COLBERT KNOWS BEST Steven Colbert of"The Colbert Report"picks Kansas as the 2007 NCAA tournament champions.
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ANSAS
FRIDAY, MARCH 16,2007 WWW.KANSAN.COM VOL.117 ISSUE 118
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
PAGE 1A
St. Patrick's Day
Enjoy St. Patrick's Day by attending the parade on Massachusetts Street on Saturday.
--weather
Tasha Riggins gives you some reasons for why you shouldn't cheat on your sweetie during spring break.
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football
Plan on attending Kansas' first open practice today? Expect some major offensive changes. 1B
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
index
Ben Parrot, Overland Park senior, floats in zero-gravity with a toy Jayhawk. Parrot, along with the KU Microgravity team, spent two weeks at NASAKoon Johnson Space Center in Houston last summer performing an experiment in a microgravity simulation.
Classifieds. 4B
Crossword. 7B
Horoscopes. 7B
Opinion. 5A
Sports. 1B
Sudoku. 7B
Amanda Sellers/KANSAN
All contents, unless stated otherwise
© 2007 The University Daily Kansan
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Jayhawks get pressured by press
BY MICHAEL PHILLIPS
CHICAGO — In one corner of the Jayhawks' locker room, Darnell Jackson flexed his muscles while Rodrick Stewart snapped a picture with his digital camera. Other players gathered around a television to watch Texas A&M defeat Penn. Then the media swarm invaded.
For the next 30 minutes on Thursday they faced a full-court press from the press. The topic was predictable: it's been three years since the Jayhawks advanced to the second round of the tournament.
"It might get tiring, but it's a real-ty" junior center Sasha Kaun said.
"Everybody's going to talk about it."
Tonight at 6:10 p.m. the game will tip- off, and the lahayws will have the opportunity to start a fresh chapter of the school's basketball history.
Of course, there was the small matter of making it through Thursday first. Writers from around the country are in town to write about the Jayhawks, and they're all ready with the same questions about the past. After about 20 minutes, sophomore guard Brandon Rush couldn't come up with any new cliches.
"We just have to focus on Niagara," he said, then paused. "And so on and so on."
Coach Bill Self cautioned that
the Purple Eagles were a lot better than people were giving them credit. Several members of the team were suspended early in the season, but since they returned, the team has gone 21-4.
"Niagara is not a 16 seed." Self said. "You play whoever you play, but that is not a 16-seed team."
After visiting with the press, Selt led his team through a 30-minute workout on the United Center floor. It was open to the public, but there wasn't a very large contingent of Jayhawks fans on hand to watch. That's expected to change tomorrow
Sherron Collins smiles during a passing drill at the United Center Thursday afternoon. The Jayhawks take on the Niagara Eagles at 6:10 p.m.
PROFILE
SEE BASKETBALL ON PAGE 4A
Focusing on the present
Senior relishes cancer-free life
BY BRIAN LEWIS-JONES
Only once in Ben Parrott's life did his family dog bite him. Butch, the multi-colored mutt with a notable underbite, put Parrott in the hospital for stitches to his lip six years ago. After routine blood work raised concerns, doctors sent him to Children's Mercy Hospital to test his bone marrow.
Doctors told Parrott, then a 15-year-old student at Shawnee Mission North High School, he had a rapidly spreading cancer of the white blood cells called acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL.
When Parrott asked what his odds were, doctors gave him a 60 percent chance to live.
Since his diagnosis, Parrott had three and a half years of chemotherapy, a month of cranial radiation, pills, shots, spinal taps, ceaseless nausea and a fungal infection that spread to his lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen and behind his right eye. Doctors thought the infection would kill him. The infection, the treatments, and the cancer itself slowed him down, he said, but it didn't stop him.
Parrott, Overland Park senior; now studies aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas. He is systems engineer in a team of aerospace students developing a soft landing prototype vehicle for Mars.
"I came back and picked up where I left off like it never happened," he said.
The student-designed Mars lander Parrott is helping design and build
will have its first test landing at a local airfield on April 28. Some professors thought the project was too difficult for the students.
"The whole team has high spirits," he said. "We all think we can do it."
The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Web site says there are almost 4,000 new cases of ALL every year in the United States; it is the most common type of leukemia for people younger than 19 years old.
Months before Parrott's leukemia was diagnosed, he displayed warning signs. One afternoon, Parrott was too
tired to walk home from work. Dizzy, his head swam. He sat down and passed out on the neighbor's grass.
He was pulled out of school after his diagnosis that October, a month before he turned 16. Fifteen pills and a shot in the thigh were everyday business for Parrott. His spinal taps came weekly.
"School wasn't a priority." Parrott said. "It was survival."
"Put him in a room with strangers and they'll gravitate toward him," she said.
Parrott's Mom, Debra James, a Sheldon, Mo., resident, said Parrott's leukemia gave him a stick-to-it attitude and a strong personality.
Parrott lost 40 pounds that first December during radiation. All the while, his mom kept a vomit bucket in the car. Parrott said it was "easily the worst Christmas ever."
She spent 45 minutes getting Parrott to his treatment every day and most of her time by his bedside. Parrott called her his daily support system.
SEE PARROTT ON PAGE 4A
Men's Room seeks new location
》 SMOKIN' IN THE BOYS ROOM
The Men's Room, a smoking lounge on 23rd Street, closed in January. Its owners, two RU students, hope to open a new location in Overland Park
BY MATTERICKSON
Marla Keown/KANSAN
The former site of the Men's Room, the student-owned, student-run and student-aimed smoking lounge at 1606 23rd St., lies dormant with a "Now Leasing" sign in the window — but the business is far from dead, its owners say.
Co-owners Joe Scaglia and Patrick Stacy, Overland Park freshmen, said the business was turning a profit by its second month of operation, much to the surprise of many. Then the Men's Room closed mid-January, before students arrived for the spring semester.
between the owners and the tenant of the building, said Phil Scaglia. Joe Scaglia's father, who helped draw up the operating agreement with the tenant.
The business did not close because of a lack of revenue, but because of "misunderstandings"
Joe Scaglia said many people who had spoken to him since the closing had assumed that he and Stacy had gone out of business.
"That wasn't the case at all," Scaglia said. "We were really rolling."
Phil Scaglia, who has owned and operated several restaurants in the past, also said the business was off to a great start. Now he is helping the owners search for a new location. He said they may choose to open
SEE CLOSING ON PAGE 4A
TRAVEL
Apply for passport now for summer
BY JOE HUNT
The law went into effect Ian 8 to fulfill requirements set by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. By 2008, passports will be required for land border crossings as well.
A new law requiring passports for all air and sea travel to Canada, Mexico and South America has increased passport demand and wait times. It takes 10 weeks to get a passport; a year ago it took four weeks.
Lisa Beers, a general clerk at the Lawrence Post Office, said that the extra wait time was a problem for people who waived too long to get their passports. Students who plan on traveling to other countries during the summer should get to the post office.
"Summer is right around the corner." Beers said. "If you are going to apply for a passport, you have to do it now."
"I should have done it earlier," Dragan said. "But my mom said not to worry about it."
"Summer is right around the corner. If you are going to apply for a passport, you have to do it now."
Students in a rush can pay $185, nearlydouble the regular fee of $97, to receive their passport in six weeks instead of 10.
The line at the post office to get a passport has gotten longer as well. Beers said that wait times last week were up to an hour and a half, whereas previously they were only about 30 minutes. Dragan had to wait in line twice.
in line Thursday to get a passport for her summer trip to Italy and Germany with the art department. she said she was going to have to pay the extra money for the faster processing.
"I had to come back because they don't let you pay with a credit card," Dragan said. "It's kinda annoying to have to keep waiting in line."
Katrina Hibbs waited in four different lines before she got her passport.
"I went to the courthouse, Kinko's, and finally came here," Hibbs said. "Then they went to lunch and I had to come back an hour later."
LISA BEERS Post Office clark
Danielle Dragan, St.
Louis sophomore, waited
People can pick up passports from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Lawrence Post Office.
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Kansan staff writer Joe Hunt can be contacted at jhunt@ kansan.com.
— Edited by Kelly Lanigan
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