and Abraham
Luther Shipsey, 23, a ju
nior rangeland ecology
major from Austin.
The Ross Volunteers
honor guard will fire a
volley salute and buglers
will play a special
arrangement of “Taps.”