Category: Opinion

By Cody Straub –

There are so many great things about college athletics…the competitiveness, the passion, the school pride, but one thing I’m not too sure about is the school mascots.

I know it brings out the school pride and gives the students something to rally around, but is it really necessary to pay some college kid money to dress up in a ridiculous costume for every sports event and do things they would never do if they didn’t have the costume on to cover their face?

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for the different school names, I think it really gives the students a sense of pride. Plus being able to say “I’m a Tiger, or Gator, or Panther” or whatever, is something people hold onto their whole lives. But schools are getting so desperate that they have to have an Orangeman, like Syracuse,  or a Blue Hen at Delaware as a mascot.

Don’t even get me started with pro mascots. Really, who even knows about those mascots? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Phillie Phanatic. I think the marketing groups of the teams think that having some guy in a ridiculous suit running around the stadium will boost sales. Not so, it’s just embarrassing and it scares little kids.

Here’s a look at the five most ridiculous, un-intimidating mascots from major college sports:

5) Maryland Terrapin: A Turtle really? “Yea we are going to beat you guys on the field, just wait a second to let us catch up, we’re a little slow.” A turtle is really making their opponents feel intimidated.

4) Alabama Crimson Tide: Their mascot is an elephant! What does that have to do with anything? Pretty sure their are no elephants down south in Alabama. I also don’t understand how a elephant fits into their name Crimson Tide.

3) Syracuse Orange: If a little Orange Man was running around my home court I would be a embarrassed. This falls under both the ridiculous, and not intimidating category. The picture really speaks for itself.

2) TCU Horned Frog: A frog, what an intimidating mascot. With it’s big googly eyes, and little horns it’s more ridiculous than intimidating. It’s too bad their stifling defense is represented by a frog.

1) Stanford Cardinal Tree: A tree? That’s the best they could come up with? I expected more from one of the most prestigious academic schools in the nation. Come on, Andrew Luck didn’t come to school to have a tree as his cheering section.

By David Mohimani

As we enter the West York gymnasium I see the old school style court and rims and much to my dismay I see the rock hard bench with which I’ll be sitting on for the next hour or so.

The only hardwood I’m gonna be on all night is the bench. I mean if I’m not going to play at least let me be comfortable. Once I finally got myself situated into a bearable position for the next hour, I had to slide down and found myself sitting on a screw in the wood.  Awesome.

Sitting on real wood is a rarity for me. Most gyms have cushioned chairs, but Hempfield’s is the cream of the crop. It’s like putting my butt on a cloud. Penn Manor has decent chairs but they’re just not the same quality as Hempfield’s. It isn’t strange that I’m such a connoisseur of chairs/benches  since I’ve been spending the whole season on them. The bench isn’t going to warm itself.

The worst part about sitting on the bench besides the embarrassment is when my 6’6 coach decides to stand in front of me.  So for the rest of the game I had to crane my neck to either side just to see. Come on coach, at least let me watch the game. Seriously, I basically just feel like a cheerleader without pom poms.

About five minutes into the game I know if I’m gonna play or not. If we’re blowing the team out then I’ll get in, but if it’s 10 points or so, then I can expect to glue my rear to the chair.

People ask do you feel like you’re wasting my time?

Yes I do, I answer, every night from 6-9.

So why do I play? I’m not sure.  I guess because I love it, I guess because I don’t  want to quit the sport I’ve been playing since I was a toddler. I think the main reason is because I still hold a glimmer of hope that it will eventually pay off and I’ll get off the pine.

Parents: Are you ready to see your life flash right before your eyes?  Well, get ready to because your teenager is driving…

After getting my permit, my parents would not let me drive. Yes, I was 16, plus two months, but no, they were not ready for the terror of having me drive.

The first day I was “allowed” to drive, my parents made sure that I was educated on how the car works, how to work the turn signals, turn the car on, work the windshield wipers, etc.  Yeah, yeah. I already knew all of that and at that time, I thought that I was ready to drive, get out on the road, but it turned out I knew less than what I thought.

When we left my house in our silver Sequoia, my family was clutching on their armrests like they were trying to get to the last life boat on the Titanic. With my mom sitting next to me, my step-dad and two sisters sitting in the back, I heard criticism coming from everywhere how I was or should be driving.

“Jordann, slow down!”
“Jordann, start braking earlier!”

With no radio to help drown out the sounds of their negative voices, I was forced to hear the bickering about my hard braking or my speeding problem, that still hasn’t been cured. But anyways.

When my parents had enough of the stress through my reckless driving, they called in the big guns. The driving instructor. When I started working with him, he would tell me a few of the errors that occurred during my driving, such as my speed. But, by the way, he thought I was a good driver. He must have because he didn’t criticize every wrong move I made while driving.

When my six months were over and July 23, 2009 came around, my nerves were getting the best of me. While driving to take my test, I almost gave my mom a heart attack while I tried to beat a car to a turn, when they had the right of way. With the lady’s horn beeping at me and “b*&%$” coming out of her mouth, my mom said that she totally agreed with her.

After meeting up with my grandparents (I was using their Corolla for the test), I walked into the DMV, so nervous my hands were sweating. When my name was called and I walked out to enter the car, the reality hit me. It was time, time for me to pass my driving test, get my license and have a new responsibility in my life.

When the driving prompter finally came and got into the car, I felt confident, I was ready to go. When I went up to the parallel parking area, I was positive that I would ace it, since I was just there practicing in the Corolla the night before. I backed in and fixed my position and was told to go on. Awesome, I’m half-way to my license.

As I took off for the driving part, my heart was beating. All that was going through my head was “don’t speed, make sure you stop for three seconds at the stop signs.” I pulled into the parking lot and parked my car. Before he got out, he told me “you passed.”

I still sometimes wonder how I passed. I still have the speeding problem, I still ride people’s tails, but I have definitely grown up since that day. Yes, I still have my driving problems, such as wrecking my car, a powder-blue Toyota Prius, racing a friend and a few close calls where I almost got hit by pulling out in front of someone, and all the other times I almost got hit, but, hey, who doesn’t have some driving issues. So, it can’t be only me.

By Jordann Stekervetz

Learning to drive

My first time behind the wheel I was a natural, but the second time around I made a fairly big mistake.

Luckily for me, my Dad had me practicing in his junky white Reliant K that exceeded my age by several decades. It was going to be euthanized in a couple months, so any damage I caused to the car couldn’t be considered catastrophic.

My Dad and I went to a vacant parking lot and cruised around, eventually we decided we wanted to drive back home. That’s when I hit a concrete parking divider. My big question was “why is there a random concrete thing in the middle of the road?” My rush of fear came before my vehement anger. It was like driving over the world’s largest speed bump and we actually flew in the air a little, like we just skated over a ramp.

When we crashed back to the ground, the hub caps came flying off, each in an opposite direction. My Dad jumped out of the passenger’s seat and began to chase after the runaway hubs. I began to look under the car, and I soon discovered the oil pan was dented. To the satisfaction of my Dad and I, it was not pierced and dripping. The car became even more fragile than it once was before, and my Dad decided he should drive it home very slowly and carefully.

Sadly, the car could not be salvaged. It was the last great adventure for my Dad’s Reliant K.

Driving with my Mom is much different than driving with my Dad. My Dad is really calm, and my Mom on the other hand just yells. She already yells at people who have years of experience, so imagine how much screaming I heard as a new driver. My Mom used every curse word in the book at me when I drove. It is still that way to this day. The funny part is, you can tell my Mother’s cursing is a fear response because she doesn’t even remember doing it once she gets out of the car. My Dad and I often have to tell her what she had said, and she ends up just laughing with us about it.

Overall, my driving has been fairly uneventful. Besides one major driving mishap and a cursing mother, it has all gone well.

By Kendall Seigworth

“Buckle your seat-belt, check your mirrors, don’t even think about touching your phone.”

My mom always reminds me of these things before starting up the car.

“If you think you need to text someone right now, you can turn your phone off and I’d be happy to take it from you,” she adds.

Learning how to drive, I thought, was supposed to be fun. I found out otherwise.

Every single second in the car with either my mom or my dad, was a nightmare.

I think the conclusion to where wrinkles and gray hair originate from is quite obvious. It appears having to teach your kids how to drive, takes years off of your life.

Insisting that nothing I’m doing is right, yelling when I do something that scares them slightly, or just sitting there with the expression on their face that the world is going to end, or we’re all going to die.

That is what I and other teenagers all over the world have to deal with.

And then parents expect us to be able to drive?

Taking some of the pressure off by not freaking out every five seconds, then possibly we can do what you yearn for us to do so badly. Drive the car.

Thankfully, after six months of driving, my parents finally started to breathe when they were in the car with me. The only part that really stinks is that it took them the entire six months to finally get comfortable.

The greatest day of my teenage life had to have been the day I drove my car out of the driveway without one other person in the car with me.

Excitement rushing through your veins, freedom blowing in your hair, and the sweet sound of JUST your stereo. Awesome.  Now this is driving.

By Dillon Walker