THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Businesses prep for graduation
Venues all around Lawrence are booked for graduation parties. LAWRENCE | 7A
The heat over climate change Nobel prize co-winner helps sort fact from fiction. ENVIRONMENT | 7A
TUESDAY,MAY4,2010
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 121 ISSUE 149
"That's what college is about. It's where you work your hardest to see what you're gonna become. This is what makes you." Xavier Henry, freshman basketball guard from Oklahoma City
Scrutinized, idolized and monetized: Student athletes navigate two worlds
BY BRIANNE PFANNENSTIEL
bofannenstein@kansan.com
School is important to Marcus Morris. He says he wants to stay at the University for four years and graduate with his peers — an idea that's become somewhat of an anomaly for elite athletes. School is important to his mom, too, who has moved to Lawrence to help keep him and his teammate and twin brother, Markieff.
focused on academics.
But it's basketball that pays the bills. Basketball is the reason he has a full-ride scholarship and free housing, and basketball is the reason people know his name before he introduces himself. Basketball is the reason his college experience will never mirror those of the 6,000 students he would graduate with.
Morris and about 520 other student athletes are unique on campus. Different. Not simply because they are talented athletically, but
because of the way that talent is regarded and valued. They are the only group on campus with an entire corporation that organizes, supports and funds all of their activities including academics.
In the midst of midterms and group presentations, student athletes are expected to attend practices, go to team meetings and participate in workouts. They are jetted around the country, compete at a level that is demanding both physically and mentally, sit through interviews with ESPN, sign autographs and, when it's all over, they return home and go to class the next day to try to regain control of their lives as students.
"You really don't do your work going there." Morris said of away games, "you just let it pile
up, and then when it's over you gotta come back to doing all this makeup work and try to get back on the teacher's good side because you missed so many days of class."
For about two minutes every day, the chaos is enough to make Morris wish he didn't play basketball. For two minutes every day, he says, he wishes he were more like the other 30,000 students at the University.
Athletes face a constant struggle to balance intense pressure to win on the court and succeed in the classroom. Often that pressure results in a difficult choice between sports and academics.
SEE ATHLETES ON PAGE 4A
NATIONAL
An undocumented student's DREAM
BY ALISON CUMBOW alisonc@kansan.com
alisonc@kansan.com
Erin Fleming's last semester of college has been consumed with advocating for immigrant rights, which has required her to put her classes and personal life on the back burner.
She's been on KU alternative break trips to Arizona to support undocumented people crossing the Mexican-American border, and to Chicago to support those who are already in the country. Fleming, a senior from Miami, Fla., has taken road trips to Chicago, North Carolina, Arkansas and Washington, D.C., to rally and march with those who support the same cause — the DREAM Act,
short for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. The bipartisan act would aim to give undocumented college students temporary legal residence in the U.S. It must receive enough support from senators and representatives around the country to be brought to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and voted on by June 15.
"It would allow undocumented students brought to the U.S. before age 16 to go to college," Fleming said. "And it opens up a pathway to legalization, as well."
Students cannot receive grants under the DREAM Act, and the act would only cover states in which it
Erin Fleming, a senior from Miami, Fla., and other University students show their support for the DREA Act, which, if passed, will allow undocumented students to continue their education.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
SEE DREAM ON PAGE 3A
CAMPUS
BY ZACH GETZ
yzztk@kansan.com
zgetz@kansan.com
Bail has been set at $15,000 for Samuel Lennell Moore, the suspect in Friday's investigation at McCollium Hall. Police responded to a call from McCollium Hall on Friday after a student reported hearing a couple arguing and the man velling "Where's my gun?"
The amount is based on Moore's failure to check in with his probation officer for five months, Judge
Sally D. Pokorny said, Pokorny also said Moore's bond is to be signed off by a parent and Moore is not to come near the University of Kansas campus.
Moore's next hearing will be at 9 a.m. on May 14.
Moore's defense attorney, John Johnson, said neither Moore, nor anyone else, had a gun.
"When someone says gun, everyone goes crazy," Johnson said.
— Edited by Kristen Liszewskii
index
See KUJH's coverage of the investigation at kansan.com/videos
Classifieds...6A
Crossword...8A
Horoscopes...8A
Opinion... 9A
Sports... 1B
Sudoku... 8A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2010 The University Daily Kansan
Volunteers offer support comfort to hospice patients
The Heart of America Hospice seeks to improve the overall quality of life for its terminally ill patients. COMMUNITY] 10A
weather
TODAY
84 55
Sunny
WEDNESDAY
78 51
Sunny
THURSDAY
75 53
Partly cloudy
weather.com