2THE OPTIMIST October 28, 2011Sports

ready to take on the challengesBoys basketball, proving people wrong

SportorialsAllison WilsonSports Editor

5 million is the price tag for the University of Syracuse and University of Pittsburgh to leave the Big East Conference and join the ACC .

2,000 dollars for the bail of a 26 year old man who, during a Philadelphia Flyer hockey game in London, Ontario, Canada threw a banana at player, Wayne Simmonds.

4 Every four years the rugby World Cup occurs. Almost as anticipated as a presi-dential election.

100games already canceled out of the NBA regular season, due to a trending lockout among high paying sports.

Chris CampbellStaff WriterLast season, the Bloomington South boy’s basketball team had one of the finest seasons in its history, culminating in an Indiana 4A State Championship victory over Kokomo. It was the second state title in a mere three years for the Panthers, who were led by head coach J.R. Holmes. That sense of tradition and success is destined to remain as the up-coming basketball season takes the court later this fall.A new era has begun within the Panther basketball program coming into the 2011-2012 campaign. A new team with many fresh faces is now eager to prove themselves as one of the premier teams in Indiana. “We hope that we can gain experience going into this year,” said South head boys basketball coach J.R. Holmes. “We need to be able to find leaders that will help this team find success and win.” That same mindset also flows with other coaches on the Panther basketball staff. “We want to show teams around the state that we are not rebuilding, but reloading,” said South boy’s basketball assistant coach Criss Bey-ers. “Our players just need to believe in themselves and ultimately be able to see the big picture at the end.” South players are anticipating the start of the new basketball season and what it may provide as well. “We had a great summer together and are really looking forward to play-ing again,” said senior Michael Bower. They are even viewing the upcoming basketball season with a mindset of motivation and determination towards all skeptics. “I think that we will be better than what people expect,” said sophomore Isaiah Gooch. “New players have had to step up, which has made our team want to work harder and improve every single day.”Going into this season, South has lost a significant number of starters from last year’s squad, but the emphasis on playing together and playing fundamental basketball contin-ues to thrive throughout the entire program. “This will be the first year in a long time that we will have not returned a senior who started on the team the year before,” said Holmes. “Experience is something that is very hard to replace.”Despite the lack of experience, members of the Panther basketball team have faith in the promise in which this season brings. “Many people believe that this year will be a down year for South basketball, however we are eager to prove otherwise,” said Bower. “We need to play together as a team, play smart, play hard, and if we do those things, it will be a very successful year.” Other players also consider that there are aspects of their game that they have improved on since last year. “I think we are a lot more athletic coming into this season,” said Gooch. “We are going to have to keep on working hard because that is the only way for us to get better.”As for their schedule, South will face off against a handful of other talented programs that are just as prepared to compete for a state title. “We will play a lot of good teams outside of Conference Indiana,” said Beyers. Some of those teams include Jeffersonville, New Albany,

Decatur Central, Evansville Harrison, Warren Central, and Center Grove. Many people are already denying South the respect to defeat teams with such adequate experience. “I’m excited to prove people wrong because many people are already doubting our team for this season,” said Gooch. In reality, South may be a younger team this season, but they will still have the heart and determination to win. “We will be a team that doesn’t have a lot of experience coming back, but a team that will get better and better each time out,” said Beyers. “We will be a tough team to play against come sectional time.” That could very well be the case for the Bloomington South boy’s basketball team this season. The main ex-pectation for this team is to continue playing hard, but also playing selfless basketball all at the same time. “We are younger, but it gives us a lot more room to improve,” said Gooch. That being said, the ability and talent of this year’s boy’s basketball team should not be overlooked. Each player on the team has the ability to bring something unique to the court in numerously positive ways. “I am most excited to get out on the court, just being blessed enough to play a great game with my friends, and put on the purple and white jerseys that say Bloomington across the chest,“ said Bower. The main concept here is that this year’s South boy’s basketball team will be no different than ones from years past. In the end, they are determined to prove everyone out there wrong and play as a team just like they always have.

Junior Johnathan Winters takes a free throw during a junior varsity game last season.

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THE OPTIMIST3october 28, 2011 SPORTS

Kirby AnsteadStaff Writer The Indiana High School Ath-letic Association is considering cutting gymnastics from Indiana’s high schools. South has no control over whether or not gymnastics will be dropped. IHSAA is considering cutting gym-nastics because of the few amount of competitors in Indiana, the high costs of having a gymnastics team, and the strain to find judges. Only a small number of high schools in Indiana have a gymnas-tics team, an estimate of 80-90 out of 300 according to South’s assistant coach Michelle Stroud. This could be because of the innate costs of running a gymnastics team, due to travel prices and equipment insurance prices. The gymnastics team receives about $2,000 a year, according to head coach Lisa Jones, to cover their transportation, equipment, and medical needs. Also, it is difficult for IHSAA to find eligible judges to judge the competitions. South sophomore Lauren Ben-nett said, “I really hope they don’t cut gymnastics, it wouldn’t be fair to the gymnasts who have been working their whole lives up to this point.”

GYMNASTICS BEING CUT? COURTESY PHOTO

Brynn Parkinson performs on the balance beam during a gymnastics meet last winter.

“Gymnastics offers so many opportunities for

these girls.”-Coach Michelle Stroud

At this time last year, IHSAA and gymnastics coaches in Indiana met about the issue. Ac-cording to South’s assistant coach Michelle Stroud, IHSAA’s decision is once the state is down to 60 schools with a gymnastics team, they will take serious consideration in drop-ping it. All schools will be given a three year notice before gymnastics is officially cut. If gymnastics were cut, another girls sport would have to join the roster to give an even ratio of boys to girls sports because of the Title IX federal legislation. Title IX states that there must be equality in boys and girls sports of-fered in high school and college. The replace-ment would be chosen on the number of high schools in Indiana that have accessibility to that specific sport. The sport could range from lacrosse to cheerleading, Holmes said.

Day in the Life: Nate Clark

4THE OPTIMIST October 28, 2011Feature

Sarah Spencer Opinion Editor While many South students are still asleep in bed, South senior Nate Clark wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every morning of the week. By 6:15 a.m., Clark is at his church studying scripture and discussing passages with other youth in the commu-nity. “I’m planning on taking a two year mission right after I graduate high school with my church. It’s a full time mission where we will spread Christianity and the gospel.” His early morning scripture study acts as preparation for his church mission after he graduates. Clark starts his school day in AP calculus, followed by Spanish IV. In Panther Plus periods, Clark can either be found studying vigorously in AP physics, or improvising on his saxophone in jazz band. “People view practicing music as a chore, but it takes me away from the rest of the world. It’s an expression of my per-sonality.” Clark remains in the band room during third period for band, and then goes to W131 for fourth period. “Writing for W131 is enjoyable. I love challenging myself, and seeing what I’m capable of doing.” Clark end his day with his hardest class, AP physics. “It’s a huge time and effort commitment; you really have to try in that class.” Clark spends close to two hours each day studying and working for AP physics. Normally after school, Clark would spend over two hours at cross country practice, however his season ended recently. “After practice I would come home, and either work on home-work or practice if I had time.” Last year Clark had more time to practice, but this year he finds it hard to fit playing music into his busy schedule. Other than school, practice, and work, earlier this year Clark managed to volunteer at the YMCA 12 hours a week. “Volunteering looks great on college resumes, and I feel good doing

it for the community, not to mention the free YMCA membership wasn’t bad ei-ther.” Recently, Clark began volunteering at the Wonderlab on Saturdays. When the weekend arrives, Clark gets no break as far as waking up early and the amount of activities he has. On Saturdays, Clark rises at 5:45 a.m. in order to make

meets were hard; we really had to push ourselves,” said Clark. By noon on Satur-days, a time when most high schoolers are waking up, Clark would have already ran around six miles. All of this happens and Clark hasn’t even started his daily training for the marathon he plans to run. When Clark started training for the marathon, he would run around 12 miles every Saturday. Each week he would work up from 12 miles and now runs close to 20 miles during his training. On Satur-days Clark has many things to do in the evening, and doesn’t start his long run

until around 7 p.m. and arrives back home at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. at night. As of lately, Clark runs the equivalent of a marathon on most Saturdays. Despite all of this training on Saturdays, Clark still wakes up early to arrive at church by 9 a.m. each Sunday. Many people may think that Clark is crazy for the amount of running he does, but he views it as a stress reducer. “Wak-ing up at 5:30 a.m. every day of the week is stressful; If I didn’t have stress relieving activities, I probably would’ve broken down by now.” Playing music acts as a huge stress reducer for Clark as well as running. With all of the activities that fill Clark’s week, one would understand why Clark would need some relief to balance out his hectic and demanding schedule.

“People view practic-ing music as a chore, but it takes me away from the rest of the world. It’s an expres-sion of my personal-ity.” - Nate Clark

it to his cross country meets. Normally, his races are 5ks, and after the actual race is finished; Clark’s coach would have the team run three miles as a cool down. “The

Clark plays saxophone outside of South’s band room. Clark views music as a stress reducer.

CASEY BREEN

For more features like this, check out our website:BloomingtonSouth.org

October 28, 2011 FEATURE

Positive memories with backpacking clubTHE OPTIMIST5

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Madi TaylorStaff Writer

Hiking through knee deep mud, swim-ming in creeks, and walking on a bridge made out of a fallen tree might not sound like an ideal weekend trip for the average person. But for the Backpacking Club this is considered to be the pinnacle of a relax-ing vacation.The Backpacking Club is a group of South students and teachers who attempt to experience nature firsthand by hiking and camping. The club usually has about three trips a year; the first is only about three or four miles of hiking at a local state forest to give students an idea of what the trips are like. Later in the school year, they work up to six mile hikes in areas like the Hoosier National Forest, Red River Gorge in Kentucky, and the Garden of Gods in Illinois. During the hike the students learn compass and map reading skills and are able to lead the club to their destination with informal help from the advisors.The club started about 19 years ago when Cindy Kvale, science, brought up the idea of starting the club with Keith Bobay, math, who happened to be a Scoutmaster

for Boy Scout troops in New York and Chicago. “We both love doing it,” stated Bobay, “being outdoors and away from the city and electronic devices is relaxing, like a little vacation.”Junior Connor Galvin has been on two trips with the Backpacking Club and has positive memories.“First trip I went on we went to Yellow-wood [State Forest] and I caught a rough green snake. No one had seen one before so it was really cool to show [the other members],” said Galvin.Even when the weather isn’t ideal the hikers still know how to have a good time. One of senior Allie Hetrick’s most memo-rable trips was when it began to rain after they set up camp. “We all took off our shoes and ran down this super muddy downhill trail to this epic lookout point over the Ohio River,” said Allie Hetrick.Because no experience is necessary to go on the trips Kvale thinks that the club is “a good chance to practice outdoor skills [hiking and camping] and test whether [students] would like to do this on [their] own.”

South students tend camprfire on 2009 backpacking trip. Trip is lead by advisors Keith Bobay and Cindy Kvale (far right).

6THE OPTIMIST October 28, 2011feature

Max ZaretStaff Writer If you think the earlier start this year has been rough on your sleep sched-ule, consider Kelsey Rigdon’s situation. Every morning, Rigdon must get up at 5 a.m. to make it to school on time because she lives in Greenwood. Rigdon, like the other new teachers at South, has had a busy first trimester, but is enjoying it all the same. Rigdon teaches ninth grade Eng-lish and is the advisor for South’s year-book. It is Rigdon’s first year teaching and when asked why she decided to become a teacher, Rigdon said, “at IU I found out I wanted to teach and help students learn.” Rigdon came to Bloomington from Dan-ville, Indiana to go to Indiana University and major in journalism. In her free time Rigdon likes to shop and read, especially gossip news. Back when she was in high school, Rigdon was on the cheerleading squad. Cara McClincy is a science teacher, also in her first year of teaching. McClincy teaches chemistry and physics. Before becoming a teacher, McClincy was a chemical engineer who worked for a company that manufactured drywall. McClincy said, “I really enjoyed work-ing there but I always wanted to be a science teacher.” McClincy moved here from New York about two years ago due to a job opportunity for her husband. Thanks to IU’s ‘Transition to Teaching’ program, McClincy was able to teach here in Bloomington. She is from Ohio so she is well adjusted to the Midwest lifestyle. McClincy has a young English bulldog named Lucy, whom she walks and plays with in her free time. She also enjoys spending time outside and cooking in her free time. In high school, McClincy participated on a competitive dance team, played piano, was in drama club, National Honor Society and ran hurdles and sprint relays on the school track team. McClincy said, “I feel very fortunate to be a part of the South community. Kirsten Milks is another addition to the science staff at South. Milks has been teaching for two years. She taught biotechnology at a high-needs high school in northern California before coming to

Bloomington. Milks teaches AP Biology and Earth Space science. When asked why Milks wanted to become a teacher she said, “my continuing professional goal is to support language and literacy develop-ment…. In science class!” In her free time these days Milks has been hard at work getting her winter vegetables planted. When Milks was in high school, she par-ticipated in orchestra, chorus, Key Club, National Honors Society, math competi-tions, Science Bowl, English Council, the school newspaper and literary magazine, the school musical, and Russian club. Milks said, “Looking back, I am exhaust-ed just thinking about it, but it did teach me how to budget my time.” Since joining the South staff, Milks also noted that she’s, “steadily increasing the percentage of [her] wardrobe that is purple.” Lucas Schroeder has been teach-ing 10 years and is an addition to the foreign language department. He teaches Spanish and when asked why, he said, “I figured out that I loved the ability to com-municate with someone from a different culture on their terms. After experiencing the thrill of fluency in another language, I decided I wanted to help as many people as possible to have the same experience.” Schroeder was born in Bloomington and grew up in Indianapolis. During his free time, he enjoys hanging out with his wife who is enrolled in the Library Science graduate program at IUB. Suzanne Harris is a new band teacher at South and has been teaching for four years. Before coming to Bloom-ington, Harris taught in Michigan for one year and two years in Chicago. She enjoys

teaching band because it is her favorite subject and she said, “Band is so much fun because everyone can participate and make great music.” Back in high school, Harris played volleyball, threw discus for track and was the editor for her school newspaper. Phil Kluesner has been at South as a baseball coach and assistant coach for

South welcomes new teachers to staff the football team but this is his first year teaching AP US History. Kluesner had taught at a middle school in Indianapolis before coming to South. Kluesner is an alumnus of South and used to play for the baseball team. Andrew McPheely is a new addition to the math department in his first year of teaching. McPheely teaches Algebra I and II. When asked what he likes to do in his free time McPheely said, “I enjoy going to all of the Bloomington and IU events and also enjoy going to the movies.” McPheely is from Atlanta and in high school played in bands and was on the soccer team. Eric Pond is another addition to the math department and an Indiana na-tive. Pond is from Lafayette, Ind. and hails from Harrison High School. Back in high school Pond played football, basketball and was a part of an awareness program against drunk driving. Pond went on to Purdue after high school where he was head coach for the freshman basketball team. It was there that he learned that he wanted to be a teacher and help students. Pond teaches Algebra I and Geometry.

KEVIN COCHRANMath teacher Eric Pond graphs an equation on the board for his Algebra I class.

october 28, 2011 Opinion THE OPTIMIST7

Quality not quantity: Is “busywork” necessary?Kara CieplyNews Editor

The pages of your planner are covered in countless scribbled notes of assignment after assignment, day after day. Home-work has always been a given aspect of school, going all the way back to kinder-garten. Junior Matthew Helm refers to some of classes’ homework as “pointless” and deems it “busywork.” A combination of recent studies can prove that there actu-ally is truth in this assessment of types of homework. With MCCSC’s longer school day that was so determinedly fought for, these homework assignments are no lon-ger necessary.During a study on the effect of assign-ments in math, science, English and his-tory on students’ test scores, the Econom-ics of Education Review journal found that “math homework has a large and statistically meaningful effect on math test scores…However, additional homework in science, English and history are shown to have little to no impact on their respec-tive test scores.” Certain types of home-work, such as worksheets, in the latter of the classes are completely ineffective. Despite this, Social Studies teacher Jerry Farrar believes they are completely essen-

tial, and sometimes changes assignments to cater to students. “[My] students won’t actually read the textbook, so [assign-ments] are a way to force them to get the information from the text.” However, transcribing information from textbook to worksheet isn’t always the best way to learn. For example, there are the useless worksheets that take you about five minutes to fill in the blank with the correct vocabulary word or defini-tion. Skimming a black and white page of text until you see a bold or highlighted word and copying it down once does not help you learn it further. The moment you move on, all is forgotten. Additional studying of vocabulary is obviously ef-fective, but that is put upon the student, not the worksheet. ‘Scavenger hunts’ on the internet are equally as pointless, because the almighty Google has all the answers. These assignments are classified as ‘busywork.’ They are merely meant to take up time and have little to no educa-tional value. Worksheets that require no more than a quick scan of a page or screen fall into this futile category. According to New York Times writer Annie Mur-phy Paul, who recently wrote the article “The Trouble with Homework” on the subject,“Simply reading over material to

be learned, or even taking notes and mak-ing outlines, as many homework assign-ments require, doesn’t have this effect [of other methods].”Although homework in English such as reading a book out of class is necessary, further assignments on them are not. Besides the fact that students can better interact with and question their teacher while in class, giving worksheets does not prepare students for college level classes. A professor will expect their students to be able to get the information out of the text without outlining it for them. Pat Car-roll, also a Social Studies teacher, does not assign homework to his AP US History class for this reason. “It’s supposed to be a college-level class: no worksheets, no maps…It doesn’t fit with what we do.”Although homework cannot be abol-ished completely, the substance should be enhanced. Quality, not quantity. The study on the effect of certain subjects’ assignments revealed not only the inef-fectiveness of the current state, but how to improve it. In “The Trouble with Home-work,” Paul discusses a new method, known as Mind, Brain and Education. This program introduces homework as-signments that cater to how the students’ brains work, not just the students them-

selves. Increases in test scores ranging from 13-25 percent were seen in a middle school near Washington University, St. Louis participating in the study. One pro-ductive tactic in the program is “spaced repetition,” which involves students being repeatedly exposed to information over time, which strengthens the connections made to bring up memories in our brains. Another technique is “retrieval practice,” that uses testing to reinforce the informa-tion absorbed by the brain. This break-through program has amazing potential to “effectively…advance learning,” says Paul.This doesn’t mean that your days of out of class assignments are over. But the out of class assignments you do receive should have more redeeming qualities to them and have a more obvious aid to your academic performance. The attention that subpar homework is receiving is greater than before, focusing on value rather than the amount.

South Speaks: What are your thoughts on the “Occupy Bloomington” movement?

Daniel Frohman, senior“It’s a cool idea, but they don’t even know what they stand for.”

Nick Ehman, junior“I think its exciting to see people being passionate about something they think is wrong.”

Evelyn Rehrey, junior“It’s a good way to be proactive.”