Author: Ashleigh

UVA

I think the last moment that would have prevented this catastrophe would have been at the very beginning. Rolling Stone, more or less, based the entire story off of the account of one woman, the victim.

I understand rape is not something to be taken lightly but the fact that she claimed to be disoriented but remembered things to vividly should have raised a red flag in the beginning.

Also, the fact that friends were named but never spoken to is poor journalism. Elderly put so much confidence in “Jackie” that she basically overlooked every other principle if investigative journalism. She took everything Jackie said at face value.

Even when things seemed a bit off, the not responding for weeks in October, she still took Jackie’s word. Also, Jackie did not give specifics willingly. If someone is willing to speak about something of this caliber, they should realize that the journalist is going to want everything down to the last detail. It shouldn’t have been as painful as it was.

Furthermore, another catastrophe point was when the fact checker was asking about quotes from the friends, and they were unconfirmed by the friend. Elderly, again, needed only Jackie’s word for confirmation.

If you notice something is wrong the minute you start it, step back and reevaluate. Elderly did not do this. She went along with more or less a single source. That was what caused the catastrophe. Not the event, but the lack of solid reporting and multiple sources.

From Van Natta

For my structure story I chose one about finding a safer way to make blue M&M’s.

This story structure followed Clark’s tool No. 27: revealing traits of character.

The piece started with the present. It talks about what alternatives are being researched and what the process looks like.

Then it jumps back in time to the turn of the 20th century. It brings up the Food & Drug Act of 1906 because of what was being done to food to make it seemed like it hadn’t spoiled.

The story then goes through the 60s and 70s and mentions a list of seven dyes that are still used today (as well as deemed safe). From there it goes through other legislation and mentions a case in 2007-08 where a researcher found a correlation between colored foods and hyperactivity in British children. Then the author brings in statistics about how Americans feel about colored dyes in their food over the latter half of the 21st century.

After a brief history lesson, the author describes the facility where the blue M&M’s are made. Micro algae is something they’re looking into to create a new blue hue. The author also makes a note that humans, in general, don’t like change. Especially when it’s something they’re used to. Some people assign color change to taste change and aren’t as accepting of it.

The author also gets to try some of the new blue-colored candies herself.

I liked how this was organized because it kept the reader interested. It started at the present, moved back to the past without being overwhelming and then followed that point in the past to present day.

The author’s experience trying the candies gave it a personal touch as well.

The things that carried him outline

Pt 1 The end

  • Don Collins

o   Background about Don Collins, the coroner of Scottsburg

o   The author gives an account of Collins digging the grave for the solider who is to be buried the next day

  • Guards from Fort Knox practice their nine-gun salute for the officer that it is going to be buried

o   There is an account of most of the guards, accompanied by their names

o   The author goes into detail as to what they do before the funeral starts

  • The older Collins drives the funeral hearse to the grave site

o   Those who know the family, those in the military, and civilian motorcyclists surround the grave site

  • The soldiers from Fort Knox lower the casket into the burial vault

o   The author then goes on to name the vault company and describe it

  • The reverend speaks, bagpipers play, and three songs are played over the loudspeaker – including “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails
  • Seven of the soldiers fire three volleys

o   It sounds like a single sound

o   News cameras are on them

  • Leatherbee is a genuine bugler

o   He plays “Taps” and the author describes different variations of the song

o   He doesn’t close his eyes so emotion is conveyed

  • After “Taps” the flag is folded by the men who lowered the casket

o   The author describes the folding of the flag and the emotions of the men folding it – their hands are shaking

  • Once the flag passes inspection it’s given to an older women, who is assumed to be the soldiers mother

o   The general is standing next to her

  • The general has seen too many funerals
  • The general comments on the mannerisms of the soldier’s wife, Missie, at the funeral
  • The author describes the myth of the flag folding
  • The funeral ends

o   The general and guards fly back

o   Everyone leaves

o   The Collins’ start to fill in the grave

  • The section ends with the sergeant’s name and his birth and death year

Pt 2

  • This part of the story focus’s on the soldier’s mother

o   She recounts his baptism and happy times she had with him in this church

o   The mother smokes today for the first time in a long time

o   She recounts how her brother and first husband died

  • Her other children came home for the funeral

o   The soldier’s older brother who is also in the army and his sister

o   Her brother and sister also come to attend their nephew’s funeral

  • People in the town come to the funeral as well

o   Some because it was the mayor’s nephew and others because they knew the mother

  • The author observes the faces of the people sitting in the church

o   Their love for the solider radiates off of them

Pt 3

  • The soldier has been laying in the Collins funeral for sometime until his funeral

o   He was escorted from the airport by a pair of brothers

o   The brothers were greeted by hundreds of people with flags

  • This was the longest and biggest procession the guards had ever seen

o   The author then explains what the Patriot Guard is and why it formed

  • The soldier was pulled by a hearse driven by the older Collins and his mother followed behind with her brother
  • The aunt remarks the patriotism of the people they passed
  • The author tells an anecdote about where the soldier used to work
  • At the end of the procession was the soldier’s best friend

o   They were outcasts in school

o   The soldier was supposed to be in his wedding

o   They rode skateboards together

o   He set up the soldier with his wife, Missie

  • The friend liked to paint

o   He designed the soldier’s tombstone

  • Flags lined the interstate and truck radios chimed in to welcome him home
  • The soldier took a while to complete high school, hit a rough patch, and was kicked out of the house at one point

o   He went to live with his sister in Florida

o   Leaving brought him back home and he turned his life around

  • The soldier had a family and got a job

o   The job wasn’t cutting it and he decided to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and join the army

  • Army life suited him

o   He started in Alaska

  • The last time the mother saw her son was Christmas 2006

o   She drove him to the airport in Louisville

  • Now the soldier was coming home with a full procession filled with people who had known him his whole life

o   The soldier was dressed in his finery in the casket

o   He was whole enough for open viewing

  • The family had a hard time seeing him and believing it was him because he was gone so long

o   His brother put his Mason ring on his brother, with his hands shaking as he did so

Pt 4

  • The army Chaplin needed a quiet place before the service

o   He came with the guard

o   The author explains the color-coding system of soldiers and how they die

  • The Chaplin’s calling came to him in Bosnia

o   Today hit home because he had a family

  • When the hearse arrived he debriefed the family on what they would see

o   The wood caskets are heavier than metal but all soldiers are dressed the same underneath

o   The weight of caskets gives some indication of how the person died

  • People were looking for distractions as to not look at the casket
  • The Chaplin looked at the solder’s family and thought of his

o   He finished the reading with the 46th psalm

  • The wife folded her arms over the flag and wept

o   The mother held onto her grandchildren

o   The Chaplin cried as well

  • The guards carried the casket back to the hearse
  • The brothers who escorted the soldier from the airport led the procession

o   Two guards in the back of the van would soon find themselves in Iraq

Official Pt 2: Dover Air force Base

  • The Pentagon called Greene

o   His business had been in the auto industry

  • Until 2005 soldiers had been sent home on commercial planes

o   That changed when a family started a campaign as to how the military would be flown home and met

  • High profile planes were needed to transport mutilated bodies home
  • Greene’s company designed spaces for caskets in planes

o   The pilots were low-profile – one of the pilots said you just have to fly

o   There are some states that had more casualties than others while some have had none

  • This soldier’s flight home was their first to Indiana
  • They’ve noticed that small towns have the highest turnouts

o   Sometimes parents don’t show and sometimes the honor guard doesn’t either

  • When they landed in Indiana someone from the National Guard makes sure the body matches the name and hasn’t been damaged during the flight

o   The family meets the casket in the hanger

o   Sometimes the pilots go back in the plane because they cant handle the family’s reactions

  • Some soldiers stick out more in their minds than others

Pt. 3

  • Larsen entered the Port Mortuary in the Air Force in Delaware
  • There’s only a 12 person permanent staff there
  • It’s the worlds largest mortuary
  • It has records of every man and woman KIA to date
  • The soldier spent five days there before returning home

o   His body was scanned for bombs

  • The soldier was cleaned, his body parts tagged and cataloged, and placed back into the body bag to head home

o   There were no personal effects found on his body

o   Two rooms in the building deal with their personal effects

  • Chaplains are there every day
  • The soldiers can only be truly identified once they arrive

o   Then there’s an autopsy

o   The soldier suffered traumatic injuries consistent with explosives – his remains were incomplete

o   Wounds are documented and recorded in the database

o   Body fluids are replaced in order to keep from decaying

  • The body is put together best for “view ability”

o   Soldiers help their comrades look this way

o   It’s an intimate, hands on process

  • The solders are dressed in their best and the family chooses a wood or metal casket
  • Sometimes when prepping the bodies extra steps are taken to show care – i.e. shining buttons
  • The flags are last

o   They are creaseless and longer than a standard one

Pt. 4

  • The Major General must attend every funeral of a soldier KIA and greet every plane landing on Dover
  • The soldiers have a long way home before they make it back to the states
  • Honor guards from every major military branch greet the planes with lists of the dead
  • They roll out a red carpet for those returning home

o   Sometimes it’s one case, sometimes its more

o   Each case is moved one at a time and given a three second salute

  • Sometimes people are rendered speechless

o   A prayer is said for those lost

  • It doesn’t matter which branch carries who

Official Pt. 3

  • A staff sergeant looks at the body of his friend at his feet in the helicopter
  • The author describes the sergeant and tells how the two met
  • A medivac was called for the soldier but he was deemed KIA
  • The staff sergeant knew it was the soldier based off the radio code

o   He took off the headphones because he didn’t want to hear the rest

o   Helicopters landed and brought the soldier toward the truck

  • The soldier was looked at for distinguishing features

o   The solider would be on his way to Kuwait 6 hours later

Pt. 4

  • The soldier’s older brother visited him the week before his death

o   They took pictures together

o   He lost of his mother’s reaction

o   He called his unlace at home first

  • The brother then made sure his aunt with was his mother
  • Candidate wives gather round to see if they become widows
  • They knew something was wrong

o   The wife sent her kids next door to play

  • The aunt was with the mother when she opened the door to the soldiers
  • Once the mother found out the news spread through the town quickly
  • The wife found out and dropped the phone
  • Bags were packed and people from times of the past gathered together again

Pt. 5

  • The author describes what happened to the soldier when he died
  • He also described the man driving the truck and the other men in the vehicle
  • The soldier had just talked to his family

o   He heard an explosion while talking to them

  • The author describes how the army named areas of Bhagdad

List for Gary Smith

Here are the people Gary Smith probably interviewed for the story on Pat Summitt. I’m sure there are some I missed but these are the ones I found.

  • Michelle Marciniak
  • Betsy Marciniak – mother
  • Steve Marciniak – brother
  • Whitey Marciniak – father
  • Michael Flynn – AAU coach
  • Pat Summitt
  • Mickie DeMoss – TN assistant
  • R.B. Summitt
  • Bill rodgers – car dealer
  • Knoxville business leaders
  • Tiffany Woosley
  • Tall Man – Richard Head – Pat’s father
  • Hazel Head – Pat’s mother
  • Jane Brown
  • ’76 and ’84 Olympic team
  • Charles – Pat’s brother
  • Amanda Spengler

Personal Story Interviews

Interviews I have

  • Club Lacrosse players
    • Men’s
      • Jake Sciotto
    • Women’s
      • Gabby Leonard
      • Emily Tower

Interviews to get

  • Tim Godby – Milton HS girl’s coach
  • Kirk Rogers – Young Harris men’s coach
  • Danielle Horoschak – Young Harris women’s coach
  • Current NCAA Lacrosse players
    • potentially Young Harris players
    • Mackie Marcellino and Peter Gerhard — playing at DI and DII schools up North

I would like to get the perspective of current players in the NCAA. I would also be interested to see how coaches in the south recruit in regard to demographics. Do they seek out players in the South? Or do they focus a majority of their interests in the North?

Records in need

Team:

  • How many players transferred over X amount of years
  • If any players transferred in or out of one school more so than another
  • If there was an influx of players into a particular school after a coaching change
  • Which schools have won the most championships in X amount of years and if they have had a significant number of transfers

We could probably acquire these records from GHSA. I’m sure that there must be a record kept of every transfer because you need to fill out forms to do so

Individual:

  • The number of men and women playing lacrosse in college
  • How many students playing college lacrosse are from Georgia
  • The percentage of lacrosse teams that are and that are not made up of in-state students

I’m not exactly sure how to come across this information. I don’t know if the NCAA keeps records of where players or from and I highly doubt many schools would, especially the smaller ones.

Jenkins case

The case goes over history of NCAA violations with antitrust laws, what schools can and cannot offer to students and recruits, specifics about awards/losing amateur status, it goes over over bowl games, and NFL/NBA eligibility to name a few.

It then goes into how these athletes could never truly be compensated monetarily for what their schools and the NCAA have benefitted from using their talents.

Jenkins is arguing that athletes should receive compensation for the work they put in and that the current athletic scholarship model hinders that.

As far as potential stories go, the fact that only a handful of schools from the power five conferences win national championships is a big one. Another avenue to explore is recruiting and how much of it is done under the table and how the NCAA could be better at policing it.

Another story, obviously, is the compensation of athletes, which I whole heartedly disagree with. While I see the point the case makes that some of these athletes will never have a professional career post-college, I still believe that in order to have an amateur status, college athletes should not be paid. If they were, anarchy would ensue.

It’s not fair if you pay a basketball player more than a runner. And then contracts would be negotiated, agents would get involved, and athletes would go from high school to the “corporate world” right away and more often than not, not know how to handle it. College prepares athletes for the pro-world.

Open Records Law

The way I interpret the new “open records” law is that now, in order to obtain a public record in the state of Georgia, after sending in a request, you have to wait three months for them to approve and send you a copy of the record. Three months is a very long time.

I don’t think this law is necessarily fair to anyone. Especially because the new timeline is ridiculous compared to what it was.

To go from three days wait period to three months is a huge jump. I don’t understand how law makers came to that number. I could see maybe a month or six weeks but not three months.

This makes reporting, solving crime cases, and just obtaining general information much harder. It also comes off as trying to hide something or to put it off as long as possible.

One way to solve this problem could be varying wait times for how sensitive the information is.

For example, things that are considered general information but are not readily available, their wait time would be shorter than something to the effect of tax returns or someone’s contract demands.

While I think all laws are there for a reason, there is a level of sensibility that must be maintained. Three months goes beyond the level of being sensible.

So I think that the structure of the open records law needs to be revisited and revised that way people can obtain information in a more sensible amount of time.

Tableau

I used Tableau to show why Kentucky men’s basketball finished 27-9 last year.

Out of the 18 games they played, they outscored their opponents in two-pointers, two-pointers attempted, three-pointers, and three-pointers attempted to give them an overall higher amount of points scored throughout the season.

The one area where Kentucky and their opponents were almost even was in three-pointers but Kentucky beats them out by 32 making their three-point average 39.2% to their opponents 33.8%.

Even though Kentucky’s three-point average was close, the fact that their two-pointer percentage beat their opponents out by nearly 10%.

Not considering free-throws, because their percentage was only one percent above their opponents, I believe that Kentucky’s success with their two-pointers is what put them ahead last season.

sheet-1

Source: http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/kentucky/2016.html

Updated Memo

I’m in the process of accumulating data about the NCAA lacrosse programs.

Between 2009 and 2019, 283 schools have added or plan to add lacrosse. FIfty more are set to start between 2017-19. 175 have been men’s and 208 have been women’s.

There have been 134 schools in DI, 69 schools in DII, and 45 schools in DIII

I am planning to talk to the girls head coach at Milton HS. Milton has won 10 state championships over the past 11 years. Many of their players have gone on to play in college as well.

I also plan to speak to members of the men’s and women’s UGA club lacrosse teams to see why they decided not to play lacrosse in college. Furthermore, I have a potential contact at Stetson University who played on the women’s lacrosse team on the year of its inception.

I am currently working on how men’s and women’s NCAA programs are spread out across the country. Thus far, even without the 50 planned, there are more women’s programs overall than men’s.

What I want to focus on is the growth of lacrosse across the country, men’s vs women’s, and the perspective of players who do and do not choose to play in college.