Experience unifies IU offensive line
For senior center Collin Rahrig, individual success can’t be measured by numbers on a piece of paper.
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For senior center Collin Rahrig, individual success can’t be measured by numbers on a piece of paper.
Junior midfielder Jessie Bujouves dribbles the ball past an opponent during Friday's game against Indiana State at Bill Armstrong Stadium.
Redshirt sophomore defender Marissa Borschke fights to win the ball in a 2-0 win over Indiana State on Friday. In 2013, Borschke helped the Hoosier defense set a school record nine shutouts.
Weeks after earning bronze at the Commonwealth Games, IU junior Brooklynn Snodgrass picked up her second medal for the Canada National team Saturday at the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships in Australia.
Dec. 28 vs. Rutgers
When safety Antonio Allen stepped onto the field for the first fall practice of the 2014 season, he was returning to football at a competitive level for the first time since Oct. 19, 2013.
After just one year of diving at the collegiate level, Michael Hixon is already a two-time NCAA Champion.
IU senior wide receiver Shane Wynn has been named to the Paul Hornung Award watch list, the Louisville Sports Commission announced Monday.
The IU football class of 2015 is now to double digits with commitment from Titus Booker Thursday afternoon.
So far for the 2015 IU football recruiting class, the Hoosiers have gone heavy on the offensive side of the ball, and will try and improve on 2013’s record breaking offensive unit.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This past year, quarterbacks Nate Sudfeld and Tre Roberson competed for the top spot in IU’s offense, splitting starts during the 2013 season.Throughout the spring this season, neither had emerged as the obvious choice.IU Coach Kevin Wilson announced Wednesday Roberson has decided to transfer from IU. Roberson started four games in 2013 and appeared in all 12. He threw for 1,128 yards and 15 touchdowns, while adding 423 rushing yards.Roberson’s departure leaves the back-up position up for grabs. Incoming freshman Zander Diamont and sophomore Nate Boudreau look to be top contenders for that spot.Diamont, a 6-foot-1 Los Angeles native, was a three-year starter at Venice High School. He threw for 3,501 yards and 47 touchdowns in his career, setting career records for Venice High School in passing yardage and touchdowns.Among numerous honors, Diamont was named to the 2014 USA Football Under-19 National Team.Boudreau, a 6-foot-3 walk-on, made his collegiate debut in the past season after redshirting in 2012. He appeared in games against Indiana State and Bowling Green.Wilson might also look to redshirt junior Max Matthews, who has seen limited collegiate playing time.A Granger, Ind., native, Matthews was a part of Saint Joseph High School’s state runner-up team in 2010. He played his freshman year of college at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., appearing in two games.After transferring to IU, Matthews was forced to sit out the 2012 season because of NCAA transfer rules and did not play in 2013.The past season’s opening day starter wasn’t announced until just hours before kickoff against Indiana State, so the timetable for announcing Sudfeld’s backup this season is unclear.Grace Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Dennis Dale has been named the associate head coach for the IU men’s and women’s swimming team, Head Coach Ray Looze announced Monday.Dale spent the past 29 years at the helm of the University of Minnesota men’s swimming program. Under his direction, the team won seven Big Ten titles, and Dale was Big Ten Coach of the Year six times.“Dennis Dale brings a wealth of swimming knowledge to our staff,” Looze said in a May 12 release. “Not only is he one of the NCAA all-time great coaches, but is a first-class individual who puts his swimmers needs above all else. There are very few people involved in swimming who possess are greater passion for the sport.”Dale’s duties officially begin July 1. He will join Kyle Hastings in working with the men’s and women’s sprint groups.“It is my belief that by assigning two full-time staff members to sprinting we will take the necessary steps needed to move IU back into contention for the Big Ten title and into the NCAA top-five national rankings as we ultimately pursue an NCAA championship,” Looze said.Dale coached the Golden Gophers to five consecutive top-10 NCAA finishes from 2000-04. His team has placed no lower than fourth in the Big Ten in each of the past 26 seasons. Dale coached more than 100 different All-Americans in the past 20 years.Minnesota was also home to 48 individual Big Ten title winners during Dale’s tenure.Before being hired at Minnesota, Dale spent 13 years as head boy’s coach at Burnsville High School. Dale coached the team to four Minnesota state championships, and was named Coach of the Year in his final four seasons.“I am excited and thrilled to join Coach Looze and his staff, as well as the Indiana family,” Dale said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Chance the Rapper and Krewella will co-headline the 2014 Welcome Week concert Aug. 23, presented by Union Board, Residential Programs and Services and the IU Residence Halls Association.“I think they both hit separate demographics, and they’ll really work great together,” Union Board Director of Live Entertainment Brett Bassock said. “They both really compliment each other’s music.”The concert will also include SoMo, the supporting act, with special guests Misterwives and Skizzy Mars.When Bassock and former RHA President Clair Houterman began collaborating on the concert in February, one of their main goals was to target five different demographics, Bassock said.Chance the Rapper is a hip-hop artist from Chicago. His first full-length mixtape, “10 Day,” was released in February 2012. He released his second mixtape, “Acid Rap,” last April.Since then, Chance the Rapper has collaborated with artists such as Justin Bieber and Childish Gambino, and he has played at some of the country’s largest music festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza. “Chance was at the top of our list,” Brett said. “I think his music speaks for itself. He’s an up-and-coming rapper. Chance is really making a name for himself right now.”Joining Chance is Krewella, who released its debut album “Get Wet” in September 2013. The album debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top 200.“They have become world-renowned for their infectious live energy, which has led them to headline some of the biggest festivals this summer, including Tomorrowland and Lollapalooza,” Bassock said in a release.Rather than just a concert, this year the Welcome Week event will become a festival.“This year, we are shifting toward the festival atmosphere with the IU Block Party 2014,” RHA President Stephanie Corona said.Instead of just music, it will include a bounce house, carnival games, a rock climbing wall, food trucks and more.The event will go from 5 to 8 p.m. with re-entry, while the concert portion will last tentatively from 6 to 10 p.m. on the corner of 13th and Fee Lane.“I wanted to make it an experience where students can come and in-between sets, they’re not just standing around waiting for the next artist,” Brett said. “I’m really just trying to encompass what Indiana University represents with a safe environment but providing a fun experience.”Last year, tickets to the concert were free. Because of the expansion of the event, tickets will cost between $10 and $15 this year.Union Board worked to book the talent, collaborate with the auditorium, produce the concert and plan the carnival.RHA will work to market the event throughout the summer, specifically to students at freshman orientation.The concert is open to all IU-Bloomington students.Bassock said Union Board is aiming for a crowd of 4,000 students, which would double last year’s attendance.“It’s more of a memorable experience that their senior year these freshmen can look back and they can say, ‘That’s what introduced me to Indiana University,’” he said. “That’s how I really became immersed.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It was her first night on the job, and Tracy Dodds felt worthless.“He told me the day I arrived, he said, ‘A mistake has been made,’” Dodds recalled. “‘You should’ve never been hired. There’s no room for dead weight on my staff.’” Dodds sat with Assistant Sports Editor Bill Dwyre. It was her first encounter with him since she was hired at the Milwaukee Journal.It was Dec. 31, 1973, one year after the passage of Title IX. Women were just finding their voices in the sports world.Two weeks earlier, Dodds graduated from the IU School of Journalism.Title IX was making an immediate impact, as 1973 was also the year Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match.Originally intended to make changes in women’s education, the legislation was providing new opportunities for women in sports.For Dodds, it meant becoming one of the first women sports writers in the country.In the seven years following her first interaction with Dwyre, he was promoted from assistant sports editor to sports editor in Milwaukee.He would then became sports editor of the Los Angeles Times.Dodds was working in Houston at the time and got a call from Dwyre.“It was about 1980 when he hired me at the Los Angeles Times,” Dodds said. “I had won him over.”***This April, 41 years after Dodds began as a sports journalist, she became the first woman inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame.“It’s one thing to say, ‘I used to be a sportswriter’ or ‘I used to work for the LA Times,’” Dodds said. “But something like this really gives it credibility and validation.”Dodds’ interest in reporting developed when she was a child because her father was the retail ad manager for the Lafayette Journal and Courier.She would visit the newspaper with him every Saturday morning.“I thought that sports writing was probably the neatest profession in the world, but I was going to settle for being a newspaper reporter,” Dodds said.She grew up in Lafayette in the 1960s. There weren’t competitive sports for girls, not in the way there were for boys.While some girls were swimmers or golfers, it wasn’t girls’ sports like you see girls’ sports today, Dodds said.Dodds was the oldest of four. Her life revolved around her brother Kirk’s sports schedule.“Mealtime depended on when his practice was,” she said. “Vacations depended upon when his mid-season break was. My brother was an athlete and that was very, very important in those days.”Dodds didn’t mind that all the attention was on boys’ sports. She was just happy to be a little bit a part of it.When she enrolled at Lafayette Jefferson High School in 1966, she began writing for the Lafayette Jeff Booster, the student newspaper.“That’s when I realized, ‘Now, here’s a way I can be a part of that excitement,’” she said.***Dodds walked into practice hoping to talk to Head Swimming Coach Doc Councilman. It was her first day on the swimming beat for the Indiana Daily Student, and she was feeling apprehensive. She still wasn’t sure whether a career in sports writing would be possible.Councilman was coaching a team with seven Olympians, including three-time Olympic medalist Gary Hall. The team was the five-time defending national champion.Councilman couldn’t talk to her at that time and asked Dodds to come back at 6 the next morning instead.When Councilman saw the young reporter at his pool the following morning, he knew she was serious, Dodds said.“Once he realized I truly wanted to learn this and I was interested, when you have the sports that aren’t used to getting a whole lot of attention, he took a lot of time with me, and he was so nice,” she said.In working with the IU Sports Information Department on the swimming beat, Dodds met Bob Hammel.Hammel was the sports editor at the Bloomington Herald-Telephone.“He would cover two or three events a day, get into the office and as fast as you could type, he would write two game stories and write a column while you were still flipping through your notes deciding what to lead with.” she said. Because everyone read the IDS, Dodds said, Hammel became familiar with her work.Dodds got her big break in the spring of 1973.On the same day IU Men’s Basketball played University of California at Los Angeles in the final four of the NCAA Tournament, the IU swim team was competing for its sixth consecutive national title.Hammel sent Dodds to cover the meet in Nashville, Tenn. “It wasn’t until I met Bob Hammel that I realized this could be a reality,” Dodds said. “I could do this. I could stay in sports.”***As Dodds worked her way up in sports, the timing always seemed perfect because everywhere she went there were sports legends.In Houston, there was track and field Olympian Carl Lewis, and in Los Angeles, Dodds covered UCLA greats Reggie Miller and Troy Aikman.Then, in August of 1988, Wayne Gretzky was traded from Edmonton, Canada, to L.A. Dodds was put on the L.A. Kings beat and traveled all across Canada and the eastern United States with the team.By now, Dodds had an established career. She got married and had two children.Although she loved her job, balancing family life and the realities of her career became too much.Dodds’ youngest son, Jason, had Down syndrome and was diagnosed with leukemia when he was two years old.Dodds said she experienced a moment of truth while she sat on the plane crying right before flying to a Kings game in Montreal.Jason was sick at the City of Hope hospital in L.A. and had been through a year and a half of chemotherapy.“It suddenly hit me, ‘You know what? No one made me get on this plane. I got on this plane on my own,’” Dodds said. “What’s more important? My son or a hockey game in Montreal? That’s when I said, ‘No, I can’t do this anymore.’”Dodds made the game but quit her job at the Times. She said it was one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made.“Bill Dwyre, among others, told me I’ve lost my ever-loving mind, that you do not leave the L.A. Times,” she said. “But you do what you have to do.”***No more traveling meant no more writing for Dodds.She took a job at the L.A. Daily News to get off the road and became an editor, a rarity for women at the time.“There was starting to be a lot of women in sports but very few as editors,” Dodds said.Dodds and her family moved to Austin, Tex., where she was the sports editor of the Austin American Statesman.She then took the job as associate sports editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.It was 2001, six days after 9/11, when Jason died from a stroke at age 15.“They told me he was going to outgrow his heart, and indeed he did outgrow his heart,” Dodds said. “He just got big enough and his heart couldn’t keep up anymore.”The same year, her older son Jeremy was starting his freshman year at Ohio State. Dodds was ready for a change.When she got the opportunity to return to her writing roots at the Indianapolis Star and to become a Hoosier again, Dodds took it.“I had really always thought of myself as a writer and I really wanted to get back to it,” she said.***Dodds’ sports writing career ended in 2005. She returned to her hometown of Lafayette with many accomplishments to look back on.In 1989, Dodds was one of 30 women to gather in Oakland, Calif.The women formed the Association for Women in Sports Media, or AWSM, which they pronounced “awesome.”Dodds was the first vice president of the organization. There was finally a way female journalists could be spoken for in one voice, she said.At AWSM’s 25th anniversary and annual convention in Phoenix, Dodds found out she would be inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters Hall of Fame.“The thing is, I think Bob Hammel had been put in charge of letting me know this, but he didn’t have my cell phone number and he couldn’t find me,” Dodds said, laughing.Dodds was used to firsts. But now she had set a new standard in the world of women’s sports media. “It was wonderful,” she said. “I was so happy. I was so proud.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Feb. 29, 2012, a student at a Georgia high school sent a text to a friend that read, “Gunman be at West Hall today.”The recipient of the message notified the police, who immediately locked down the school until further investigation.When the sender of the message was tracked down by the police, he said that wasn’t the text he sent. Instead, he said, his phone had done it by autocorrecting the message. The text actually said, “Gunna be at West Hall today.”Joel Kuipers, a professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University, said this is one way new media disrupts communication.“A simple one-word autocorrect caused trouble that took the school three hours to repair,” he said. “It ruined schedules, caused widespread panic and raised a number of questions, some of which I’d like to ponder a bit today.”Kuipers visited IU on Monday for a lecture that was part of a series made possible by an endowment to the IU Anthropology Department by David Skomp in 1983.In his lecture, Kuipers spoke on some of the findings of a collaborative research project he was part of, which focused on cell phone technology.“My point today is, I hope, a simple one,” he said. “It is, put simply, cell phones and social media are primarily a cultural phenomenon and not preeminently a psychological one.”Kuipers focused on three observations he has made on the social and historical context of social media. He said social media makes it possible for everyone in the network to produce, consume and distribute content. Its power comes from the connections made between users. And lastly, social media allows users to coordinate activities between themselves at speeds not previously possible.He said social media simply provides different ways of exerting knowledge. It isn’t a completely new concept, just a more advanced medium.Though he doesn’t see a change in the amount of communication between people, Kuipers said communication through new media is not always clear.“One context that we’ve found productive is looking at the context of repair,” he said. “Repair is an integral feature of all social life, of all living systems.”Kuipers helped conduct a survey done among students in Washington D.C. It found that 93 percent of the students had smart phones. Their primary uses were texting and accessing the Internet, rather using the phone for calling.With the new autocorrect feature, Kuipers said understanding via text can often be lost. He found the most common way to clarify was to switch media, for example going from texting to calling.Kuipers concluded that social media doesn’t necessarily result in a single outcome, but it has changed many things.“One way to think about how we can go about studying the relationship between subjective states and social media is to focus on culturally, and linguistically, defined interactions characterized by prevalent data,” Kuipers said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Union Board President Lexy Parrill didn’t realize the extent of what needed to change on the board until she received backlash after the announcement of this year’s Little 500 concert performer, she said.Parrill said many IU students do not understand what Union Board does, both with the organization’s programming and acting as the governing body of the Indiana Memorial Union.Parrill received emails from people saying, “Union Board, you have one job.”She said although the organization has a part in making people think that, it’s not the case.“I think really creating better awareness of what Union Board does is important because, in actuality, we don’t have just one job,” Parrill said. “In the next semester, I want to really make sure students know what Union Board does and know how their student fee dollars are being used.”Parrill, a junior majoring in history, was elected president of Union Board after being involved in the organization for two years. She joined her second semester at IU.As a freshman, Parrill said, she was miserable. There were a lot of things going on at the time that she didn’t agree with or like. “I was so unhappy at IU, and I could choose to leave, or I could choose to stay, and I could be the change,” Parrill said. “I could change the things I was so unhappy about or run away, and the same issues would be affecting the students.”Parrill served two semesters as an assistant director on the service committee. She decided she wanted to get more involved and spent all of 2013 as the Director of Service.The board of directors then chose Parrill as the 2014 Union Board President.“Lexy is super passionate about Union Board, and she is always more prepared than anyone else on the board,” Vice President of Marketing Paul Yoon said. “She runs our meetings so it’s efficient and talks to individual directors each week to improve their events.”Parrill said being at the helm of the organization comes with a lot of behind-the-scenes work, but there’s also a lot she never knew before being on the executive board.“As a director, you see very different problems than you see as the president,” Parrill said. “One of the things I really wanted to work on was making sure we were programming more.”As this is Union Board’s 105th anniversary, Parill said it was a goal to create 105 programs by the end of the year.In addition to increasing the number of programs, she said she hopes to make those events relevant to a larger population of IU students.“Our programming should be as diverse as all the students on this campus,” Parrill said. “That’s something that I know going into the next semester we’re going to be working on.”Union Board hopes to work closer with Bring Change 2 Mind in the fall, she said. Bring Change 2 Mind is an organization founded by Glenn Close that works to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness.To Parrill, though, Union Board is more than an organization that creates events for students.“One of the things I like most about being president is getting to work with the IMU staff,” she said. “That’s a huge part of Union Board. We’re not just programmers, we are also the governing body of the IMU.”Union Board was established before the Indiana Memorial Union was built. The original goal of the organization was to unite the campus, and Parrill said she wants the same thing to happen today.Parrill said, more than anything, she hopes to see the Union become a place where every student can be comfortable at IU.“I knew it was a place where the Union was my home,” she said. “It is a place where I love spending my time, and I wanted to make sure other students continued to feel that way.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Eleven IU students sat in chairs on the Whittenberger Auditorium stage with their heads bowed. They were hypnotized.“Try to get a really good mental image of what you look like after the last eight or nine years at the gym,” hypnotist Tom DeLuca said. “Now hold on to that. Yes, that’s you. You look that good. It’s not just your friends and family who’ve noticed. The whole world has noticed how good you look.”The students listen to minutes of reaffirmation about their perfect looking bodies before being asked to show off those muscles. DeLuca counted to three.“Three, up and pose,” he said. “You are looking good. Hold that pose.”Students performed any task DeLuca directed them to while they were hypnotized Wednesday night during the Spring Union Fair, presented by Union Board.DeLuca had one man singing about apples, another acting as an Indiana cheerleader and one woman was taught to believe the number six didn’t exist.Mara Jacobucci, who had been hypnotized once before, said she felt relaxed and re-energized after the hypnotization.“I mean, hypnotism, I think, is an interesting word because I think it’s almost like meditation more,” she said. “For example, if you do a yoga class and the teacher is telling you to do things and you just do it — it’s kind of like that feeling more for me.”The event was part of Union Board’s first Spring Union Fair.While DeLuca highlighted the festivities, there was also the Gallery Evening Music Series as well as a caricature artist and silicone wristbands to be engraved.The purpose of Union Fair is to provide an alternative to alcohol during Little 500 week, Union Board Director of IU Traditions Jason Gross said.DeLuca used to perform hypnotism at IU during Welcome Week every year. Because that always drew such a large crowd, Union Board decided he would be perfect for their new event, Gross said.Among other tasks, Jacobucci was told she was the captain of the “fun police.” Upon command by DeLuca, without realizing it, Jacobucci began yelling at anyone in the crowd who laughed.She said it doesn’t take long for all the focus to turn to DeLuca and forget about the audience. All of a sudden you’re in a different world, she said.“I remember all the actions that people were doing, but I was confused a lot of times why people were doing the things they were doing,” Jacobucci said.With the support they had from students at the event this year, Gross said Union Board will continue the Spring Union Fair in the future.“It’s new this year, but we’re hoping to make it bigger every year,” Gross said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the few weeks since the Residential Housing Association executive board came into office, it has rebuilt its organization for the coming year and hired new committee directors.When Director of Social Advocacy Andrew Guenther, who is a columnist for the Indiana Daily Student, was interviewed for his position, he was prepared to make major changes, including a new RHA Social Advocacy Council.“What got him the position is he came in with a 16-page proposal of this council, which completely blew us away,” RHA President Stephanie Corona said. “We thought it was a great idea.”Guenther proposed a council, to be composed of student leaders from various minority organizations across campus.Volunteer representatives from nine groups would complete the council. The organizations, as of now, are the Arab Student Association, Asian Student Union, Black Student Union, Gay-Straight Alliance, Hillel Center, Indian Student Association, Latino Cultural Center, Muslim Student Union and the Women’s Student Association.Guenther said that with 19 percent of the class of 2017 being students of color and another 8 percent being international students, this is a place where these students can discuss struggles.“These groups are oftentimes the most unsafe, uncomfortable and the most overlooked groups here at Indiana University,” Guenther said. “The Council would serve to give those groups the attention and voice they deserve.”They are open to adding more than nine organizations, Guenther said, but these initial groups are representative of the majority of minorities on campus.“The reason there is an Arab Student Association Delegate and a Muslim Student Union Delegate is because not every Arab is Muslim and not every Muslim is Arab,” he said.The council would serve as a way for these student representatives to voice their concerns about the residence halls or campus life in general, Guenther said.Then, these concerns will be addressed through “policy in conjunction with Residential Programs and Services,” Guenther said.Corona said when she arrived on campus her freshman year, she noticed minority students being underrepresented, and this council is the next big step with the changes they began to make this past year.“This past year we were successful in having all apartments that are centers, so Union Street, Willkie and the Hillcrest apartments at Collins, be gender blind, which is a big deal, because those students who identify as transgender would be ousted as soon as they walked on campus,” she said.RHA plans to collaborate with the IU Student Association, which is also looking to start a “diversity hub,” Guenther said.While RHA will be focused more on the residence halls, IUSA will focus on non-residence hall students. There will be two separate councils.“The two diversity hubs were actually started without knowledge of the other, which just shows the mounting need for a Council of this manner,” Guenther said.Guenther said RHA will allow an IUSA representative to sit in on their council, and said he hopes IUSA does the same.Corona said the Social Advocacy Council follows right in line with what RHA strives to do on campus.“I don’t think a council like this exists yet at IU, and it’s our hope that it becomes something of a model for other organizations to use,” Corona said. “Really, the most important thing is just that collaboration, bringing different people from different backgrounds and organizations together to see what can happen.”So far, five of the nine organizations have decided to commit delegates to the Social Advocacy Council.Guenther said that although the first meeting for the council isn’t until the fall, he plans to stay in communication with the RHA executive board during the summer and will be open to any suggestions from the IU community.“This Council will be important to the University because it will give those students who are oftentimes underrepresented or ignored a voice directly to the University administration,” he said. “It will give them a platform to enact cultural and policy changes to better this University for all students and make IU a place where change can start with a handful of concerned students."
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In its first-ever Little 500, Phi Mu found itself in the lead pack with about 30 laps to go.Then-junior Jeni Gillenwater trailed only three or four others. She and her team were in perfect position to not only finish in the top five, but to win the race.Qualifying 18th the month before, this was far beyond their expectations. They were just rookies.Before the race, they figured they would finish top 10 at best, Gillenwater said.Everything changed on Gillenwater’s fourth turn. Her front tire was clipped, and she lost control.Gillenwater tumbled to the ground. She lay on the track, covering her head in anticipation of oncoming traffic.After being trampled by a couple bikes, Gillenwater left with minimal injuries. Scrapes and bruises plastered her body as teammate Jackie Kober replaced her.“For about five to 10 laps we tried to catch up with the lead pack, but we realized it wasn’t going to work,” Gillenwater said. “Eventually the lead pack caught up with us, so we were a lap down.”The team ended up finishing 10th, still meeting their expectations for the race.But with three sophomores, one junior and no experience in the Little 500, they knew immediately that their run wasn’t over.“We already had our bikes, we already had our uniforms, we already had experienced it once and wanted to be better the next year to prove ourselves,” junior Mackenzie Moore said. “I don’t think there was really a hesitation.”Gillenwater, now the lone senior on the team, originally put the team together. She said part of the reason she went Greek was to be able to race.It was summer 2012, and she wanted her Little 500 dream to become reality.“Although I didn’t bike competitively before, I grew up in Bloomington, so I always knew about the Little 5,” Gillenwater said. “I watched the movie ‘Breaking Away’ and everything, and I just wanted to be a part of it.”Phi Mu didn’t have a team in 2012, so Gillenwater had to convince freshmen Kober, Moore and Gretchen Mann to complete her team.All four were athletes in high school, but together they had no racing experience.With their training the next summer, the four began a new era of Phi Mu cycling.“In the greek system, biking is valued and everyone wants to have a good Little 5 team,” Gillenwater said. “Some houses are known for always having good biking teams, and we thought it would be really cool for Phi Mu to be known as one of those houses.”Since last year’s race, they have trained harder than ever, with their sights set on finishing in the top five this year.A month and a half ago, though, it was uncertain whether they would all be competing together.Kober was attending a CRU convention in Indianapolis. While dancing, she heard a pop in her knee. She was carried off the floor and found out the next day she had torn her ACL.“I was there when it happened,” Mann said. “I’ve torn both of my ACLs, and just anything where you can’t put weight on your leg is just like a red flag to me.”For a couple weeks all Kober could do was swim. By the third week, she started doing intervals on the stationary bike.By week four, she was biking like nothing had ever happened, her teammates said.“I told her once before, but ‘If you for some reason decide you’re not racing on race day, I’ll just give up my position for you so you can ride,’” Gillenwater said. “She just fights for it so much.”Kober was ready in time for the team’s nine-day spring break biking trip to Florida, where they did their last preparations for 2014 Little 500 qualifications.Phi Mu qualified sixth this year. Gillenwater and Kober were both in the top 20 of the Individual Time Trials, placing 11th and 18th, respectively.Gillenwater said with what her team has overcome, nothing can stop them.Last year’s disappointment serves as all the motivation they need for the race, she said.“I want to win the race this year,” Gillenwater said. “I’m still bummed to this day. We were so close, being in fourth or fifth place when we went down. I know this year we can be better.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A new opportunity for students to make first attempts at comedy is growing. Union Board’s Random Acts of Comedy staged its second-ever event Tuesday.Seven student comedians and groups took the stage in the Indiana Memorial Union’s Frangipani Room to perform improvised routines and stand-up comedy. All student comedians are invited to share their talents at Random Acts of Comedy.“We’re going to basically try and create a brand and provide an opportunity for comedians on campus to showcase themselves for other students, for their friends, whoever they want,” said Brett Bassock, live entertainment director for Union Board. Bassock said Random Acts of Comedy will occur monthly for the rest of the year, but he hopes it will become a biweekly event next year. He said Union Board Live already has a weekly music series. “I thought it’d be an amazing idea to do that with comedy, to give students that opportunity with comedy just like we do with music,” Bassock said.The original idea for an open comedy night came from senior Harlan Kelly, who studies creative writing and communication and culture. Kelly is a member of Awkward Silence Comedy, an improvisation group on campus.He said with all the comedy groups formed on campus, he wanted to provide a more open format for those students and others.“There were a lot of people in the comedy community who want to do just little side projects together, and there are a lot of students who do stand up on campus,” Kelly said.There are currently seven comedy groups on campus, Kelly said. Two of those are sketch groups, two are hybrid groups that perform sketch and improvisation and the three others do exclusively improvisation.Kelly said watching these talented students perform sparked the idea for Random Acts of Comedy.“A few of my friends who are in my improv group did stand up before our show and I was like, ‘Dang, this is funny,” he said. “I’m sure there are a lot of other funny people. There should be something on campus where they get to do that.’”Though the Comedy Attic in Bloomington attracts many local comedians, Kelly said he wanted an event strictly for IU students.Between 50 and 60 people attended each of the first two Random Acts of Comedy events, Bassock said.He hopes to see a crowd of 80 to 100 people next semester as the interest in comedy events like this increases among students.“I think so far, the comedy groups have done really well embracing this, he said. “And we’re hoping to expand it to students who, whether this is their first time ever performing or if they’ve done it a million times, whatever their experience is — we just really want to welcome anyone in.”