http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsletters/
Nifong isn't the problem
I've stayed away from commenting on the Duke lacrosse case because I felt that the law, not the public, should be involved in deciding this case. I won't debate who fired the first shot, whether it was District Attorney Mike Nifong or the defense attorney or the judge who should have placed a gag order on everyone from the very start. But I will weigh in on the election information that I am reading about. More than $8,000 of the approximate $9,000 in money to support a recall did not come from within the city or the state but from outside of the state.
Well! If City Council is worried about what a donation from Duke will look like for the new Performing Arts Center, what does this look like! I hope the people of Durham look at this and realize that a crime is a crime no matter who performs the act. DA Nifong is not the problem. Letting people who do not live, raise their families, volunteer and fight for their country, and call Durham their home to dictate to the rest of us is the problem.
WAYLAND BURTON
Durham
November 2, 2006
Vote for Monks
Having been a registered and active voter for more than 50 years as a Democrat, Republican and now non-affiliated, I have always considered local races as non-partisan -- vote for the man in your mind as the best qualified!
When Lewis Cheek vowed to run, I immediately signed the petition and asked others to do so.
When Cheek vowed not to accept, even if elected, I heard Steve Monks offer to run as a write-in candidate. I heard him speak on several occasions and along with others present, asked him some "tough" questions. He answered to my satisfaction. Now I am told that the reason Cheek will not support Monks is the fact that Monks is a Republican and the Democrat leadership does not think we could have a Republican district attorney.
So we should vote for Cheek and allow the governor to make the same mistake again?
Consider your vote to help Durham go in the right direction. Vote for Steve Monks and when you write in his name on the ballot, be sure to ink in the little oval to the left of his name. Otherwise the vote is invalid.
JACK W. BERGSTROM
Durham
November 2, 2006
http://www.insidelacrosse.com/print.cfm?pagerid=2&news=fdetail&storyid=139974
The following is an excerpt from a story by IL Senior Writer Mike Keegan in the November Issue of Inside Lacrosse magazine. To read the complete story, buy a copy of the issue online or visit your local newsstand. To subscribe to Inside Lacrosse, click here.
THE LOCKER ROOM buzzes with energy as the guys hurry to and from the shower, change and head off to class around 10 a.m., Thursday morning. The room is so long and narrow that, if you couldn’t see the flatscreen on the far wall, you’d get the impression it stretched on forever, just an endless span of blue metal lockers and lacrosse equipment.
On the wall at this end of the room is a bulletin board that holds probably the best metaphor for the team’s current situation. Amid the hustle and bustle of the team going about its daily business, someone has fashioned a couple dozen blue thumbtacks into the numbers 13 and 45, the jersey numbers of the currently missing but not forgotten Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.
“The team is still incomplete,” says coach John Danowski. “The junior class is hurting without them. Everybody feels bad, but the juniors especially. We hope they’ll be back here in the spring, both playing, one big happy family again.”
For now, Finnerty and Seligmann are living at home, taking classes at other schools. Matt Danowski says he spoke with them a couple of weeks ago. Some of the other guys speak to them more often. But for now, all they can do is keep their two teammates, as well as the graduated David Evans, in the back of their minds, while staying focused on school and lacrosse.
After a quick stop in the training room for treatment on his back, Matt Danowski heads home to kill some time before his afternoon class. His house, which he shares with classmates Ed Douglas, Nick O’Hara and Casey Carroll, is just a few minutes drive from Duke’s West Campus.
The house is about what you’d expect from a bunch of college seniors. The main living area has three couches, centered around a massive TV. The walls are covered in sports banners. In the corner stands a basketball pop-a-shot game. Two 30-gallon trash cans standing near the kitchen need emptying and a bucket in the middle of the kitchen floor catches the rain water dripping through the roof.
The only peculiar element to the house is a collection of Duke apparel — a hat, sweatshirt and shorts — pinned to the wall next to the TV like a scarecrow.
Story continued below...
The latest issue of IL gives an up-close look at being a Duke lacrosse player.
“That’s Coach Pressler,” says Matt Danowski. “He gave away all of his Duke stuff before he left.”
That morning while they were at practice, CNN aired its version of the “Duke gets back on the field” story. Matt Danowski, who made a point of recording the segment, is the main focus, including a posed father-son walk along the game field with the camera high atop the bleachers.
“What were you guys talking about right there?” Carroll asks as they watch the broadcast.
“I think it was what he needed from the grocery store,” says Danowski.
After spending the spring watching themselves get collectively pummeled on TV, in magazines and newspapers and on the Internet, they don’t have much of a reaction to this CNN report, just a mild story about a team moving on.
After so much major TV coverage, Danowski still admits to being a little uneasy watching a close-up of his own face on an international news network: “Some dude in England could be watching this right now,” he says.
But the players’ interest in the report isn’t new. Both Carroll and Danowski say they watched plenty of the coverage in the spring, as the likes of Geraldo Rivera and Nancy Grace threw them under a bus.
“I watched at first,” says Carroll. “But it was just the same thing over and over again. It got boring.”
“There’s only so much you can read about people who don’t know you trying to group you into … you know,” adds Danowski, alluding to the stereotypical portrayals in the media.
The media’s nasty labeling of the team as elitist hooligans has ceased — although Matt Danowski admits he doesn’t speak to Newsweek after its “Sex, Lies and Duke” cover story blasted the team — and their lives have somewhat returned to normal. They go to class and practice. They write papers in the library.
But socially, things are still limited. The lacrosse team doesn’t lead the way at Tailgate before football games anymore. The big parties at players’ houses are no longer. And when asked if the freshmen came onto campus looking for the social scene they might associate with normal college life, Matt Danowski replies simply: “Normal college life doesn’t really exist anymore.”...
... To read the rest of this article, pick up a copy of Inside Lacrosse.
IL Senior Writer Mike Keegan and Art Director James Schaffer spent time with the team this fall for an in-depth feature that appears in the current issue of Inside Lacrosse. The duo followed the players around for two days straight: to practice, the locker room, the training room, a weightlifting session, a scrimmage and even a team yoga session.
They also spent time following several players, including captains Matt Danowski and Ed Douglas and senior defenseman Tony McDevitt, seeing where they eat, go to class and even where they live.
”They welcomed us in to their daily lives as they attempt to get their lives back to as normal as possible, start a new semester of classes, adjust to a new coaching staff and work to build their team chemistry and confidence for the spring season," said Keegan.
Keegan and Schaffer also spent a great deal of time with the coaching staff as they try to manage a team that is under intense scrutiny.
The result is access to the team on an intimate level that appears in the November issue of Inside Lacrosse. From up-close photos to interviews with players and coaches, IL readers can get a feel for what it is like to be back on the Duke campus, what the adjustment is like and how the team is working hard to mold their image on and off the field.