The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned as an Editor

During the one-and-a-half years I have worked as a sports editor for the Review, I have learned quite a few interesting and important things about the sports world, but even more about the Oberlin College community.
When I first started working for the Review as a first-year, I wrote women’s basketball in the winter and softball in the spring. However, writing beats as a non-editor is extremely different from being involved with the editing and layout processes that are associated with being an editor for any publication. Soon after beginning work in my present position my sophomore year, I become aware of one very important thing — there’s a distinct reason the sports section is the last four or five pages in the paper week in and week out.
The reason for this isn’t necessarily that the Review itself feels that sports are the least important section and thus should be placed at the back of every issue. Although some people may disagree, athletics are just as important as an opera performance or a string quartet at Finney Chapel — they are all performances showing different skills from diverse groups of talented students.
Rather, the reason lies in the fact that the Review does its best to represent the views of the Oberlin community — a “voice of the people,” if you will. Of course, as with any publication, our newspaper occasionally gets things wrong, presents a biased view or publishes a number of misspellings or wrong identifications, but the goal of every publication is to reduce these errors as much as possible. One thing the Review hasn’t failed to do with extreme consistency for as long as I have been here, (and for what I assume a while before I arrived at Oberlin also) however, is to represent the overall Oberlin community’s opinion of sports by placing the section at the end of the paper.
I can’t take any offense to this because I’ve really enjoyed my job (well, for the most part) and I would have worked as an editor no matter how the campus felt about sports. But, there is no doubt that there is an overall lack of love for athletics here at Oberlin. By this, I don’t mean that more people read sections other than sports in the Review (though they very well might), rather I mean that our school probably has the most poorly attended athletic events in the North Coast Athletic Conference. What is most strange about this, however, is that many students at Oberlin are extremely involved in sports — whether it be varsity, intramural or club sports. I don’t think I’m going on a limb by saying that between these different forms of sports at Oberlin we have just as much or perhaps more involvement as most other small schools. But, how come so many Oberlin students play sports but so few attend them?
For example, ice hockey games have easily been the most widely attended events by students the last few years. Why? Well, because they’re exciting and different from other sporting events. Students could get drunk, go and bang on the glass, yell whatever the heck they pleased at the other team and often see some pretty intense fights. However, does this mean that other sports, especially varsity sports, aren’t exciting? By no means. But nonetheless, I’ve never seen a packed house at a basketball game, a packed Dill Field for a football game or baseball stands overflowing with student fans. Yes, the football team won, and when the basketball team wins, for example, the stands are noticably fuller.
However, it’s much more than an issue of being fair-weather fans. The truth is that most students at Oberlin who aren’t themselves a varsity athlete associate varsity sports with being of poor quality, and club sports with being fun and popular. This issue isn’t strictly related to Oberlin’s community, though. I can’t count the number of times I have gone home to nearby Vermillion and had friends ask me, “so did your football team win a game this year?” or, “is your baseball team going to be any good?” In the past, there has been little support for varsity athletics at Oberlin and this is a trend that only compounds and produces repeated results.
If the College itself provides little monetary support for athletics (this college doesn’t have enough money to pay for an ice hockey rink?) and the games are poorly attended (all athletic events at Oberlin are absolutely free), then it’s pretty hard to get quality student athletes to come to this campus and play sports. After all, what’s their incentive? How does a coach or athlete convince a prospective student to come here when they will receive no fan support? If it wasn’t for an amazing liberal arts education, it would be near to impossible. On this note, as most people know, the football team won two games this year, had an extremely talented first-year class, as do other sports this year — in the fall, winter and spring. The coaches who are turning Oberlin’s programs around should be commended, and their players deserve to have fan support, but for the most part it isn’t there.
For example, I can remember playing basketball here as a first-year and being extremely intimidated when playing at the College of Wooster. Their fans were loud, obnoxious and extremely supportive of their home team. Heck, it felt like playing in high school again — imagine being an athlete and playing in that environment every night! Similarily, when our baseball team traveled to Hiram last year, practically their entire small campus was lined along the fences drinking from kegs and talking trash to our outfielders. On the contrary, in our baseball teams’ final home game last season against Earlham (Ind.) College, some members of a club team were actually heckling our own outfielders — I’m not sure if they were aware that we play for Oberlin or were incredibly drunk, but nonetheless we failed to get positive support from even our own fans.
I’m not really complaining about this lack of support, because I believe that the athletic department is turning the corner with or without fan support. However, if our student fans could pack the gyms and fields and create an atmosphere truly uncomfortable for the opponents and absolutely supportive for Oberlin, it would only help this transition. How amazing would it be if Oberlin eventually gets to the athletic level of Denison, Wooster and Wittenberg and combines that with one of the best liberal arts educations available? There can’t be one person who wouldn’t want this reputation, right? Well, if is to become a reality, a big part of it is up to you.


It’s All About the Shoes — And Always Has Been

When you were younger, if you were at all like me, then you had to have the newest shoes on the market, especially to play basketball in. I just knew that if I had those shoes I would be able to run faster, jump higher and make all the shots that I normally missed. This obsession started when I was in the third grade and lasted until I quit playing basketball my freshmen year of high school. It also led to numerous funny shopping experiences.
I guess you could say the obsession started when I got my first pair of Air Jordans. Nike released the Air Jordans when I was in third grade and I had to be the first kid in the school to have them. As was customary whenever I really wanted something and my parents said no, I made plans to go visit my grandma. When I went to visit her the next weekend I made sure to drop hints that I needed a new pair of shoes. So it was no surprise to me when she asked me if I wanted to go shoe shopping. I was almost ecstatic as we walked into the shoe store and when the salesperson asked me what I was looking for I immediately told him Air Jordans and the size. He brought them out and I tried them on as my grandma tried to convince me to get a nice inexpensive pair of shoes. I wouldn’t have any of it and she agreed. The total for the shoes plus the cleaner to make sure they stayed white was in excess of $130. To this date that is still the most I have ever paid for a pair of shoes. The response I got at school was exactly what I expected. Everyone was envious of me.
In fourth grade, Reebok released the shoe that was to rival the Air Jordan’s, the Pump. The Reebok Pump was a totally new concept in basketball footwear. You could tighten the shoe around your foot by pumping a button on the tongue and loosen it by pushing the release valve right next to it. These shoes were more moderately priced, at $80, and as soon as they came out I got a pair. Yet again I was the first to have the newest, hottest pair of shoes, but just like the Jordans, soon after everyone else had the same pair.
Fifth grade was the first year of organized basketball. I couldn’t wait to get my newest pair of shoes and keep these strictly for basketball. I had a tough time choosing this year because the new Jordans had come out and Reebok had released their newest line, the shoe sponsored by Shawn Kemp. This might have been the hardest decision I have ever made when it comes to buying a pair of shoes. I still remember walking into Just For Feet in Columbus and telling them I needed a good shoe for basketball. This was about the fifth place we had been that day and all of the others had said the same thing, go with the Air Jordans or the Reeboks. Walking into to this store made me realize what I had been missing all these years. To the right of me as I walked through the door there was a basketball court where you could try your shoes our before you bought them. This was great. I could put both pairs of shoes to the test. Whichever one I made more shots in were the shoes to buy. The first shoes I tried were the Jordans. I shot like hell. I think I made one shot the whole time. So I tried the Kemps. I shot a little better with these, so I went with them. What this little ordeal should have proved to me was that I was a horrible basketball player and shouldn’t have bought either pair. But the Kemps it was. They were unique shoes with a large hole right in the middle of the foot, my guess was to lighten them, the salesperson had no idea why. I didn’t really care though, because they looked cool and were bound to make me the best player in the league. My team went 0-6 that year, but it surely wasn’t because of my shoes.
In sixth grade, I just had to get new shoes because my red and white Reeboks from the year before just clashed way too much with purple and orange colors of the Suns, my new team. This year I opted for Nike’s newest shoe, the Barkley’s. Charles Barkley had just been traded to the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association so of course I had to get his shoes. They might as well have been the team shoes too. I think six other people on my team had the exact same shoes. This bothered me, so halfway through the season I went out and bought a pair of the newly released, remodeled, Chuck Taylor All-Stars by Converse. No one had these but me and I was happy. Plus they matched the team colors just fine.
Seventh grade was the big time for shoe buying. It was my first year of junior high (in my town seventh and eighth grade only is junior high). This year we had the option of buying the shoes the high school team bought or buying shoes of our own. I opted to buy Reebok’s newest shoe, the Shawn Kemp IIs. These kicks were outrageous. They were black, green and white and looked a lot like the shoes Spiderman might wear if he played basketball. The remodeled shoe didn’t have the big hole in the middle, but it didn’t need it to make these shoes the hottest commodity around. My shoes just to play street ball in were the Flight Airs by Nike. These were the shoes with the different colored straps you could put on. I had black ones with white, red, black and light blue straps. I could alternate with whatever I was wearing at the time. It was great.
In eighth grade the Grant Hill shoes made by Fila were the ones to have so of course that’s what I got. All black, with Fila written on the side. They weren’t great basketball shoes, but if Grant Hill could wear them, I could too. I really didn’t like these shoes at all, but I stuck with them the whole season and they lasted. But then again, they didn’t see too much time on the courts during the game, only in practice.
My freshman year of basketball the team shoes were white Flight Air II’s by Nike. These were the second generation of the shoes with the straps. They looked much cooler without the straps and only a select few ever wore the straps. I really liked these shoes. They were a nice compliment for my feet just in case anyone looked at me sitting at the end of the bench.
My freshmen year was the last year I played organized basketball and with it went my desire to have the newest kicks available. I switched from having the most popular basketball shoe to having the most comfortable casual shoe available. I figured out that no one looks at your feet when you are in the stands.