The Pitt News 9-4-14

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@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 22

Thursday, September 4, 2014

90°|69°Pittnews.com

Kevin Burns (left), junior economics and fi nance major and Joe Fleming, junior biology major, play corn hole on the William Pitt Union Lawn during rush week. Heather Tennant| Staff Photographer

FOR THE WIN/BID

Those who have su! ered from a stroke or other brain injury could recover more e" ciently because of data from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Pitt.

The Center for the Neural Basis of Cogni-tion, the name given to the project joining both universities, published its study “Neural constraints on learning,” in last month’s issue of Nature magazine. According to the results, learning new skills, such as a di! erent verb tense in a foreign language, becomes easier when the desired skills build upon already acquired ones.

The study also found that “cognitive fl ex-ibility has a limit,” Aaron P. Batista, assistant professor of bioengineering at Pitt and co-

Learning has a limit, study says

Cristina Holtzer News Editor

SCIENCESCIENCE

KENNESAW, Ga. — Michele DiPietro had his listeners in stitches with his impressions of dumb things college students say in class.

Then he sobered them up with advice

about how they could do their own jobs bet-ter — how to handle such recurring class-room challenges as apathy and short attention spans.

DiPietro’s disciples were junior members of the faculty at Kennesaw State University, near Atlanta, where he directs a center to

improve the quality of teaching at the school. It’s one of a growing number of e! orts to ad-dress the reality that most college professors never expressly learn how to teach.

“It’s no longer enough to get your Ph.D., stand in front of a class and let the chips fall where they may,” Hoag Holmgren said.

Holmgren is the executive director for the Professional and Organizational Develop-ment Network in Higher Education, a national group focusing on teacher training.

The trend is being fueled by demands from

Colleges fi nd teachers need teaching, too — on how to teachTimothy Pratt

MCT Campus

Teachers 2

Learning 2

EDUCATIONEDUCATION

2 September 4, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

researcher on the study, said in a release . Data shows that, sometimes, certain skills cannot be learned and that there are “constraints” on how fl exible the brain can be during the learning process.

Byron M. Yu, assistant professor of electri-cal, computer and biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon and researcher on the study, said the techniques used in this study could be utilized “to coach patients to generate proper

neural activity.”“These fi ndings could be the basis for

novel rehabilitation procedures for the many neural disorders that are characterized by improper neural activity,” Yu said.

The study included training rhesus ma-caque monkeys to use brain-computer inter-face (BCI) technology that is often used by the disabled to communicate. The researchers hooked the animals’ brains up to screens dis-playing a cursor. The animals’ brain activity would then move the cursor in a specifi c di-rection, depending on what types of activities they were supposed to do.

The researchers directed the monkeys to repeat a series of neural activity patterns. When the patterns repeated often, they were able to move the cursor with ease. But when the monkeys tried to learn new patterns that they had not experienced before, it was much more di! cult for them to move the cursors.

Patrick T. Sadtler, a Ph.D. candidate in Pitt’s Department of Bioengineering, com-pared learning to cooking with the wrong ingredients. Trying to learn something new with virtually no base knowledge, Sadtler said, is like trying to make hamburgers with sugar, baking soda and eggs.

“The brain works in a similar way during learning,” he said. “We found that subjects were able to more readily recombine familiar activity patterns in new ways relative to creat-ing entirely novel patterns.”

The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Burroughs Well-come Fund funded the project.

“We wanted to study how the brain chang-es its activity when you learn and also how its activity cannot change,” Batista said. “We wanted to fi nd out what [the] limit [of cogni-tive fl exibility] looks like in terms of neurons.”

LEARNINGFROM PAGE 1

parents and policymakers to get more for the money they’re investing in higher education and by the growth of faculty-rating websites and a new body of research about e" ective teaching. DiPietro co-authored a book on the topic called “How Learning Works: Seven Re-search-Based Principles for Smart Teaching.”

Faculty seems to be craving training, too. Only 18 people came to DiPietro’s voluntary workshop the fi rst time it was o" ered at Kennesaw last year. This summer, 75 did. He taught them techniques concerning teach-ing style variations, telling them not to just stand in front of a classroom or auditorium and lecture. DiPietro also stressed showing interest in students and encouraging them to discuss course material as much as possible.

Teaching centers, like the one at Kennesaw State, generally provide services aimed at helping professors improve their classroom performance, such as implementing one-on-one consultations. Workshops on how to handle course loads, lessons from the lat-est research on learning and online guides to using technology in the classroom are also available for teachers.

At Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Edu-cational Innovation, the number of faculty signing up for confi dential consultations to improve their teaching has gone from 100 to 180 in less than three years, director Marsha Lovett said.

The University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching — the nation’s oldest such initiative — conducts 2,800 consultations a year, more than double the number of a decade ago, interim director Matthew Kaplan said. The university also runs “teaching academies” that all new hires in most of its schools are required to take. Some departments hold monthly “How Learning Works” sessions, too, Kaplan said.

“Teaching is a much more important part of the package now,” he said. “It’s more than just knowing the content.”

Doctoral programs, in which most faculty prepare for their careers in academia, focus almost exclusively on knowledge of the subject they intend to teach, research and writing about it, according to advocates for better university teaching.

But now, Holmgren said, “There’s an in-crease in accountability, in the measurability of student learning and the e" ectiveness of teaching.”

His association is made up mostly of people, like DiPietro, whose jobs are to help faculty improve their classroom skills. There are 1,750 members, and that number has been growing at about 5 percent per year for fi ve years, Holmgren said.

Some wonder why it took so long for higher education to teach its faculty to teach.

According to polling agency Gallup, sur-veys show that nearly four in 10 college gradu-ates say they never had a professor who made them excited about learning.

“It shows a lack of selecting for the right talent, a lack of training,” Busteed, execu-tive director for Gallup, said. “And it shows

what we value and espouse. Institutions of higher education have not valued high-quality teaching.”

DiPietro said this may be changing. But he points out that the same economic pressures pushing higher education to improve teaching and learning have caused some universities to move in the opposite direction. Western Kentucky University, for example, shut down its Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching last year.

But DiPietro also said increased consumer awareness — “Families are saying, ‘I’m pay-ing this tuition and this graduate student is teaching my child?’“ — will drive up demand for the services at centers like his.

Universities are also fi nding that graduate students who want to go into academia face a tougher job market. Training in teaching can give them an edge.

Jae Turner is one of those. Two years after getting her doctorate in women’s, gender and sex studies at Emory University and after a year of teaching part time at Kennesaw, she has been interviewing for full-time faculty positions.

DiPietro’s teacher-training seminar, which Turner attended, wasn’t her fi rst. She also took a six-week course on using digital edu-cational technology.

“I’ve certainly taken advantage of every-thing I can to improve my teaching,” she said.

TEACHERSFROM PAGE 1

Professors nationwide often sign up for private consultations to improve their teaching. MCT Campus

Corrections In an article published Wednesday, The Pitt News reported that the bar Howlers Coyote Cafe is located in Downtown. It is located in Bloomfi eld. The Pitt News regrets this error. In an article published Wednesday, The Pitt News reported that the Student Government Board approved the Student Dietetic Association’s request of $2,402.80 in full. This is incorrect. The Board approved $1,928.80 and denied $474. The Pitt News regrets this error.

3September 4, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com


OPINIONS

There is a reason why the most profound writing in the English language cannot be sensibly ex-pressed in BuzzFeed headlines. The list article — or “listicle” — as a genre cannot capture the irony and self-doubt that challenges readers’ sensibilities. Serious online news outlets and magazines ought not to be tempted by its promises of easy “clicks.”

The listicle has risen to promi-nence within the last few years, along with BuzzFeed, the self-styled “news” site that popularized the form. It was not born on the site, however. The humor site Cracked made comparatively creative use of the form before it became asso-ciated primarily with Miley Cyrus GIFs and cat photos. Now, however, the listicle pervades blogs and other

“news” sites.More recently, the genre has

seemed to garner su! cient gravitas to address issues of considerable importance. Consider BuzzFeed’s “Everything You Need To Know About The Deadly Extremist Group Ravaging Iraq And Syria,” a listicle providing several paragraphs, interspersed with photographs, detailing the history of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It addresses an urgent topic bereft of sarcasm and humor — with no recourse to GIFs whatsoever.

One might point to such an example of measured, mature reporting as proof that the listicle can convey serious information and deserves serious attention. The problems of credibility, how-ever, lie not in the subject matter but in the form itself.

Whether in news reporting such as this or in opinions writ-ing, the listicle makes claims

to comprehensiveness, which it cannot deliver. In this particularly egregious instance, the title pur-ports to summarize the entirety of ISIS in 22 photos and captions. But, even when not made explicit, the numbered list implies fi nality. The arbitrary number of list items for any article gives the reader the impression that either the author decided on “16 Profound Margaret Atwood Quotes That Will Enlighten

You About The World” because he got tired after 16 and stopped typ-ing or because there are exactly 16 quotes in Atwood’s corpus capable of profound insight.

Either the author’s choice is in-explicable or it is total, and readers rarely want to accept the inexpli-cable.

We know that no reader can learn everything important about one of the most dynamic military

forces in the Middle East in 22 cap-tions, just as we know that Atwood wrote far more than 16 enlighten-ing passages. Anyone who actually needs to know about ISIS — that is, any informed American voter — would benefi t from reading a continuous supply of news cover-age and historical analysis, rather than ending on one listicle with

Many reasons why listicles are nonsense Simon Brown

Columnist

Comic By Fatima Kizilkaya

City should work to save August Wilson Center EDITORIALEDITORIAL

Few local artists have achieved as much acclaim and signifi cance in their fi eld as playwright August Wil-son. The Hill District native, who died in 2005, has had his plays per-formed in numerous communities across the country, Broadway and around the globe. But, currently, his hometown is struggling to preserve his legacy.

This year, Pittsburgh’s August Wilson Center for African-Amer-ican Culture was forced to default on its $7.9 million Dollar Bank mort-gage, failing to make its payments since February 2013. In response, New York developer 980 Liberty Partners is o" ering $9.8 million to construct a hotel atop the center, while still providing free space for

the August Wilson organization to operate.

Local citizens and organizations are not satisfi ed. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the AWC Recovery Advisory Committee, a group of volunteers aiming to save the debt-ridden center, seeks more than the New York developer’s o" er. And they are not alone.

By working with the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Heinz Endowments and the Richard King Mellon Foun-dation, the group has raised $7.2 mil-lion to preserve the center. This is a great achievement, but more must be done to ensure the sustainment of Wilson’s legacy.

Promoting the arts in the com-munity, especially the contributions

of a local legend, must remain a top priority for citizens. But to prevent another failed e" ort to do so, the center must take a proactive ap-proach to fulfi ll its goal as a place not only for African-American culture, but also for culture in general.

The center has directly ad-dressed this. It plans to be more integrated into the city’s theatrical and cultural community, rather than operating in an isolated manner. Ac-cording to the Post-Gazette, if the foundations were to gain control of the building, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust would operate it.

Another change would be a greater focus on contemporary art and culture in the city. African-American history and culture would

remain a primary role, but current Pittsburgh art and culture would be heavily showcased as well.

With this, the center would pro-vide a key outlet for local artists to showcase their work. Pittsburgh has grown tremendously as a center of culture, and providing more op-portunities for aspiring artists and entertainers only adds to its artistic appeal.

For all of this to happen, howev-er, citizens must play an active role. More is required to preserve this ar-tistic outlet than mere hashtag activ-ism or reading this editorial. Please, share this and spread the word but know that even more must be done.

The public should turn to crowd-funding to add to the more than $7.2

million already collected. Those who support the arts should call on local o! cials, businesses and organiza-tions to contribute and play a role in keeping the center alive.

Additionally, if the su! cient funds were to be raised, support cannot stop. The theater and center must be consistently supported once it relaunches, as to pay tribute to one of Pittsburgh’s most successful sons.

We as Pittsburghers should take pride in the contributions that come from our city, but we cannot let those contributions escape us. Ensuring the survival of the August Wilson Center is a testament to a great man from a great city.

We must work to make this testa-ment a reality.

SIMON SAYSSIMON SAYS

Simon Says 5


T P NS U DO K U

Today’s di! culty level: MediumPuzzles by Dailysudoku.com

the satisfaction that he or she now knows everything. Anyone who seeks insight from Atwood should read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and make his or her own list of quotations.

This fault inhabits the list format more so than any other. The conceit of totality dis-sipates along with the numbered items. An article on “Some Profound Margaret Atwood Quotes” with an unnumbered sampling of

quotes would convey a signifi cantly di! erent message than the listicle.

But the listicle’s appeal rests in the simple, cognitively satisfying structure, in which read-ers receive exactly what they expect from the article. The listicle confi rms precisely how long the reader will have to exercise their attention on a piece — and since the disjoint list lacks any fl uidity or unity, he or she can leave at any time without missing anything important.

None of that poses a problem for news reporting but it does for the listicle editorial.

Essay and opinions writing ought to chal-lenge readers’ expectations and beliefs. It provides new perspectives on common is-sues, capable of stopping any conventional wisdom in its tracks. At its best, it can lead the reader through the author’s own self-doubt and conclude on a more profound and con-sidered note.

The listicle, like the fi ve-paragraph essay, cannot challenge a reader’s expectations be-cause its appeal is its expectation. If a reader expects something like the Hu" ngton Post’s “21 Numbers That Will Help You Understand

Why Ferguson Is About More Than Michael Brown,” they will get those 21 — and they certainly won’t challenge a prior-held belief about Ferguson’s national and social signifi -cance. If they happen to disagree with any of the points made, they can just skip that list item. One need not worry about discomfort or self-criticism.

Beyond these, several other problems per-vade the listicle genre. I would include more here but I would not know where to start. Even a list couldn’t possibly convey them.

Write to Simon at [email protected].

SIMON SAYSFROM PAGE 4

E S T A B L I S H E D 1 9 1 0

Editorial PoliciesSingle copies of The Pitt News are free and available at newsstands around

campus. Additional copies can be purchased with permission of the editor in chief for $.50 each.

Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the students, faculty or University administration. Opinions expressed in columns, car-toons and letters are not necessarily those of The Pitt News. Any letter in-tended for publication must be addressed to the editor, be no more than 250 words and include the writer’s name, phone number and University a"liation, if any. Letters may be sent via e-mail to [email protected]. The Pitt News reserves the right to edit any and all letters. In the event of multiple replies to an issue, The Pitt News may print one letter that represents the majority of responses. Unsigned editorials are a majority opinion of the Editorial Board, listed to the left.

The Pitt News is an independent, student-written and student-managed newspaper for the Oakland campus of the University of Pittsburgh. It is pub-lished Monday through Friday during the regular school year and Wednesdays during the summer.

Complaints concerning coverage by The Pitt News, after first being brought to the editors, may be referred to the Community Relations Com-mittee, Pitt News Advisory Board, c/o student media adviser, 435 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

The editor in chief has the final authority on editorial matters and cannot be censored, according to state and federal law. The editor in chief is selected by the Pitt News Advisory Board, which includes University sta!, fac-ulty and students, as well as journalism professionals. The business and edito-rial o"ces of The Pitt News are located at 434 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

For soldiers at war, the destructive forces that cause them to take arms often prove to be the glue that forms the strongest bonds.

“Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme,” written by Frank

McGuinness and the latest production of the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, tells the story of eight sons of Northern Ireland and their experiences leading up to the battle.

The play, which runs from Sept. 4 to 20 at the Charity Randall Theatre, trails eight members of the 36th Ulster Division, a force that was all but annihi-

lated at the Battle of the Somme during World War I.

“When they published all of the casu-alty lists in Belfast , the Shankill Road ... had black flags in every second house,” director Matt Torney said. “It was like an entire generation of young men wiped out.”

The 36th Ulster Division was com-

prised of Northern Protestant Irish, who formed it specifically to defend their land against Catholics. But rather than highlight Ireland’s well-known sectar-ian disputes, the play sheds light on the gratuitous nature of war and the men who fight in it.

‘Observe the Sons’ explores disillusion with war, brotherhood Richard Koppenaal

Staff Writer

The 36th Ulster Division face physical and emotional strains in ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.’ Photo courtesy of PICT

Preview 8


“The show deals more with inward struggles about reasons why men go to war, and, after they’ve gone to war, how they become disillusioned — how the realities of war affect them and how it stacks up to their expectations,” said Jus-tin Holcomb, who plays the role of Chris-topher Roulston, an uptight preacher.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s a play about Catholics or Protestants in any way,” said Ciaran Byrne, who plays John Millen, a member of the 36th Ulster. “For me, it’s essentially a love story. It’s that love of land and love of fellow man for who you will, in the end, lay down your life.”

While it is later suspected that one of the eight is Catholic, the 36th Ulster Division was thought to be comprised of entirely Protestant Irishmen. This congruity among the characters enables the play to explore other themes, includ-ing the bonds between men at war and homophobia.

But the play does more than just ig-

nore conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. According to Torney, McGuin-ness, a Catholic, attempts to bridge the cultural gap between Protestants and those of his own faith.

“The writer of this was Catholic, and he wanted to understand the Protes-tant psyche,” Torney said. “He wanted to understand the history and wanted to understand the pride we have in Ulster.”

Fundamental Protestant values, hard work and unrelenting faith, Torney said, don’t always lend themselves to the arts — creating an opportunity for other playwrights to recount this harrowing tale.

“The Protestant ethic in Northern Ireland is much more oriented around work and politics. Instead of being ac-tors, they become politicians. They use their skills in language and writing to serve their political goals,” Torney said.

Despite some seemingly complex his-torical anecdotes, including references to the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, the show is not intended for an audience full of historians.

“You don’t need a degree in history

to understand the play, because it’s a play about young men who could, just as easily, be going off to Iraq,” said Torney.

Additionally, McGuinness is heralded for his use of black humor in the play — something Torney insists is a calling card of Northern Irishmen. Somehow, despite the morbidity of their situation, the eight young men of the 36th Ulster Division find time to crack some jokes.

“It’s very funny, because it’s a play about people in war, not a play about war,” said Torney.

Unfortunately for the characters and audience alike, the laughs don’t last for-ever. From the onset of the play, the au-dience learns that only one of the seven young men featured, Kenneth Pyper, actually survives the Battle. Told through a flashback, he recounts their experi-ences leading up to the battle, all while aware of their fate.

“The central conflict, I feel, would be between what’s coming and how they feel about it,” Byrne said. “Them wanting to live, juxtaposed to their circumstances, which is going to do everything to take that want of life away from them.”

PREVIEWFROM PAGE 7

Ask a parent, or anyone over the age of 50, to name one character from a video game. Was the answer “Mario?”

Whether you saved the princess as Jump-man in “Donkey Kong” at the arcade in 1981, picked up the Master Sword in “The Legend of Zelda” on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, began a journey into the wonderful world of “Pokémon” on a Game Boy in 1996 or just dived into “Nintendo Land” on the Wii U in 2012, chances are, you’ve had some encounters with Nintendo products.

Counterintuitively, Nintendo — argu-ably the most successful game and gaming hardware company — turns 125 years old

Nintendo celebrates 125

yearsStephanie Roman

Staff Writer

Nintendo 10

GAMINGGAMING


ACROSS1 Scavenging

seabird4 “You gotta be

kidding me!”9 “Cast Away” star

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15 “__ the big deal?”16 Bustling17 Sound that may

be averted byholding one’sbreath

18 “Take your time”20 Machu Picchu

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mostly23 Promising words24 1993 film loosely

based on theJamaicanbobsled team

27 Cry28 Graphic

beginning?29 Sass32 Watch carefully34 Equipped36 __ wave37 Beginning

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41 Vocalist Vannelli42 Heavy reading?43 Ukr., once44 Disney World

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45 Bluish hue46 NCAA regional

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51 Acadia NationalPark locale

53 Word with gameor room

54 Like lingeriemodels

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58 __City: computergame

59 Bull on a gluecontainer

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12 See 14-Across13 Foxy19 “You don’t have

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32 “American __”:Neil Gaiman novel

33 Sci-fi staples34 Like acrobats35 “__ appétit!”36 Weasel kin38 “It’s a deal!”39 Charon’s river44 Title holders45 Group with a

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Wednesday’s Puzzle Solved

By Julian Lim 9/18/14

©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 9/18/14

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this month. Of course, video games were a bit scarcer in 1889, but Nintendo initially o! ered one of video gaming’s important pre-decessors: card games. Similar to U.S. play-ing cards, Nintendo Koppai, as it was called at the time, marketed handmade cards for the game Hanafuda, which it continues to support.

Now, Nintendo is best known by its major brands — “Mario,” “Donkey Kong” and “Zelda” — whose characters and worlds owe everything to artist and developer Shigeru Miyamoto. In recent history, Nintendo’s focus seems to be on belittling Miyamoto’s characters into baby versions of themselves and, additionally, into tennis stars, Olympic athletes and baseball sluggers. Nintendo produces en masse, slapping its recognizable names on mediocre games, while expecting to profi t by selling to ignorant families — a business model that serves them well.

“Mario Kart,” the gem of my youth and my favorite racing game, is now on its eighth installment on the Wii U. “Mario Party 10”

is currently in development. “Super Mario Bros.” has 18 individual titles in its line. “Su-per Smash Bros.,” an immensely popular fi ghting game among college students, will drop its fourth iteration on the Wii U and 3DS handheld this year.

It sounds absolutely senseless and ri-diculous that there are so many Nintendo games swirling around on the shelves, but it’s a numbers game and part of why the company’s characters are so recognizable. They’re nonthreatening, nonviolent and kid-friendly in a medium of entertainment constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s appropriate. Nintendo has had 125 years to get its planning in line, whereas comparable tycoons Sony and Microsoft — founded in 1946 and 1975, respectively — clearly had di! erent goals in mind.

Longevity becomes a big concern in games. Like in the movies, there are only so many times the audience is willing to tolerate the same thing. This summer, my friends and I sat and argued about which “Mario Party” title we wanted to play. Some opted for “2,” but the outspoken consensus was “3.” Confused, I considered this debate and said, “Does it even matter?” The only

“Mario Party” I truly liked and remembered was the fi rst.

Apparently, there are enough small improvements in each new version to in-spire repeat customers. Mario’s mission will always be to reclaim Princess Peach from Bowser, and Star Fox is always going to save the Lylat System, but each of these slight alterations bring with them the same cast of lovable, cartoony and memorable characters.

When it comes time to play “Mario Party” or “Mario Kart 64” a little older and in a di! erent state of mind than I used to be, I adamantly refuse to play as any character but Yoshi. That silly green dinosaur is my avatar, the extension of myself in the Nin-tendo universe, and, regardless of the game played, I have to be him. (The only exception to this rule is “Super Smash Bros.”)

Yoshi resulted from a strong attachment built up over time. I’m faithful to Yoshi, de-spite the introduction of Birdo — his pink, female counterpart — and the horrendously uncool baby versions of Mario, Luigi, Toad, Bowser, et al. I don’t want to be Yoshi so much because I identify as a green, an-thropomorphic dinosaur. Instead, Yoshi

resonates with me because he’s a loyal and trustworthy sidekick to the heroic Italian plumber. That’s something to aspire to.

Without doling out too much time on re-defi ning its brand (re: 18 “Super Mario Bros.” games), Nintendo’s capable of expanding on what it knows and redoing the best parts. In the next few months, they’ll be releasing “Hyrule Warriors,” a “Zelda” spino! that combines the beloved characters of that franchise with Koei Tecmo’s “Dynasty War-riors” series (a beat-’em-up, hack-and-slash action brawl) and “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Alpha Sapphire,” remakes of the 2003 originals, “Ruby” and “Sapphire.” Finally, there’s the new “Super Smash Bros.” game, which will undoubtedly ignite many late-night, heated battle royales in the dorms.

Inevitably, Nintendo’s made some less-than-stellar games, but, as its audience ages, it can bring families, spouses and children into the open world of Super Mario or to wield sword and shield to protect Hyrule from the Ganondorf. Better yet, the num-ber of college-aged students who still play “Pokémon” would cause many parents to faint. As if anyone could actually grow out of it.

NINTENDOFROM PAGE 9


Thurs day, Sept. 4A Day To Remember Stage AE (Outdoors)400 North Shore Drive, North ShoreDoors: 5:30 p.m.Admission: $39.50 advance / $45 day of showTonight’s show at Stage AE will mark the third time Florida’s pop-punk darlings A Day To Remem-ber have stopped in Pittsburgh to support their fi fth LP, Common Courtesy. This many trips might seem excessive, but the demand’s certainly there — their last stop was a sellout at Mr. Smalls Theatre this April.

Friday, Sept. 5 (through Sept. 7)Pittsburgh Irish FestivalRiverplex Center1000 Sandcastle Drive, West HomesteadTime: 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. SundayAdmission: $8 students with ID, $14 adults at gateThe Pittsburgh Irish Festival re-turns for its 24th year of live music, dance and storytelling. Irish whis-key and cider tastings are also back for this year’s fest but advanced purchase is required for all tastings.

Friday Sept. 5 (through Sept. 21)“Of Mice and Men”Rauh Theatre, Pittsburgh Play-house222 Craft Ave., OaklandTime: matinees at 2:00 p.m., night shows at 8:00 p.m.Admission: $15-17If you missed the opportunity to see James Franco — or take a selfi e with him — as George in the Broadway production of Steinbeck’s classic heartbreaker, then fear not: The REP will be staging the adapta-tion to kick o! their latest season of plays. But Franco won’t be any-where near the stage. At the helm is Hollywood producer, director and screenwriter Robert A. Miller, who produced 1996’s Oscar-nominated “The Crucible.”

Sunday Sept. 7Tiny Moving Parts, with Scene Stage The World, Strong Hand and rchrd prkrThe Smiling Moose1306 E. Carson St., South SideDoors at 6:00 p.m. / show at 6:30 p.m.Admission: $10If there’s one thing to take away from this whole “emo revival” thing, it’s that the overlap between these bands refl ects a true passion and sense of scene. When Tiny Mov-ing Parts opened for Modern Base-ball in June at the Smiling Moose, the earnest sing-alongs and stage dives were equally impassioned for each band. Expect more of that this Sunday.

T h is Wee k en d...


SPORTS

Kenny Hill has been compared to his predecessor often since his breakout performance on Thursday. MCT Campus

A s a self-proclaimed health-care professional, I’ve been trying to think of a clever name for the medical condition that’s crippling college football.

This condition has caused frus-tration and rage to build inside of me. The disease is symptomized by the inability to stop comparing a new player to the one he’s replac-ing and the incessant need to give past players more attention than those on the field. McCarron’s Dis-ease isn’t devastating-sounding enough, as victims still get to date supermodels , and Tebowitis doesn’t quite have a ring to it. I guess that means I’m sticking with the original term: Johnny Football Syndrome.

Last Thursday, Texas A&M quarterback Kenny Hill started

the first game of his career as an Aggie. The sophomore completed 46 of 60 passes for 511 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions on the road against a preseason top-10 team. In other words: an impressive debut.

According to the popular opin-ion, though, Johnny Manziel’s spirit departed from Cleveland to possess the body of Hill and lead A&M to victory over South Carolina.

Everything Hill did was quali-fied comparatively to Johnny Football. Manziel’s name has been mentioned in conjunction with Hill’s more times in the past week than pepper has been with salt. Pass or scramble, Hill “looked like Johnny.” First down or fourth down, Hill “played like Johnny.” Hill was arrested for public intoxi-cation in the spring, so he “must love partying” the way Johnny did.

Forgive me if I sound like a hippie , but can’t we let Hill enjoy his moment? Don’t get me wrong, Manziel was great. He’s the only person I’ve seen consistently complete Hail Mary passes after scrambling 20 yards into his own backfield. But Manziel is gone, which is why I don’t understand how he continues to grab head-lines in the wake of a career per-formance by his successor.

This phenomenon was at work for A&M’s opponent, too. I watched the entire game on Thurs-day, and I still don’t think I could name a single player on South Carolina’s defense. That’s because the Gamecocks were feeling the unfortunate effects of a Clowney Infection. Note: for a fun game, answer the following questions in your head at home.

Rush to compare new and old college players irritating Alex Wise

Staff Writer

COLUMNCOLUMN

Column 13

Brad Guzan (right) has become the starting goalie for the U.S. national team. MCT Campus

A change was evident from the last time the U.S. men’s soccer team played.

Only two starters, Fabian Johnson and Alejandro Bedoya, from the World Cup squad that lost to Belgium in a dramatic fashion in July, began their Wednesday night on the fi eld of the Generali Arena in Prague to face the Czech national team in an international friendly, an exibition game between two countries .

Seven of their teammates in Brazil also made the trip as part of the compiled roster, but the group was somehow more noticeable for the more unfamiliar names it included.

Joining them were two 18-year-olds, a college sophomore and a couple of 23-year-olds who made their fi rst senior appear-ances: Greg Garza, who came on as a sub, and Joe Gyau, who started. With so many young faces, some familiar, some not, it was clear that a new era, if not just a new World Cup cycle — now looking ahead to Russia 2018 — had begun.

Gone for the moment was longtime goalkeeper Tim Howard, who is taking a year-long break from his national team duties, and so many other mainstays from at least the past four years: Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey and DaMarcus Beasley.

The oldest player on this version of the national team is 35-year-old goalie Nick Rimando, and that doesn’t mean much of

an exception, since players at his position often play late into their 30s, anyway. Brad Guzan, the future starter in goal for the United States, turns 30 on Tuesday.

America defeated the hosts 1-0 on a fi rst half goal by Bedoya, 27, but the fi nal scoreline didn’t matter so much.

What did matter: many of the best young(er) adult soccer players in the United States featured prominently in the game — German-American World Cup heroes John Brooks, 21, and Julian Green, 19, started and Jozy Altidore, who is somehow only 24 despite seeming to have been around forever, captained the side.

Chances are, many of these national

U.S. Soccer youth movement is a reliefJasper Wilson

Sports Editor

Soccer 13

COLUMNCOLUMN


team newbies, like Garza, Gya u and Hynd-man, will continue to gain experience at this level in the next few months with the United States competing in three more friendlies before the end of the year.

Head coach Jürgen Klinsmann recognizes that this window is important for the future of the national team.

“It’s an especially good opportunity for us to look at the younger players based in Europe, which we don’t get to do very often because of their schedules,” Klinsmann said in a U.S. Soccer press release. “We can’t bring them into the January camp, where we get to work with a lot of the up-and-coming talent, so for players like Joe Gyau, Emerson Hyndman, Ru-bio Rubin and Bobby Wood, it’s a great chance for them to experience our environment.”

Hyndman and Rubin are the two 18-year-olds, while Wood is 21. All are professionals in England, Holland and Germany, respectively.

Hyndman was the only one of the three to play any minutes, coming o! the bench midway through the second half.

Klinsmann’s approach with young players is reassuring. Rather than prolong the inevi-table by calling in established older players for these games that don’t matter, he’s think-ing ahead in the hopes of developing a team that will go beyond what was accomplished this summer.

“Once you get out of the most di" cult group in the World Cup, you should go further than just [the] round of 16,” he said to NBC Sports’ broadcast team before kicko! . “This is our goal going towards Russia — not to stop at the round of 16, maybe not to stop at the quarterfi nal. To say clearly, listen, we have four years to prepare this cycle. Our goal is going into a semifi nal in a World Cup. And

that means a lot of work, a lot of competition, a lot of grind.”

While the German’s aspirations about where his team will fi nish is a tad unrealistic, his optimism and open-mindedness about moving on is refreshing. He said that this point in the international soccer calendar is meant for introducing as many players who haven’t been a part of the national team setup before as possible, while still appreciating the established members.

His instructions for the newcomers who do get a shot are simple.

“Show us what you have. Show us your tal-ent and be confi dent and go for your next level. This is what comes up now in the next couple of games. It’s about young players coming in and hopefully doing well,” Klinsmann said.

The way he explains it, this big shift isn’t something that just happened once the World Cup concluded in mid-July. It started soon after he began his time as national team coach

in the summer of 2011. “What we did really over the last two or

three years, we tried really to connect the youth national teams — the di! erent age groups — to the senior team,” Klinsmann said to media in the days before this most recent contest, describing the construction of USMNT scouting network in Europe.

Such a scouting network is a resource that’s always gaining importance as more and more of our young talent eschews domestic opportunities in favor of those abroad, and Klinsmann makes it possible for dual-nation-als to represent the U.S .

“So this has kind of gotten more and more connected, and the way we follow the kids at whatever age they are was a lot more inten-sifi ed. So when we feel that there’s a young player who is ready to experience the next higher level, then we bring the kid in,” he said, according to ESPN’s Je! Carlisle.

It seems to work.

SOCCERFROM PAGE 12

“How will this defense be different without Jadeveon Clowney?” Well, he’s not here, so ...

“What will South Carolina have to do to replace Clowney?” Find the place on the field that Clowney used to play and put somebody else there.

“How do you think Clowney will fare in the NFL?” Aren’t we watching college football?

Without proper antibiotics in the form of big third-down stops and sacks, the Clowney Infection will spread. And, as Hill picked apart the Gamecock de-fense to the tune of 52 points, the “Boy,

they could really use Clowney’s help right now!” comments increased. On that note, I feel terrible for whoever starts at running back for Georgia af-ter Todd Gurley’s inevitable ascent to the NFL.

Perhaps we don’t understand that college football isn’t like our favorite sitcom. When Lily called off her wed-ding to Marshall and left for San Fran-cisco in “How I Met Your Mother,” there was nothing preventing her return. Unfortunately, NCAA eligibility rules don’t have a Lily Aldrin Addendum that allows unconditional returns. These guys are gone. The sooner we realize that – spoiler alert – there are other good players in the world, the less an-noyed we’ll all be.

Think back to last year. As Pitt stu-dents, we remember Labor Day 2013 distinctly (well, I guess that depends on your state of mind ): a primetime, nationally televised, old-fashioned whooping at the hands of Florida State and their redshirt freshman quarter-back Jameis Winston. I vividly recall a game-day discussion on whether or not this freshman quarterback would be able to fill the hole left open by E.J. Manuel’s departure for the NFL. Winston threw for 356 yards and four touchdowns in that Labor Day game.

Then he tore up the entire ACC.Then he won the Heisman Trophy.Then he led the Seminoles to a na-

tional title.Then he stole some crab legs.

OK, so the last part is irrelevant. My point is that the departure of great play-ers doesn’t leave a gaping hole that’s impossible to fill. Rather, it leaves an opportunity for somebody else to step up and make a name for himself.

Hill made a name for himself. Liter-ally. The heir to Manziel’s throne had to create his own nickname to prevent “Kenny Football” from catching on. Once again, what does Kenny Hill – sorry, Kenny Trill – have to do to step out of Johnny’s shadow?

Maybe he, like Winston, will repli-cate his Week 1 performance a few times and make the A&M fans fall in love with him. But, if he doesn’t, it’ll be a long college football season for all of us.

COLUMNFROM PAGE 12


Getting a line on opening weekend was not easy.

Selection committee members, as you read this, are rearranging all the postseason Post-it notes on their refrigerators.

Texas A&M moved up toward the freezer, replacing South Carolina, which is now down by the crisper.

Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, who moonlights as a committee member, was practicing recusing himself from his team’s playo! discussions after the Badgers jumped ahead, 24-7, on Louisiana State.

He may not have that problem now.Nobody had a worse time with getting

a line, though, than the people who set the betting odds in Las Vegas.

Most weeks you say, “How do they get it right so often?”

This week you said, “Better hold o! on that casino expansion.”

The bookmakers seemed as discombobu-lated as Austin Peay looked against Memphis (63-0).

The bookies had Colorado by three over Colorado State, Houston by 11 over Texas – San Antonio and Northwestern by 11 at home against California.

All three favorites whi! ed in defeat.Northwestern players, who voted this

summer on whether or not to unionize, didn’t look very together.

Las Vegas may have read the story about Hawaii possibly dropping football, before it installed Washington as a 17-point favorite on the islands.

Washington actually sweated out a 17-16 win in what could have been Chris Petersen’s fi rst and last game as Huskies coach.

UCLA was a 21-point favorite over Virginia, and 21 points turned out to be the contribution of UCLA’s defense alone. The Bruins o! ense tacked on seven more, but UCLA only won by eight.

Alabama was supposed to roll West Vir-

ginia by 26 or so points but won by just 10.It had to be considered a moral victory for

the Mountaineers, coming o! of a 4-8 season.“We’re not interested in moral victories,”

West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said.West Virginia at least deserved a pat on

the back for hanging tough against a top-fi ve team.

“We don’t want pats on the back,” Hol-gorsen said.

Well, anyway, best of luck against Towson this weekend.

Oklahoma State, the oddsmakers deter-mined, stood little chance against Florida State in Arlington, Texas. The Cowboys were 19-point underdogs against the defending national champions.

Florida State won by six.Oklahoma State stood a chance, until

Florida State’s P.J. Williams’ jarring tackle coaxed a fumble from quarterback J.W. Walsh.

It was a nearly calamitous weekend — more about reassessment than any funda-mental overturning.

The biggest stunner was Texas A&M’s to-tal dissection of former top-10 team South Carolina in Columbia.

Aggies quarterback Kenny Hill wilted un-der the burden of replacing Johnny Manziel, passing for a mere school-record 511 yards in a 52-28 blowout.

Manziel, for what it’s worth, lost his college debut against Florida.

What a staggering jolt it was to see South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, the man who revolutionized the Southeastern Conference with his passing game, while at Florida, have it all thrown back in his face.

The weekend raised more eyebrows than

legitimate concerns, though.Top-ranked Florida State showed it might

not be invincible in its struggle to hold o! the pop-gun Cowboys of Stillwater.

“I do think they felt the pressure of being No. 1, I do,” Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher said after the game. “Now I think we can relax and go play football.”

There was still plenty of evidence to sug-gest Florida State might make a return trip to Texas for the Jan. 12 championship game at AT&T Stadium.

When Georgia trailed Clemson, 21-14, it appeared a termite tent might have to be thrown over the SEC East. Vanderbilt had al-ready fallen to Temple, South Carolina looked opening-game awful and Florida couldn’t even handle Idaho in Gainesville. (OK, technically, the game was suspended by lightning.)

Georgia saved division honor by rallying to beat Clemson, with tailback Todd Gurley setting a school record 293 total yards.

The comeback of the weekend belonged to LSU, which trailed by 17 in the third quarter, before rallying to a 28-24 win.

When Les Miles said last month, “I like us. I like us in every game,” he must have known something we didn’t at halftime.

The coach known as “The Hat” pulled another trick out of it. Miles’ fake-punt call sparked a comeback that crushed what could have been a signature win for the Big Ten. Had Wisconsin won, the Badgers might have coast-ed unscathed to the conference title game (schedule check: Wisconsin misses Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State this year).

First week of college football full of surprisesChris Dufresne

MCT Campus

MCTMCT

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

The Pitt News 9-4-14

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