4
Tuesday, March 8, 1977
University Dally Kansan
Comment
v opinions on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism
When KU's basketball team won the Big Eight championship in 1973-74 and advanced to the NCAA semifinals, Coach Ted Owens did theiol. The fans loved him and paved him way.
Three seasons later, following an 18-10 season and a fourth-place finish in the conference, Owens is a fallen angel. Some fans are calling for his head.
Fortunately for Owens, the situation isn't yet as grave as it might appear at first glance. Despite three consecutive seasons that were anything but dazzling, many supporters are willing to give Owens another chance. Still others couldn't care less whether he produces a championship team. Unfortunately for Owens, the fans who want him ousted are the most visible and vociferous.
THESE FANS DON'T deny that Owens has been a winning coach during his 13 years at KU (241-113-68.4 winning percentage). And they acknowledge that Owens has led his teams to six wins and five champions, two titles and five Big Bight titles. Those statistics aren't the issue.
What bothers the fans is that Owens can gain a conference championship one year and somehow follow with a mediocre performance the next year. He's inconsistent, he doesn't win all the time; many fans obviously don't like that.
Those fans typify what athletics has become, whether professional, collegiate, high school or even peewee. The adage, "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game," has been abbreviated to, "It's whether you win."
IN A SENSE that's understandable; that's human nature. Winning all the time is certainly more fun than losing all the time or winning none. The more time, the thirst for victory becomes even
more intense. Success is the supreme spoiler.
Too bad that athletics today is governed by something beyond mere human nature. Athletics is a business—a big business—influenced and controlled by money. More precisely, it is controlled by those who contribute the cash to maintain athletic facilities. They are also pointed, they don't shrug their shoulders and say, "Tomorrow is another day." Their money can demand that tomorrow be a better day.
CONSEQUENTLY, athletic coaches have something more to worry about than how well their players play the game. They have a lot of the financiers happy. Happiness is winning.
At the moment, Owens probably isn't in much danger of losing his job—at least before his contract expires in two years. The movement to have him fired—it if can be called a movement at all—appears to be small and isolated. More importantly, it appears to be primarily a student movement. Students aren't the ones with financial clout in the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation.
He need not worry about his job until the anti-Owens sentiment runs deeply through alumni organizations, community athletic clubs and the KUAC. When those groups start grumbling, Owens will get his walking papers.
THAT MOMENT COULD be fast approaching if KU basketball realizes another season like the one just completed: a winning but dull record, a mediocre finish in a mediocre conference, a poor showing powerful teams outside the conference.
If that moment comes, it won't be because Owens hasn't been a competent coach, but rather because he wasn't perfect.
Students from middle-income families are the ones who will benefit most, and refuses to relegate the National Direct Student Loan (NDLB) program and if Congress goes along with the proposed budget
That doesn't sound like an action Americans would expect from the man who promised, "I'm going to give you for the middle-income taxaver."
NDSL needed by middle class
Luckly, Carter has evidently decided to support two other financial aid programs that were feared lost, the College Supplemental and Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) program. Carter met with several college leaders Feb. 19, who must have convinced him that the programs were badly needed.
THE PROGRAM which enables college students to borrow money for college and pay it back after they graduate, and the BEOG program which students who don't qualify for the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) program. The BEOG grants go to a tribe who come from low-income families, as do SEOG programs.
The NDSL program didn't fare as well.
The more money a student gets from the BEOG and SEOG programs, the primary consideration being the financial status of a student's family, the degree they worry about the NDSI.
However, the student whose family's income is too high for him to qualify for a BEOG or SEOG grant, but not high enough to pay for his college and not big of the Hack The NDSI program. Also, the work study program and other help from individual colleges and universities, gives students from so-called middle-
MOST FINANCIAL aid received at the University of Kansas comes from the federal government and is ad-
class families at least a chance to go to college.
HEW processes the application, then returns it to the school, which probably uses it
any other school in the country,
the first thing he does is complete
the BEOG application.
Brent Anderson
Editorial Writer
when considering other sources of student financial aid, including the NDSL program.
ministered by the U.S.
Department of Health,
Medicine and Human Services.
When student applies for
financial aid at KU, or almost
This oversimplified description of the college
financial aid process underscores the fact that the federal government actually runs the student financial aid show. Since we're stuck with this situation, we must admit a dependency on the federal government for student financial aid.
FOR THE SKEA of students from middle-income families, we must hope the President and our Board support the NDSL program.
As a student who has been bailed out by the NDSL program, I am keenly aware of the implications of stopping federal support to the program. Although I may have been able
to go to college without a loan, it may not have been possible for someone else.
Congress has reacted strongly to Carter's lack of support for the NDSL program, and might reinstate money for it regardless of Carter's position. But if the President were to support it, it would almost certainly be continued.
COMPASSION WAS what Carter said was missing from the White House when he ran for President. If he supported the NDSL program, it would be easier to believe him.
Millions of Americans think that would be the compassionate thing to do.
Carter finds going tough
WASHINGTON—We are witnessing in Washington these days the greening of Jimmy Carter. It is a fascinating process—unneven, uncertain, even painful—and the President is finding the going tough. But there are hopeful signs that the administration and the gentleman is accepting the drawbacks of growing up.
hollers from the gallery; it prompts a recollection of Nebuchadnezar's idol, whose feet were part of iron and part of clay. But the descent has to be managed.
Most of the President's difficulties are of his own making, and this makes their resolution all the harder. From the very beginning of his quest in December of 1974, Carter sought to project an image of him to men. He would be the candidate of high moral purpose. Other politicians might make false promises, but "i will never lie to you."
ONCE A MAN has set him self on such a pedestal, it is no easy task to clamber behind you. awkward, ungrateful; it invites hoots and
Thus Carter has had to acknowledge, for one thing, that government cannot be nearly so weak as the Senate. Certain secrets must be kept;
warning has taken a while to sink in.
Foreign policy, Kissinger said cannot be conducted successfully on the basis of principle alone. Principle has to be refined with pragmatism. It is not that the culture of the things that America is all about; but idealism must be tailored to political reality. The
remember that some of the heathers are beyond our reach. We have our principles; individual freedom of conscience and expression is such a principle; but we court disaster when we pursue principles over a cliff of common sense. In firing off statements of high importance, Andrew Jackson is supposed to speak in another context, let us elevate our sights a little lower.
James J. Kilpatrick
(c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
IN ANOTHER area, Carter is painfully discovering the ancient conflict between what he called "moral vision and practical purpose." In a brilliant essay in Time magazine last December, he wrote that the incoming President will die the dilemma awaiting him, but the
certain confidence must
protected; foreign policy cannot
be conducted, as he implied last
year; the stage of
Kennedy Center.
trouble with proclaiming high moral purpose, Kissinger said, is that these expressions "appear absolute and universal." But ours is a world "where moral affirmation can be carried out only through stages, each of which is by denial of the truth." LET ME PUT it less delicately. A fair working rule for presidents is to be moral toward the weak, and amoral toward the strong. As we set out to convert the heathen, let us
Carter has gotten himself in trouble through what has appeared to be an excess of evangelical zeal, but the trouble is probably not serious and his zeal can even be admired. If one of Carter's brothers, Ford's snub of Solzhenysen and Jimmy Carter's public letter of sympathy for Sakharov, the better choice would seem evident. If the President will be a little less pure and not quite so mortal and if he will guard specimens against misdeceptions, we may yet avoid misadventure. It would be nice to depend upon that.
Reader disputes Hiss coverage; Owens discussed
Hiss stories biased To the editor:
Last week the Kansan printed two blatantly biased, front-page articles about Alger Hiss. The image shows that since there are no dislapping viewpoints on the matter, no attempt at objectivity need be made. All the objectivity needs to be Hiss' told him or her.
"Despite 44 months in prison, a broken marriage, failing health and having his name smeared on job markets, Hiss agreed to tryying for 25 years to remove the decision. . . His voice quivered, yet was confident. Dark, dull, deep-set eyes revealed a frustrated past." Iwakawa, from the kansai, March 11.
"Hiss said hundreds of thousands of people and their families were injured by McCain, who should know in 1950, he was accused of giving State Department documents to a Communist spy and was sentenced to prison." (Kansas. March 2.)
jury—no treason—the article seems to imply? So what if there may be a reason, why, in 25 years, Hiss never has managed to prove his innocence?
But now, after two straight days of assuming that their readership is blindly pro-Hiss, the Kansan prints an editorial which seems to say that we're all blindly anti-Hiss:
Admittedly the Hiss case is a confusing one. So what if McCann does with Hiss to do with the Hiss case? So what if Hiss was sentenced for per-
"Relax, dear friends. Alger Hiss has left town, so you can once again get your kids out in the closet secure in the knowledge that no taint of Communism has pervaded their unpolished minds." Subtle from Paul Addison on March 3.
Addison goes on to tell us that: McCarthyism is the same thing as anti-Communism; anti-Communism is evil and leads to Russia; hating Russians; hating Russians to lynching blacks.
"Right-wing groups"—yes. The core of the problem is prejudice against the political philosophy of conservatism. Most conservatives have to do no more than comment that the two largest Communist governments in the world allow dissident journalists their citizens, and Addison will accused of being McC
Carbity, wanting to throw gentle, deep-eyed men in jail for the fun of it, and of being racist to boot.
Perhaa Addison should cool his heroic campaign against the oppressive largely fictional McCarthytes he sees all around him. Perhaa he should begin seeking out close-mindedness — us — else-
Valerie Meyers Overland Park senior
Human experimentation is often the final step in research. It may be necessary, often fatal to subjects. In many cases, effects on internal organs are to be studied and the organs in question are removed for experimentation.
Ignorant ridicule To the editor:
I doubt that Sniffen condones such studies as the Tuskegee study on syphilis. Infested men weren't treated for the disease, and they were left to terminal stages so that different manifestations might be
head'' when the head in question is buried in the sand.
I've seen short-sighted editors before, but Bill Sniffen's recent editorial, "over his head," takes the cake.
Nancee Drozda Kansas City, Kan. special student
Sniffen violated the basic tenet of editorial writing: Research your subject before you write. He admits he knows little about research he criticizes and the article supports his statement.
Because there are long, scientific terms he doesn't understand and because the research is conducted on other than human subjects, he concludes the research is worthless and deserving of ridicule. A lack of questioning or even a trip to the science library in Malott Hall might have enlightened him.
It's only math
To the editor:
is fortunate that the pig duplicates human behavior and biochemistry so closely. It is important that the pig biochemical processes that are found to occur in most living creatures, including cockroaches, have certain qualities that those found in man.
Regarding your article,
"Taxes Sing Sings," a couple,
married or not, corresponds
to the same marriage that a
married couple should have a
Another point that must be considered in the selection of materials for furniture is cost and ease of procuring them, and of course, their unkeep. We
Readers Respond
observed. From his article, it seems that Snifen might suggest that such studies are legitimate because even he with his own myopia (check Webster's) can see the point.
The entire article was a travesty of what editorial writing was, appropriate research was required. It was an uninformed cheap shot that belied his lack of information and raised the question of who on the copy desk let such an article pass. The writer had to be careful, however. But it's not difficult for research to be "over his
It's a matter of elementary math-number concepts, that is.
Others have supported Owens on the basis of five Big Eight championships and an over-all percentage of 68 per cent.
$4,800 standard deduction. Now who's getting gypped?
Marie Willy Olathe
In the article of Wednesday, March 2, about the Mariner-Jupiter-Saturn program and the participation of the department of physics and astronomy, the important role played by graduate assistants in this program was omitted. Rob Decker, Pat Briggs and Alberto Amanu are presently involved in this program and their continued participation will be necessary to fulfill our responsibilities in this research effort.
I regret that appropriate recognition of the involvement of all the University of Kansas department did not appear in the article.
Thomas Armstrong professor of physics and astronomy
Research defended To the editor:
We would like to make a comment on Bill Sniffen's editorial titled "Rebase over the March 1 issue of the Kangan."
Bill, even though you feel that most of the research conducted here at the University of Kansas is above your present level of understanding, we feel certain that the selection process of your students is the best. Be it just that no one has bothered to explain the process to you that causes the confusion you are presently suffering.
Although it would be quite desirable (from a pure research point of view) to use human subjects to study human behaviors, this is not fronned upon. So, reasonable substitutions must be made. It
think that you will agree that cockroaches are inexpensive and easy to feed.
You asked whether research using cockroaches as experimental subjects would one day rid your kitchen of these pests, or certainly will exist. If the cockroach's developmental cycle could be totally understood, steps could be taken to disrupt it. For example, if we found that cockroaches from ever sexually matured would be impossible for them to produce little cockroaches.
To quote an old saw, one should not judge a book by its cover. It is also foolish to attempt to read a story that is written in a language that you don't understand. If you find that you cannot understand the机械 jargon used in the title of your projects you could either ask them to do explain it to you or you could try looking it up in a dictionary!
We're sure that the titles found on graduate level theses in the field of journalism would probably sound useless and a bit silly to those outside the field. Those same titles would appear more useful and totally understandable to a student of journalism.
Daniel Kunet挛利
Leawood senior
Dean Anderson
Lawrence graduate student
Fans share blame To the editor:
It is ironic that this year the KU basketball program proudly claimed Kansas to be "The Basketball School," for at season's end and a controversy has erupted over how well Ted篮球队 have lived up to that glorious tradition.
Those dissatisfied with Owens have claimed that KU has become a second division team in a second rate conference.
However, nobody has bothered to compare Owens' record with the records of his predecessor. How do we know what he slipped if we don't know what it once was? When Owens took over the helm at KU, the Jayhawks had an over-all win loss record of 899-421, which is the same 68 per cent difference that represents a decline, but critics will still point to our record against top competition. Owens does have a 0-3-15 mark against Indiana, Kentucky and Notre Dame, but he wasn't representative of the KU tradition) a combined mark of 0-6 against these same three schools. Fortunately, Allen wasn't fired on the basis of his word against these schools and it wasn't fired on the basis, either.
.
Dignity and sportsmanship are worthless, for KU must win, win big, and win at any cost. Nothing less will satisfy our grumbling fans. Although there are many good KU basketball fans, it is the grumbling fans who most deserve the experience of KU basketball. If we "gong" anyone, it should be those fans.
I, too, am unhappy with events surrounding the KU basketball program over the KU basketball program. However, my dissatisfaction is with the audience. I have watched attendance sag while so-called KU fans complain that they are at least some of them) fatigue easily if the team finishes in the second division. KU's only finish under Owens occurred in but these people are still tired.
Craig Jones
Cinnaminson, N.J.
graduate student
But the biggest problem of all with KU fans is their behavior at games. Visiting teams and officials are subjected to uncalled for verbal abuse. This can lead to restlessness, grew restless, even the KU players were subject to verbal abuse from the home crowd.
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The clamor being raised to oust Zibail from the University is not favorable publicity for the ISA, as such a spectacle is essentially ugly, without regard to the validity of the grievances. The clamoring on behalf of appeal to the mob to remove him from the campus.
During my junior year I worked closely with Kambiz Zibaili in our physics laboratory and taught a course of acquaintance with him. Zibaili is quite literally a scholar and a gentleman. Needless to say, I am distressed to hear that the Iranian Students Association called me against him. The contensions made, on posters and in Friday's Kanans, that Zibaili is engaged in bullying and espionage against his counterpart with his gentle character.
Perhaps the ISA wouldn't find such tactics necessary if Americans were more aware of the suffering dealt out by the despotic government and the mass coverage given to excesses of the Shah's regime, one would think it was a case of Communist tyranny.
Campaign misled To the editor:
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Published at the University of Kansas daily August 24, 1983. Subscriptions are $1.50 June and July except Saturday and Holiday. Subscription is $1.25 for each month. Subscriptions by mail are a member or $1.75 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $1.50.
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Campus Editor
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