The Auburn PlainsmanA SPIRIT THAT IS NOT AFRAID

Thursday, February 21, 2013 ThePlainsman.com Vol. 119, Issue 33, 16 Pages

This week’s question

THE PLAINSMAN POLL

Last week’s question

Online

Campus A4

Sports B4

Vote online atThePlainsman.com

INDEXCampus A2Opinion A6Community A7Sports B1Intrigue B5

And then there were two…

OLSENMCMANUS

Jones votes flood poll

Olsen wins VP, McManus earns his ‘dolla’ with SGA treasurer

» See ELECTION A2

‘Tara for Water’ Jones named Miss Auburn

RAYE MAYE / PHOTO EDITOR

Tara Jones celebrates with Mathew Richter after being announced Miss Auburn for 2013.

Staff ReportAmy Anne ran, and won.

Olsen, junior in finance, was named the 2013 vice president of SGA Tuesday, Feb. 19 at callouts on Cater Lawn. Olsen received 3,978 votes, or 48.57 percent. “It was a total surprise,”Olsen said. “I wasn’t

prepared for that. I’m so blessed and thankful to have won.” Olsen, who has three years of SGA experience under her belt, said expanding collegiate reading programs, improving late night transportation and making sure students’ money is being

effectively used as plans for her term in office. “It’s been unbelievable,” she said. “This has been such a fun week and it’s all thanks to my supporters and everybody that came out, wore my T-shirt and cheered me on. I’m so excited to serve this year, to serve senate and

to serve the student body. I couldn’t be happier. My opponents are both great guys, so it was such a fun week and I’m proud of both of them.”

Opponent Wesley Clendin-en, junior in animal science, placed second with 2565 votes, or 31.31 percent.

“The student body vot-ed and they elected the indi-vidual they thought was the most qualified for the posi-tion,” Clendinen said. “That’s the reason we have demo-cratic elections. “Any candi-date who did not win today should see this opportunity as a way to expand and expel upon their beliefs and move on and change the campus in a way that they may not have thought they would before.”

Cody Sanders, junior in po-litical science, followed Clen-dinen with 1647 votes.

“I’m very proud of the cam-paign that we ran, it was a great experience,” Sanders said.

“This has been such a fun week and it’s all thanks to my supporters and everybody that came out, wore my T-shirt and cheered me on.”

—Amy Anne OlsenSGA VICE PRESIDENT

Staff ReportThe runoff for president will be between Harri-

son Mills, with 38.5 percent of the vote, and Chelsea Crooks, with 33.89 percent. The other candidate for president was Eric Savage.

With neither candidate for presidency reaching the required 40 percent, the 2013 presidential election re-sulted in a runoff, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 21 with results announced at 10 p.m., between Chelsea Crooks and Harrison Mills. Crooks received 33.89 per-cent of the vote and Mills receive 38.5 percent.

Crooks’ campaign violations resulted in a loss of 750 votes. She was 395 votes behind Mills.

“I’ll be campaigning for the next few days, same as before,” Crooks said. “The same sanctions are applied,

but the 750 votes won’t be taken away.”Campaign violations are brought before and de-

cided upon by the Elections Board, a group of in-fluential students seeking for the betterment of Au-burn. All four of Mills’ violations were brought forth by students and two of Crooks’ three violations were brought forth by Elections Council. which was re-sponsible for her 750 vote deduction.

Just two percentage points shy of a win, Mills said he’s excited to continue his race for SGA president.

“There are two great candidates that are running,” Mills said “I think we have equal amount of support. I think we’re going to continue our friendship, and I think we’re going to do our best. I’m very excited.”

Without Crooks’ 750 vote violation she would have

landed 355 votes ahead of Mills, or with 42 percent of the vote.

“I don’t even know how to feel about it right now,” Crooks said. “I’m really humbled by the op-portunity to have a second chance. Looking forward to running a clean campaign the next two days.”

Mills said he still plans to campaign on the con-course.

“I’m honored to make the runoff and I’m very excit-ed…We’re going to continue,” Mills said.”

Campus Staff Tara Jones’ hard work paid

off and was elected Miss Au-burn 2013 after raising over $7,500, for the water crisis, during campaign week alone.

“It doesn’t feel real, this is so amazing,” Jones said.

Jones hopes to continue the work her campaign began this week.

“I want to get the whole uni-versity behind the platform of the water crisis and get the university on board and make our university one of the lead-ing voices in stopping the wa-

ter crisis,” Jones said. Kate Hughes, one of the

other Miss Auburn candidates will still support Jones.

“I worked with them a little on the water purifier, so I will definitely help her with her campaign,” Hughes said.

Andrea Howard, another Miss Auburn candidate, also said she is supportive of Jones.

“She is not only Miss Au-burn, she is a War Eagle Girl now, so we’ve all got her back,” Howard said.

Emily Jordan, another Miss Auburn candidate, is thank-

ful for all of her supporters, re-gardless of her loss.

“I think I’ve just taken away that we go to an incredible school and the Lord is sover-eign and I have just been so blessed by this campus and just coming to love Auburn even more,” Jordan said.

Jordan said she will help Jones in any way she can.

Jones found support in her friends, family and faith.

“The Lord can provide ex-ceedingly more than you can ever dream or hope,” Jones said.

VOTING TOTALS Vice Presidential Candidates

8,190 TOTAL VOTES

Amy Anne Olsen 3,978

Wesley Clendinen 2,565

Cody Sanders 1,647

Treasurer Candidates8,040 TOTAL VOTES

Will McManus 5,048

Wilson Yeilding 2,992

Chelsea Crooks and Harrison Mills in runoff to determine 2013 SGA president

KATHERINE MCCAHEY / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

Chelsea Crooks would be the third female president in the history of Auburn SGA if she wins the runoff election Thursday, Feb. 21.

KATHERINE MCCAHEY / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

Harrison Mills is running against Chelsea Crooks in a runoff election to determine the SGA president.

ELECTION COVERAGEFor live coverage of the run-off election, visit ThePlains-man.com Thursday night,

Feb. 21.

Campus A2 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

Feb. 14 – Auburn UniversitySecond-degree theft of a laptop, backpack, notebooks, textbooks and a planner between 12:20 –12:30 p.m.

Feb. 14-15 – Webster RoadThird-degree theft of hubcap centers between 6 p.m. Feb. 14–6 a.m. Feb. 15

Feb. 15 – East University DriveLeft the scene of an accident be-tween 11–11:30 a.m.

Feb. 16 – Opelika RoadThird-degree assault between 2:18–2:20 p.m.

Feb. 16 – South College StreetSecond-degree robbery of a debit card and U.S. currency between 5:45–5:5 p.m.

Feb. 17 – Beard Eaves CourtThird-degree theft of an iPhone between 8:30–9 p.m.

Feb. 18 – Shug Jordan ParkwayHarassment report

Feb. 18 – East Longleaf DriveThird-degree criminal trespass be-tween 1:20–1:40 p.m.

Feb. 19 – South College StreetThird-degree theft of U.S. currency between 11:10–11:30 a.m.

Feb. 19 – Gatewood DriveThird-degree burglary of a television and jewelry between 7:45 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

Feb. 19 – Gatewood DriveSecond-degree burglary of an iPad between 7:45 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

Feb. 19 – Rick DriveThird-degree burglary of four televi-sions and checking account informa-tion between 7:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

— Reports provided by Auburn Department of Public Safety

CRIME REPORTS FOR FEB. 14 – FEB. 20, 2013DUI ARRESTS IN THE CITY OF AUBURN FEB. 14 – FEB. 20, 2013

■ Christopher Greene, 36, Auburn Thursday, Feb. 14, 2:40 a.m. on College Street

■ Gregory Thompson, 54, Auburn Friday, Feb. 15, 11:18 p.m. on South College Street

■ Cory Abercrombie, 19, Mobile Saturday, Feb. 16, 2:05 a.m. on South College Street

■ Courtney McClendon, 24, Scottsboro Saturday, Feb. 16, 2:49 a.m. on East Thach Avenue

■ Willie Owens, 42, Auburn Sunday, Feb. 17, 4:22 p.m. on North College Street

■ Michael Smith, 32, Auburn Monday, Feb. 18, 11:02 p.m. on South College Street

■ James Cowart, 23, Auburn Tuesday, Feb. 19, 4:33 p.m. at West Magnolia Avenue and North College Street

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ELECTION» From A1

I think students are going to be appreciative there’s going to be less people on the concourse so we can really tap into some of the student population.”

Crooks said it is important to her to make sure everyone is 110 percent within election codes the next few days, and she said she’s feeling motivated.

Eric Savage, who came in third with 1,412 votes, said he ran an honest campaign.

“It’s not about cheating…This doesn’t change how I pres-ent myself to the student body,” Savage said.

“It’s just being honest and being for the students, as I be-lieve I represented this week through not having a cam-paign with violations, through running a clean campaign and through interacting with stu-dents and asking their opinions and not going up and harassing the student body.”

Josh Magruder, who with-drew his candidacy for presi-dent, received 176 votes.

CLARIFICATIONS AND CORRECTIONS

In our Feb. 14 issue, SGA treasurer candidate Wilson Yeilding’s name was misspelled.

The article “Students selected as finalist for Gates Cambridge Scholarship “ by Michael Hill was printed in publication unedited.

The correct version of this story is available online.

We apologize for these errors

DANIEL ORAMAS / MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

Harrison Mills with friends after hearing the announcement for a runoff, Tuesday, Feb. 19.

COURTESY OF EMILY FRAZIER

Chelsea Crooks, middle, Caroline Dunklin, left, and Tucker Helms, talk at SGA kickoff on Wednesday, Feb. 13, at Kappa Alpha fraternity.

KATHERINE MCCAHEY / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

Cater Lawn was filled with students during SGA election callouts Tuesday, Feb. 19. The runoff callouts will also be held on Cater Lawn Thursday, Feb. 21, at 10 p.m.

KATHERINE MCCAHEY / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

Katie Kuhn with friends after Miss Auburn callouts.

RAYE MAY / PHOTO EDITOR

Tara Jones is surrounded by friends after being named Miss Auburn Tuesday, Feb. 19.

Thursday, February 21, 2013 The Auburn Plainsman Campus A3

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Art minors now offered to all studentsKailey MillerCAMPus RePoRTeR

Auburn university has re-cently decided to provide an art minor option for students from all majors.

Although some students are already taking classes that will be included in the art minor, it will not be officially offered un-til fall 2013.

“It’s something that has been under discussion among the art faculty for the past cou-ple of years and it was the cur-riculum committee within the department that began to de-velop a concrete proposal,” said Gary Wagoner, associate professor and chair of the de-partment of art. “We’ve had a steady stream of inquiries over the years, but for a long time most all of the art class-es in the department were only available to art majors and graphic design majors.”

Wagoner has been at au-

burn for 32 years.The curriculum includes 18

credit hours of classes, includ-ing 2-Dimensional and 3-Di-mensional design, painting classes, drawing classes, pho-tography, ceramics and sculp-ture.

students in all majors have to have a fine arts requirement and there have been students who have expressed interest in taking more classes, said Christopher Johnson, admin-istrative associate for the art department.

“They had a lot of questions about job opportunities after they leave and that discour-ages a lot of people from ma-joring in art,” Johnson said. “so the minor kind of catered to people who were interested in taking more art classes, learn-ing more about art, but not de-voting their whole time in col-lege to art.”

Depending on how many

students decide to take the art minor, additional instructors may have to be added, but cur-rently Wagoner said there is enough space for the students.

some students however, are not yet aware that the art de-partment will be providing this as a minor.

Nina Noreika, junior in zool-ogy, and Forrest Cortes, junior in wildlife ecology and man-agement, had not heard about the art minor.

They both said they would not be interested in taking any art classes.

“But I know a lot of people who would be interested in it,” Cortes said.

Jennifer Norton, freshman in nursing, said that she did not know about it, but now that she does, she would be in-terested in taking some of the classes.

students can complete the minor by either focusing on

one certain category of art like photography or drawing, or by taking a few classes in each category.

“There’s a lot of other ca-reers that value having a visual art background,” Johnson said. “Like art therapy in psychology with a minor in art.”

The art department will not officially know how many stu-dents will enroll in the minor until next fall, but Wagoner predicts that they will have 20 to 30 minors based on the in-terest that he has heard.

The department currently has an art history minor that some students take to learn more about art, but they were really interested in studio art.

“A lot of students have ex-pressed interest in that,” John-son said. “We get calls all day asking what the requirements are and asking to give out pa-per work to prospective stu-dents in the minor.”

Kailey MillerCAMPus RePoRTeR

No longer will students have a panicking feeling when they get to the library and realize that they have left all the most important things that they need at their dorm.

Au Bookstore has brought the study eR to the RBD li-brary.

The study eR is stocked with paper, scantrons, pen-cils, books and even food and drinks for students to utilize in case of an emergency study session.

“I’ve noticed we need some type of a supply store,” said Dil-lon Nettles, sophomore in po-litical science. “Those vend-ing machines we used to have

would run out so I use it all the time.”

Nettles has worked at the writing center in the library for a year and said that he uti-lizes the bookstore when he is studying and quickly needs to grab something.

The planning for the new bookstore started in August, said Leigh Ann Rowell, super-visor of the study eR.

“It took us about a month to prepare it to open up,” Row-ell said. “Mainly it’s up there for when the college kids have projects to work on; we car-ry poster boards, index cards, testing supplies and snacks and also drinks up there.”

Approximately eight em-ployees run the study eR and

the RBD library staff were the ones that requested the book-store bring the study eR to the library.

The hours of operation for the study eR stretch beyond that of the regular bookstore.

They are open on Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and sun-day from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.

They plan to extend their hours during exams.

“once we got it up there the college kids were like ‘oh my God we’re so glad’ you know, getting the scantrons and the bluebooks,” Rowell said. “It’s been a really good response.”

As for the unique name

of the new bookstore, there was a contest for students to give their input on what they thought the name should be.

Brianna Gorman, freshman in communications, thinks that the study eR was a good addition to the library.

“It’s easier to use if you just want a drink or something be-cause Caribou (Coffee) usually has a long line,” Gorman said.

“I don’t think they took my TigerCard, which that was the only thing I didn’t really like.”

The study eR is located across from Caribou Coffee where Copycat used to be, on the second floor of the RBD li-brary.

“If I were just at the library and I got bored one day, I

might just go in there and see what books and stuff they have, or if I wanted maybe pa-per or pens,” said Hannah Mat-

til, freshman in horticulture. “People can buy books and stuff, so it’s good and supplies that maybe they forgot.”

Small bookstore in library now open

raye may/ photo editor

Study er bookstore’s grand opening was held monday Feb. 11.

People Power Phenomenon, Cathy Harris speaksCorey ArwoodCAMPus WRITeR

As a whistleblower, commu-nity organizer, author, motiva-tional speaker, business own-er and coach, tonight’s speak-er in the Business of Diversity speakers’ series would be hard to profile.

And in 1998 profiling was what Cathy Harris spoke out against, earning her the na-tionally recognized whistle-blower status.

“she’s going to be the inau-gural speaker in our new Di-versity Initiatives speaker se-ries,” said Dr. sarah stanwick, diversity officer and associ-ate professor in the College of Business’ school of Accoun-tancy, and coordinated to-night’s event.

Harris, at the time a senior Customs Inspector, exposed the use of racial profiling, un-lawful practices and human rights violations by the u.s. Customs service, now known as Customs and Border Pro-tection, at the Hartsfield-Jack-son Atlanta International Air-port.

“I will talking about whistle-blowing, what happened to me and why they also need to look at blowing the whistle as they travel through life and witness things that they don’t feel com-fortable with. Why everybody needs to become whistleblow-ers,” said Harris.

Her testimony of what she witnessed resulted in an inves-tigation by the Government Accountability office, and

subsequent change to Federal Legislation and Customs reg-ulations.

since her initial exposé “Flying While Black: A Whis-tleblower’s story,” Harris has written 18 books on varying topics but with similar themes of empowerment, a theme that does not end with her writing.

Her empowerment compa-ny, Angels Press, is the busi-ness front for her services of lectures, seminars, workshops, teleseminars and also her ra-dio show, “The Cathy Harris show.”

The event is tonight at 7 p.m. in Lowder, Room 125A, Harris will be speaking to stu-dents seeking their CPA.

For more information visit the plainsman.com.

Campus A4 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

Million dollar donation given to the ‘Spirit of Auburn’Alumna gives $1 million to marching band’s

indoor facility fund, totaling $2.7 million

Becky HardyCAmPus EdiTor

The Auburn marching band, received a $1 million donation from an Auburn alumna for their indoor practice facility.

meredith Birchfield, class of 1971, donated $1 million that she earned from past investments.

Birchfield has always been a fan of the Au-burn marching band since she frequently at-tends football games.

“i just think Auburn’s band is just fabulous, not just the marching band, but also all aspects of it,” Birchfield said. “They are so committed and it’s so wonderful to see their commitment. i just think what they put into it should be re-warded.”

Birchfield said she has always had a charita-ble heart, especially working with war veterans in illinois and wanting to start an equine thera-py program here in Auburn for individuals with special needs.

The donation brought the band’s total mon-ey raised up to $2.7 million. The band’s goal is to raise $5.5 million. The university will cover the rest of the cost to build the $11 million facility.

“Potentially people who were unaware that the band was trying to raise money to have a fa-cility, now know how they could meet the needs of their band program,” said Vivian Langley, di-rector of development for the College of Liber-al Arts. “Hopefully it will spur someone else or lots of other people to give to the band as well.”

The athletics department has also donated

$1.5 million to the band program. “A lot of people have been giving and

they continue to give,” Langley said. “The thing that i emphasize always is that if people want to give, say $500 or $1,000, they can pledge it out over five years.”

donations can be made over a five-yera pe-riod. A $500 donation paid out over five years breaks down to $8.38 a month or 28 cents a day.

“When you look at wanting to help the future of the band program it seems extremely afford-able,” Langley said. “it’s about participation. if everybody gave what he or she could, obvious-ly we would move toward that $5.5 million re-ally quick.”

The band program has an outdoor practice pavilion to practice in now, but it does not pro-vide adequate shelter for the band members during inclement weather, so the prime con-cern right now is safety, said rick Good, direc-tor of bands.

Another concern for the marching band is places to store their instruments and uniforms, as well as, finding a place to change into their uniforms that does not involve pressing their faces up against the inside of a car window.

“They have a wonderful practice field now, but it’s not close enough to our building where they can go back in forth,” said sara Lynn Baird, chair of music department. “They need a place where they can assemble and use separate rooms to work on sectionals, for example when the trumpets go in one room, the trombones go

in another room, so they can practice to come all together on the field.”

The indoor facility will also be used for the concert ensemble, like the concert band, sym-phonic band, percussion ensemble and poten-tially the orchestra.

most of the fundraising for the indoor prac-tice facility comes from Auburn alumni and marching band alumni.

Auburn’s marching band also has to compete with other universities who already have an in-door practice facility for their band, Good said.

Compared to other universities, Lsu, Ala-bama and Georgia, which have music schools, Auburn does not.

Because Auburn does not have a specific mu-sic school, many of the band members are vari-ous majors. The largest majority of majors are in engineering, Good said.

The band, as well as, the whole music depart-ment cannot thank the marching band alumni, parents of students and alumni in general, who have donated already, enough.

“What these students do for the band depart-ment, the university and the athletics is amaz-ing,” Good said. “They work very hard with hard-ly any recognition, but having people donate money the students are very excited that people are noticing them and contributing to building them a new home.”

Raye may/ photo editoR

the marching band pratices in a pavilion, but hopes to build an indoor facility in the end zone of the field.

South Donahue residence hall on track for fall semester

Jherrica LuckieWriTEr

The construction that has been taking place on south donahue for the last year and a half will soon come to an end.

Kim Trupp, director of hous-ing and residence life, said the new south donahue resi-dence Hall is being built on

the former site of sewell Hall, which previously housed male students and male student athletes since the 1960s.

The south donahue res-idence Hall currently being built in its place will house 49 percent student athletes and 51 percent students.

“When the decision was made to demolish sewell plac-

ing a new residence hall which would house male and fe-male student athletes as well as male and female students in general on that site, it made sense because of its proximi-ty to the athletic facilities and student development Center,” Trupp said. “The site is also a relatively short distance to the academic core and the stu-

dent Center.”When it opens on the first

move-in day of the fall semes-ter of this year, the residence hall on south donahue will house 418 Auburn students in two and four-bedroom suites.

All undergraduate students qualify to live in south dona-hue residence Hall.

Trupp said the residence

hall will be fully occupied this fall.

Current students have al-ready made their request to live in the hall and incoming freshman can make their re-quest on their housing appli-cation.

Trupp said the two bed-room units will cost each stu-dent $4,800 per semester and the four bedroom unit will cost each student $4,300 per semester.

“it has a premium price tag, but it’s a premium residence hall and we’ve had more re-quest from students who want to live there than we have beds,” Trupp said.

Brad Easely, project manag-er, said the project is on sched-ule to be ready for students to move in this fall.

Each suite includes a 42-inch flat-screen television in the shared living room, a washer and dryer, queen-sized beds, quartz countertops and tiled bathrooms and showers with a glass door.

Each student living in the residence hall will be given the opportunity to purchase a parking permit for the parking

garage currently being built across the street.

Trupp said the first floor of the building will not have units, but will have a common space and a convenience store.

“The building surrounds a courtyard that i think would be a great place for the resi-dents to relax, socialize and play,” Trupp said.

Easely believes the best fea-tures of the new residence hall are the lushly landscaped courtyard and the quality of the interior finishes.

“There are many features of the residence hall that make it a remarkable facility,” Ease-ly said.

Hayley robinson, sopho-more in pre-communication said she would like to have seen the money spent on ren-ovating the dorms on the Hill instead of building the new south donahue residence Hall, but that she thinks the new residence hall does have positive aspects.

“it will provide more spaces for students to live so Auburn doesn’t have to warn students that housing is first-come, first serve,” robinson said.

contRibuted by kim tRupp

the new residence hall at the corner of South donahue and West Samford avenue offers many of its residents view of plainsman park and Jordan-hare Stadium. the new residence hall will also feature an interior courtyard for its residents to enjoy.

Lying to get the job just got harder

Corey ArwoodCAmPus WriTEr

Faking the results on a per-sonality test might be more difficult now, thanks to a pro-fessor in the department of psychology and his research team.

Applying for a job general-ly consists of filling out an ap-plication, submitting a resume and taking a slew of “what-if,” “strongly agree or disagree” and “rate yourself from 1-to-5” tests.

And it is not commonly thought that employers will be fighting over potential em-ployees who provide brutally honest self-assessments.

dr. Jinyan Fan, an associate professor in the department of Psychology, said that he knows this.

“i’m in the opinion that somebody (who) just faked on the personality test, does not mean that person is a liar,” Fan said. “it’s very (situational).”

Whether the test is being taken by someone for an inter-

nal promotion or who is seek-ing an entry-level position; personality tests are becom-ing more pervasive within the job market.

“recent research has shown that personalities are quite predictive of job performance in the workplace,” Fan said. “And that’s why in the past de-cade personality tests have been increasingly used in se-lection contexts.”

The tests are easy to admin-ister, cheap and quick to take.

And in general they make an assessment of universal personality traits known as the Big Five: neuroticism, ex-troversion, openness to expe-rience, conscientiousness and agreeableness.

However, they can quick-ly become a waste of time and money if the applicant is dis-honest.

“in personality tests there is no right or wrong answer, tems are very transparent,” Fan said. “Which makes it very easy, and the applicants see

the need to ‘fake good’ and if you ‘fake good’ that destroys the purpose of the test. What i do in my research, i am trying to (understand) the faking be-havior itself and more impor-tantly i’m interested in can we manage that? From the orga-nizations perspective, can we limit faking behavior, can we mitigate faking behavior?”

Through his research Fan has developed a method to dissuade dishonest self-repre-sentations during online test-ing.

An applicant will be allowed to complete nearly 25 percent of the test.

The results from the com-pleted portion of the test will be assessed and if they are ob-viously too high, reflecting an overly positive self-represen-tation, a warning message will appear.

From this point the appli-cant will be allowed to retake the test, with a potentially higher degree of honesty.

“The beauty of my proce-

dure is it’s a one-time deal,” Fan said. “You don’t have to physi-cally call people back. And you don’t have to have them retake the entire thing.”

Fan left a tenured position at Hofstra university in New York, and came to Auburn, where he also has been grant-ed tenure, because of the high-er degree of research opportu-nities the university offers.

“As a national university, a research school, you will re-ceive the kind of research you need if you really wanted to advance your research agen-da,” Fan said. “Here you have a lot monetary support, reduced teaching load and very com-petent graduate students. And because the school gives them financial support you may ac-tually work with them.”

dr.dan J. svyantek, Psychol-ogy department chair and professor, said Fan has had a positive reception by both fac-ulty and students.

A graduate teaching assis-tant and also one of Fan’s stu-

dents, Ning Hou, said that Fan has a clear teaching method with his undergraduate stu-dents on complex issues such as statistics.

As a graduate student seek-ing her master’s in io Psychol-ogy, Hou said that Fan’s gradu-ate courses promote open dis-cussion in the classroom that is grounded by Fan’s knowl-edge and experience of the field.

svyantek and Fan both spe-cialize in the area of indus-trial and organizational psy-chology, which loosely focus-es on improving experiences for both employers and em-ployees.

“He’s come up with a pret-ty new twist to the whole area, which is informing what we’re doing in the whole area of io Psychology, trying to address on how bad faking is and how we can control it,” svyantek said.

Fan received a 2013 Jeanner-et Award for Excellence in the study of individual or Group Assessment because of his re-search.

The annual Jeanneret Award is given to an author of a work that is determined to have the greatest capacity for advanc-ing understanding of group or individual assessments specif-ically relating to the diversify-

ing work areas, according to the society for industrial and organization Psychology, inc.

The research team mem-bers were: sarah Carroll, Pro-fessional Examination ser-vice; T. siva Tian, university of Houston; dingguo Gao, sun Yat-sen university (China); Fe-lix J. Lopez, Booz Allen Hamil-ton, inc.; and Hui meng, East China Normal university.

Along with the award, which was presented by the society for industrial and or-ganizational Psychology, the team’s work was published in the Journal of Applied Psy-chology.

Both studies were conduct-ed at sun Yat-sen university at Guangzhou, in the Guang-dong province of the People’s republic of China.

Psychology professor develops fool-proof test for employers to gather honest interview answers.

yan

Campus A5 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

Physics professor, Stuart Loch highlights Final LectureAustin LankfordCAMPUS REPORTER

The Student Government Association candidates were not the only ones on the ballot this week.

When spring elections come around the candidates for the Final Lecture are also voted on by students.

Collier Tynes is Chief of Staff of the Student Government As-sociation and explained the process as, “A selection com-mittee will go through the nominations, rank them and the top professors will go on the election ballot Feb. 19. Stu-dents are able to then vote for

the professor they wish to give the Final Lecture.”

Dr. Stuart Loch, associate professor in theoretical Atom-ic Physics, was elected as this year’s winner Tuesday night.

“I am excited, pleased and honored,” Loch said. “It is so special that it is student vot-ed and that’s what means the most to me.

Dr. Joseph Kicklighter, pro-fessor of history for 38 years and the history department undergraduate program offi-cer, was the first faculty mem-ber to receive the honor.

Kicklighter said SGA came to him in 2008 and told him

they were trying something new and that he was being nominated to give the Final Lecture.

“It was a real gratifying expe-rience,” Kicklighter said. “I said in my lecture I could not imag-ine any honor that I could be prouder of since it was voted on by students themselves.”

Kicklighter said most of his remarks were made toward the seniors who attended the lec-ture.

“I tried to communicate to them things that I learned throughout my career,” Kick-lighter said. “That is what I wanted to pass on to the peo-

ple at the lecture so they could take that and hopefully learn from it.”

Dr. Lawrence Wit gave the Final Lecture in 2009. Wit re-tired in September after 36 years at Auburn as a professor and dean of the College of Sci-ence and Mathematics.

“Any time a faculty mem-ber is honored by the students I think it is the highest level of compliment,” Wit said. “It was a great opportunity and a ter-rific honor.”

Wit, like Kicklighter, said he also chose to do something re-flective that was geared toward the graduates.

“I told them the five or six things I wish I had been told the day I graduated,” Wit said. “I remember being anxious the day I graduated college, so I wanted to be encouraging to the ones about to step away from Auburn.”

Wit said it was special to have students who he had taught present at the lecture.

“I have been blessed to have won other teaching awards, but that’s right there at the top,” Wit said. “It is really one of the most special things I have won.”

Matthew Kearley, biology professor, was awarded the Fi-nal Lecture in 2011.

“I knew I had been nominat-ed, then they had the vote dur-ing SGA elections and no one told me I won for two days,” Ke-arley said. “I think it was one of my students who first told me congratulations.”

Kearley said he attend-ed the Final Lecture when Wit gave it.

“He did a fantastic job and it was cool to hear him then be able to do the lecture too,” Ke-arley said. “It is the biggest sin-gle honor I have had since I’ve been here,”

This years’ Final Lecture is scheduled to be on Tuesday, April 9 on Cater Lawn.

Different cultures united through sports tournament Michael HillWRITER

The International Student Organization is having a soc-cer tournament previously scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 23, will now be postponed be-cause of weather, at the intra-murals fields.

Club president Subin Haba said that the tournament consists of eight teams, four groups and there are seven players on each team.

“It’s just to have a better in-teraction between the differ-ent countries and it’s just a friendly match; an outdoor ac-tivity,” Haba said. “It’s just basi-cally for a good friendship.”

There will be three awards given out after the tourna-ment: Champions, Runner-Up and Man of the Cities. The first two are given to the best over-all teams and the last award is given to the individual who played the best in the tourna-ment.

The tournament is based on a knockout playoff sys-tem where the winner in each group will advance to the next round until there are two teams left.

Haba says that although registration has already passed, students wanting to join the tournament can join a team if anyone is injured or a team is short a player.

There are about 200 stu-dents at any given event said,” Charus Campbell, Multicultur-

al Programs Advisor.The International Student

Organization host events each semester and aims to unite students from various coun-tries.

In the fall, the Internation-al Student Organization has a peace dinner and a world fair and has an indoor and out-door sports tournament in the spring and an awards banquet in April.

“This is more of an academ-ic recognition banquet for stu-dents with a good track re-cord,” Haba said.

The International Student Organization is looking to have its indoor tournament next month and basketball will be the sport played.

The organization’s mission is to improve multinational understanding and promote relationships between people of different cultures and also helps to ease the adaption of international students.

Actively promoting diversi-ty and beneficial interaction between the international stu-dents and American students is another big mission of the organization.

The organization also has social hours on Fridays from 4-5 p.m. and serves as a way for students to make new friends and interact with students from other counties and learn about their cultures.

“For social hour, interna-tional students feel comfort-

able coming here because we are all international students; it’s like our activity, but I would like to see more interactions with Americans,” said Ning Hou, International Student Or-ganization vice president.

Hou said that she knows a lot of the international stu-dents and has learned a lot about different cultures from being a part of ISO and said that she enjoys that the orga-nization gives a platform for all of the international students to get together and know each other.

The social hours on Fridays are considered to be the week-ly meetings.

CONTRIBUTED BY SUBIN HABA

ABOVE: With much success in 2012, the International Student Organization thrives by hosting the sports tournaments and other culturally di-verse events. BELOW: For those who prefer less sports related events, the organization holds peace dinners and world fairs

A6Thursday, Februrary 21, 2013 ThePlainsman.com Opinions

Opinions

Mailing Address

Auburn Student CenterSuite 1111HAuburn, AL 36849

Contact

Phone 334–844–4130Email opinion@theplainsman.com

PolicyThe opinions of The Auburn Plainsman staff are restrict-ed to these pages. This editorial is the majority opinion of the 12-member editorial board and are the official opin-ion of the newspaper. The opinions expressed in columns and letters represent the views and opinions of their indi-vidual authors and do not necessarily reflect the Auburn University student body, faculty, administration or Board of Trustees.

SubmissionsThe Auburn Plainsman welcomes letters from students as well as from faculty, administrators, alumni and those not affiliated with the University. Letters must be submitted be-fore 4:30 p.m. on the Monday for publication. Letters must include the author’s name, address and phone number for verification, though the name of the author may be with-held upon request. Submission may be edited for gram-mar and/or length.

The Editorial BoardRObeRt e. Leeeditor-in-Chief

Nathan SimoneMANAgiNg editOR

ben CroomesOPiNiONS editOR

dustin ShraderONLiNe editOR

daniel OramasMuLtiMediA editOR

Sydney CallisCOMMuNity editOR

becky HardyCAMPuS editOR

John burnsSPORtS editOR

elizabeth WeickiNtRigue editOR

Raye MayPHOtO editOR

Rachel SuhsdeSigN editOR

Her View

T.V. an unhealthy dose of non-reality

Greek gods of the SGA

Letter to the editor

SgA elections have a tendency to di-vide people on campus. For non-greek students, or anyone who doesn’t have some kind of organizational or per-sonal investment in the elections, the whole process is an annoyance. greek students appear to be on the other end of the spectrum – with their gau-dy t-shirts and loud antics on the con-course.

We want to take this opportunity to explore this division, a split that even permeates the Plainsman staff.

Most of us just spend this week in February trying to ignore the cam-paigners the best we can and go about our business. When we do complain, it’s usually just a snide comment on Facebook or twitter or a spiteful word to our friends. Non-greek studetns see the SgA elections as an event by greeks for greeks.

but, as we have been told by our greek staff members, greek domi-nance of the SgA is just an unintend-ed consequence.

Anyone who puts the time and effort

into working up the political structure of the SgA can run for office. Freshman are encouraged to participate in tiger tuesdays, now called Freshman Lead-ership Programs. However, the major-ity of the candidates that apply are still greek.

is it a lack of interest or something bigger? We think it’s both.

greek students have a ready-made campaign at their fingertips. They can usually rely on their fraternity or soror-ity kin to stand on the concourse and accost passers-by or donate some mon-ey.

Non-greek students have to operate on more of a grass-roots level, work-ing harder to drum up support among their small group of friends and hoping for enough monetary donations to buy some shirts and posters.

it’s like a bipartisan election except one of the parties is relatively unknown and has a severe lack of resources.

We want to encourage non-greek students to become active in the SgA, but we understand why they wouldn’t

want to. going up against the greek system is a tall order, especially when you consider how exclusive they are. yet, we think for the SgA to truly rep-resent the Auburn student body, the greek dominance, whether it’s inten-tional or not, needs to be broken up.

So much more could be achieved if the SgA fought for us instead of half-heartedly placing a few amenities around campus.

A unified body speaking for the legit-imate concerns of students would be a powerful force for change. imagine or-ganizing a protest for food that doesn’t empty our bank accounts or a protest for lower tuition on Jay gouge’s lawn. These are extreme examples, but some of the problems at Auburn are that bad.

greek or not, any student has the power to bring change to this cam-pus and the community. However, this power should be used for issues that matter instead of some of the gimicky, alliterative slogans being tossed around the concourse with the fun-sized can-dy and fliers.

The lines between reality tele-vision shows and our everyday reality have long been blurred. it’s not a secret that scenes in popular shows are often script-ed, centering around creating drama and action that will bol-ster number of viewers and net-work ratings.

The original intrigue of reali-ty shows was that they’re about candid, ordinary people like us. Portraying relatable people was the capitalizing concept, the way to connect on a more per-sonal level with viewers. They go through breakups that are real, have fights that are real and go to parties that are real. What used to be a refreshing dose of hilarity or entertainment has become a contrived and often pretentious genre of television that has little to with real life.

Fact versus fiction ques-tions often come into play when watching a show that is sup-posed to be about real life. it’s easy to watch any of the Real Housewives series and wonder, “do people really live like this?” While it may be wildly enter-taining to watch a group of faux friends run around town, drink and shop, it’s difficult to believe people really act like this with-

out prodding from show direc-tors. but think about it: would your life be a primetime reali-ty show without the added ele-ment of staged events?

Shows like grey’s Anatomy and Lost are, despite their ridic-ulous and unrealistic plotlines, at least not generally perceived as real by viewers. they film on the set and have a planned script, plot, actors and charac-ters. We can separate Patrick dempsey from his character, dr. derek Shepherd, because one is real and one is fictional.

Recent developments have become hard to relate to. tLC is debuting a show about residents of a trailer park called Welcome to Myrtle Manor. the network also launched a spinoff to My big Fat American gypsy Wed-ding called gypsy Sisters that centers around four gypsy wom-en living in West Virginia.

Shows like these are giving us a contorted sense of reality. We don’t live our lives going to op-ulent balls every weekend, buy thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes on any given day or con-stantly confront enemies. it’s not realistic to think life can be lived like that. Life is not set up in a script format. We must make our own decisions and own up to our mistakes. While it’s funny or captivating, it’s not real.

Wasn’t the whole point of re-ality television to relate to real people?

elizabeth WieckiNtRigue@tHePLAiNSMAN.COM

We start preschool when we’re three or four years old. We go to elementary and middle school to prepare for high school. We go to high school to prepare for col-lege. We go to college to prepare to enter the ‘real world.’ We spend eighteen years or more simply getting ready to go into the work-force, and upon graduation we have these expectations and high hopes of finding work relevant to our major.

For about 50 percent of us, though, that won’t be a reali-ty. to quote a recent article from The Chronicle, “According to a re-port on the study, “Why Are Re-cent College graduates underem-ployed? university enrollments and Labor Market Realities,” out of 41.7 million working college graduates in 2010, 48 percent—more than 20 million people—held jobs that required less than a bachelor’s degree. Thirty-seven percent held jobs that required no more than a high-school di-ploma.”

The immediate reaction to sta-tistics like those for many people, including myself, is a scrambling panic to choose a major that will make me more marketable. it’s the sickening realization that for people like me—people without rich parents or high-up connec-tions—there might not be a mar-ket. My name is Nobody, Auburn university Class of 2014, and un-less i do something extraordinary, i’m going to be one of millions of more Nobodies on job applica-tions all across the country.

So what are we to do? i have

cynicism at war with idealism in my mind. One side says to take the path most likely to get me hired. be a business major, a doc-tor, a lawyer, an architect. do something useful with your life. in a world of uphill battles that lead to glass ceilings, it’s naïve to be-lieve that art majors get an equal shot.

it sounds like a solid plan in theory, but that 50 percent doesn’t exclude ‘practical’ majors.

the idealist side takes that statement and makes it some-thing hopeful: that 50 percent doesn’t exclude ‘practical’ majors. Nobody is immune to it, unless you’ve got a bad case of “it’s cool bro, my dad owns a dealership.” if we’re screwed either way, why not do what we love? if we have to go to Hell, why not go in a hand bas-ket?

it’s cliché, but we have this one life. do you want to spend it miserable, wishing you’d chased your dreams when you had the chance? Maybe you end up one of the lucky half who gets a job. but if you get it doing something you aren’t passionate about, what’s the point? is it worth it?

i would rather live my life doing what i want to do, not what i feel like i have to do. Of course there are obligations nobody likes—that’s a part of any job. but what are all these sleepless Rbd nights and cups of coffee for, if not chas-ing your dreams?

i’m officially finished spending money on college to prepare for a career i have no interest in pursu-ing.

if i end up a broke, starving art-ist, so be it. At least i’ll be an artist. i’ll be proud to say i went down with a smile on my face.

The American dream is dead. Stop pining after it and go chase down your own.

RIP American DreamRAye MAyPHOtO@tHePLAiNSMAN.COM

Her View

Philosophy is defined colloquially as one’s lifestyle and outlook on life de-rived from a consideration of the tradi-tional branches of philosophy: moral, metaphysical and natural. As it were, it is the colloquial use that i would like to discuss.

Whether you subscribe to a theo-logical, mystical, or secular ideolo-gy, it most likely defines your every-day choices. it may make you who you are, or at the very least, mask your in-herent ‘philosophy’ (and i use philos-ophy in quotations to indicate that i am speaking about the colloquial def-inition). Perhaps you use god as your foundation of philosophy, or subscribe to an idea of some mystical idea of pos-itive and negative energy. Perhaps you only take in to consideration the em-pirical and the metaphysical. Have you ever actually examined your ‘philos-ophy’ closely? For what basis do you hold your beliefs? Are they construct-

ed from rational thought or emotion? Or, are you lethargically partaking in them out of convenience? (An example would be remaining Christian out of a fear of a loss of friends and family, even though Christianity may not fit your philosophical subscription). Many avoid any kind of thinking that might lead them to an existential crisis, and then there are many who fully embrace it. Whether you currently hold onto an idea of divine providence or a nihilistic approach, you should fully embrace a level of pragmatic skepticism and ap-ply it to your current belief. does there really need to be a set meaning to exis-tence for one to enjoy life? (i would ar-gue absolutely not). How is your ‘phi-losophy’ affecting your life, and how is it affecting others’ lives?

it’s necessary to scrutinize your thoughts- to question whether or not you are choosing to live your life based solely on a lack of thought, a delusion,

something with no logical basis. How-ever, some may take away that i am criticizing ideas that cannot be logi-cally examined; but, i would further emphasize the necessity to examine things with logic first then emotion, and not with a complete lack of emo-tion altogether.

All-in-all, take in to account exact-ly how you are coming to your con-clusions. Live your life with a level of healthy skepticism and inquiry. don’t bend to convenience or fear of judg-ment. be rational. be emotional. be human. Practice deep thinking— real deep thinking, not some kind of pseu-do-questioning of life. Find your own sense of morality, meaning, love, trivi-al pursuits.

Taylor Lawler Sophomore

English Literature

What is your philosophy?

dear Auburn, My intention is to bend the ear of

enough of you or the right one so that the tradition of rolling toomer’s Cor-ner is taken back to its purist form. The tradition that at the beginning con-tained the correct decorum and spir-it of a good time..And it is not about throwing toilet Paper in any living tree.

i attended Auburn from 1975 till ac-tually graduating in 1987. in 1975 the tradition of rolling toomer’s Corner was still in its purest form. No one ev-ery really knew if the event was “Roll” worthy. if you wanted to go to toom-er’s Corner and roll it then you did. On the way you would go into Mcd’s and steal the tP from the stalls. And may-be on the way to the Corner you’d wrap a little around parked cars rearviw win-dows and the wiper blades, but it was considered poor form to target the trees or the campus. That was done by people that didn’t have an apprecia-tion for the campus. toilet Paper didn’t improve it. Sometimes only 10 people would show up...and fewer than that rolls of tP... There was no rhyme or rea-son.

i showed up once after a victory and there was little going on so i left and three hours later the traffic lights were barely visible. i missed it. but in the be-ginning the spontaneous nature was part of the coolness. And became part of the reason that the tradition became bastardized into rolling those old oak trees. That happened because of the poor behavior of the students, and the short-sighted veiw that the City of Au-burn decided to inact to stop this tra-dition. The reason the city had to take

some action was that there were many occassions where a few students went way out of bounds.

in 1975 we’d go down to toomer’s and roll the street lights and it’d all be done in 30 minutes... if a car wanted through the intersection it’d be able to get through but it would have to drive slow. but then about 1978, the tradi-tion was too big. it was almost impos-sible to drive through the Corner dur-ing the celebration. if you tried stu-dents ignored you, and eventually peo-ple celebrating would climb on a com-plete stranger’s car. And other partici-pants thought it was appropriate that once there was a haystack of tp hang-ing on the lights to take their cigarette lighters and burn it. yep, imagine the fear that shop owners had of seeing lit tP floating into the air over their tar and rock roofs on a dry breezy Autumn Saturday where hundreds of students would block firetrucks.

So because of the unbridled behav-ior of the mob the damaged car owners and the local business owners lobbied the city to stop the tradition. And in the normal short-sightedness of gov-ernment the plan was to put cops at toomer’s Corner and threaten to arrest students if they attempted to break the law by littering.

i was there the first time they at-tempted to stop the tradition. First they told us of their intention so we just stood around cheering. When we didn’t dispers they told us they were going to arrest us for loitering. So i got the brigh idea that we would walk around the intersection. We’d all cross when the light changed and then stood

on that corner waiting for the light to change so we could continue “not loi-tering.” Whooo did “the pigs” hate that, but they couldn’t do anything till one of em said we were unlawfully gather-ing... So then we had to take sanctu-ary on Auburn university’s Campus..and that led to the rolling of what was avaialble... the Oaks.

Rolling those oaks was always a low point to those of us that used to enjoy clogging the intersection. the Oaks looked attractive without tP in them and even the day they were rolled they looked festive. but it wasn’t doing any favor for the Oaks, and it was creat-ing an eyesore for some time after the rolling. if the tradition is to be kept it should be students roll the traffic lights or cables put up to duplicate where the old cables that held the lights were.

Once a few strands caught they pro-vided an anchor for the next thrown roll to catch, and all the rolls were quickly hanging from the lights. driv-ing through that intersection was cool for the next day or two, if no one torched the tP with a lighter.

it was unique. it was ours. When you went by it later with friends that were visiting you got to tell them why it was done. So please, bring back the tradi-tion of rolling toomer’s Corner, not some tree the short-sighted actions of the City of Auburn’s Police department forced on us.

Sincerly, Luke Frisbee ‘87

Luke Frisbee Alumnus ‘87

Letter to the editor

What to roll: history of the tradition

A7Thursday, February 21, 2013 ThePlainsman.com Community

Community

Auburn MMA does more than kick butt, it builds character

Looking for Somethin’ Sweet in town?

RAYE MAY / PHOTO EDITOR

Auburn MMA members get their exercise by fighting friendly during the classes offered at the gym. Classes include MMA, Brazilian Jui Jitsu, fitness kickboxing, female fitness kickboxing and Muay Thai.

Police Academy teaches publicThe 12th Citizen’s Public Safety Academy applications are now available online and at the Public Safety Office.George NunnelleyWRITER

Do you ever get that un-easy feeling when you’re walk-ing down the street alone af-ter dark?

Well, as with every town, crime does occur here in Au-burn, and the authorities are always trying to find ways to minimize it.

The Department of Public Safety and Capt. Tommy Car-swell are hosting the 12th Cit-izen’s Public Safety Academy since its origins in 1995.

The academy was start-ed based on the efforts of the Orlando Police Department, which had come up with a similar system a few years earlier and had begun to see the benefits, Carswell said.

The academy begins on Feb. 28 and will meet every Thursday at the Public Safety building located at 161 North Ross St. There will also be two occasions where members will meet on Saturdays – one at the firing range and one at the fire department.

During the gatherings, the academy will be informed on issues such as crime preven-tion, fire prevention, firearm safety and a plethora of things that people can do to protect themselves and become safer, according to Carswell.

The academy will con-clude on May 2 with a grad-uation ceremony. It is hoped that a group of people with an overall better understanding for their community’s public safety efforts will emerge.

“We allow graduates to provide feedback on what they thought of the academy,” Carswell said. “We will tweak some things based on what they said and try to figure out what subjects work well with each other.”

At the conclusion of the academy, participants also have the opportunity to con-tinue their efforts and join the alumni association, head-ed by President Jeri Earnest.

“The association seems to

be a good thing for the mem-bers,” said Bill James, public safety director. “It gives citi-zens a basic understanding of the people who work in the department and what we do as a whole.”

They also do a multitude of things to help show their appreciation to both the po-lice force and the fire depart-ment, according to Earnest.

“Just today, and for the past three days for that matter, we were delivering bags of Valen-tine candy all over town,” Ear-nest said. “We took them to the fire departments, police stations and administration buildings.”

The association also hosts luncheons for the authorities, who tend to be on call 24/7 during certain events such as the Alabama and Georgia football games.

They also provide safety education during the week-long D.A.R.E. program. Each summer, a number of ele-mentary school students are invited to participate in the program that advises youth to resist drugs and alcohol.

Anyone wanting to apply, over the age of 18, may do so at no cost. Applications are available online at www.au-burnalabama.org or you may pick one up at the Auburn Public Safety building. For more information, contact Carswell by calling (334) 501-3122 or emailing tcarswell@auburnalabama.org.

“It gives citizens a basic understanding of the people who work in the department and what we do as a whole.”

—Bill James PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR

Sonya LovejoyFREELANCE MULTIMEDIA

Owners Jerrod and Kristy Woodham have opened a new sweet spot at 3051 Frederick Road in Opelika, right next to Momma Goldberg’s.

The husband and wife team wanted to provide the Auburn and Opelika area with Italian ice, soft serve ice cream, cup-cakes, muffins, cookies and delicious oatmeal cream pies.

“We are going to try and make anything sweet that someone would want,” Jerrod said.

The Woodhams have been living in Auburn for three years after moving to the area from Ozark.

“We absolutely love it here,” Jerrod said.

Somethin’ Sweet is their first sweets store and was in-spired by their love of the Ital-ian ice trend. Somethin’ Sweet was born out of their desire to bring Italian ice to the area as well as sweet treats that are both home cooked and from scratch.

While several area baker-ies offer cupcakes and cook-ies, Italian ice is one of the more rare dessert items on the Somethin’ Sweet menu.

Italian ice is a sweetened frozen dessert made with fruit or other natural or artifi-cial food flavorings. Italian ice is not flavored shaved ice as

some may assume. It is made by the same process used to make ice cream, which freez-es the ingredients while mix-ing them together.

Somethin’ Sweet also offers gelati, which is a combination of Italian ice and soft-serve ice cream.

Somethin’ Sweet has been open for almost three weeks and serves creative items such as their peanut butter and jel-ly cupcake or their cinnamon streusel muffin. The current fan favorite item is the oat-meal cream pie, although cus-tomers seem to appreciate the fresh quality of all of the sweets.

“What sets us apart is we

bake our goods fresh daily and have a wide assortment of Italian ice,” Jerrod said. “If you aren’t in the mood for a cup-cake, you have other options such as cookies, cream pies and Italian ice.”

Somethin’ Sweet also of-fers several discounts. If you buy five cupcakes, you get the sixth free. They also boast T-shirt Tuesday, where you get a free small Italian ice when you wear or purchase a Somethin’ Sweet T-shirt.

Additionally, if you buy five oatmeal cream pies you get the sixth free. All Auburn stu-dents get 10 percent off of their purchase by showing their student ID.

The biggest challenge the Woodhams have faced has been getting the Somethin’ Sweet name out to the public.

“Everyone needs Somethin’ Sweet in their life,” Jerrod said.

The couple would like to eventually own and operate another store in the area but for now strive to supply the area with Somethin’ Sweet and satisfy everyone’s sweet tooth.

Somethin’ Sweet is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays. The Woodhams invite the community to stop in and experience their mot-to, “keep calm and eat Some-thin’ Sweet!”

RAYE MAY / PHOTO EDITOR

Jerrod and Kristy Woodham own Somethin’ Sweet, where Kristy bakes everything by hand.

Sydney CallisCOMMUNITY EDITOR

It doesn’t teach you to wax on and wax off. There’s no Mr. Miyagi offering life les-sons and advice, but Auburn Mixed Mar-tial Arts, MMA, is about more than tech-nique.

Founded in 2008 by Randall Phillips and Keith Johnson, Auburn MMA, which teaches classes on MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jit-su, kickboxing, Muay Thai, wrestling and Judo, offers the opportunity to build char-acter, according to Phillips.

“For the kids, you learn respect, re-spect for authority, respect for tech-nique, respect for those who have fought hard,” Phillips said. “For the adults, you learn how to be consistent, so engage your mind and learn a technique that’s new to them. This is not the easiest sport to learn, for the kids that are wanting to learn self-confidence this teaches them that sometimes they have to stick with things before they get promoted. Just knowing a martial art will teach you self-confidence.”

Phillips said there are benefits for ev-eryone that comes in to train.

“Our youngest student is a 3-year-old kid, and our oldest student is a 68-year-old man,” Phillips said. “I would say half of our members are ladies, and a lot of them are college students, but not all of them.”

Johnson said it is important to peo-ple to come into the classes with an open mind.

“Don’t have any preconceived notions about what we’re about,” Johnson said. “Just show up and be willing to learn.”

Coming in to training with an open mind can help progress quicker, said Andy Roberts, who joined Phillips and Johnson at Auburn MMA shortly after its opening in 2008.

“You can be stubborn and be close-minded about it and progress very slow-ly or you can come in open minded and progress very rapidly,” Roberts said.

However, Auburn MMA isn’t just about the fighting. It’s a place that provides an outlet for people to socialize and com-pete.

“I fell in love with the competition,” said Shane Mills, trainer at Auburn MMA. “At my age, I’m 36, it’s still wanting to be competitive at that age, and it’s a good outlet for that.”

Johnson said the competitiveness of MMA interested him the most.

“I’m not a fighter, but I’m a competitor and I love to compete at anything, from chess to throwing a rock the farthest,” Johnson said. “I knew once I got my hand raised that there was no better feeling than that.”

Mills has been training at Auburn MMA for four years and also teaches one of the children’s classes.

The social aspect of the training and classes at Auburn MMA is what Mills said he likes most about MMA.

“When you work as hard as we have to work and when you train as hard as we have to train to be good at this it builds a strong bond between the two of you,” Mills said. “Even though this is an individ-ual sport, per se, the guys you train with, it’s just like a team. They’ve got your back and you’ve got their back. It’s a beautiful thing really.”

Andy Roberts, who joined Johnson and Phillips shortly after Auburn MMA was founded, said that, like Mills, the cama-raderie built through training is his favor-ite part.

“High intensity training tends to devel-op a camaraderie and a teamsmanship that you see stronger than in sports that you don’t have to train as hard,” Roberts said. “It’s almost like enduring any sort of pain and torture and sacrifice, like guys, for example, that go to war together, you endure those things together and grow tighter as a group.”

All four men said training, requires a lot of hard word and dedication, but that it’s something that has its benefits.

“The best thing you can do is come in, meet the folks that run Auburn MMA and train here,” Roberts said. “The tough-guy, meathead mentality that people associ-ate with MMA is not at all what you’ll find here. What you’ll find is a bunch of good, hardworking, athletic folks.”

“The best thing you can do is come in and meet the folks that run Auburn MMA and train here.”

—Andy Roberts TRAINER AT AUBURN MMA

Abigail O’BrienCOMMUNITY WRITER

Among other news pre-sented during the Auburn City Council meeting Tues-day, Feb. 19, James Grider, a local retiree spoke up con-cerning a recent bill put forth by Rep. Pebblin Warren that would affect a mill increase in conjunction with new school funding.

Grider said he recent-ly completed a phone survey concerning funding for a new high school. Later, he saw that Warren’s bill called for a 14 mills increase.

“At nine mills, with what we pay in state taxes, federal taxes and county taxes, that would mean a 16.7 percent increase in my property tax,” Grider said. “At 14 mills, that would be over 20 percent of my property tax.”

Grider was alarmed by the 14 million increase and asked the council whether bonds were an option considered.

“In previous years, in oth-er places that I’ve been, when the school or the city needed

money, they put out bonds,” Grider said.

Charles Duggan, Jr., city manager, said that the bill’s terminology made it confus-ing.

“It’s actually a nine mill in-crease,” Duggan said. “For that special school tax, there’s already five mills levied, so it takes it to a total of 14. So they’re adding the five that are already there plus the 9nine that are proposed to be voted on by the voters for a to-tal of 14 in that one count.”

Duggan also said that bonds would play a part in the bill.

“And approximately $90 to $100 million dollars is an-ticipated will be borrowed through bonds,” Duggan said. “And so bonds will be is-sued and right now, probably, they’ll have a 30 year pay-out period. So it’ll be 30 years in the future until they’re paid off.”

Grider said he was still con-cerned that he didn’t know when the cap would be im-plemented

Citizen worried over tax increase

Community A8 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

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Eighth & Rail rocks downtown Opelika with sushi and musicEVA WOGHIRENWRITER

Eighth & Rail, a downtown Opelika bar that also serves sushi, gives the Auburn/Ope-lika community a different scene than the typical bars in Auburn.

“Almost all the bars in Au-burn are geared toward the college crowd so I saw that as an opportunity to offer something for a more mature crowd,” said Mike Patterson, Eighth & Rail owner.

Patterson took over the previously owned bar and re-opened it mid-September of 2012. Patterson decided to add the sushi aspect to the bar to bring in more than just the usual bar customers.

“With food you are going to keep customers a little bit longer, and there wasn’t really anybody offering sushi in Ope-lika besides a couple Chinese buffets,” Patterson said.

Patterson’s ultimate goal was to fill a void in the mar-ket and attract the downtown traffic and businesses to the bar.

The venue, described as laid back and friendly by its sushi chef Cory Pacheco, hosts sev-eral different bands every week. Tuesday nights are jazz night and the Jane Drake Trio performs that almost every week. Patterson said he wel-comes any area musicians to play and sit in with the trio.

“Thursday, Friday and Saturday I have a local pia-no player play for the guests who takes requests,” Patter-son said.

Dylan Brabham, Joe Bagley, Eight Track Rewind and Ste-vie Monce, from Nashville who makes frequent appear-

ances at Sky Bar Café, also have played at Eighth & Rail. The genre of performers range from southern rock and jazz to country, acoustic and alter-native rock.

When you walk through the double doors of the downtown bar your eyes must adjust to the dimmed lights which guide you into the dining area filled with round tables with seats for three or four at each. At the end of the room is the stage, set for any perform-er and includes a grand pia-no. The bar also has three grey couches giving the customers the lounge aspect.

“I have not been here since they reopened, and I wanted to try the sushi,” said Michael Mardis of Auburn’s Enroll-ment Services Department. “I originally heard about the re-opening through Facebook, but I’ve had some friends that

have eaten here, and I know they enjoyed it.”

The bar connects with the community using its Face-book page as well as its Twit-ter, @EightRail. Pacheco said that one thing that is really en-couraging is the locals, peo-ple that keep coming back be-cause they like it.

“We have a lot of regulars, but every week new faces do show up, the people that didn’t realize Eighth & Rail had been bought and reopened,” said Kelly Rollins, bartender.

Pacheco has been work-ing at the bar for almost two months and said that it is a fun and exciting atmosphere especially with the live music playing in the background as he serves guests. Everyone he has come in contact with has been really welcoming he said.

Eighth & Rail’s main spe-cialty is martinis, but they

also serve coffee, shooters and cocktails. On their most pop-ular nights, Fridays, Patterson said that they could see any-where from 50–110 people en-joying the food and live music.

“We don’t have a large ca-pacity, but after the dinner crowd clears around 7:30 p.m. the bar crowd rolls in and stays till around 11:30 p.m. or midnight,” Patterson said. “We do have the stragglers that stick around with us un-til close at 2 p.m.”

Along with sushi the venue does carry small desserts from The Cheesecake Cottage, a lo-cal bakery just around the cor-ner.

Patterson thought the tim-ing was right and knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to bring something new to the community, so he bought the building, kept the name and made it his own.

RAYE MAY / PHOTO EDITOR

Located in downtown Opelika, Eighth & Rail serves sushi, desserts from The Cheesecake Cottage and martinis. It is also host to weekly concerts of a variety of artists from all over.

Sports B1Thursday, February 21, 2013 ThePlainsman.com Sports

Ethan BradySPortS rEPortEr

After securing the No. 9 ranked 2013 recruiting class in the nation, Gus Malzahn and his staff is already diligently working toward building a deep 2014 class for the tigers.

this upcoming Saturday, Feb. 23 Auburn will host its annual Junior Day for potential 2014 recruits. Some of the nation’s top players are expect-ed to be in attendance following some earlier visits by top recruits this past weekend to the Plains.

“We’re real excited for the talent coming in this weekend,” said Weston Awtry, an Auburn Athletics tiger Host responsible for touring athlet-ic recruits. “We can’t wait to see what these players can offer to Auburn’s 2014 recruiting class.”

Earlier this week, President’s Day

allowed for some visitors to cam-pus including Elisha Shaw, the No. 3 defensive tackle and rivals.com No. 34 overall player from tucker High School in Atlanta. The 6-foot-6, 299-pound Shaw moved Auburn into his top three college choices after fa-vorites Alabama and Georgia.

“This visit put Auburn in my top three. Auburn is a nice school. They have people that keep your head on straight,” said Shaw to rivals.com. “they aren’t just a football school, they focus on academics. It’s nice out here.”

If it wasn’t obvious by their success with the 2013 class, assistant coaches Dameyune Craig and rodney Garner are one of the country’s greatest de-fensive recruiting duos. The coaches continued to impress many recruits this week.

“Coming and checking out Au-burn was really good. They have the two best coaches in Coach Craig and Coach Garner, those are my top coaches,” said Shaw. “It really put Au-burn up there.”

Shaw’s teammates at tucker High School Detrik Dukes and Dominick Sanders also made the visit to Auburn Feb. 18. The pair is soon to be heav-ily recruited, already securing offers from Auburn and schools like Louis-ville, Connecticut and Indiana.

“My visit was great, I was excited talking to the coaches. I loved the ex-perience,” Dukes said. “I grew up lik-ing Auburn, always been fan. I grew up younger and liked their mascot, then they have players like Cam New-ton and Bo Jackson. It’s a great place.”

Though the official list has yet to be solidified for Junior Day, a good por-

tion of Auburn’s 24 offers are expected to make the event. The nation’s No. 9 overall player, five-star defensive end Larenzo Carter from Norcross, Ga. is expected to visit along with two high-ly recruited teammates.

Myles Autry, the No. 128 ranked player in the nation, is listed as an athlete with offers from nearly ev-ery major collegiate program in the country. While tennessee, Georgia and ohio State are interests for the Norcross running back, Auburn just recently offered him and hopes to im-press on Saturday.

A third Norcross prospect, Kev-in Mouhon, a linebacker and the No. 240 ranked player in the country re-cently received an offer from Coach Garner and the tigers. Mouhon is ap-parently close with 2013 JUCo signee Ben Bradley and gives Auburn a slight

edge in his recruitment. Local opelika High School stars

tight end/defensive end Jakell Mitch-ell and cornerback Stephen roberts will be in attendance on Junior Day. The pair has already received offers from Alabama and Florida, but recent interest from the tigers will bring the defensive standouts to Auburn on Saturday.

The successful recruiting staff for the tigers continues to put in long hours for Auburn’s upcoming 2014 class. Though these players still have their entire senior seasons to be eval-uated, the prospects visiting this weekend are some of the best in the country. Auburn’s momentum from National Signing Day has carried over into early interest from the class of 2014, putting them on an early road to a potential blockbuster signing class.

Charles Barkley is an Auburn man to the core.

Did anyone see him on the tNt’s Inside the NBA Thursday, Feb. 14?

In case you missed it or the numer-ous videos online, allow me to break it down for you.

As the show began, Barkley was shown with a large, bloody bandage around his head that could have come straight out of Band of Broth-ers.

of course, his co-host Ernie John-son mockingly asked what happened to him and Barkley, being the comedi-an that he is responded.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Barkley said. “Being the Auburn guy that I am, I want to be first class. I went down to the University of Ala-bama to congratulate the Crimson tide on winning the BCS Champion-ship and I got mugged.”

Barkley then raised his voice and said, “I got mugged in tuscaloosa, Er-nie, and my credit cards are missing!”

the talking heads struggled to keep it together, but still insisted that he should leave the “kids” (alleged criminals) alone.

“What?” Barkley said, “It’s my fault they’re mugging people?”

ok, so here’s the back-story.Last Monday, Feb. 11, four players

on Alabama’s football team were in-definitely suspended by coach Nick Saban for being arrested.

Three of the players were charged with two counts of second-degree robbery.

Why?Because they allegedly robbed

(mugged) two students on Alabama’s

campus in separate incidents, and then bought snacks from a vending machine with the money.

oh, I almost forgot, they knocked one of the people out.

Now, I know that Barkley was al-luding to the victims of this apparent crime, which I personally don’t con-done because no one wants to see someone injured, especially at the hands of another human being, but Barkley calling Alabama out on na-tional tV was just hilarious.

I’m not saying Auburn is perfect ei-ther. Nearly two years ago four tiger football players were arrested on sim-ilar robbery charges.

We took a lot of grief for that, and everything else from Alabama fans, so what do I consider what Barkley did on tV last week?

Payback.Many people have been jumping at

Barkley, saying he shouldn’t be mak-ing fun of an alleged crime, or allud-ing the victims, but Barkley wasn’t making fun of those people. I mean he was, but he was just using the crime as a vessel to get at the heart of his point.

He was just making fun of Ala-bama.

We all know we haven’t had much of an opportunity to talk trash about the tide. Let’s face it, they dominate the college football world right now, and think they’re infallible.

So when something like this hap-pens, I say as an Auburn fan that we should take full advantage of it. Be-cause who knows? This might be the last time in a while that Auburn fans have a real reason to jab at Alabama, and everyone is fully aware that they would jab endlessly at us if the roles were reversed.

So what’s my point in all of this?Well, mainly I want to congratulate

Sir Charles on an excellent joke, but I also want people to lighten up, be-cause that’s all it was: a joke.

No time to rest, Malzahn is on to 2014 recruiting

Courtesy of tNtCharles Barkley with a bandage on his head on tNt’s Inside the NBA thursday, feb. 14.

John BurnsSPortS EDItor

SPortS@tHEPLAINSMAN.CoM

Andrew YawnSPortS rEPortEr

SPortS@tHEPLAINSMAN.CoM

Charles sparks up controversy, again

Charles Barkley made fun of alleged criminals on the Alabama football team on

TNT’s Inside the NBA Thursday, Feb. 14

ANdrew yAwN / sports reporterAttendance at Jordan-Hare stadium dropped 3.7 percent last season after Auburn’s seC west-worst 3-9 record.

Getting the fans back in the stands

Year Attendance Record

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

82,646

85,792

86,086

84,614

86,915

84,689

85,063

84,161

83,085

85,203

3-9

8-5

14-0

8-5

5-7

9-4

11-2

9-3

13-0

8-5

Auburn’s 2012 season will forever be remembered as one of the worst (if not the worst) football campaigns in the program’s prestigious history.

Many are trying to forget that Auburn went winless in an eight game conference schedule for the first time and narrowly avoided the worst Iron Bowl loss ever.

So who can blame those who were not there to witness it?

According to ESPN’s Darren rov-ell, Auburn’s average attendance in 2012 dropped 3.7 percent from 2011. Approximately 85,792 fans were in Jordan-Hare Stadium each home game in 2011. In 2012, there were 3,000 less shakers being shook and 6,000 less hands going up and stay-ing there.

With advancements in technolo-gy and ticket prices, attendance at college football games has been col-lectively declining with more fans deciding to stay home and watch the game on televisions nearly as large as Pat Dye Field.

the Auburn Athletics Depart-ment attempted to avoid this by promoting Gameday Weekends this past season with the idea being more fans would come to watch the game if there was more to do than just, well, watch the game.

While the additional activities, lectures, concerts and dining op-

tions were probably enjoyed by those who went, the fact remains that not enough people showed up to the game. In addition, of those who did show up, many were notice-ably missing at the beginnings of the second halves.

That’s because, at the end of it all, fans care about winning.

While attendance the past 10 years has fluctuated around the same range, each person counts, and to Auburn, each person’s mon-ey counts even more.

The decline this past year is not shocking, but it is concerning.

The good news is, Auburn’s atten-dance should be on the rise in 2013.

Granted, in Gene Chizik’s first year as head coach, attendance dropped, but this can be attribut-ed to the fans dislike of the hire as much as the 5-7 record the year be-

fore. With the addition of Gus Malzahn

and a bevy of top recruits, Auburn fans who have forgotten what it feels like to beat an SEC opponent should jump at the chance to see a remod-eled tigers team eager to prove last season was a fluke.

If Malzahn can rebuild Auburn into the SEC powerhouse it can be, the allure of the games is sure to draw fans off their couches.

In order to get the bleachers filled again, Auburn has to return to to the top of the SEC. It’s not about events, autographs or deep fried treats. It’s about winning and winning consis-tently.

Why else should attendance go up this year? Because when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Hopefully.

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Men’s Basketball: The men’s basketball team went back to their losing ways with an eight-point home defeat against Arkansas Wednesday, Feb. 13 and a 31-point away blowout against Florida Saturday, Feb. 16. The Tigers were al-ways a few buckets behind the Razorbacks, but could simply never find the extra spark to mount a considerable charge. Auburn was defeated 83-75. Against Flor-ida, however, Auburn never stood a chance. The Gators took control of the game early, and never looked back, winning 83-52.

Baseball: The Auburn baseball team began their season strong with a four-game home sweep of Maine. Each of Auburn’s victories were comeback wins. The Tigers are 4-0 for the first time since 2008. Preseason All-American Ryan Tella hit .357 for the weekend, while the team posed 12 doubles, 2 home runs and had a .312 batting average.

Women’s Basketball: The women’s basketball team defeated arch rival Alabama Sunday Feb. 17, 70-53 in the Auburn Arena. Senior Blanche Alverson had a massive impact on the game, scoring 22 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists. Alverson moved up to 24th all-time in scoring at Auburn with 1,109 points. This victory snapped an eight-game losing streak and allowed the Tigers to improve to 14-11 (3-9 SEC).

Women’s Tennis: The women’s tennis team improved to 7-1 after sweeping both Alabama State and Troy in a doubleheader Wednesday, Feb. 13 at the Yarbrough Tennis Center. The team did not drop a match all day, and were highlighted by the afternoon play of freshman Pleun Burgmans and senior Plame-na Kurteva who destroyed their doubles opponents 8-0.

Gymnastics: The No. 14 women’s gymnastics team fell to No. 4 rival Al-abama Friday, Feb. 15. The final score was 197.650-196.575 in favor of the Tide. While coach Jeff Graba was not pleased with the result, he did say that the Tigers delivered a “B” performance against Alabama. The team recorded only the third score of more than 196 in program history, but were just slightly edged by the Tide.

Men’s Golf: The No. 22 men’s golf team won its second victory of the year by shooting 3-under at the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate at the Magnolia Grove Crossings Course Tuesday, Feb. 19. All-SEC junior Niclas Carlsson picked up the individual victory. It was Carlsson’s third victory of his career. All-SEC senior se-nior Michael Hebert aided the team victory by posting his second top-five finish of the season.

Softball: The Auburn women’s softball team continued with its impres-sive early season form last week, as the team improved to 10-1 overall. The Tigers won five games last week, but just fell short to Chattanooga Sunday, Feb. 17. Be-fore their game against Chattanooga the Tigers were 10-0.

Equestrian: The No. 2 Auburn women’s equestrian team narrowly de-feated No. 4 South Carolina 10-9 Thursday Feb. 14 in their last home meet of the season. The team improved to 6-1 (3-1 SEC).

A week of Auburn sports

Katherine Mccahey / assistant Photo editorchris denson reaches for the basket while being defended by Florida on saturday, Feb. 16.

courtesy oF todd Van eMstniclas carlsson at the ncaa Men’s Golf championships third round on thursday, May 31, 2012.

courtesy oF todd Van eMstauburn’s Jordan ebert makes the throw to first in the fifth inning against Maine on sunday, Feb. 17.

Thursday, February 21, 2013 The Auburn Plainsman Sports B3

The next week in sportsFebruary 21Swimming & Diving, SEC Championships, Day 3 prelims and finals, College Station, Texas at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Women’s tennis vs. Texas Tech, Auburn, at 11 a.m.

Women’s basketball at Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn., at 6 p.m.

February 22Swimming & Diving, SEC Championships, Day 4 prelims and finals, College Station, Texas at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Softball vs. Kansas and Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Men’s tennis vs. Clemson, Auburn, at 2 p.m.

Baseball vs. Middle Tennessee State, Auburn, at 6 p.m.

Women’s gymnastics vs. LSU, Auburn, at 7 p.m.

Track, SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships, all day, Fayetteville, Ark.

February 23Softball vs. Southern and New Mexico, Corpus Christi, Texas, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Swimming & Diving, SEC Championships, Day 5 prelims and finals, College Station, Texas, at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Women’s tennis vs. Tulane and UAB, Auburn, at noon and 6 p.m.

Men’s baseball vs. College of Charleston, Auburn, 1 p.m.

Men’s basketball at Ole Miss, Oxford, Miss., 4 p.m.

Women’s equestrian vs. Georgia and Delaware State, Athens, Ga.

Track, SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships, all day, Fayetteville, Ark.

February 24Men’s tennis vs. Georgia Tech, Auburn, at 1 p.m.

Baseball vs. Indiana State, Auburn, at 2 p.m.

Women’s basketball vs. Missouri, Auburn, at 2 p.m.

Women’s golf, AllState Sugar Bowl Invitational, English Turn Golf Club, New Orleans, La.

Track, SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships, all day, Fayetteville, Ark.

February 25Women’s golf, AllState Sugar Bowl Invitational, English Turn Golf Club, New Orleans, La.

February 26Baseball vs. Kennesaw State, Auburn, at 3 p.m.

Men’s basketball at Alabama, Tuscaloosa, at 6 p.m.

Women’s golf, AllState Sugar Bowl Invitational, English Turn

Will GainesSPorTS rePorTer

over the past few years no position has been more consis-tent at Auburn, at least statisti-cally, than the running backs.

Auburn has produced at least one 1,000- yard rusher ev-ery year since Ben Tate in 2009. He was followed by Mike Dyer in 2010 and 2011 and Tre Ma-son continued the streak this past season.

Auburn will look to contin-ue this streak in 2013, and we could see some new faces do-ing it.

one major emphasis for Gus Malzahn and his staff this recruiting season was adding depth to the running back po-sition. After losing onterio Mc-Caleb and Mike Blakely, only Mason and Corey Grant were on the roster.

Mason finished the 2012 season with 1,002 yards on 171 carries. Mason has been ques-tioned in the past as a running back because he is undersized for his position, especially in the SeC. Instead of letting the criticism get to him, Mason became one of the few bright spots on Auburn’s offense last season.

Grant saw limited action last year as he only had 29 yards on 9 carries all season.

Auburn was able to sign

three running backs in junior college transfer Cameron Ar-tis-Payne, Georgia native Pey-ton Barber and in-state back Jonathan Ford.

Artis-Payne played this past season at Allan Hancock College in California. He fin-ished with 2,048 yards rush-ing and 25 touchdowns in 10 games. Artis-Payne’s 5-foot-11 210-pound frame and play making ability should help with the physical style of play that coach Gus Malzahn wants to bring back to Auburn this season.

Artis-Payne is already en-rolled at Auburn and is able to participate with the team in winter conditioning and spring practice. Because of this, he stands a good chance of making an immediate im-pact in Auburn’s offense.

Peyton Barber was a late ad-dition to the Tiger’s 2013 sign-ing class. After previously be-ing committed to ole Miss, Barber flipped to the Tigers af-ter a last minute visit to Au-burn.

Barber played last season at Milton High School in Al-pharetta, Ga. and was the high school teammate of fellow signee Carl Lawson.

During his senior season at Milton, Barber rushed for 1,980 yards and 25 touch-

downs. Like Artis-Payne, Barber

will bring size to the position and most importantly add much needed depth.

Jonathan Ford was also a late signee for the Tigers. The New Hope running back chose Auburn over Tennessee on signing day after previously being committed to Vander-bilt. In his senior season Ford rushed for 1,669 yards and 27 touchdowns. Ford will need some time to develop his size and speed, but could be a qual-ity running back for Auburn down the road. And it’s always nice when you can sign in-state players.

Considering Tre Mason’s success last season, and his familiarity with Malzahn’s of-fense, he is expected to be the man to beat for the starting running back position when the season begins.

But Artis-Payne’s size and collegiate experience will def-initely earn him a lot of playing time this fall.

Barber and Ford have great potential and could surprise some people, but they need time to develop.

However, with depth issues at running back, both of these young backs could, and proba-bly will see a limited role early in their careers as Tigers.

COUrTESy OF TODD VAN EMSTTre Mason carries the ball in the first half against Alabama Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012 in Tuscaloosa.

Auburn’s options at running back

Staff report

When Auburn senior defensive lineman Nosa eguae isn’t busy hitting the books or taking the field, he can be found volunteering his time at The Pine Hills Literacy Project, an after school program designed to develop and enhance reading skills among kids, grades one through six, in the Lee County area.

“I found myself with a little bit of free time and I decided that I needed to do something wise with it. I needed to do something that would help somebody,” eguae said.

Inspired by a message heard in church, eguae decided that Pine Hills Literacy was the perfect outlet to use his time wisely.

“In church a few weeks ago the minister was talking about using our platforms to impact others,” eguae said. “I was blessed with many platforms and I have a passion for kids and fam-ilies, and reading and education is such an im-portant part of life so volunteering here has re-ally been special.”

eguae, 22, from Mansfield, Texas says his tight-knit family also influences his drive to-ward making a difference.

'I grew up with two older brothers and an old-er sister, and I was always running around with them,” eguae said. “I am so blessed to have come from such a positive family but I know that a lot of people aren’t blessed the way I was. So if I can be that positive role model for someone, I’m not going to pass up that opportunity.”

Amy Brinkerhoff and Samantha Holland, teachers for Pine Hills Literacy, paired eguae with third and fifth graders.

“one of the main goals at Pine Hills Liter-acy is to get the kids to learn to love reading,” Brinkerhoff said. “And Nosa really seems to get that message across to them. He’s a huge help to us.”

“He is especially great with the boys,” Holland said. “He is such a calming person and he helps keep the kids calm and focused which is a hard thing to do at that age.”

Although the time commitment is small, eguae has a big message he hopes to get across to the children.

“At the end of the day, I want them to know that they can do anything they put their minds and hearts to,” eguae said. “That’s ultimately what I’m aiming to teach them.”

Eguae aids local communityWhen he’s not hitting the quarterback

or studying, senior defensive lineman Nosa Eguae takes time to

help children learn how to read

Will Gaines SPorTS rePorTer

Niclas Carlsson earned his third-career victory on Tuesday Feb. 19 at the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate at Magnolia Crossings.

“It’s always fun to win both individ-ually and as a team,” Carlsson said. “It’s just proof of your hard work and it’s a very rewarding feeling.”

Carlsson went into the final round in first place at 2-under and birdied three of his first five holes. After mak-ing the turn, Carlsson moved to 7-un-der after back-to-back birdies on Nos. 13 and 14, but bogeyed Nos. 15, 18 and 2 to finish the day for a 70.

“I had a one-shot lead going into yesterday and played really well the first 12 holes or so and then I made three bogies coming in,” said Carls-son. “But since I played so well I had a little gap between the guys that were behind me.”

Not only did Carlsson have a good day, but the team as a whole had a good day as well.

The team earned its second victo-ry of the year, and its 10th under coach Nick Clinard after beating No. 12 LSU

by four strokes.“It’s a great win for both me and

the entire team,” said Carlsson. “My teammate Micheal (Herbert) finished third and David (Zickler) shot the low round for the team and shot 69.”

Also Micheal Johnson tied for 16th, his fourth top-20 finish of the year. Dominic Bozzelli, who was named SeC men’s golfer of the week on Wednesday Feb. 13 after winning the Amer Ari Invitational in Hawaii, tied for 27th, and David Zickler tied for 35th.

With the Tigers ranked No. 22 in the country Carlsson believes that some of the best things for this team are still to come.

“We kind of had a slow start last semester, but now we’re starting to play better and yesterday was proof of that,” said Carlsson. “We’re looking forward to the SeC and NCAA cham-pionships that are coming up. We feel good about our games. We are just going to try to win as much as we can. That’s our main goal. We still have a lot of work to do, but we’re positive about the future.”

As an individual player Carlsson

doesn’t concentrate much on result based goals. He’s just focusing on im-proving his game and becoming the best player he can be.

“My individual goals are just to play and practice as good as I can,” said Carlsson. “I’ve just started work-ing with my coach here in Auburn. I had a coach back home in Sweden, but now I’ve decided to start working with my coach here.”

Carlsson a junior is originally from enebyberg, Sweden. After playing in some American events in Florida and Arizona he began to receive interest from American coaches.

“My coach recruited me from Swe-den actually,” said Carlsson. “He went over there to watch the european Boys Team Championships where I played for Sweden. He emailed me and we talked a couple times, and then I came and took my official vis-it. I really liked it from the start. I had a few other options, but this was real-ly the best one.”

Carlsson and the Tigers will return to action March 4-5 at the Samford Intercollegiate at the Hoover Coun-try Club in Hoover.

Carlsson, Tigers victorious

COUrTESy OF AUBUrN AThLETICSNiclas Carlsson holds his indivicual trophy in front of the leaderboard at the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate at Magnolia Crossings Tuesday, Feb. 19.

Sports B4 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

Lance DavisSPORTS WRITER

If Stephen Bass looked confident standing under the basket before his attempt at $5,000, it’s because he was.

Bass, an Auburn sophomore from Murfreesboro, Tenn., was selected by random drawing before Auburn’s game Wednesday, Feb. 13, to participate in the Golden Flake Tuition Shootout.

He had the entire first half to think about this opportunity. All he had to do to win $5,000 was make a layup, free throw, 3-pointer and half-court shot in 24 seconds.

“I wasn’t nervous,” Bass said. “I watched the game, but for the most part, I was thinking about (the contest). I told people I wasn’t nervous because I knew I could get to the half-court shot. And not to sound cocky about it, but I just knew I’d make the layup. I thought I’d hit the free throw the first time.”

And he did.Bass made the layup and free throw

on the first attempts. The 3-pointer gave him more trouble than anticipated.

“I thought I could make the 3 in two shots,” Bass said. “That didn’t work out, but luckily I hit the third.”

The announcer began counting down from 10 as Bass missed his second 3-point attempt. He swished his third try as the announcer made it to four.

Bass didn’t have enough time to turn around and launch a half-court shot, so he improvised and heaved it toward the other basket.

And he buried it.“I’m not gonna say the last shot was

much skill, but I knew I could get there and get it close,” Bass said. “And then it worked out. I looked up and saw the camera man and the guy under the goal and thought, ‘I’m probably not supposed to do this, but here goes nothing.’ I let it fly. It was great.”

There was some confusion about whether he had won the $5,000. Was his foot on the line? Did he get it off in time? Is it against the rules to shoot on the op-

posite goal?“I kind of realized when Jay Jacobs

tweeted about me that I didn’t think they could take it back after it had be-come so big,” Bass said. “I kind of real-ized that would look even worse if they took it back.”

In addition to receiving a tweet from Jacobs, Bass also did interviews with the Rick & Bubba Show, a local radio show called The Drive, a news station in Nash-ville, the War Eagle Reader and Eagle Eye TV.

His video was played on ESPN shows Around the Horn and SportsNation. Ar-ticles were written about him on USA To-day, Mashable and Bleacher Report. The YouTube video of his performance has exceeded 70,000 views.

He’s also getting plenty of attention on campus.

“Every day since then, several people have come up,” Bass said. “People gave me hugs the day after. I’ve gone and ate at Momma Goldberg’s a few times, and all three times since then people have been like, ‘Are you that guy?’ And they’re random people.”

After hitting four shots, including a half-court prayer, in 24 seconds, a case could be made Bass deserved more than $5,000, but he’s appreciative for his prize.

“Someone else said that was the worst difficulty-to-prize ratio they’ve ever seen,” Bass said. “But I’m very thankful to Golden Flake for the $5,000 and I’m hap-py with the prize. For me, I’m just thank-ful for what I have.”

Sophomore scores $5,000 at halftime

Courtesy of todd Van emststephen Bass gives the auburn crowd a fist pump after sinking a half court shot Wednesday, feb. 13 at the auburn are-na.

“I’m not going to say the last shot was much skill, but I knew I could get there and get it close.”

—Stephen Bass CONTEST WINNER

IntrigueThursday, February 21, 2013 ThePlainsman.com Intrigue

B5

Kelsey DavisINTRIGUE WRITER

Tattoo clad girls wearing fish net tights, shoving each other to the ground as they race around a skating rink may be what first comes to mind when the words “women’s roller derby” are brought up. But there’s far more to this sport than what meets the eye.

As the bout (competition) begins, two teams of five women line up on the track to compete. Four of the five women are in charge of blocking the fifth woman, called the jammer, from get-ting through them. If the jammer gets through, she becomes the lead jammer, and can start scoring points from there. Each girl she pass-es on the opposing team is a point she scores. To stop the jammer from getting through, the blockers will try to knock her out of bounds.

“You’ve got to be quick on your thinking (as a jammer). You’ve got to look for your way out,” said Vile Vixen.

Vile Vixen, like all the other team mem-bers, goes by her derby name and not her actu-al name. These names are printed on the back of all the girls’ jerseys, and receiving them is no light matter.

“You earn it. You don’t just automatically get to choose it. You can say your name is some-thing, and we’ll start calling you that, but you don’t get it on a jersey until you passed your safety test and some other stuff. It’s almost a right of passage,” said Ziggy Bloodlust.

Along with receiving a name, learning how to fall properly and getting injured are other rights of passages into the world of women’s derby. Though there are strict rules on exactly how hit-

ting and blocking can occur, roller derby is a contact sport.

The girls talk about their injured knees, cuts requiring stitches and broken bones. Bazin-ga Betti even spoke of having to be rushed into surgery and have pins placed in her arms after a match.

“I don’t think it would have been that bad if she hadn’t have kept playing after she broke it though,” said Amyn Atcha.

The sport is aggressive and competitive, but most of the women get something deeper out of roller derby than just that aspect.

“There are so many things I like about it,” Ba-zinga Betti said. “You make life long friends, it builds your confidence and it’s very empower-ing. You’re constantly challenging yourself.”

Building confidence is a continuing theme that runs throughout this sport.

“One thing I love about it is that your size and shape does not matter at all. I’ve seen girls al-most 300 pounds skate with such grace, and some tiny girls hit harder than you’ve ever seen. I love it. I never thought I would be this passion-ate about something, and it’s given me so much confidence,” said Roberta Murphy, who has yet to earn her derby name.

As important as the confidence building is to many girls, most say their favorite part of being on the team is camaraderie and the bonds they form.

“I really like that you can come to the team and commit yourself, and you automatical-ly have 15 best friends and somebody to call. I mean, it’s not all roses and stuff, but I feel like we’re just a really tight knit group,” said Sabri-

na Str8 Razor. For this reason, many roller derby teams are

populated by military wives who are continu-ously having to move.

“I move around a lot, and it’s hard not having friends. The first time I moved, I didn’t have any-body because I didn’t do derby. It was depress-ing. I love the friendships I’ve gotten to make with these women,” Vile Vixen said, a military wife.

The derby girls don’t fit the norm. Their sport

is fierce, their uniforms are unorthodox, but they have something to offer everyone.

“We really want to be able to reach out to the community,” Ziggy Bloodlust said. “Anyone and everyone who comes out, no matter what kind of person they are, always has a really good time. They always come back. If we can get you to come to one bout, you’ll come again.”

All are encouraged to attend the Burn City Rollers’ first bout of the season at the Skate Cen-ter on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 4 p.m.

Anna Claire ConradWRITER

Bourbon Street Bar will host a night of psychedelic country music and high-en-ergy performances on Satur-day, Feb. 23, when Futurebirds takes the stage.

Straying from the typical disc jockey blasting remixes of America’s Top 40 hits that flood pop radio stations and Auburn bars alike, Future-birds incorporates rhythmic percussion, pedal steel gui-tar, mandolin, banjo, acoustic and electric guitars, and vocal harmonies to piece together the music of this indie-rock band hailing from Athens, Ga.

According to the band’s lead singer, Carter King, this is where the band members met each other and decided to make music together.

“We all ended up going to school there in Athens for the most part, and we just kind of got together and started play-ing,” King said. “There’s no real aim in there to play any kind

of music. We just play.”And although Georgia will

be on his mind when he and his band members play at Bourbon Street on their way home to Athens, King said they are excited to return to the Plains.

“We’ve played Auburn a few times before, and it’s always been really good crowds,” King said. “It’s always a fun time. So, why wouldn’t we come back?”

According to King, this will be the third time Futurebirds has performed at Bourbon Street.

“There’s always been ener-getic, young spirits that come out for each show,” King said.

Isabel Guerra, freshman in biomedical sciences, said she’s looking forward to something different to listen to while partaking in down-town Auburn’s nightlife.

“I enjoy going out with my friends, but a lot of times you hear the same music every-where you go,” Guerra said.

“Futurebirds seems to be dif-ferent, and they seem like a band you can actually listen to and enjoy instead of just the kind of music that acts as background noise.”

However, a refreshing change in music genre isn’t the only thing bar patrons should be looking forward to. According to King, peo-ple should come to his show ready to have a good time and get off of their feet.

“People should expect to experience a lot of crowd surf-ing,” King said. “(They) should bring their crowd-surfing shoes.”

King also said Saturday’s performance will be one all its own.

“We try to keep every night, every performance different,” King said. “Each performance is unique.”

Although she said she’s not a fan of crowd surfing, Jade Dwelley, junior in psychology, said she’s hoping to make it to the show.

“I don’t know about the whole crowd surfing thing, but from what I’ve seen about Futurebirds online they seem like a lot of fun,” Dwelley said. “I’d like to see them perform

and have a chance to listen to them live.”

King also said Futurebirds will be taking a week off in Athens after performing at Bourbon Street before they

hit the road again for a couple shows in Texas.

Futurebirds will start play-ing at 9:30 p.m. Saturday night, and will also be accom-panied by New Madrid.

COURTESY OF FUTUREBIRDS

Futurebirds released an EP called Exhume, a sampling of their early works, a demo and a live track.

Futurebirds to rock at Bourbon Street Bar Saturday

KELSEY DAVIS / INTRIGUE WRITER

The Burn City Rollers put their moves to motion in a scrimmage, in which they practice blocking and jam-ming within the appropriate bounds.

KELSEY DAVIS / INTRIGUE WRITER

Amyn Atcha explains to the derby team how to incorporate a new blocking tactic, in which they will prevent the jammer from breaking through the line of five blockers on the Skate Center’s track in Opelika.

Burn City Rollers cruisin’ for a bruisin’

Local roller derby team prepares for the fast-moving and competitive spring season on the track

Intrigue B6 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

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Anna Beth JagerINTRIGUE REPORTER

For a lot of Auburn students, gradu-ation is just around the corner, leaving most with big questions about the future and very few answers. But for Auburn se-nior Anna Kate Mullinix, the answer to what she wants her future to hold is clear.

The dream is Imperfection Bakery, a suiting name for a bakery that will not only produce delicious treats, but also restore the self-esteem and self-worth of women who have suffered from human trafficking.

The idea started in her kitchen, a sim-ple conversation with her mom over what Mullinix planned to do after col-lege graduation.

“What it kind of boiled down to is that I love two things: I love people and I love baking,” she said. “My mom and I had a conversation and somehow combined those two loves. Whether it’s through hunger, not having clean water or human trafficking, social justice issues are great passions of mine.”

The idea of Imperfection Bakery re-volves around, as the website puts, “Lov-ing people. Doing good. (And) baking treats.” Mullinix hopes to reach out to women who have been victims of phys-ical oppression in order to help them get

their lives back on track after experienc-ing such physical and mental anguish.

Faith also plays a big role in Mullinix’s life, and is a big reason behind why she has decided to start the bakery.

“As a Christian, I am commanded to seek justice for those who are oppressed, and this is a way of using the talents that I’ve been given to do that,” she said.

Mullinix said she hopes that Imper-fection Bakery will have the ability to teach women new and necessary skills that will help them with future employ-ers. This program would give women the resources to get their lives back to a good place, all the while restoring their self-es-teem and self-worth after enduring such a tragic past.

According to the website, “Imperfec-tion Bakery would take in classes of 8-12 women for a given period of time, teach them things like pastry and baking skills, how to cook, how to garden, waitress-ing, how to manage finances and how to work with others while restoring their humanity, dignity and value.”

Mullinix plans to reach out to women who are recovering in transitional living homes across the United States. These homes take women in right after they have been rescued from slavery and are the first step in the healing process. Im-

perfection Bakery hopes to continue the fight for the mental, physical and spiritu-al rehabilitation that these women will have to endure once they have been res-cued.

With a healthy environment and lots of love, Mullinix hopes to change these women’s lives forever.

“I have been raised to believe that my purpose in life is to love and care for oth-ers, no matter what their past,” she said. “As a hunger studies minor and someone who has had a great deal of experience working with people who have experi-enced physical oppression, I know that I don’t want a conventional job. I want to make a difference.”

Midterm season is back in action. That means one thing for students: the return of the notorious all-nighter. Most of us have had to pull them here and there, maybe even two back-to-back if you’re a real badass.

Word on the street indicates that some students are still skeptical of this time-honored practice. To make a more well-informed decision on wheth-er to commit to an all-night-er, examine the collected data below:

Con: That uncomfortable moment when birds start chirping at 3:30 a.m.

Pro: A delightfully bizarre state of delirium that becomes your personality for the entire next day until you go back to sleep.

Con: That even more un-comfortable moment when you watch the sun rise from a pile of textbooks that you’re hiding under. Not studying, hiding under.

Pro: Big Tymers’ “Still Fly” has never had more swag as when you make it the back-ground music for this mo-

ment.Con: That song’s swag

wears off after 15 seconds.Pro: Said newfound bizarre

personality puts some hilar-ious tweets out there around 6:30 a.m.

Con: In reality, those tweets are only funny to you.

Pro: It’s more than appro-priate to soberly eat a combi-nation of cookies and leftover Chinese at 3:30 a.m.

Con: The cookie-Chinese combination is not sitting well.

Other con: You realize you’re probably not eligible to operate heavy machinery.

One more con: You go to put the heading on your pa-per and you have absolutely no idea what year it is.

Pro: I’m not really sure which of these are pro’s and which of these are con’s any-more

Con: See above pro.Pro: Did I mention that I

wrote this the morning after pulling an all nighter?

*Critics say the con’s out-weigh the pro’s. I disagree. Look at the list, numbers don’t lie.

Pro’s and con’s to pulling an all-nighter

App of the week: Sleep Cycle alarm clock

As a college student, getting enough sleep is a nightly struggle. A good night’s rest is always losing to the ever–present power struggle with classes, studying and extracurricular activities. But did you know there’s an app for that?

Enter Sleep Cycle, which according to the app’s developers, Maciek Drejak Labs, is a “bio-alarm clock” that wakes you up during your lightest phase of sleep by tracking your sleep patterns.

Students who have taken a psycholo-gy class know that human sleep patterns register in waves; we are constantly os-cillating from light sleep to deep sleep throughout the night. By utilizing the iPhone’s movement –sensing acceler-ometer, Sleep Cycle can determine your sleep patterns for the night by measur-ing how much you move while you sleep. In order for the Apple–only app to catch your movement, you must place your phone face down on the bed by your pil-low.

But what does calculating sleep move-ment have to do with feeling more rest-ed? Before you go to sleep, you select a 30–minute time frame in which to be woken up the next morning. By tracking

movement throughout the night, Sleep Cycle can define when your body is most awake in the morning and wake you at that point during your selected time frame. According to the Sleep Cycle’s App Store front, waking up while in your lightest sleep phase is the “natural way to wake up feeling rested and relaxed.”

I can certainly appreciate the waking up problem Sleep Cycle is trying to tack-le. Parents, siblings and friends can at-test that I’m notoriously terrible at wak-ing up. When my alarm goes off, all I can think about is hitting snooze until the last second, no matter what productive plans I have.

But does it actually work? As with many things, the answer is unclear. When I first started using Sleep Cycle, I was actually looking forward to wak-ing up to see if I’d found my new mira-cle worker. After those few days though, the excitement wore off and I was again dreading my early morning wakeup calls.

However, my 99 cents spent in the App Store was not lost. Since Sleep Cy-cle keeps track of your sleep patterns, it records the data of how many hours you sleep per night. While it’s easy to sim-ply calculate hours slept by looking at a clock before you go to sleep and when you wake up, Sleep Cycle incorporates a few features that make knowing long-term sleeping patterns useful.

Before you set your alarm, you can add “sleep notes” to the night, which will

tag each night with activities that might promote or reduce sleep. Possible sleep notes include “drank coffee,” “took a nap,” “consumed alcohol” and “stressed out,” although you can tailor your own to per-sonal preferences.

After consistently tagging nights, Sleep Cycle creates numerous graphs that can be quite useful to anyone who is lacking sleep and wants to know what a possible cause might be. Perhaps you’ll discover those four –hour nights of sleep are due to an afternoon cappuccino.

Elizabeth WieckINTRIGUE EDITOR

FILE

The statistics screen of Sleep Cycle cal-culates various data sets.

Student hopes to provide to women in need

“Whether it’s through hunger, not having clean water or human trafficking, social justice issues are a passion of mine.”

—Anna Kate MullinixSENIOR IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

AND FAMILY STUDIES

Kelsey DavisINTRIGUE WRITER

Thursday, February 21, 2013 The Auburn Plainsman Intrigue B7

Daniel CannadayWRITER

In the early 2000s, paintball was a recreational activity. Groups of friends might go to the woods or a local course and play every so often, but competition was limited to what those groups could create. Some play-ers, however, found themselves inex-tricably drawn to the seductive hiss of high-end markers firing and the grat-ifying pop of paintballs covering a tar-get in neon-colored paint.

For these players, paintball be-came somewhat of an obsession, leading to the creation of worldwide tournaments and a sport that today is fast-paced, exciting and extremely competitive.

The new-look Auburn paintball team is a collection of these individ-uals who simply can’t get enough of the game, and that dynamic is lead-ing to success on the competitive tournament field. Last weekend they placed third in the Aces tournament, an event that boasted the best South-eastern region paintball teams in its field.

“We were actually first going into the last round of the tournament. I think we were ahead by over 100 points, actually,” said Brad Lugar, se-nior in industrial engineering and team captain. Given that the most points a team can score in any game is 40, that’s an impressive lead.

“And we did it all without a single practice,” said Lugar.

In fact, most of the players had not even met before last Sunday. Lugar blames former leadership and the economic downturn for the previ-ous lack of organization and interest in the sport at Auburn, but given Sun-

day’s result he cannot complain too much.

“Look, we went through that and got here. Can you imagine what we’ll be able to do after an hour and a half of practice?” Lugar said.

Perhaps the defining characteristic of the team is that with only a week-end under their belts, the players have developed a surprising rapport. At their weekly meeting on Tuesday, players gathered in Lugar’s home and discussed organization and tac-

tics while joking about the previous weekend’s missed plays and mistakes.

“I’m just awesome,” said Chris Kay, junior in architecture, of his perfor-mance on Sunday. This statement was followed by several groans and chuckles from the surrounding play-ers.

“We talk smack to each other in the middle of the week, but when the ref says 10 seconds, you know, we’re ready to go,” said Payton Howle, ju-nior in environmental science.

Another critical element to the team’s success is Victoria Hart, soph-omore in public relations, the team’s manager, coach and number one fan.

“Whenever we called (a play) Vic-toria was probably the loudest one screaming,” said Lugar.

She also gave a power point pre-sentation at the meeting, highlight-ing the need for more preparation be-fore the games begin.

In Speedball, the game of choice for Auburn’s team and most profession-

al paintballers, players start at oppo-site ends of a field dotted with inflat-able obstacles known as bunkers. The object is to make it to the opponent’s side, grab their flag and return it with-out getting hit. Because of the gener-al lack of cover, winning the game be-comes dependent on withering cov-er fire from “back” players, and turn-ing the enemy’s flank with speedy for-ward players darting between bun-kers.

“It’s the fastest-growing sport in the world,” said Lugar. He backs up this statement by showing a picture of Cam Newton in full paintball rega-lia, clearly about to start a game.

“Man, if he came out with us one weekend, that’d be awesome,” said Lugar.

So if Superman is reading, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and the paintball team would like to see if he can dodge paintballs as well as he does NFL linemen.

Lugar also extended an invite to Auburn students who would like to try the world’s most popular extreme sport.

“We don’t have tryouts, and if you’re dedicated, we can find you a spot on the field come Sunday no matter your experience level. I mean we love to win, but honestly it’s all about having fun and loving the game,” Lugar said.

One thing is certain; the paintball team at Auburn is poised to have an excellent year, and they are proud to be representing the school.

“Once we started winning, and people started coming up to us like, ‘Hey, War Eagle,’ that’s when I realized we were doing something bigger. It’s a great feeling to be doing something for the school,” said Lugar.

Auburn paintball team splatters opposition

MICHAEL DAY / PHOTOGRAPHER

Chris Kay gets down to business in full protection and gear during the Aces competition.

Anna Beth JagerINTRIGUE REPORTER

Anonymous University Twitter accounts have become increas-ingly popular throughout the past couple years at various schools around the country. The idea is usually to post witty, generalized references about basically any-thing and everything interesting to college students.

Auburn has a wide variety of anonymous accounts, ranging from classic Auburn woes from @Auburn_Problems, a spinoff of the popular “Bad Luck Brian” joke from @BadLuckBrianAU and even @bama_jokes. Every account is used as an outlet to post things that relate to the Auburn student body.

But who are the geniuses be-hind these accounts that contin-ue to grow in popularity with ev-ery new retweet? We’ve talked to @Tiger_Makeout, and now it’s time to talk to a few of the cre-ators of some of the most popular Auburn anonymous Twitter ac-counts among Auburn students, @AuburnGirlProblems, @War_Srat_Eagle and @AUGirlStruggles.

While every account has its own unique reason for when and why it started up, the general con-sensus is that these accounts al-low the creators to say what ev-eryone else is thinking, but not ac-tually saying out loud.

For @War_Srat_Eagle, it’s about tweeting things with a bit-ing humor that may be too inap-propriate to put their name on.

“Due to career aspirations, as well as my sorority’s standards board, I was never able to tweet without a filter,” @War_Srat_Ea-gle said. “But, of course, the funni-est things I have to say are gener-ally also the most inappropriate.”

Which makes sense, because it’s unlikely future employers will see the hilariousness of most of the @War_Srat_Eagle tweets, such as “Pretty bored lately. Think-ing about picking up a coke habit.”

Followers may laugh, but a po-tential boss who recently returned from rehab because of a cocaine addiction probably wouldn’t find it as hilarious.

“You know when you have a class where you know absolute-ly no one?” @War_Srat_Eagle said. “And you think of some re-

ally funny commentary for what the teacher is saying or the stu-pid questions that one boy always asks? And you just want to share that hilarious quip with some, but you’re not comfortable enough with any of the other students, but you just have to tell someone or you’ll explode? War Srat is that kind of outlet for me.”

That is what most anonymous accounts are used for, and while every Auburn student has a dif-ferent reason for following them, the relevant, day-to-day material these tweets consist of keep all en-tertained.

@AUGirlStruggles uses its Twit-

ter not only to vent and say what’s on its mind, but also to relate to other students.

“Most of my Tweets or ‘strug-gles’ are relative to all Auburn stu-dents, like being harassed on the concourse or having lives threat-ened by rude bicyclists,” @AUGirl-Struggles said. “Being relatable is key. Honestly, who wants to follow someone that they have nothing in common with? Not me.”

@AuburnGirlProblems also has an incredible amount of followers, ranging up to more than 3,000.

“I think it’s totally awesome that all these people find us interesting enough to be on their timelines,” @AuburnGirlProblems said.

It’s not easy to keep followers, but these accounts do it well and continue to grow on a daily basis.

“The best way to develop a fan base is by creating content people want to read,” @War_Srat_Eagle said. “I aim to do so.”

Every account owner also has their own personal Twitter ac-count that is used interchange-ably. @AUGirlStruggles said which Twitter account it uses depends on its mood.

“If I feel like being a diva or complaining, I usually go to my anon(ymous) account,” @AUGirl-

Struggles said.Which makes sense, right? Be-

cause there is always that one chick from high school who fills up timelines with ridiculous sub-tweets, causing us all to mentally cringe while simultaneously giv-ing each anonymous account new material to work with.

Take for instance, @Auburn-GirlProblem’s tweet that read, “There are some people who I am only friends with on Facebook so I can be reminded how amazing I am doing.”

But with Tweets like these, an-gry feedback from negative on-lookers seems almost inevitable.

“Every once in a while we’ll get somebody that says something (negative), but we honestly don’t care...after all, it’s just the Inter-net,” @AuburnGirlProblems said.

“I have on occasion received negative feedback,” @War_Srat_Eagle said. “One hundred percent of the time it’s from someone who just simply did not get the joke. Sometimes people are unable to grasp the direction I am attempt-ing to come from and they get their panties all in a wad.”

While each account has had negative feedback, it is unlike-ly you will ever see them in trou-ble for targeting specific organiza-tions on campus in their tweets.

“I don’t target anyone specif-ically and I never have,” @War_Srat_Eagle said. “Why make peo-ple upset and hurt feelings when you can instead make them laugh? WSE has never been a plat-form for me to air my own person-al vendettas against specific peo-ple or groups.”

@AuburnGirlProblems and @AUGirlStruggles feel similarly, both pointing out they have never purposefully tried to call out or in-sult any fraternity, sorority or any other on-campus organization.

While these anonymous ac-counts aren’t willing to reveal their identity, they did have a few messages for the student body.

“I love you Cam Newton and War Damn!” @AUGirlStruggles said.

“Trent Fisher....call me,” @Au-burnGirlProblems said.

“My Tigercard is pretty low on money, so if anyone wants to buy me taco truck I have a break MFW at noon!” @War_Srat_Eagle said.

Caitlin WagenseilINTRIGUE REPORTER

At the beginning of her senior year, Deanna Nguyen enjoyed spending nights downtown with friends at 17-16. Fast-forward a few months, and she now stands behind the downtown bar serv-ing up drinks to the many bar-goers in Auburn.

Nguyen, senior in human resource management, said she chose to work at 17-16 because of how well she had got-ten to know the bartenders and bounc-ers there, and that they had made her feel very welcome.

“The group of people that work there is such a close-knit group, almost like a family,” Nguyen said. “I knew that was the type of environment I wanted to work in because everyone was just so person-able.”

Nguyen started bartending at 17-16 toward the end of December and into early January of this year. She was given a list of mixed drinks and shots to memo-rize when she began working. Addition-ally, Nguyen said the training process was very hands on.

“They let me practice making drinks on the first night, and I just learned things as I went,” Nguyen said. “I only started working a few months ago so I’m still learning a lot. There are still a few drinks people will order that I’m not fa-miliar with, but I usually just ask them what’s in it or I’ll just ask another bar-tender.”

She has come to enjoy being behind the bar serving her friends.

“It was a bit strange bartending for my friends at first because I was so used to being on the other side of the bar with them,” Nguyen said. “Now it’s more com-forting to see familiar faces and it’s eas-ier to practice making drinks for them.”

Interacting with her friends while at work has also proved to be her favor-ite thing about bartending. Additional-ly, Nguyen said she enjoys learning new skills as a bartender.

While bartending can be fun, it does require a lot of hard work, dedication and patience.

“The most challenging part is trying to accommodate to everyone’s orders as quickly as possible in such a fast paced environment; but I’m learning to get fast-er,” Nguyen said.

The busiest nights typically fall on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Nguyen said that while these nights may be the busiest, they can also be the best shifts to work.

“Drink specials are actually my favor-ite nights because the drinks are rela-tively simple and the nights go by faster when it’s busier,” she said. “I know how

to make most drinks, but if I don’t know something I just ask another bartender. Everyone is so nice behind the bar so ev-eryone is willing to help out.”

There are times when someone or-dering a drink has reached a point when they don’t need to drink anymore.

“If someone appears to be too intoxi-cated, I usually try to find a manager to address the situation, and typically we’ll try to work with the person or just give them water,” Nguyen said.

She said there have been some in-stances when someone needed to be cut off, but Nguyen said she has yet to per-sonally experience having to do that.

As for why she started her bartend-ing gig, it was simply to make a few ex-tra bucks.

“Girl’s gotta pay the bills,” Nguyen said.She added that bartending was some-

thing she had thought about doing a se-mester before she actually began work-ing. “I had always had a job, and wanted a new challenge,” Nguyen said.

Her shifts at the bar normally consist of two to three nights per week, depend-ing on the schedule.

“My shifts can range from about seven or eight hours, and I usually leave around 3 a.m.,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen grew up as an Auburn fan, and knew she wanted to later attend col-lege here. She plans on bartending until she graduates in December in order to save money for after college and to have spending money until she can get settled into a new job.

Nguyen said she wants to remain working at 17-16 until she graduates be-cause of the wonderful people she is al-ways around at the bar.

“I love everyone I work with, and it’s al-most like I have another family,” she said. “Everyone gets along, and I feel like I’m surrounded by friends, not just co-work-ers.”

After graduation, Nguyen hopes to find a job in the field of human resourc-es, preferably in a corporate setting.

Auburn’s very own Tweet-eliteBehind the scenes with student 17-16 bartender

“I love everyone I work with, and it’s almost like I have another family. Everyone gets along, and I feel like I’m surrounded by friends, not just co-workers.”

—Deanna NguyenSENIOR IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Twitter accounts with cult followings reveal details of running an anonymous handle

Intrigue B8 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, February 21, 2013

ACROSS1 Actor Lorenzo6 Crumbly cheese

10 Mt. Rushmore’sstate

14 Where Crockettfamously fought

15 DisappearingAsian sea

16 Running rate17 Design theme18 *Ginger ale brand20 *It gets you a

ticket to ride22 Badminton target23 “Arrested

Development”star Jason

26 Rushing units:Abbr.

27 “Star Trek”weapon

31 Makes anappearance

33 Investor’s onlinedestination

34 *Hold that mightprecede a noogie

38 Give out, as asignal

39 Loser to DDE40 School near

Burlington, NorthCarolina

41 *Umpire’s call44 Fix on a stake46 Loggers’ contest47 Get the better of48 Cup rim51 Tom Brokaw’s

domain53 French

president’spalace

55 *Sack with letters60 *Neck-and-neck

election campaign63 “Cheers” barmaid64 Broadway auntie65 Bleacher feature66 To no __:

fruitlessly67 Nestlé ice cream

brand68 Air France hub69 Drink with

steamed milk

DOWN1 Baby bleater2 1966 N.L. batting

champ Matty3 Protective floor

coverings

4 “I __ you are!”5 Convenience for

an overnightguest

6 Emerald side7 Hurler’s stat8 Sunbather’s

shade9 The Heart of

Dixie10 Practice with

gloves11 Papa12 Harsh-smelling13 Conservative

pundit Alan19 Ate in style21 Hard to come by24 Level of authority25 “The Simpsons”

watering hole27 Nestling noise28 Webmaster’s file

type29 Verdi’s “Caro

nome,” e.g.30 Lascivious

cloven-hoofedcreature

32 Took a siesta35 Name of several

Norwegian kings36 Neb. neighbor37 Plastic

construction toy

39 Novelist Waugh42 Lisa of “A

Different World”43 2005-’07 attorney

generalGonzales

44 Nebraskaneighbor

45 Broadway fare48 “I insist!”49 Trojan War epic50 Miniature52 Nail file material

54 Mariners’pronouns

56 Volcanic flow57 Sitter’s handful58 Hit the ground59 Powerful wind61 Word that can

precede eitherpart of eachstarred clue’sanswer

62 Animation frame

By Neville Fogarty(c)2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 10/09/12

10/09/12

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword PuzzleEdited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

Print DeadlineNoon three

business daysprior to publication

To Place an Ad, Call - 334-844-4130

or Email - classifieds@theplainsman.com

Display ClassifiedsLocal............$11 per col inchNational......$16 per col inch1 col x 4″ min to 1 col x 8″ max

The Auburn Plainsman is not responsible for the content of the ads. Ads that seem too good to be true usually are.

Line Classifieds15 words . . . . . . . . . . . $6Extra Words . . . . . . . . 40¢Bold/outline. . . .$1 per ad

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Sudoku By The Mepham Group

Solution to Saturday’s puzzle

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku,visit www.sudoku.org.uk.

© 2012 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved. 9/10/12

Level: 1 2 3 4

Sudoku By The Mepham Group

Solution to Monday’s puzzle

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku,visit www.sudoku.org.uk.

© 2012 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved. 9/11/12

Level: 1 2 3 4

10/28/12

Sudoku By The Mepham Group

Solution to last Sunday’s puzzleComplete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders)contains everydigit 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solveSudoku, visitwww.sudoku.org.uk.

© 2012 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

Level: 1 2 3 4

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Kelsey DavisINTRIGUE WRITER

Tunes ranging from the down home acoustic pops of bluegrass, to varying forms of rock, to some of the most soul-filled blues, jazz and R&B you’ve ever heard floated from a back room of The Guitar Shoppe last Sat-urday, and will continue to for Satur-days to come.

The Saturday jam sessions that The Guitar Shoppe has begun to hold are catered to fit any type of musi-cian and instrument. The shop host-ed bluegrass sessions from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., rock sessions from 1 p.m.-3 p.m., and jazz, blues and R&B ses-sions from 3:30p.m.-6 p.m. Most play-ers bring their own instruments, but they’re welcome to come in and try any new instruments that interest them.

As the schedule for what type of music was to be played at what time changed, mandolins were swapped out for electric basses, keyboard rifts were cycled in and out, amps shook with noise, almost anything was ac-ceptable.

With the range of music being so wide open, there’s room for any type of musician, or even just a lover of music looking for a live and unedit-ed music fix.

“My overall vision is for this to be a place where people can come and hang out, try something new and just have fun,” said store owner Tom O’Shea.

O’Shea’s vision is not far from what took place on Saturday, as musicians of all variety drifted in and out of the jam sessions.

Throughout the day, the room transformed and molded around the music that was being played in it. At the end of the bluegrass session sat three local men, strumming on dif-ferent acoustic instruments and rem-iniscing about their vibrant lives as musicians.

“Back in 1968 I started playing gui-

tar,” said Elijah, whose voice imitates the style of Jimi Hendrix.

“I started playing when I was 6,” re-sponded Tommy Leonard, 23.

As the bluegrass session fades out, and the rock session fades in, elec-tric guitars replace acoustic ones and a drum set is assembled. The guys play everything from electric spin offs of Tool songs to their rendition of country singer Hunter Hayes’ songs, acoustic style.

“When I hear songs being played on the radio, I hear the style that it could be, the style that I could make it, not what it is,” said Greg Jones, 26, after playing his personalized version of Hunter Hayes’ “Wanted.”

The room fills when it becomes time for the blues, jazz and R&B ses-sion - the drummer takes his spot behind the drum set, guitarists and bassists find available seats in chairs, on amps or standing, someone sits at the keyboard that’s tucked back in the corner, and then the magic begins. As the music starts up, the vibe becomes palpable.

All heads are nodding, even cus-tomers who wander back to take a peek. The guys smile while playing, so absorbed in their music that they be-come completely oblivious to outside observers.

After they finish, they’ll sometimes

start to laugh as if they’ve all been told a joke that spectators couldn’t hear. There of course is no joke, it’s just an expression of the pure joy that playing like this brings them.

“I really needed this, to be honest with you,” Leonard said about Satur-day’s jam session. But the day had to come to an end.

“I hate cutting in on something so good, but we’ve got to call it a day,” said O’Shea at around 6 p.m. Conver-sation turned immediately among the musicians to returning the follow-ing Saturday.

Along with maintaining the Satur-day jam sessions, The Guitar Shoppe would like to begin nights for those playing band instruments, as well as a series of workshops such as “how to get the most out of your guitar ampli-fier,” “use of pedals” and more.

“We have, I hope, a feeling of open-ness for everything,” O’Shea said. “That’s what I really want, so peo-ple can feel comfortable and happy enough just to come in and sit down a while.”

KELSEY DAVIS / INTRIGUE WRITERMusicians collaborate with drums, the keyboard, bass guitar and electric guitar in the blues, jazz and R&B session.

KELSEY DAVIS / INTRIGUE WRITERGreg Jones and Chris Souter jam during the rock session on electric and acoustic guitars.

“My overall vision is for this to be a place where people can come and hang out, try something new and just have fun.”

—Tom O’SheaGUITAR SHOPPE OWNER

The Guitar Shoppe hosts multi-genre playing sessionLocals play a sampling of music from various genres, including blues, jazz and

R&B on the drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass and piano