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RESEARCH
Stanford students gathered in White Plaza on Wednesday in order to promote the Occupy Wall Street protests on campus. The Occupy Wall Street movement has maintained a strong presence throughout the Bay Area.
HEALTH
NEWS BRIEF
Negotiations between Zurich Healthcare and SRC lasted six months. Zurich customers can now use SRCs various services, including consulting and enterprise risk management, offered at a discounted rate.
Recycle Me
Historically, Stanford is a force to be reckoned with in the competition. Since the contests beginning in 2007, Stanford has won three of the past four years, just barely coming in second last year to Arizona State University. The contest has evolved over the years. It initially was judged based off the size of the school, ensuring that the large schools did not have an unfair advantage over the smaller ones like Stanford. However, in 2009, the challenge became non-weighted after Stanford easily swept the competition the first two years. The reason it was changed is because Stanford was winning it every year, Stein said. This year, the front-runners had significantly larger student populations than Stanford. UCLA boasts a population of 37,000 students compared to Stanfords combined total of approximately 15,000 graduate students and undergraduates. Another factor that hindered Stanfords success this year was decreased participation from faculty as a result of the new format. We did hear from some staff that just dont use Facebook . . . and were unable to participate this year, Stein said. Another big change this year was the addition of the two new PAC-12 schools, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Utah, to the challenge. They finished sixth and ninth, respectively, in point totals. The PAC-12 athletic directors will be meeting this week at their regional conference. They will discuss the success of the challenge this year and the effects of the new Facebook format on participation. Ideally, wed like to have a dual system next year where you can use our webpage as well as a Facebook page, Stein said. Contact Sarah Taylor at staylor4@stanford.edu. Stutsman said he believes technology is entering a new era in which large data center storage systems will require the speed and efficiency that RAMCloud aims to provide. Stutsman said the next stage in the process will involve polishing additional features that would make this goal all the more attainable. We think this project can slingshot applications into the next level of data intensity, Stutsman said. We think that there will a lot of interesting applications that can get at their data and access data and basically provide more features and a more interesting experience to users in general. Contact Ileana Najarro at inajarro @stanford.edu.
RAMCLOUD
Continued from front page
ganization. Stutsman indicated that while the program is far from being finished, a basic form exists. The RAMCloud software has basically been able to service basic operations and has been usable in a testing way for about a year and a half now, Stutsman said. As far as storing real data in it and supporting a legitimate web application, we just put in place one of the most important pieces to head in that direction . . . weve developed a crash recovery system. The crash recovery system allows notes that have crashed to
quickly reconstitute the memory that was part of that crash host, according to Stutsman. He indicated that in establishing this system, the team has overcome one of its most significant obstacles. According to Stutsman, the major challenge in using RAM for the storage system is the volatile nature of RAM itself. Whenever a machine crashes or power is lost, software based on RAM loses all the data stored in it. With the recently completed crash recovery system, however, the project resolved this challenge. The RAMClouds magnetic disk foundation surpasses the cost issue associated with RAM technology. While traditional data center storage systems solely use magnetic disks, the RAMCloud software can
offer the durability and cheap price of disks with greater performance levels and lower latencies of RAM. This combination makes the RAMCloud even more accessible to users for large networks. David Erickson, a graduate student in computer science involved in the initial exploration of the project, said that the RamClouds success would play an impacting role in modern technology. If RAMCloud excels and can meet its goal, then dispatch steps could potentially be much quicker for just about everything in the Internet, Erikson said. The overall goal for the project is to allow for the creation of new applications, without the creation process being hindered by slow network speeds or limited space.
SWEDEN
nich,the founder of the Sweden Mobile Association, moderated. The evenings agenda consisted of pitching sessions, titled 60-second pitches from Innovative Swedish startups for VCs. Max Shapiro, CEO of PeopleConnect, served as moderator. A total of 25 Swedish startups in the fields of mobile technology, internet technology, social media,gaming and clean technology delivered one-minute pitches on their respective objectives and were given two minutes to answer questions. Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder of Meebo, and Nicolai Wadstrom, CEO and founder of BoostrapLabs, both discussed strategies for European startups to succeed in Silicon Valley.
Marianne LeVine
PASTOR
working as interns in San Francisco City Hall. We are going to be working in a different climate for local government, Querubin said. Professor Pastor painted a really accurate picture of what municipalities will look like in the next 20 or 30 years. Keith Knapp 11 also said he enjoyed the presentation, remarking that the difference in age is a kind of diversity people dont usually talk about. Also in the audience was John Mollenkopf, founding director of the Urban Studies program. Mollenkopf said he was pleased to see how the program has thrived since its founding in 1972. The talk was hosted by the Urban Studies Department and was sponsored by the American Studies Department, the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality and the Department of Sociology. Contact Mary Harrison at mharrison15@stanford.edu.
FEATURES
leepy students filled a lecture hall on the first morning of a Global Human Geography lecture, a popular class taught by history lecturer Martin Lewis.At the end of his class, Lewis stopped to play the infamous Miss South Carolina answers a question YouTube video from the 2007 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant. Suddenly, ears were at attention as students watched a contestant struggle to explain why she thought a fifth of Americans couldnt locate the United States on a world map. People out there in our nation dont have maps, she responded. A roar of laughter burst from the classroom. Lewis had a different take. Unfortunately, he said, the videos suggestion that American society is largely unaware of international issues is far from funny. But the Stanford Human Rights Education (SHRE) Initiative hopes to fill this gap with a fresh and surprising approach to human rights education. Teaming up with community colleges, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), which has partnered with the Program on Human Rights, the School of Education and the Division of International Comparative and Area Studies (ICA), aims to create a human rights curriculum and build a network of support among educators. Its an outreach effort through Stanford University by a coalition of departments, said Robert Wessling, associate director for the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, which is also partnering with SPICE. Were finding out that there are so many different ways to include human rights into a classroom and into so many different kinds of disciplinary studies. So, theres not really a one size-fits-all, like a master curriculum of human rights. Support for the initiative expanded when 40 community colleges attended a conference called Teaching Human Rights in a Global Context last summer. From there, a team of eight fellows from Bay Area community colleges were selected to develop the curriculum, website and another conference for the SHRE Initiative. Were not telling students how to feel about what is going on in the world, said Timothy Maxwell, an English professor at the College of San Mateo and SHRE Fellow. We understand that in order for students to authentically understand human rights and their international violations, they have to feel on some level what it means for someones human rights to be violated. Theyre becoming agents of change and not just consumers of our message. According to Maxwell, the use of technology has resulted in less awareness among students about international issues. Global awareness is far down the list of priorities when youve got to check Facebook and Twitter, 10 text messages coming in, videos to play and music to download,
Courtesy of MCT
Maxwell said. I think its always been a problem to get young people to be aware of things that are so far away from their experiences, but increasingly, the real estate in young people minds is being gobbled up by things that may not matter as much. The four-year SHRE Initiative curriculum will provide community college educators with resources to integrate human rights into their teaching. In the U.S. today, only about 8 percent of people even know that theres a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said Jonas Edman, a curriculum writer for SPICE. [The curriculum] is a framework for viewing other countries and the United States. Its a critical examination where students have to reflect on what they believe whats right, whats wrong and the gray areas in between. It can provide a lens that is very useful for understanding the world. Maxwell praised Stanfords decision to focus on community colleges, noting that it allows the SHRE Initiative to reach a more diverse population of students than if it were only at Stanford. Community colleges serve a very large cross section of our society, Maxwell said. A great number of students go through community colleges, and I think its also a neglected part of our education system. Helen Stacy, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) also played a large role in developing the goals of the project. She argued that it is important for Stanford to play a larger role in the Bay Area educational community. We want Stanford to be a resource in our own community, Stacy said. We want colleges in the Bay Area to benefit from the presence of Stanford. We have so much expertise and convening power, and we need to share it. As with many others involved in the SHRE Initiative, Stacy believes that all students have the capacity to affect global change. Human rights work is endlessly fascinating, and to work with students is intensely rewarding because its the students who are curious, receptive and have the energy to take an idea and then stand together with other students to make change, Stacy said. Through a human rights perspective, Stacy wants students to become more aware and alive as global citizens and encourages students to work for social progress and human rights reform. My goal is for every student to learn about human rights so that they become emissaries of human rights in their everyday life, Stacy said. Human dignity and empathy for others is something that we all have responsibility for, and we each have different means at our disposal for meeting that responsibility. I want to see human rights as the platform for which we see the world. Contact Leslie Nguyen-Okwu at lvnokwu1@ stanford.edu.
A bike-a-thons benefits
By LINDA YU
Bart Thompson:
PROFILE
his line from Switchfoots song, Gone, is one that resonates with Bart Thompson 12. After witnessing life beyond Lexus cages during a service trip to Guatemala in 2007, Thompson combined his passion for service with his athletic talent by spearheading two 335-mile bicycling campaigns through Michigan. His efforts have raised nearly $40,000, funds that have gone toward providing food for children in Guatemala and building schools in Haiti. The summer before his senior year of high school, Thompson travelled to Guatemala as part of a school service trip, where he served as a teaching assistant for a class of second graders and helped improve the school facilities. The particular school he worked at was located in close proximity to a garbage dump,
and Thompson was struck by the way this dictated the daily lifestyle. One of the walls of the school was also part of the wall of a garbage dump,Thompson said. People literally live, grow, work and die in the dump. He was also appalled by the degree of poverty he witnessed. They took us to this womans house,which was literally a tin shack that housed her, her daughter,her mother and her husband,he said. The temperature gets up in the hundreds, the mother is old and sick and the woman herself has cancer,but they still said that they were not poor enough to qualify for a house. If thats not poor enough, then what is? he added. Thompson left Guatemala inspired to pursue further service.
I go back to the whole idea that how much is given correlates with how much is expected, he said. You need to take the gifts you were given, and ask yourself, What can I do with them? For Thompson, it was taking advantage of his athletic ability. He was originally a recruited rower, but was injured freshman year. He ended up spending a lot of time training on the spin bike and began cycling at the end of that year. Around that time, he also learned about a Ride Against AIDS fundraiser organized by FACE AIDS and decided that he wanted to do something similar. Thompson approached International Samaritan (IS), a Michigan-based nonprofit he had previously worked with, and pitched his project. IS gave me free rein to set it up, he said. They gave me the license to create it the way I wanted to. With the project underway, Thompson then contacted a few of his friends from high school some of whom had travelled to Guatemala with him to see if they were interested in organizing the biking and financial aspects of the ride. The group, teamed up with IS, wrote letters asking for donations, publicizing the bike-a-thon and finalizing the 335-mile route from Ann Arbor to Harbor Springs. Since IS was working on building 18 schools in Haiti at the time, Thompson decided to direct the funds the race raised toward supporting that cause.
We did fundraising on our own, a donor matched the amount we collected and we ended up raising $20,000, he said. This was enough to build four schools. Thompson followed last years successes with another bicycle campaign this year. It wasnt likely we were going to find another matching donor, so we wanted to work toward smaller goals that would add up, he said. The IS told us they were starting a new hunger and nutrition program in Guatemala, so this years bike-a-thon was publicized as Biking for Bowls. According to IS, $100 is enough to provide a years worth of school lunch for a child. So far, Thompson has collected approximately $15,000. IS Executive Director Oscar Dussan applauded Thompson for his relentless spirit. Bart is the only one who year after year has been successful, he said. Hes a leader and hes very visible. So when he speaks, people will listen. Hes also doing something for someone who will really remember his actions. While Thompson has not returned to Guatemala since his 2007 trip, he hopes that his efforts will show that it is still possible and essential to make an impact here at home. We have the responsibility to improve the lives of others who are in situations where they cant necessarily help themselves, he said. Its a part of humanity. Contact Linda Yu at lindayu1@stanford.edu.
OPINIONS
DOS
AND
D OO -D OO S
Established 1892
Board of Directors Kathleen Chaykowski President and Editor in Chief Anna Schuessler Chief Operating Officer Sam Svoboda Vice President of Advertising Theodore L.Glasser
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Managing Editors Nate Adams Deputy Editor Billy Gallagher & Margaret Rawson Managing Editors of News Miles Bennett-Smith Managing Editor of Sports Tyler Brown Managing Editor of Features Lauren Wilson Managing Editor of Intermission Mehmet Inonu Managing Editor of Photography Shane Savitsky Columns Editor Stephanie Weber Head Copy Editor Serenity Nguyen Head Graphics Editor Alex Alifimoff Web and Multimedia Editor Zach Zimmerman,Vivian Wong, Billy Gallagher,Kate Abbott & Caroline Caselli Staff Development
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odays advice is especially great because it gives you a reason to procrastinate on that midterm paper youve been working on. DO: Google Fred Armisen Commencement Speech. DOO-DOO: Not watch the video that comes up. I recently watched a commencement speech delivered by Fred Armisen at Oregon Episcopal High School this past June. Fred Armisen is a comedian known for his roles on Saturday Night Live and Portlandia and is famous for being the most ethnically ambiguous person of all time. (Seriously, hes played everyone from President Obama to Steve Jobs to Saddam Hussein to Nooni the Swedish husband of Nuni to a giggly Japanese schoolgirl to the glasses kid from Glee.) If youve ever given a speech in public, you understand the difficult necessity of presenting virtuous substance in an entertaining and thought-provoking manner. Too much funny, and no one knows what youre trying to say. Too much serious, and no one cares what youre trying to say. (My high school graduation speech fell into the former, littered with short-people jokes and an extended reading and analysis of the song Im On A Boat by The Lonely Island, feat. T-Pain.) Armisen did a great job captivating the audience with advice and well-placed humor, but still managed to carry a bold thesis with his speech. My message to you is this: no matter what happens, everything turns out great. I promise you. It all turns out great. I wondered how responsible it was to tell high school seniors that. Sure, it sounds comforting and encouraging and gives that warm, happy millions-of-fireflies-letloose-in-your-chest sort of feeling, but does it really help prepare them for real life? And most importantly, is it true? It almost seems arrogant and self-absorbed. Oh sure, the successful comedian who made it to the big times is assuring me that everything will work out great. (It bugged me the way it bugs me when incredible singers assure people that anyone can sing.) But then Armisen continued on with a brief history of his life. He got rejected from NYUs film school and ended up going to a small visual arts school, which changed the way he perceived art. He dropped out of that school to play drums in a band that watched so many other bands get their big break while he was stuck playing empty clubs. As a diversion to his struggling music career and seemingly unattainable dreams, he began doing stand-up comedy . . . and it all turned out great. I think I agree with Armisen. No matter what happens, everything turns out great. It is true if we allow it to be true. But I think it requires a shift in philosophy. So often we are concerned with where we are going in life and less concerned with whom we are becoming. (I dont know if its who or whom in that last sentence, but the green squiggly on the screen went away with whom.) Theres something commend-
Chase Ishii
able about desiring a specific goal and achieving it through dedication and perseverance. But we do ourselves a disservice if we are not open and willing to changing and re-evaluating what would be considered a worthy outcome for our lives. Tunnel vision that strips the definition of great down to one specific situation or scenario is doomed to failure from the start. I dream of becoming a brilliant screenwriter, but the fact of the matter is that it may not happen for reasons beyond my control. No matter how talented or persistent I am and no matter how many dues I pay, the reality of the entertainment industry is that I may never get a break. But even if I cant be a screenwriter in Hollywood, Ill always be something to someone somewhere. Maybe a husband or a father or a neighbor or a son whatever the case, there will always be a reality in front of me that deserves my attention and appreciation. What would happen if instead of answering a screenwriter, I completed the statement: In 10 years, it would be great if I could be . . . with character attributes? It would be great if I could be generous. Or patient. Appreciative. Loyal. Forgiving. Encouraging. Loving. Joyful. (Taller.) These are all things that I can control; I can actively and intentionally take steps towards becoming them every day (except the taller part. Theres nothing I can do about that . . . according to 50,000,000 Google search results.) Things never go according to plan.Your future will never be perfect. But if you concern yourself less with what youll be in the future and more with how youll be in the future, then no matter what happens, I promise you, everything will turn out great. But seriously, Chase really wants to get taller. Email him with tips at ninjaish@stanford.edu.
Michael Londgren Robert Michitarian Nate Adams Tenzin Seldon Rich Jaroslovsky
Contacting The Daily: Section editors can be reached at (650) 721-5815 from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. The Advertising Department can be reached at (650) 721-5803, and the Classified Advertising Department can be reached at (650) 721-5801 during normal business hours. Send letters to the editor to eic@stanforddaily.com, op-eds to editorial@stanforddaily.com and photos or videos to multimedia@stanford daily.com. Op-eds are capped at 700 words and letters are capped at 500 words.
D ON T S WEAT
THE
S MALL S TUFF
orget midterms. For the past month, my Halloween costume has been the major source of stress in my life. When I first arrived at Stanford,it had been four years since I had actually dressed up for Halloween I had given up costumes along with trick-or-treating as a high school freshman. Boy, was I in for a shock! Unlike the carefree days of childhood when I relished dressing up as a picnic table or as the Y2K bug, I was suddenly confronted by the quintessential female dilemma between a costume that says, Im hot but have no self-respectversus Im clever but sadly unattractive. As Lindsay Lohan quipped of her female peers, on Halloween, the hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears. In an ideal world, wed have that perfect intersection of clever enough to be spunky and stand out, but still cute and pretty. But its such a fine line to walk, and one that expends a huge amount of mental energy. I had to adapt quickly. Living on a campus that is undeniably obsessed with costumes means that Ive been to more themed parties than I can count. At one point during sophomore year, I was probably in costume more evenings than not! So, Halloween costumes arent exactly uncharted territory for students who dig through their rally boxes for Band Run,special dinners and progressives
on an almost daily basis. (In fact, Im pretty much convinced that one of the secret requirements for all Stanford admits is a latent passion for dressing up in crazy costumes.) Costumes should be and are! fun. Its our own obsession with looking good and hooking up that has superimposed all this stress on dressing up. Yes, Halloween does give us carte blanche to be as slutty or as irreverent as we want,but thats not the main reason behind its appeal. Clear away all the partying and sexuality around costumes, and what were left with is the pure essence of childhood. Most all of us had dressup boxes of costume jewelry and fake fur! And Im pretty sure that riffling through your family scrapbook will ultimately produce a picture of your one-year-old swaddled in a pumpkin costume whose contours matched your chubby cheeks. On Halloween night, I distinctly remember the unbridled ecstasy of being allowed to stay out late that almost rivaled my anticipation of Christmas Eve. And dont even get me started on the massive candy swap the next day at school! It was like Wall Street had suddenly invaded the lunchroom! (As I recall, demand ran high for Snickers and Reeses while Mounds always got sidelined.) Those are the memories that Halloween conjures up for me.But it represents something far greater. Putting on a Halloween costume is like catching a glimpse of your childhood self.It harkens back to the illustrious golden era of childhood, when things were actually a lot simpler than they are now. The comfort we can derive from childhood memories is unbelievably powerful. Although some people have more than others,its pretty rare to find a person completely devoid of a single,cheesy,happy-go-lucky childhood memory;we all have something to draw upon for comfort. Whether its a favorite childhood book that youve read too many times to count (for me, anything by Roald Dahl) or watching your favorite Disney movie and belting out every song lyric, we channel our childhoods in so many different ways. There are times when I come home for winter break and sit down to an eight-hour marathon of playing Age of Empires on my old desktop computer. Whenever I see someone doing a jigsaw puzzle,I literally cannot contain my joy. And no
Leslie Brian
with making SLAC one of the leading laboratories in the country. Prior to her leadership, the research facility primarily focused on high-energy physics research, but its scope has since expanded to other fields. A committee, headed by Provost John Etchemendy, has been assembled to search for a new director. William Madia, SLAC vice president, and Roger Blandford, director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, will cochair the committee. Prospective directors will be interviewed from January to June of next year.
Marianne LeVine
HONORS
they go abroad, which is a requirement for all IR majors. Students could therefore integrate their overseas experience into their honors theses, which is highly encouraged. Another major change to take place is the creation of a community within the group of IR honors students. Ideas include faculty luncheons for professors and honors students to connect and discuss research, as well as priority for honors students in certain classes. The idea is to have honors students feel like they are part of a cohort of students rather than simply having the task of writing a thesis paper, Gould said. Judith Goldstein, current interim director of the international relations program, along with former director Kenneth Schultz and future director Michael Tomz, were each instrumental in the brainstorming process of these changes. Gould emphasized that the proposed changes are still in a tentative and preliminary stage, as many other ideas and possibilities are in line for the future. A department meeting to discuss potential changes on Monday, Oct. 24, was attended by mostly juniors and faculty. According to Gould, the new ideas for the program received positive feedback from students. We want this to be a change embraced by students, Gould said. Our goal is to make the honors program an enriching and holistic experience for them. Contact Natasha Weaser at nweaser@ stanford.edu.
SPORTS
BACK ON THE COURT
CAROLINE CASELLI
DESK EDITOR
Jack Blanchat
Last fall, in the wake of Landry Fields departure to the NBA,the Cardinal debuted a new-look squad that featured six scholarship freshmen (and another walk-on who saw ample action) but no seniors. Slated to pick ninth in the then-Pac-10, outside expectations were low for the young bunch with many expecting last season to serve as a major rebuilding year. Twelve months later, the same team minus would-be senior Jeremy Green, who left Stanford last spring to enter the NBA draft returns to Maples Pavilion with an added year of maturity, team chemistry and international experience thanks to a team trip to Spain and hopes of taking
Redshirt senior Josh Owens (above) and the mens basketball team are hoping to take the Pac-12 by surprise this year after finishing tied for seventh in the conference last season.
the newly created Pac-12 by storm. We are very excited about this season, said head coach Johnny Dawkins at the Pac-12 Media Day on Oct. 28.Our kids, they have done a great job this preseason of working hard to get better. I thought it started last spring, it continued through the summer and through our trip to Spain, in which our team got closer. We grew a lot from that experience,and were just very excited about starting this upcoming season, he added. Though Greens absence leaves some uncertainty he was the teams leading scorer with 16.7 points per game and named to All-Pac-10 First Team sophomores Anthony Brown and Dwight Powell are expected to step into the primary scoring roles. Indeed, much of the Cards success will depend upon how much the sevenman sophomore class improved over the break, particularly the two Pac-10 All-Freshman Team selections. Brown was one of 12 collegiate players named to the USA Basketball U19 World Championship Team over the summer and traveled to Latvia to play amongst the international elite. Finishing his freshman season as the Cards third-leading scorer with 8.7 points per game (Powell was next best with 8.1 points per game), and second-best from behind the three-point arc, Brown will be a primary scoring option from the wing. Powell, a versatile 6-9 forward who can score from the perimeter and can hold his own down low, had several brilliant offensive and defensive games last season, but will have to perform more consistently this season. Additionally,the Cardinal now boasts four seniors Jarrett Mann,Josh Owens,Jack Trotter and Andrew Zimmermann who will share the captain duties this season. We have very good leadership, probably the best leadership that weve had since Ive been there, Dawkins said. And Im really proud of what these young men have done in the senior class to make sure that were all on the same page and all understand the culture that we want to have at Stanford. One source of this leadership is sure to be the teams most veteran player, Owens, who redshirted in his third year at the Farm and will likely be the teams starting center once again. Stanfords second-leading scorer last year with 11.8 points per game, he was Stanfords most dominant low post presence,leading in both rebounds (201 total, 6.5 rebounds per game) and blocks (29 total, 0.9 per game).
Both Zimmermann and Trotter as well as sophomore Stefan Nastic,who sat out for the bulk of last season with a foot injury are expected to assist Owens in the paint off the bench. Mann, the only player aside from Green and Owens who started in all 31 games last season,will likely play off the ball in the shooting guard position, a more natural fit for the 6-4 senior who has fallen into point guard duties over the past two seasons. Mann has established himself as a fierce defender with strong court vision he led last years team with 30 steals and 130 assists though he may be called upon to shoot more than he has in previous seasons. However, amongst the sea of veterans, one unfamiliar face on the sideline is expected to contribute right away. Highly touted freshman Chasson Randle, a 6-1 point guard who was named the Gatorade Illinois Basketball Player of the Year as a senior,made an instant impact on the teams trip to Spain in September, when he led the team in scoring in multiple games and was praised by the foreign teams coaches. When I first saw Chasson, I thought he was a winner, Dawkins said. His team, of course, won the state last season so he comes from a winning culture. His team was terrific, and he led them. I also saw a young man who was very versatile in his play, whether its being able to knock down a shot from outside, whether it was taking the ball to the basket and creating shots for himself or his teammates,he had that innate ability to make that play, he added.A very unselfish player, just only out there looking to make his teammates better, but at the same time he has the ability to attack and create on his own as well. Randle will also have support from sophomore Aaron Bright,a player that Dawkins referred to as our most improved player that is returning. Bright, a streaky three-point shooter last season, was second in assists, with an average of two per game. Altogether, the Cardinal will be looking to improve on last years seventh-place finish in conference, with No. 16 Arizona, No. 17 UCLA and No. 24 Cal headlining the Pac-12 class this season. In a preseason coaches poll, Stanford was picked to finish sixth in the conference. The Cardinal will open its season this Saturday, Nov. 5th in Maples Pavilion at 7 p.m. in an exhibition game against Ryerson. Contact Caroline Caselli at carolinecaselli@stanford.edu.
y now,Im sure youve heard every good thing there is to hear about Andrew Luck. After all, his visage is constantly stamped all over ESPN and the cover of this paper. But there are still some folks out there who arent sold on the Lucks abilities as a quarterback, and count CBS sports NFL analyst Phil Simms among the skeptics. On Tuesday, Simms went on Sirius NFL Radio to talk about all the hype surrounding Luck, and he shared a few eyebrow-raising opinions. I think the hype is a little too much, Simms said.I feel bad for [Luck] in that respect.I mean,whats he going to do to match what they say he can do? Theres a lot to him.I think his best quality,by far, is hes big and strong and hes going to be able to move and run in the NFL. Theres no question. Here, I see what Phils trying to say. Because Luck constantly impresses with not only his physical but also his mental attributes,its easy to fall deeply in love with the way he plays football. But perhaps its not fair to him to hype him up so much. But then Simms went right ahead and jumped the shark. But the one thing I dont see, I just dont see big-time NFL throws,Simms continued. I dont care what anybody says.Ive watched a lot of him.He never takes it and rips it in there.And you can say what you want,but man,youve got to be able to crease that ball every once in a while . . . Theres not a lot of rotation on the ball, and theres not a tremendous amount of power. (Imagine the sound of a record screeching to a halt.)
Junior libero Hannah Benjamin (above) and the womens volleyball team are looking to bounce back against Utah and Colorado after a tough loss to UCLA.
selves) and recorded six service aces, including five by junior setter Karissa Cook alone. It will certainly be an interesting weekend in womens volleyball, as Colorado and Utah attempt to make an impressive statement and prove they belong in the Pac-12, while Stanford hopes to regain some momentum and finish the season strong. The series kicks off in Colorado at 5 p.m. Thursday night. Contact Anders Mikkelsen at amikk@stanford.edu.
SPORTS BRIEFS
Womens basketball opens season with 106-56 exhibition win over UC-San Diego
The womens basketball team opened the 2011 season with a bang on Wednesday night, routing visiting UC-San Diego 106-56 at Maples Pavilion. Although the game was technically an exhibition, No. 5 Stanford was sharp out of the gates, particularly on the offensive end. Stanford shot 57.5 percent from the field and went 8-18 from behind the arc against an overmatched Triton team. The frontcourt duo of sisters Nnemkadi and Chiney Ogwumike, both All Pac-10 selections last season, combined for 38 points and 19 rebounds in 32 minutes of play. Off the bench, both freshman forward Bonnie Samuelson and junior forward Joslyn Tinkle provided big sparks for the Cardinal. Tinkle made her first seven shots from the floor and finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds on 8-9 shooting. In her collegiate debut, Samuelson hit four three-pointers in a five-minute span of the second half and finished with 15 points in an efficient 10 minutes. Seven months after a heartbreaking loss to Texas A&M in the
TOP-10 TEST
Water polo faces two ranked MPSF foes
By DAVID PEREZ
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Stanford mens water polo team will return to Southern California this weekend for a pair of top-10 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) matchups. The Cardinal will face Long Beach State at noon on Saturday and UC-Irvine at noon on Sunday. Stanford (14-4, 3-2 MPSF) is coming off of a tough 8-4 loss to USC this past weekend, putting a damper on the momentum the Cardinal had been building in its conference season. With a win, Stanford would have moved into a tie for first place in the MPSF, but instead dropped to third with the loss. That loss was a setback for the Stanford team, which is hoping to be in the running for an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships. It could also receive a bid to the four-team playoff by winning the MPSF Tournament. We pretty much need to win out now. It makes these games more important, said junior driver Paul Rudolph. Although neither No. 9 Long Beach State (14-6, 1-3 MPSF) nor No. 8 UC-Irvine (13-9, 1-4 MPSF) have had very much success in conference this season, they could pose some problems for the Cardinal. UC-Irvine leads the MPSF in total goals with 266 and is third in the league with 12.09
goals per game. It also boasts the conferences second leading scorer in sophomore driver Mitch Wise, who has scored 59 goals on the season. The mass of goals has not led to a mass of wins though, as the Anteaters are also second in the MPSF in total goals against, having allowed 176 on the season.Those goals are split up between junior starting goalie Jimmy Friedrich, who is making 9.16 saves per game over 9.5 games, and freshman Michael Bailey, who is leading the MPSF with 10.53 saves per game over 7.5 games. Stanford should not have trouble scoring goals against the fast-paced UC-Irvine teams, but the Cardinals second-ranked defense will be the key to making sure the game does not turn into a shootout. Long Beach State, on the other hand, will pose a much different challenge. Long Beach has a slow pace. We need to play our [faster] style, we cant let them dictate the tempo of the game, said Rudolph. A good barometer for which team is more likely to have success dictating their pace will be when these two Stanford opponents face off this Thursday at Long Beach States Anteater Pool. The two teams are currently seventh and eighth in the nine-team conference, so their matchup will determine who will stay out of the conference cellar. Stanford will be hoping that these games can help the team reach its peak performance level as it enters the final three weeks of the conference season and prepares for the playoffs. We know our system its just fine tun-
Junior diver Travis Noll (above) and the Stanford mens water polo team return to Southern California this weekend to take on two top-10 MPSF foes in UC-Irvine and Long Beach State.
ing the little things, said Rudolph. Getting offensive balance will be one key for the Cardinal, which has relied heavily on freshman utility Alex Bowen for goals, as well as senior driver Jacob Smith. Bowen is third in the MPSF with 42 goals, and Smith is fifteenth with 29. Another key for Stanford has been getting scoring from other players outside of its top scorers. In its two MPSF losses against UCLA and USC, nobody outside of the top four scorers found the net. That includes the 8-4 loss to USC, in which Bowen accounted for three of the four goals. The Cardinal has been able to make up for some poor offensive outputs though because of its stingy defense.The team is second in the MPSF in goals allowed per game. That defense is led by senior goalie Brian Pingree, who is also second in the conference in goals allowed per game. He has not done it alone, though, as he has been the beneficiary of a defense that is allowing very few shots. Pingree is 11th in the MPSF in saves per game, at 6.55. Stanford will face off against Long Beach State on Saturday, and then play UC-Irvine on Sunday at 12 p.m. Contact David Perez at davidp3@stanford.edu. Player of the Year with Californias Andre Earle and to her third consecutive All-NorPac team. Dru leads the team in goals (14) and points (35) and was joined on the all-conference list by seniors Stephanie Byrne and Ale Moss, as well as freshman Alex McCawley. Moss has had a solid year in goal with six shutouts for the No. 6 Cardinal, which is seeking its fifth-straight conference title this weekend at the conference championships. McCawley and Byrne have both played major roles in Stanfords attack thus far, combining for eight goals and 17 assists. Stanford will play Appalachian State at 1:30 p.m. on the Varsity Turf to kick off the postseason.
Miles Bennett-Smith
BLANCHAT
Continued from page 6
Uh,what? I think anyone who has watched Lucks highlight tape has seen a few passes that would suggest he can make big-time NFL throws, unless Phil is referring to some sort of secret metric that only he, Todd McShay and Mel Kiper,Jr.understand. But Phil,like anybody who watches football, knows that arm strength isnt everything. He continued on, saying, Not that you need to have that power arm. Im not saying youve got to have that exclusively, but man, it sure helps when you can do that because theres four or five plays a game it is about arm strength. Okay,sure.In fact,I dont necessarily disagree with Simms to a certain point.I think its true that Lucks arm is not as strong as NFL stars like Jeff George, Jay Cutler, Matt Stafford, Ryan Mallett or JaMarcus Russell.But while Lucks arm might not be JohnElway-with-a-Nerf-Vortex-football strong, its certainly strong enough to make big-time NFL throws. Observe him throwing a perfect 62yard bomb against USC last week on a reverse pass to Ty Montgomery or throwing a ball 50 yards in the air while falling down against Arizona State last year, and youll see exactly what I mean.Additionally, I think a lot of his arm strength is masked by the fact that he doesnt throw many passes further than 30 yards because of the runheavy,West-Coast offense he leads so well. And while Lucks arm is plenty strong,I also think the fact that he might not have an absurdly powerful arm is actually a good thing. On the NFL level,some of the greatest quarterbacks in history have had howitzers for arms. Dan Marino, John Elway and Brett Favre all could throw it so hard that they would break receivers fingers with their passes.But all three of them were also prone to relying on their potent arm strength too often a fact that is particularly true in Favres case. Guys who have those incredibly strong arms often think they can zip a ball into every window (most of the
time, its because they can), but the effects of that can be disastrous. Favres arm strength is exactly the reason why hes the NFLs all-time record-holder for both touchdowns and interceptions. For every touchdown pass that he rifled past a middle linebacker and a defensive back into a 6-inch window for a scoring strike, he also threw a missile that hit a defender right between the numbers on his jersey for an easy pick. Conversely, Luck knows his own strength so well that he doesnt try to wing passes late over the middle into double coverage. Instead, hell check down to a tight end or running back or even (gasp!) anticipate whom the open receiver will be based on his superb ability to read a defense before the ball is snapped. So dont get too upset at Phil, Stanford fans and Luck supporters his criticisms are about as valid as, You bob for apples in the toilet . . . and you like it! But just because Andrew Lucks right arm might not be borrowed from Superman doesnt mean he wont be successful at the next level. After all, some quarterbacks with less-than-stellar arms have led their teams to multiple Super Bowl victories quarterbacks like Phil Simms. And I have a feeling that, unlike Simms,Lucks name wont be booed on draft day. Something about Jack Blanchats sunny disposition and effervescent smile makes Clemson fans blood boil. When Phil Simms gets a hold of this column, Jack will also be seeking protection from the boys at Morehead State.To suggest a new identity for Jack, email him at blanchat@stanford.edu or follow him on Twitter @jmblanchat.
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Miles Bennett-Smith
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icture a high school quarterback star whos touted to be not only the best high school quarterback in the country, but also better than the best quarterback in college football. Yes, this may seem close to impossible, but what if, just what if, there were a high school quarterback who is better than Andrew Luck? As absurd as that scenario might sound, it might be the best way to describe how good freshman David Nolan is in the pool. And theres plenty of statistical evidence to back it up. At the Pennsylvania state championships last March, Nolan put on the greatest performance in high school swimming history. Nolan obliterated three individual high school national records in the 200 individual medley, 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke. On top of that, Nolan led his Hershey, Pa., high school team to a new national mark in the 200 freestyle relay.To put things into perspective, one state record at the meet is usually an impressive accomplishment in high school swimming. Nolan broke a total of six state records and four national records, including relays, within a span of two days.He finished his high school career with a total of 13 state titles. In his signature event, the 200 individual medley,Nolan lowered the national high school record, which he set the previous year, by over two seconds a ridiculous drop considering that a tenth of a second is a sizeable margin at the elite levels. But the most stunning fact about his per-
formance is that his time of 1:41.39 in the 200 IM wouldve won NCAAs by almost two tenths of a second. In any sport, a high school senior performing better than the top collegiate level is phenomenal. In swimming, its almost unheard of. Nolan garnered numerous accolades,including being named the Male High School Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World Magazine, based on the otherworldly swims that solidified his permanent impact on high school swimming, Fast-forward eight months,and Nolan is now in the pool for the Cardinal,racking up 12,000 to 13,000 yards a day in training with his teammates. Given the grueling hours, its not always easy to balance time between academics and swimming. The transitions been difficult, especially with the academics. High school was easy; college is hard, Nolan said. I thought practices back in Hershey were tough, but practices here out-do them by a mile. Sometimes its hard to wake myself up for practice in the morning and then later go to class tired. It gets difficult for a couple days each week, but it usually works out. Just because this transitioning period has posed some challenges doesnt mean that Nolan hasnt adjusted well. I dont think hes missed a beat. As far as I can tell, there havent been any setbacks in his transitioning,said mens head coach Skip Kenney,a 20-time Pac-10 Coach of the Year,six-time NCAA Coach of the Year and three-time Olympic Coach. One of the factors in this smooth transition is
that the freshmen on the team are so closely knit. Talent-wise,this freshman class is one of the best weve had, Kenney said. But in my time here at Stanford, Ive never seen a freshman class thats bonded as well this early in the season as this group has. Their self-image is quite strong. Nolan also credits the upperclassmen for helping him settle in and feel more comfortable. [The upperclassmen] have taught us everything they know about the team aspect,he said. Theyve gotten so far in teaching us how to act around coaches and how to act towards each other. Theyve also kept us motivated in the pool. In a sport that sometimes struggles to receive recognition outside of the Olympics, Nolan has gained a huge amount of attention in the swimming world and beyond even landing in national spotlight with an article in ESPN Rise. Fairly or unfairly, comparisons of him to younger versions of Olympic stars Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte have already been made. Despite such a high profile for a swimmer, Nolan is humble and focused on his teams success. I just want to have a good time with my team, sharing the great meets and the great practices with them, Nolan said. Davids completely team-oriented, Kenney echoed.We had a team meeting the other day, and one of the things David suggested was for the freshmen to have more meals together. Just an outstanding team guy. You would think that in his 33rd year as the mens head coach at Stanford and after devel-