April 22, 2009

Opinion

Suns downfall due to league, manager failures

Chris Hatcher
Sports Editor chatcher06@ehc.edu

Robert Big Shot Bob Horry is known as one of the most clutch shooters in NBA history. Horry never was the star of his team, nor did he receive the most playing time, but ask any of his former teammates who they would want to give the last shot of the game to and the consensus would undoubtedly be Horry. Horry has made last-second, season-saving, game-winning and even-championship-winning shots usually reserved for the greats. Who would have thought the biggest shot of Horrys career would have come on another player, or that it would alter the history of basketball and ultimately lead to the demise of the most exciting basketball ever played? Horry delivered the cheap shot foul on May 14, 2007 in Game 4 of the Western Conference semi-finals. With just 18 seconds remaining in the game and leading 100-97, Phoenix rebounded an errant shot by Manu Ginobili and were pressing up court to avoid an eight second

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violation when Horry bodychecked Steve Nash into the scorers table. Immediately the Suns Raja Bell ran at Horry, who proceeded to elbow Bell in the face. Several other players on the court, including Nash who, dazed, got back up and into the fracas, ran in to either fight or break up the action. Also, coaches left their benches in an attempt to curtail the melee. But, most importantly, Amar Stoudemire and Boris

Diaw jumped off the Phoenix bench and ran in to defend their teammate. Per NBA rules, that warrants a one game suspension. This became problematic for the Suns, since Stoudemire was among the top players in the league and their second leading scorer. Stoudemires back-up? You guessed it, Boris Diaw. The Suns did not have another power forward on their roster, which pushed Shawn Marion (a more natural small forward at 67) into the starting power forward spot.

Like many expected, David Stern upheld the rules and suspended Stoudemire and Diaw for the next game and suspended Horry for two games. Although Horry got the stiffer punishment, it was hardly enough, and the ruling obviously favored the Spurs. By comparison, the Spurs lost 3.9 points per game from Horry and the Suns lost 30.1 points per game from the suspended Stoudemire and Diaw. The Spurs went on to take the series that ,at the time of the incident, was tied

2-2 and going back to Phoenix for Game 5 and won the remaining two games. Furthermore, the entire series was very physical, including a Ginobili foul on Nash in an earlier game that bloodied his face and forced him to get stitches. San Antonio went on to claim their fourth championship in eight years. Although Stern claimed to uphold the rules, the reality was far from it. The suspension of Stoudemire and Diaw was an unjust and unnecessary error of judgment considering that the two were coming to the aid of an injured teammate. Its a natural human reaction to act in the way they did; Robert Horrys reactions were not. The question still remains what was going through Stern's head at that time. The rules needed to be changed immediately to reflect a situation that the rules did not previously pertain to. Also, the possibility remains that Horry intentionally committed the flagrant foul in an attempt to get other players suspended from the Suns con- see SUNS, pg. 7

Pro-Choice and Anti-Life:

One and the Same?
Gavin Wright
Editor-in-Chief gwright05@ehc.edu

As is the case with the majority of polarizing issues, the debate over abortion in America is characterized by a dichotomy of opinions in which both sides believe they are in the right. This claim is supported by the respective sides usage of the overwhelmingly positive-and perhaps misconceived-labels pro-life and prochoice. This is not to say I find anything particularly errant about these labels; it only follows logically that in defense of one side of an argument, the debater would employ the most self-serving definition of his or her stance on the issue. Rather, it is the discrepancy of values being discussed in this particular debate and the resulting attachment of negative labels to the opposing viewpoint that has me steaming from the ears. The traditional pro-life argument is one that seeks to protect the life of the unborn child, whereas the pro-choice viewpoint aims to safeguard the rights of the woman to choose how she handles her body. Attacks on prochoice postulations by subscribers to the pro-life persuasion

have resulted in the misguided contention that pro-choice and anti-life are one and the same. The support for this negative label is that by allowing the woman to choose an abortion, society allows for the murder of an innocent and exceptional life, which is not an altogether ridiculous claim to make when considering the unique collection of

can pro-life How debaters still put forth the claim that pro-choice equals anti-life?

cells composing the fetus from the time of conception. What these purveyors of pro-life sentiments are missing, however, is the fact that the issue they are claiming to support is largely unrelated to that of prochoice supporters; there is no pro-choice assertion that promotes the death of children, nor any logically consistent pro-life argument that seeks to completely deny women the right to control their body. To claim that pro-choice and anti-life are synonymous is to completely ignore the alterna-

tive choices to abortion supported by pro-choice declarations, which support a woman in her choices on all aspects pertaining to her body--including the choice to keep the child full-term. If the woman makes the choice to give birth to the child--and is backed in this decision by pro-choice supporters--how can pro-life debaters still put forth the claim that pro-choice equals antilife? Unfortunately, with such a morally charged issue, debaters on either side will be reluctant to acknowledge the others claims. If this scenario was played out through the ranks of those Americans who actively participate in the abortion debate, it is safe to assume that a great many of these debaters on either side would realize they are not actually arguing against each other, but merely staking a claim on the specific aspect of the issue which most supports their individual moral code. Perhaps this revelation could allow for the proponents of each stance to search more inwardly at finding a solution to the debate rather than seeking to profit from affixing negative labels to the opposing perspective.

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Dear Alice, This semester I am in three service learning classes. In the beginning, I didnt think this would be a problem. I was wrong. Right now, I have completed almost all the hours four two, but I am going to be short on hours for the third class. There is a little over a week left in the semester. I am swamped with last minute tests, final papers and projects, and studying for exams. What should I do? I dont want to fail the class because I didnt finish my hours, but I dont want to short change all my other classes, while trying to finish up my service hours. Help me. - Too Much To Do
Dear Too Much, I completely understand where you are at right now. Service learning classes are great, but tak-

ing more than two a semester can be quite a burden. The first thing I would do is sit down and calculate all your service hours for each class. This way you know exactly where you stand with each of your service sites. Then you should make a list of all the things that you need to finish from now until the end of exams. If you do this, you should be able to figure out about how much time you have to devote to each thing on your list, including your service work. After doing this you may find that you have enough time to finish all your service hours. If not, you need talk with your professor. Try to have an estimate of how many hours you can finish, so that your professor knows that you arent completely giving up. Hopefully he or she will be understanding and allow you to only do what you can or maybe they will allow you to write a paper in exchange for those last few hours. - Alice

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