The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 58, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 1, 1971 Page: 1 of 4
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Stanford: athletes
are students first
By GARY RACHLIN
In one of my previous ar-
ticles, I implied that the only
way to have a successful major
college football team is to have
the football coaching staff reg-
ulate the athletes both on and
off the field. I wrote that the
year-round training table is a
technique for controlling the
athletes — thus it is necessary
for fielding a successful major
college football team. I accepted
Larry Pecatiello's statement
concerning a winning football
team — "You can't treat ath-
letes as adults if you want to
win."
Successful humanism
Coach Pecatiello is wrong —
a winning team and athletes
treated as adults can go to-
gether. An outstanding example
is Stanford University. In the
last 8 years, Stanford, under
Head Coach John Ralston, has
compiled a 47-32-3 record. This
past season Stanford won the
Pacific-8 Conference (against
teams such as Southern Cali-
fornia and UCLA) and went on
to beat Ohio State in the Rose
Bowl. Stanford has been suc-
cessful while still treating their
athletes as human beings.
Last week I went to Stanford
and asked assistant football
coiach Mike White questions
concerning the role of the foot-
ball athlete in the Stanford
community. He informed me
thlat the athletes are students
first — football is secondary.
He went on to explain that
Stanford has no separate ma-
jors for athletes nor are there
separate classes of any kind.
White said that the coaches re-
alize thiat the athletes are in-
dividuals and consequently they
do not attempt to mold the ath-
letes into a specific image.
A Proper Perspective
The Stanford coaching staff
is awfare that football is not the
only thing in an athlete's life,
nor is it necessarily the most
important. To illustrate his
point, Coach White recalled
that one time ten players were
excused from practice so that
they could attend a Vietnam
Peace Rally. Also, Stanford has
an Overseas Campuses Program
that enables Stanford students
to study abroad for 6 months
during one of the undergraduate
years. Coach Ralston usually
has a few of his athletes forego
Spring Training so that they
can take advantage of this pro-
gram.
No Athletic Dorms
Coach White, told me that
Stanford, like most of the west-
ern universities, does not have
athletic dorms. The athletes live
in dorms, fraternity houses,
apartments, trailers, or wher-
ever else they choose to live.
Also, Stanford has a training
table only during the football
season. I asked him whether
not having a year-round train-
ing table would make it diffi-
cult for the coaches to regulate
the athletes' dress, grooming
habits, eating habits, and per-
formance in class. White said
that the coaches do not want
to regulate their athletes. The
Stanford coaching staff feels it
is up to the individual athlete
to decide how he wants to live.
Coach White summed it up by
saying that What an athlete
does off the field is his (the
athlete's) business — what he
does on the field is the coaches'.
Stanford wins
White emphasized his point
by relating a story concerning
the 1971 Rose Bowl. A few days
before the game, the participat-
ing universities arrived in Pasa-
dena. The Ohio State coaches
kept a tight rein on their play-
ers by keeping them together
and imposing1 strict curfews.
Stanford coaches, however,
rented cars for their athletes,
had lax curfews, and generally
let each athlete do what he
wanted to do. The result: Stan-
ford 27, Ohio State 17.
Coach Mike White is not the
only person at Stanford who
has opinions concerning the role
of an athlete at that university.
Below are quotes from three
students — the first is from
Ron Fujikawa who was back-up
quarterback for Jim Plunkett
during the 19G9 season. I don't
have names for the other two
quotes.
Beyond the field
"A picture of the athlete as
an insensitive, unaware, slight-
ly myopic amoeba bears little
resemblance to most Stanford
athletes today. The vast oppor-
tunities for both intellectual and
social involvement inherent
within the Stanford community
have expanded the athlete's
perception and sensibilities far
beyond the limited confines of
the football field or basketball
court. The constant interaction
with students possessing diverse
attitudes provides the athlete
with the channels through
which intellectual and social
growth is most meaningfully
achieved. The athlete, like any
other student, is able to as-
similate into the dynamic aca-
demic matrix characteristic of
our University. For this very
reason, stereotypic classifica-
tions of athletes as 'dumb jocks'
are unfair and terribly inaccu-
rate, because they obscure the
complexity of feelings and.
thoughts unique to every indi-
vidual. Contrary to popular be-
lief, the intense pursuit for ath-
letic achievement at Stanford
does not obstruct the athlete's
ability to feel, think, and re-
spond for he is, clearly, a stu-
dent as well as an athlete." —
Ron Fujikawa
Pretty good people
"The recruited athlete at
Stanford is in a tough spot, and
he knows it. In high school, he
got all the glory and the pres-
tige among his peers. The in-
tellectually oriented super-stu-
dent got the short end of the
stick. But now the jock is on
the super-student's turf and he
has to earn his respect on the
basis of more than just his
muscles — and you know, al-
most all the jocks do. They're
really pretty good people." —
Unknown
"Athletes are people. Not
dumb and not super-stars, just
people." — Unknown
the
reice
trasher
rice university, houston, texas
volume 58, number 23
thursday, april J, 1971
KTRU-FM to sign on April 13
After months of elections, ap-
plications, and testing, KTRU
Rice Radio will begin to broad-
cast FM next Tuesday, April
13, at 8 pm.
The final application was sent
in last Tuesday, and there is a
mandatory 10 day waiting per-
iod. As this will come during
Easter, the station will wait
until the break is over before
it signs on.
Station manager Buddy Trot-
ter stated that they have tested
the beam and that the signal
may be heard as far away as
Memorial or Pasadena, and that
a good tuner can pick it up as
far away as 13 miles. This is far
over the original estimates of
the signal area of the station.
Trotter said, "The entire
staff is excited about having the
this large area to broadcast to.
We feel that we can gather a
large amount of listeners and
support from the Houston com-
munity."
The station will broadcast
simultaneously AM and FM
shows, however, the AM may
only be heard on the campus.
The format of the educational
FM station will be different
from any other educational sta-
tion that he has heard of, says
Trotter. The format, which will
have no advertising on the FM
waves, will be news on the hour,
and music in between. Instead
of regular lengthy educational
shows, the station will air in-
formation 'educational segment-
al programming. This will con-
sist of short (2-3 minutes) in-
formational segments between
every 20 or 30 minutes of music.
The program for the opening
night will relate how the sta-
tion. was stai-ted, from a college
station to KOWL to the present
size. Also will, be included old
programs and segments of im-
portant events which the radio
station has covered, including
the Masterson Crisis and the
Hoffman Affair. The station
will focus on campus and na-
tional news and whatever sig-
nificant local political news
there is.
Earth week seeks our awareness
Earth Day this year will be
different from the 'last one.
First of all, it will be seven
days long-, Earth Week. Second,
the organizers of the event are
trying very hard to avoid pro-
grams which would be simple
feats of doom-crying. The Earth
Week Coalition wants to see
that this year's observation and
celebration be one of a positive
nature, emphasizing the indi-
vidual's active role in changing
man's present outlook on and
utilization of his environment.
We all know that ecological
problems on a vast scale exist,
and that government has been
slow and clumsy to respond to
them. Therefore, the programs
on Earth Week will be aimed
at informing the individual of
the many avenues open to him
by which he may effect change,
through both political channels
and private activity.
A complete schedule of events
for the week (April 17-24) will
be released next week, but the
outline can be easily sketched.
On Saturday, April 17, in Her-
mann Park the opening events
will include speeches by Rex
Braun, Frank Herbert, and pos-
sibly John Esposito of Nader's
Raiders. It will be an all after-
noon affair and everyone is in-
vited to bring musical instru-
ments, games, or whatever.
This is, after all, a celebration
of the Earth; its object is en-
joyable. awareness of our en-
vironment. The rest of the
week will be filled with pro-
grams dealing with, population,
pollution, resource utilization,
wildlife, organic food and prod-
ucts, and legal and political as-
pects -of ecology. Activities will
center at Rice and U.H. with the
preponderance of Rice's pro-
grams being on the afternoon
of Sunday, April 18th. U.H. will
have a more extensive schedule
with Thursday, April 22nd, as
their official Earth Day.
The Earth Week Coalition
planning committee is composed
of the following groups: the
Rice Society for Ecological Sur-
vival, Earthworks, Population
Awareness, Zero Population
Growth, the Sierra Club, and
Rhubarb, Inc. (a group of U.H.
archis). These groups, as a Co-
alition, desperately need your
help in putting on this week-
long presentation. If you would
like to participate by lending
your body, please contact Jack-
Applewhite at 528-5931 or Ly-
dia Pendley at ext. 300. The Co-
alition would like to particular-
ly thank Will Rice, Baker, and
Jones Colleges for their dona-
tions of money, which made it
possible to present several oth-
erwise unavailable speakers and
films.
Senate enlarges Rondelet Court
By JEFF CREWS
Another hallowed institution
fell under the omnipotent hand
of the Senate Tuesday night.
The Rondelet Court has taken
oil a new look, and now there is
a court for everyone. This year
the court will have three parts,
the folk King and Queen, the
rock King and Queen, and the
soul King and Queen, and as a
final gesture, the Senate de-
creed that the positions will not
be dependent on the sex of the
King and Queen.
In more formal business the
Senate approved the new offi-
cers of the Program Council.
The new president is Leighton
Turner, with Vice President
George Bo-Linn and Sec-Tx-eas-
urer Dana Whitledge. Jackie
Keller and Gail Goodrich were
approved as the co-chainnen of
the Social Committee. In addi-
tion, the Program Council was
formalized by rewording the
By-Laws and Constitution of
the S.A., replacing the old SCB
with the new Program Council.
The question of voluntary at-
tendance at baccalaureate was
brought forward by Dan King.
At the moment, attendance is
required of all graduating stu-
dents. The Senate adopted a
resolution suggesting that at-
tendance be made voluntary and
final action is now pending on
the administration.
John Turner and Karl Bayer
presented a report concerning
the Independent Colleges and
Universities of Texas conven-
tion in Austin. ICUT lobbies for
legislation of interest to stu-
dents, and the legislature is
now considering some bills for
financial aid to private univer-
sities. Turner and Bayer ex-
plained that last year under the
proposed jslans, Rice could have
received as much as a million
dollars in aid. Copies of the bill
are in the S.A. office.
The financial statement of
the 1970 Campanile was ap-
proved. It included $23,151 in
income, and $22,360 in expenses,
with the difference distributed
to the staff.
Finally, Dr. Buris was ap-
proved as the Faculty Advisor
to the Senate.
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Mauldin, John. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 58, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 1, 1971, newspaper, April 1, 1971; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245104/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.