the eagle angleSliding into home

District prepares for cuts in state funding

Baseball player continues family legacy

snow-pocalypseTaking

a look back at

the five bad weather days in

February, and how they effect school attendance.

slamming poems

This is the

Poetry Society’s first

year as a club, and they held a Poetry

Slam competition on Feb. 22

in a big world Senior David

King has a height disorder,

but has learned to make the best of his

situation.

karate chop National karate

champion senior Mallory

Martin teaches young competitors.

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Allen ISD is bracing for a projected $18 million decrease in state funding for the next fiscal year. The board of trust-ees discussed how to com-pensate for the lack of fund-ing and decrease their budget initially by $3.5 million at a budget workshop meeting on Saturday, Feb. 20.

Superintendent Ken Helvey and the rest of the board overviewed different cost saving strategies to make it past the budget shortfall

set by the state. The board remains optimistic that the estimated cuts given will not be as high as the state has an-nounced.

“It’s a shock and awe feel-ing,” Assistant Superinten-dent of Finance Mark Tarpley said. “I would encourage peo-ple to let the dust settle and concentrate on your job. And we’re going to make the right decisions for the district.”

Texas has an estimated budget shortfall between

$15 and $27 billion. Legisla-tors write the budget bienni-ally, meaning that the short-fall affects the 2012-2013 fiscal years. The budget for 2011 was written in 2009, based on how much revenue the state thought would be available in 2011.

The Texas deficit was brought on by a combination of factors. When the recession hit in 2008 and 2009, sales tax figures dropped state revenue funds. Tarpley also said that

lawmakers created a struc-tural deficit in 2005 when they decided to cut property taxes by 1/3 and use the business tax to make up for the loss of rev-enue.

“All of these factors com-bined have kind of created the perfect storm heading into this current legislative session,” Tarpley said.

One of the ways Allen plans to cut costs includes the reduction of 50 positions through attrition, or lessening

the work force by retirements and resignations. The district is offering $1,000 to contract employees and $500 to non-contract employees for early-exit notification.

Employees have to notify the district by March 11 of their leave, and the board says that will help to plan out what other positions have to be cut. Typically, most resignations occur in June and July.

His hands grip the old friend firmly. Leather stretch-es over his knuckles as he hits the bat against his cleats to knock off the clumped dirt. Then slowly, he allows one deep breath. A bass thumps in what seems like another world as the blood swarms to his head. Focus. The big crowd, the bright lights. None of it matters. He approaches the plate and holds his stance, let-ting a single thought escape.

“I have to do good, I want to do good.”

And then he swings.For senior Josh Ingram,

baseball isn’t just a sport. It’s a way of living, a family legacy. His father, Jason, graduated in 1978, and his brother, Michael, graduated in 2008. They both played baseball.

“Ever since I’ve grown up, I’ve collected baseball cards, watched games, gone to games,” Ingram said. “My brother was on the team… my dad played for Allen High School. But I just enjoy going

to games and getting to wear an Allen uniform, getting to represent my high school.”

Surrounded by a family already immersed in baseball, Ingram began playing at age four. However, it wasn’t until he made varsity his junior year that he realized who some of his true teammates were.

“There were a couple play-ers freshman year that weren’t

really serious. They didn’t re-alize how important it was to play a varsity sport at Allen,” Ingram said. “[But with var-sity players], there’s more of a trust factor. You know they’re always going to be there, al-ways going to play.”

While playing for the high school team was always one of Ingram’s goals, his dream fell short when he actually reached

it. Ingram was benched dur-ing his first varsity games as a junior with a sprained ankle. However, Ingram was deter-mined to make this disadvan-tage an opportunity.

“I got to see how everyone worked,” Ingram said. “I saw how everyone played, how everything rolled and how ev-

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Soccer season beginsLove Week ends with benefit concertNational Merit Finalists named

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Senior Josh Ingram is a designated hitter this year for the varsity baseball team. He made varsity his junior year, and has previously played second baseman, shortstop and third baseman.

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On Feb. 11-13, 14 students at-tended and competed in the Association of Texas Photog-raphy Instructors (ATPI) winter convention at the University of Texas at Arlington. Christian Maurice and KJ Jones placed 1st in Short Shorts Video. Addie Abohosh placed 1st in Digi-tal Editing and Digital Image. Grayson Davis placed 1st in En-vironmental Self Portrait, Land-scape/Nature – Black & White with an honorable mention in Sports – Black & White. Sierra Reyna placed 2nd in Environ-mental Self Portrait. Kimberly Nimer placed 3rd in Environ-mental Self Portrait. Elisabeth Dillon received an honorable mention in Digital Image – Ab-stract. Izzy Fontana received an honorable mention in Open – Color. Austin Gartman re-ceived an honorable mention in Senior Portfolio, Landscape/Nature – Color and Open – Black & White. Teacher Kelly

Juntunen placed 2nd in Facul-ty Architecture Image and re-ceived an honorable mention in Faculty Conference Image.

On Saturday, Feb. 12, stu-dents competed at the Billy Ryan UIL meet, with Allen fin-ishing 4th overall in the large school competition. The jour-nalism team placed first. For journalism News Writing Linda Shi placed 4th, Conner Martin placed 5th and Josh Friemel placed 6th. In Feature Writing, Juhie Modi placed 5th. In Edi-torial Writing, Shi placed 2nd, Kyle Inabinette placed 4th and Martin placed 5th. In Headline Writing, Shi placed 1st, Martin placed 3rd and Haley Baker placed 5th. Ian Lakvold placed 8th in Current Events. Chenyao Yu placed 2nd in Number Sense and 5th in Mathemat-ics. Other top 10 finishers were Taeho Kim and Nabeel Akram for Number Sense and Akram

and Max Tang for Calculator. The next UIL Academics event will be March 26 for the District Meet at Marcus High School on March 26.

The US House of Representa-tives recently passed legisla-tion making March “National Essential Tremor Awareness Month.” Essential tremors (ET)cause shaking in the hands, legs, trunk, voice and head and affects approximately 10 million Americans - including teachers and students at Al-len High School. People with ET often have difficulty with ev-eryday activities such as get-ting dressed, eating, drinking, speaking or writing.

This year, AHS sent 38 students to the HOSA area competition, and of that, 12 will be compet-ing at state in Corpus Christi this April 14-16. At the area compe-tition Vanessa White received

1st and Cami Casson received 3rd in Medical Math; Fairuz Sarker received 3rd place in Human Growth & Develop-ment; Caitlin Natzke received 1st and Kayla Maaraoui re-ceived 3rd in Pathophysiology; Ashton Gepfert received 2nd in Home Health Aide; David Sanchez received 3rd in Medi-cal Assisting; Shaan Sarode re-ceived 1st in Dental Spelling; Kaitlyn Schoppe received 2nd and Wayne Smith received 4th in Physical Therapy and Kylie Weston received 4th and Chel-sea Potter received 5th in Nurs-ing Assisting. Also, White, Vivian Lam, Patrick Heeney and Chi-Chi Enenmoh will all be ad-vancing in the Kaiser Perman-ente Healthcare Issues Exam. All students who received 3rd place or better will be moving on to state. -compiled by Savannah Choate and Zach Avallanet

the

newsangle

The Eagle Run was held March 5. Proceeds benefit the school district, and help create scholarships for students and scholarships for teachers to at-tend graduate school. The run originated with Boon Elemen-tary five years ago.

Boon brought the idea to the Allen Foundation for Pub-lic Schools and director Regina Taylor. Since the first run, Tay-lor said the turnout increases every year. The first year, 1,400 people ran and last year, 1,600 participated.

“It’s really important to have a successful fundraising effort to support [teachers and students],” Taylor said. “It’s a really good way to get people to get out and do something active and fun and help others at the same time.”

The route the run takes begins and ends at the Heri-tage Center in downtown Al-len. While the distance may seem daunting, Taylor said it doesn’t take long to finish.

“On the 5K, even if people walk it, they’re done in less than an hour,” she said. “They make good time. There are a lot of serious runners out there, so they can get done with three miles pretty quick.”

Taylor said she enjoys see-ing people from all the Allen schools together and even the school mascots. But the run is not exclusive to Allen resi-dents.

“We have runners all over the Collin County area,” Tay-lor said. “There are people as far away as Oklahoma or East Texas that come.”

Taylor hopes that the run will continue to grow.

“You can see your teach-ers do things you don’t nor-mally see them do, which is a lot of fun for the kids,” Taylor said. “It’s just a fun commu-nity event.”

Run results were not avail-able as The Eagle Angle went to press.

Vanessa White wakes up and gets ready, but before she leaves the house, she checks her calculator. Lucas Hansen wakes up and goes out for a run. After taking a shower, he leaves for his testing center, but before he goes, he makes sure to eat McDonald’s.

A year later, White, Han-sen and nine other students are called to the principal’s of-fice.

“At first [the note] made me nervous, but when I started seeing people that I knew had been semi-finalists with me, I realized what it was probably for and I got excited,” White said.

The 11 students were named National Merit Fi-nalists in February based on their PSAT scores from their

junior year in the fall of 2010. Finalists include seniors Ian Boys, Sarah Cantwell, Chel-sea Carson, Casey Floren, Ty-ler Gerdes, Hansen, Rebecca Holden, Linda Shi, Stephan Stenger, Ryan Trantham and White.

According to National Merit Scholarship Corpora-tion, high school students en-ter the National Merit Schol-arship program by taking the Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualify-ing Test, better known as the PSAT/NMSQT.

After taking the test, about 16,000 students are chosen as semi-finalists. From there, 8,400 finalists are notified if they have been selected to receive the National Merit Scholarship award.

For Hansen, he said be-ing named a semi-finalist gave him the confidence to apply to Stanford University, where he plans to major in computer science and math.

“That was the first stan-dardized test I’ve ever taken and when I saw I got a high score, I thought ‘Oh, maybe I can do this,’” Hansen said.

Hansen said he would tell current sophomores and juniors not to pay money to takes SAT/PSAT prep classes.

“You really wouldn’t need to pay $5000 for a course, be-cause I don’t think that’s a good use of money,” Hansen said. “When you’re studying on your own, it’s more like your personal responsibil-ity. I would really recommend looking at something called

the Seven Deadly Screw-Ups on Sparknotes.”

White’s advice is to take the PSAT as many times as possible, while Floren and Cantwell agree that it is best just to stay calm and relax.

“Skip any questions you don’t know and go back, be-cause then your nerves might settle down and you might be able to figure them out,” Cantwell said.

All agree that strategies are key when taking the PSAT.

“Everybody can really do this if they study,” Hansen said. “Just give yourself time to study and do lots of prac-tice tests and do not stress. Go running.”

Eleven students were named National Merit Finalists. Pictured from left to right on the back row are Linda Shi, Ian Boys, Stephan Stenger, Tyler Gerdes, Ryan Trantham and Lucas Hansen. The front row from left to right is Chelsea Carson, Casey Floren, Vanessa White, Rebecca Holden and Sarah Cantwell.

Victory jump

Eleven students named National Merit Finalists

story by Esther Yang assistant online editorphoto by Austin Gartman

City holds Eagle Run

story by Elaine Kirby staff writer

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Issue 6M

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llen High School

Throughout the DFW area, thousands experienced the winter weather that blew through in early February. Students rejoiced at the start of the snow days, dubbing it “Winter Break Part 2.” But after the snow settled, the icy conditions turned deadly, causing major accidents across the district.

Resident Susannah Rob-inson knew something was wrong as soon as she came home from work. Water was running down the alley, solidi-fying to a deadly sheet of ice as the temperatures dropped.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Robinson said. “The wa-ter was just pouring out of the ceiling. It was like walking through a river inside of the house and I was panicked.”

She came home to 5 inches of standing water covering the downstairs, leaking from

Walt Chad looks around his new home.

It’s small, but colorful.

He looks out his win-dow and sees six faces star-ring back at him. Suddenly food falls from the sky.

Walt is just one of the many fish living in the newly purchased fish tanks in the aquatic science department.

The department bought about 60 aquariums for stu-dents to take care of fish as one of their main projects for the year.

“The goal is for them to maintain a healthy aquarium where the fish don’t die,” Aquatic Science teacher Col-leen Coonrod said. “They have to test the nitrate levels, pH and temperature. Basically can they keep their fish alive in the aquarium?”

Students have to keep their fish for four to six weeks. The science department bought the tanks, filters and lights. The students have to buy the rest of the equipment. Many groups have decorated their tanks with colorful fish and decor.

“My group is putting dif-ferent kinds of fish in our tanks with a little pirate ship and a skeleton pirate to sit in the blue and green gravel,” se-nior Sara Bennett said.

Bennett says taking care of a fish with other people is interesting.

“It teaches us all respon-sibility,” Bennett said. “It’s in-teresting to see how and learn how to take care of the fish.”

The aquarium project is

The district is also plan-ning to change the hard cap of 21 students per teacher in kindergarten through fourth grade to a hard cap of 24 and an average of 21, eliminating 24 full time employees.

“Every effort will be made to not affect teaching, but staff reductions will have to occur,” Helvey said.

A tax ratification election (TRE) is another option the board discussed. If the voters approved the highest increase in taxes possible, 13 cents, the district would raise about $9.6 million. The board plans to hold the TRE in June or Sep-tember.

Programs are also going to be reviewed for staffing ef-ficiency. At the budget work-shop, Steve Payne used upper level language classes as an example. AP and IB Spanish and French IV and V are sepa-rate classes that typically have

low enrollment. He said there would be cost savings if the classes were “stacked,” with AP and IB being taught dur-ing the same class period by one teacher.

Stipends and extra-duty funding was also discussed. Helvey said about $2 million per year is spent to fund teach-ers and staff in those areas.

“We’re looking at all op-tions. How can we reduce cost without affecting the class-room experience for the stu-dent?” Tarpley said. “We want to make sure that the students still get that quality education they get at Allen ISD.”

In the coming months, the district will also be looking at how other school districts in the area are saving money. Some districts are cutting GT and extracurricular funding, instituting pay-for-play fees and doing open enrollment and charging tuition.

At the budget workshop, Tarpley presented information to the board on the 200 larg-

est districts in the state. Out of the 200, Allen was in the top tier, 17th overall, of most ef-fective school districts based on spending and academics. Hurst-Euless Bedford was the number one district. He hopes legislators will acknowledge the more efficient districts like Allen by giving them less cuts in spending.

“We’ve done very well to manage what we’ve been giv-en,” Tarpley said. “The prob-lem is the structural deficit is now creating a downward pressure on what we’re able to accomplish.”

The board discussed the opening of a new elementary school in a few years on the west side of Allen to allevi-ate enrollment and capacity issues at other schools at the Jan. 24 regular board meeting. That will put an additional strain on the district’s budget.

“We’ve already delayed the opening one year, based on the enrollment projec-tions,” Tarpley said. “But the

a burst copper pipe above the study in the northern section of her home.

“It was just like a little 1 inch slit in the pipe, and the water was just spraying out all over the insulation,” Robinson said. “It got so heavy that the ceiling just collapsed.”

Because of the treacher-ous conditions and accidents like Robinson’s, schools were closed for five days over a two week period. Students will have to attend school on April 22 and June 3, the bad weather make-up days, but AISD has applied to the state for a waiv-er in hopes that the remaining missed days will not be ex-tended into the second week of June.

AP World History Teacher Annette Terry feels that the extra days aren’t really neces-sary.

“By the time summer

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School budget set to be cut through attritionfact remains that Allen is still a destination district. People want to move here.”

Allen has dipped into a reserve fund for the past three years, and is currently oper-ating with an estimated $2.8 million deficit itself. Howev-er, the district has also given employees raises in the past three years. Tarpley said it was partly mandated by the state, which also contributed to the structural deficit.

“Our insurance program went up, and the board want-ed to make sure that teachers and staff at least had a raise to cover their insurance pre-mium,” Tarpley said. “I’m not sure of any district in the area that hasn’t given a raise.”

Helvey has seen his per-sonal salary rise in the past four years from $174,658 to $216,000, according to the Tex-as Education Agency website. Tarpley accounts the board’s decision to increase Helvey’s pay as rewarding him for moving the district from rec-

ognized to exemplary and passing a major bond package.

The district has to set their budget by July 1. Helvey is presenting a look at how the budget works and what changes will be made to ev-ery campus, and community leaders are being invited to meetings for their take on the budget.

On Monday, March 7 Helvey and several board members will go to the state capitol to talk with Collin County representatives. They plan to advocate for incorpo-rating district efficiency and effectiveness in the funding allocations given by the state.

“Our mission and our goal is try to minimize the im-pact for the student at every campus. Not only at the high school, but all the way down to kindergarten,” Tarpley said. “We’re going to have some tough decisions to make.”

Winter wonderland?

Students missed five days of school in February because of snow and ice. Students will have to make up the days on April 22 and June 3. The district has applied for a waiver for the remaining bad weather days.

comes, we’re already exhaust-ed [after we’ve] taken the ex-ams,” Terry said. “But, if we have to make them up, we have to make them up.”

The ice and snow also caused worry about skewed lesson plans.

“You really just have to adjust,” Terry said. “You want to make sure that you do what is absolutely essential. [You need to cover] all that the stu-dents need to know and might [end up] waiting and doing the activity next year.”

The weather conditions had various effects for Collin County, but with over 2 inches of ice and 7 inches of snow re-corded, it was definitely one for the history books.

story by Mary Patrick White staff writer photo by Juhie Modi

Winter weather hits cause five days of no school

senior Krista Ridgway’s favor-ite project so far.

“I always look forward to coming into class and check-ing up on our group’s aquar-ium and seeing how all the other aquariums are doing,” Ridgway said. “It’s really cool that we get to use the knowl-edge we have learned in the class to actually take care of the fish.”

Walt lives in an aquarium with three other fish.

“[Walt] is a bright orange fish called a ‘Mickey Mouse Platy,’” Ridgway said. “He has a black print on his tail that resembles the Mickey Mouse head and ears. I named him Walt Chad after Walt Disney.”

In May, once the aquarium project is done, the aquatic sci-ence students are going to the Dallas aquarium.

“I’m pretty sure we are all looking forward to visiting it,” Ridgway said.

Over all, aquatic science is a hands-on class.

“Aquatic science is defi-nitely one of my favorite classes I have taken this year,” Ridgway said. “And I recom-mend it for any upcoming senior that is choosing which science course to take at Allen High School.”

Science class gets aquariums

The aquatic science classes were given 60 aquariums for a project. Students keep the fish four to six weeks.

Grade fishing

story by Nicole Schmidt staff writer photo by Nicole Schmidt

story by Elisabeth Dillon editor-in-chief

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At a pond in McKinney five-year-old Mavrick Veal is fishing for the first time with his stepfather, Kris Karl. Mavrick grips the reel tight, hoping to catch a fish. To his surprise, the bob goes under quickly. Karl notices immedi-ately and yells at Mavrick to reel it in, reel it in. In the rush of excitement, Mavrick begins reeling as fast as he can.

His energy quickly de-pletes, so he resorts to walking out 15 feet to bring the fish to shore. Mavrick caught one of the largest fish of the day and went home satisfied.

Several months later Ma-vrick was diagnosed with two types of pediatric leuke-mia, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), leaving the victorious moment as just a memory.

In December, Mavrick was selected as the 2011 Love Week recipient. The 32nd Love Week was held the week of Feb. 14-18 to fundraise for Mavrick. At least $10,000 was raised and given directly to Mavrick and his family. A final amount has not been calculated because donations were still being ac-cepted through the beginning of March.

After a month in kinder-garten Mavrick started get-ting sick, and he was not able to continue out the rest of the year.

“He would get really pale and not have any color in his lips or ears. You could see his

veins all over his body. He had no energy and he was getting sick all the time,” Kris said. “There were a couple weeks before he got diagnosed that he was staying home from school because he was run-ning a fever two to three times each week.”

Mavrick was taken to an urgent care clinic, where the doctor diagnosed him with the flu. After a week Mavrick continued to get worse, and his energy level was so low that he didn’t want to get out of bed. His parents then took him to the Children’s Medi-cal Center of Dallas where a series of tests were performed to discover the cause of his fe-vers and low energy level. The doctors diagnosed him with leukemia.

Four out of five children under the age of 14 go into remission with AML, and 85 percent of children with ALL live for five years or more, but very few children are affected with both types. Mavrick hap-pened to be one of the few.

Both types of cancers de-stroyed Mavrick’s immune system. Now he has an inter-nal IV in his chest and under-went seven rounds of chemo-therapy to get his white blood count to the appropriate range for the bone marrow trans-plant he had on Feb. 22.

“They try to tell us every-thing ahead of time but there are so many possibilities,” Mavrick’s mom, April Karl, said. “My worst fear is that the

transplant is not going to work and the donor does not take to his body.”

When Mavrick was first diagnosed with leukemia, he stayed in the hospital for 45 days to get everything set up for his chemotherapy sessions. After that, he went back to the hospital for his chemo treat-ments every other week until he was rushed back because of a high fever.

Less than a week after Mavrick returned home from a round of chemotherapy he had a minor complication. His fever spiked to 103 and he was taken back to the hos-pital where he stayed for two weeks so his immune system and body could recover.

Mavrick is now in remis-sion and waiting to undergo the bone marrow transplant he calls his “bow and arrow transplant’ that will take any-where from four to six week if there are no complications.

“He has his own little ways to get through every-thing,” April said. “Like his bone marrow biopsy, he un-derstands it as a ‘bow and ar-row.’ When he goes in to get procedures done and he has to be sedated, the sedation medi-cine that they use is white like milk so he calls it ‘the milk.’ He has gotten so used to it now that we don’t really have to ask the questions, he is ask-ing all the questions.”

Because of the 24-hour care that Mavrick now re-quires, April had to quit her

Fundraiser gives money, hope to kindergartnerjob so she can give him the help he needs. Kris still con-tinues to work to help provide for Mavrick, and now that April is seven months preg-nant, caring for Mavrick has become more of a challenge, so her parents have moved in to help out.

Even though Mavrick has found ways to handle the hard parts to his illness, it is still a struggle for him and his fam-ily.

“At first it was very dif-ficult to see him in a hospital bed,” Kris said. “Because it is one thing if your parent gets put into the hospital after many years and kind of ex-pecting them to get sick when they are older. But a five-year-old, you don’t ever expect it so it’s shocking. It was really tough, the emotions just run rampant.”

When it came time for Love Week nominations, Ma-vrick was nominated by peo-ple in the community and his kindergarten teacher at Reed Elementary. Mavrick’s story quickly won over the hearts of the Love Week committee.

“I don’t think we expected the amount of support that we have been given,” Kris said. “There is no doubt that people feel for a five-year-old who has cancer. I just don’t think we expected the sheer volume that we have received.”

The purpose of Love Week is to help someone in need by bringing the community to-gether to fundraise for the re-

cipient selected. Co-chairmen of Love Week, Juliette Seive, believes it gives the recipient and their family strength to continue through the rough times.

“It’s hope for anyone who is a recipient of Love Week that ‘all these people support me and I can’t let them down, I have to keep fighting,’” Seive said. “It is a chance to really fight against whatever disease you have.”

There were themes for each day during Love Week where students dressed up to bring awareness to leukemia. There were also fundraisers to help benefit Mavrick, such as t-shirt sales, button sales, duct taping teachers to the wall and the Love Week Benefit Con-cert. All the proceeds raised are going directly to Mavrick and his family.

Teacher Stephanie Smith was duct-taped to the wall during Love Week, and she said it is an opportunity to think about someone besides yourself.

“Especially for this boy Mavrick, who we don’t know and we have never met, but we can all understand the pain and hardships they are going through,” Smith said. “When you do not know the person, that is true love.”

Spread thelove

Math teacher Art Arnold-Roksandich is taped to the wall during a lunch in support of Love Week. Students paid $1 for each piece of tape.

Senior Emilie Catlett and junior Chelsea Pilgrim perform at the Love Week Benefit Concert on Feb. 18.

story by Nicole Welch staff writerphotos by Alec Spicer and Elisabeth Dillon

7features

the eagle angleIssue 6

March 7, 2011

Allen High School

Poetry Society starts first year, holds competitionStudents interested in

poetry may have a new op-portunity to share their work, thanks to the newly-founded Poetry Society.

“My senior year, I was thinking to myself, what should I do with my year? Be-cause it’s my last year,” senior and founder of the club Dan-iel Clarkson said. “I came to the idea that I like poetry. I’ve been interested in it for a while now.”

The club meets on the sec-ond and fourth Tuesdays of every month during 8th pe-riod in room F140.

“The poetry club gives people an opportunity to write their own stuff and pres-ent it in a comfortable envi-ronment without people judg-ing,” Clarkson said. “I don’t like when people share poetry over the Internet. I feel like you lose a lot when you’re not saying it out loud.”

Members of the club say that meetings are very relaxed and free-form.

“We open it to people who want to read poetry that they like or that they wrote or that they don’t like. It really doesn’t matter, it’s just an opportunity for them to read it out loud in front of their peers,” Clarkson said. “And we’ve had people who wrote poems together, in tandem. We’ve had people

who wrote really personal poems that kind of wanted to say ‘hey guys, it’s personal so don’t really judge.’ That’s great. I love that people are that real with us. And it’s just whatever people bring to the table. It’s never the same each meeting.”

Junior Ella Watkins regu-larly attends meetings.

“I decided to come be-cause a lot of my friends were going, and I just fell in love with what they do,” Watkins said. “It’s so much fun. There’s just a lot of great charisma and energy that goes on between the students.”

Students don’t have to be poetic to participate in the club.

“We’ll also share what other famous poets have writ-ten,” Watkins said. “Basically anything that makes us laugh or smile or evokes some sort of emotion. We just go at it and we have fun.”

The Poetry Society also began a Poetry Slam competi-tion on Feb. 22.

“We’re just starting this now, we’re not sure if it’s go-ing to take off or not,” Clark-son said. “We’ll have a bracket set up, and we’ll have people competing with each other with poetry. Not necessarily a slam poem-style poem, but anything they write. We’re go-

ing to have them compared and have judges. And we’ll have the ‘poet champion’ of the school.”

The competition is intend-ed to inspire even more enthu-siasm for poetry.

“It’s not an opportunity to tear people down, it’s to in-spire them to write more and to spend more time on the competition,” Clarkson said. “It makes people want to try harder. So we’re going to see if that takes off or not.”

Clarkson is hopeful that the Poetry Society will contin-ue without him after he gradu-ates.

“I’m not sure if they’ll carry it on to next year. I can’t really see that far into the fu-ture,” Clarkson said. “But I really hope this catches on. We’ve been getting upwards of 20 people in a meeting. For a club that just started this year, that’s nice.”

The club is open to stu-dents of all grade levels, and members encourage students to come and participate.

“Don’t hesitate,” Watkins said. “It’s just a great atmo-sphere. There’s no judgment, everybody just enjoys express-ing themselves and listening to some great poetry.”

Clarkson says the club is difficult to describe, but easy to enjoy.

“I’d definitely say walk by the room for five minutes and let us know if you like what you hear,” Clarkson said. “It’s so varied and eclectic that we can’t say ‘this is the best type of meeting’ or ‘this is the best time to show up’ because it’s always different. So if you’re

Jashanjeet Mahal performs in the Poetry Slam on Tuesday, Feb. 22.

Slam down

there and it’s enjoyable and you want to do it again, that’s how you decide if it’s some-thing you want to do. Poetry is really an art for the person that writes it and the people who hear it firsthand.”

story by Conner Martin staff writerphoto by Nicole Welch

There is an open door and a warm smile among the cha-os. With over 800 teenagers running through, concerts to organize and classes to teach, someone has to be there to co-ordinate it all.

Kelley Hester is the Per-forming Arts secretary. She coordinates and organizes events for the entire Escadrille, orchestra and choir.

Before she became the “new band mom,” as band director Charles Pennington puts it, she was a stay-at-home mom originally from Bowling Green, Ky. She has three boys, and once they grew older she decided to find something to do.

“I’d rather stay busy,” Hester said. “Once my oldest two got out of high school,

I decided I needed to have something to do.”

She put her education de-gree into action as she started substituting around the dis-trict. Eventually she became a permanent sub who wanted to make more money to support her family.

Then, someone told her about a job opening. With Anthony Gibson moving up to Fine Arts Director, Kelly Kendlehart’s, Gibson’s secre-tary, spot would be open the next year.

“Mrs. Kendlehart, if it had not been for her, I probably would not have survived, and that’s the God’s honest truth,” Hester said. “And she is still great.”

The directing staff was gone to the Texas Music Edu-

cators Association convention the week Hester came to ap-ply, so there were no classes going on.

“I thought, ‘there is no way I can be back here with it dead silent,’” Hester said. “But I talked to Mrs. Kendle-hart, and she told me a little bit about the job.”

Her first year on staff, the band traveled with the foot-ball team all the way through playoffs and at the state cham-pionship in 2008.

“Since I got this job and started working back here, I’m having more fun than I have had in a long time,” Hester said. “Never a dull moment, and that’s what I like.”

For the spring trip, she coordinated plane flights and itineraries for about 400 mem-

bers, directors and par-ents to travel to Hawaii.

“It really doesn’t matter what it is,” Pen-nington said. “There is nothing I haven’t seen her do. She always wants to help.”

This is Hester’s third year as the Per-forming Arts Secretary, and Pennington said that she still lives up to the first impression he received in the inter-view room.

“[My first impres-sion of her was] a very professional, seasoned worker,” Pennington said. “She seemed very eager to work, and she

really liked being around kids, which is really important. My impression of her still has not changed.”

While she takes care of the necessary secretarial duties such as event planning, food coordination and e-mails, she always finds time for the peo-ple around her. Even though her phone is almost always ringing, she never turns any-one away.

“You can’t tell a person like that, through just words or a card, how much you appre-ciate what they do,” Penning-ton said. “If she wasn’t here, the place would probably fall apart, at least temporarily, un-til we figured out what to do. That’s how involved she is in what we do.”

Hester said her favorite part of the job is the opportu-nity to be around the students without being a teacher.

“I’ve always been told I’m easy to talk to,” Hester said. “I’m happy with that.”

Some students will come in to help her out or do a small favor, and others come in just to chat. Hester says she is al-ways there to listen.

“She enables us to focus on the classroom or the pro-gram itself and what we need to do as directors,” Penning-ton said.

Hester finds a way to make work fun and enables others to do the same.

After the death of her fa-ther and seeing everyone who came to remember and cele-

brate his life, she was inspired.“When I lost my dad...I

thought ‘You know what? Life is just too short to be worried about things and walk around with a frown on your face,’” Hester said.

Her colorful personal-ity, as Pennington describes it, helps lighten up the mood amongst the directing staff.

“We have learned to adapt as males. She provides a bal-ance to all the testosterone level around here,” Penning-ton said. “We need a little bit of that because there’s a lot of that male dominance going around.”

Hidden behind all the frills, Hester fosters a witty and confident personality.

“There is a hidden adven-turous woman in there,” Hes-ter said.

Her hero is female racecar driver Danica Patrick.

“I would love to drive on the Autobahn in Germany,” Hester said. “I’ve always loved to drive fast [and] there is no speed limit.”

Hester tries to appreciate the greater things in life.

“It’s unfathomable to me why people can’t see the beau-ty just in a rose,” Hester said. “I just love everything that God put on this Earth for us to enjoy and I think everybody should just take a moment to step back and smell the roses.”

Secretary shares look within H-hall doors

A freshman speaks with Performing Arts Secretary Kelley Hester. This is Hester’s third year in that position.

Smell the roses

story by Paige Foster staff writerphoto by Paige Foster

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After waiting for our ap-petizer—half-starved and sti-fling our amused giggles at the bored host, who was (I kid you not) loudly singing Justin Beiber-worthy notes to him-self—they arrived.

A mound of colossal onion rings on a square plate with only ketchup by its side. They were encased in their tempura battered shell and topped off with an appropriate dusting of salt.

They were perfect. They were airy and thin,

with the crust opening up to reveal an onion halo. But un-fortunately, at Square Burger in downtown McKinney, their burgers stopped short of per-fection. Disappointed? So was I.

Square Burger is known for its local, grass-fed burgers (which, for the record, are not in the shape of a square) and their chefs’ culinary school credentials. The restaurant is relatively small with eight booths, eight tables and a bar.

When I decided to try Square Burger, I was dread-ing their signature fried pickle that comes with every burger. Let’s get this straight—I do not like pickles. There are few things in this world that I can-not tolerate and pickles are one of them.

But when I took a bite of the fried pickle, expecting the worst, I was surprised with how much I didn’t hate it. Like their onion rings, it was a warm golden brown, light and

crispy. And the pickle retained its sour crunch.

The only problem was that my burger was dry.

A common rule of thumb says that if there is juice drip-ping from your burger, it is juicy enough. I didn’t get any juice drippings. I wanted so badly for my high society burger to be cooked prop-erly, but it wasn’t. There was barely a shade of pink on the inside and it was dense, like my friend’s bacon and smoked BBQ burger.

However, the creativity of the toppings almost made up for the dry patty. My society burger had sugary balsamic vinegar, arugula and sweet pepper relish that evened each other out. The bacon and

When I moved to Texas nine years ago, I had never had a proper hamburger. Most of the patties I had were during summer cook-outs and family get-togethers. Even then they were always an afterthought, a last minute run to the grocery store as kielbasa and onions were sizzling on the grill.

Growing up in a pre-dominately eastern European neighborhood in northern Ohio, the comfort foods of my youth were hardly the All-American type. Most kids ate grilled cheese or Sloppy Joes, I feasted on bratwurst, pum-pernickel, pierogi rolls and homemade ravioli. I can still taste the warmth and spices of the sernik, a Polish apple tart, that my friend’s grandmother would always bake and how it would slide down my throat, sending a shiver of delicious-ness as it landed in my stom-ach.

It probably wasn’t until the third grade, at the Cheese-cake Factory, that I tried a tra-ditional style hamburger. The crunch of the fresh lettuce,

onions and toasted bun were like a symphony of sweet culi-nary wonder. The actual burg-er was even better, with the presence of peppercorn that blended into the unique flavor of the fresh ground beef. That was the moment the heavens aligned and I became a burger fanatic.

Texans love their beef, par-ticularly their hamburgers. In Allen alone there are over 10 burger restaurants, both eat-in and fast food. I tend to stay away from the cheaper, lower quality places like McDon-ald’s or Whataburger though. There’s just nothing special about the mass produced, frozen hamburgers that they offer. There’s no kick of a hid-den, special ingredient or the quirkiness of a patty that’s not perfectly round. When I take my first bite I want that sense of satisfaction. I want to be wowed and that’s just some-thing you can’t get from fast food. It is for that reason that I’ve only had a McDonald’s hamburger three times in my entire 16 years.

Mooyah’s is one of my fa-vorite places to grab a burger if I’m on the go or if I want a cheap, but incredibly deli-cious meal. Although their patties are a little on the small side, the overall taste isn’t tak-en away. It’s a plain patty but because it’s fresh more of the natural flavor is still able to be detected. I also like their fries, especially right as they’re be-ing taken out of the fryer. I’ve been known on several occa-sions to over-zealously pop a few in my mouth before they cool all the way.

A new edition in the Vil-lages of Fairview is Twisted Root, the product of just three regular guys with a passion to create the perfect quality burger. What once started off as an experimental restaurant has now grown into several lo-cations around the Dallas area and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places to eat. The burger, especially their buffalo burger, will leave any-one walking away happy and with a full stomach. There’s just something about the way

the bun and patty meld to-gether to create not two sepa-rate foods but one exception-ally beautiful one. I would also highly recommend the sweet potato chips and root beer, which are both made daily in-house and gives a certain extra zest.

And then there’s In-N-Out burger, coming straight from the sandy beaches and sunny weather of California. For years my father raved on and on about how good their burgers are. Every time he comes back from Los Angeles for business he’ll go through a little withdrawal, mention-ing nothing else but In-N-Out. I always used to think he was over-exaggerating. After all, it was still fast food. Now I finally understand what the hype, hoopla and hysteria was all about.

The patty wasn’t too big that it gags your mouth or too small to where it slides every which way on the bun. It was just right. The ingredients of the burger weren’t bland or overwhelming. It was that

perfect combination of spices and whatever else was ground in with the patty. Honestly, it tasted more like a $10 burger than a $3 one. Combine the burger with fries and a shake, and your life will be made. All other problems will seem ir-relevant as you take a sip of the thick, cold shake or the fry’s outer surface crunches open to reveal a tiny pocket of hot, starchy goodness.

I don’t think I will ever stop loving burgers and searching for the one perfect one that’s somewhere out there. A lot of friends and fam-ily have grown to accept my love of burgers, but there’s still a question about how I’ll know when I’ve found it. It’s always the same response, no matter how many times the story is told: a smile, a mem-ory of a toasty kitchen and the shiver of eating a fresh sernik that has never since been du-plicated.

Eating with an Angle

smoked BBQ burger, which we tried at our waiter’s sug-gestion, was also a hit. The fried onions on the top gave it beautiful height and a wel-come crunch. The heirloom to-matoes on both of the burgers were fresh.

The poached pear crumble was fine, and macaroni and cheese gratin with sundried tomatoes and chicken was rich and creamy, but the pasta was overcooked—definitely not worth the $9 that could have easily bought a burger.

The burgers run for about $9-$11 each and appetizers are about $5-$12. If you pick the right burger, the price is reasonable, keeping the qual-ity of the toppings in mind. However, the appetizers are

overpriced and fries have to be ordered separately. A din-ner for two will easily cost $30, including one appetizer and two burgers.

The location is charming and the simple design does downtown McKinney justice. Square Burger is clean, not too noisy, had attentive service and an extensive menu that suits picky eaters.

So if you’re in McKinney and looking for a juicy burger, don’t go to Square Burger. But if you’re in the mood for vocal entertainment, give them a try. And you might as well have their onion rings, too.

Square Burger and other area burger joints

story by Juhie Modi staff writer

story by Kayla Graves staff writer

When he walks through the halls, his view consists of everyone’s waist down. Stand-ing at 4 feet 5 inches tall senior David King sees things differ-ently.

King was born with achon-droplasia, a bone growth dis-order that causes the most common type of dwarfism. An infant can be born with achon-droplasia even if neither par-ent has it.

“It’s like two white sheep can have a black sheep,” King said. “You could say I’m the black sheep of my family.”

King is an only child and has no other family members with dwarfism.

“My great-great-great-ancestors were Cherokees and they worshiped little people,” King said. “That is the closest there is to little people in my extended family.”

From the beginning, King knew he wouldn’t be the same height as kids his age and waited for others to accept it as well.

“I remember having friends that were taller than me at an early age,” King said. “But honestly it wasn’t me realizing it - but it was other people realizing it.”

In elementary school, King’s peers would often tease him for his height.

“I wanted to be like every-one else,” King said. “It was kind of miserable for a while.”

After a while King found out that his peers got over it and learned to accept his height. King jokingly said he thinks his teachers would threaten the other students into being nice to him when he was younger.

“I have a theory that’s what happened,” King said. “But people just got to know me I guess and bonded friend-ships from there,.”

King is now often recog-nized for his height by people other than his friends.

“My close friends honest-ly don’t even see me as a little person anymore,” King said. “Now people like me without knowing me and I don’t even like that.”

King especially dislikes it when other people talk down to him because of his height.

“When people will be like ‘what’s up little dude’ and stuff like that…it really does make me mad but you just get over it,” King said.

According to King, there is a variety in terms of how strangers treat him.

“At concerts there are the people who don’t realize [my height] and only want to see the show, which isn’t that big of a deal, and there are people who are like ‘yeah man just get in front of me’ which is cool,” King said.

One of his more nega-tive experiences was during Christmas time, when he got called an elf by kids at Mc-Donalds, but it didn’t faze him too much.

“It’s not like I’m the only one who has to go through this,” King said.

It took a while, and al-though King still has some struggles with his height, he now has a more positive atti-tude toward it.

“I mean, you know I’m going to be like this my whole life so I should just get over it and live it out to the best of my

potential,” King said. King’s ability to do most

activities has helped him to live as he wants to.

Unlike most little people, King doesn’t have orthopedic problems such as bowed legs and back problems. That al-lows him to do more. Howev-er, there are still certain activi-ties that he can’t do.

“There are some things that are dangerous,” King said. “Like I can’t go up against Bud Spears in football or something like that.”

Even as a child, King en-joyed sports, and he has found ways to still participate with sports. This year, King was on the soccer team Los Mathletos with a group of his friends for the Allen Sports Association.

Another way King gets to compete in sports is in the Dwarfs Athletics Association of America. These competi-tions are held at a convention called Little People of Ameri-ca.

Little People of America is held at a different city every year. King has been to Brook-lyn, San Francisco, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia and Boston for the meetings.

“For younger people, it’s more of a meet and mingle for people that know what you’re going through,” King said. “I don’t like it much anymore, but it’s a good thing to have.”

In addition to the Little People of America trips, King also got to attend a camp for free three years in a row. Camp Painted Turtle is held in Cali-fornia for kids and teens with chronic illnesses. Although King didn’t have orthopedic problems like the other little

people at the camp, he was still able to attend.

“That was probably some of the most fun I’ve had with little people,” King said. “You just came out there feeling re-ally good about yourself and I wouldn’t have those experi-ences if I wasn’t a little per-son.”

After the camp, King would spend a month or two with his aunt who lives in Los Angeles. While King was there he worked at Beverly Glen Deli which allowed him to meet famous people who often ate there.

“I don’t know if I would have known [the famous peo-ple] without being a little per-son, but for sure they wouldn’t have remembered me,” King said.

As a little person, King says he has developed good people skills and can un-derstand a person better. He hopes to use that as an advan-tage for his future.

“I can dissect a person’s personality,” King said. “I’m kind of like a mind freak I guess you could say.”

King wants to attend Oklahoma State University next year and major in public relations, specializing in the media side.

“I guess you can say be-ing a little person can help with that because I’ll be more of a name to remember,” King said. “I might be like the next golden voice homeless guy. That’d be cool.”

story by Katie French staff writerillustration by Kyle Inabinetteinfo from medicinenet.com

in every 25,000 new-borns are little people

(achondroplasia)

of achondroplasiacs’ parents do not have the

disease

inches is the average height of a male adult with achondroplasia (4

feet, 3 inches)

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New albums receive mixed reviewsAfter three years of trav-

eling around much of North America to “find himself” Bright Eyes’ front man Conor Oberst is once again and pos-sibly for the last time, releas-ing an album with Bright Eyes. Bright Eyes (also consisting of Mike Mogis and Nate Wolcott) are headed down a different path this time around with what they have said is a more “modern, rocking sound,” creating a contrast with 2007’s “Cassadaga” and it’s some-times country disposition.

However, Oberst claims the new sound from the for-merly folk band is nothing but the best, sparking an excit-ing new sound and direction. Although it is rumored that this could be Bright Eyes last album, the Nebraska natives deliver a delightful and bit-tersweet final chapter in their over 15-year journey. On “The

People’s Key” Oberst has giv-en his near-lyrical perfection a lift both musically and verbal-ly. The record itself is a breath of fresh air and startling all at the same time. The third track “Jejune Stars” opens with a blaring intro and follows a string of ups and downs, yet delivers consistently.

On “Shell Games” (the albums presumed first single) the new sound is a little more apparent with reoccurring, light hints of synth. While it’s evident throughout the album that the sound has indeed taken a new shape, the diver-sity can be appreciated by fans of the group’s previous work as well. For the entirety of its 47-minute duration, “The Peo-ple’s Key” remains a pleasant surprise that continuously de-livers more than satisfactory listening.

Since their last album, 2008’s “Shudder,” Bayside has been laying low and working on their latest album, “Killing Time.” After much specula-tion of what seemed to be the verge of a break up in 2009 and doubts about a new sound while leaving Victory Records, the band seems to have final-ly found their place, despite questions of lead vocalist An-thony Raneri pursuing a solo career in the midst of record-ing “Killing Time.”

The official first lead single “Sick, Sick, Sick” holds true to some of the signature sounds that the band once held, but feels almost forced, a feeling that seems to appear in most of the album. Like several tracks on the album, “Already Gone” is not memorable and echoes the same affect of “Sick, Sick, Sick” as well as others.

The album bounces back

and forth with a much more mainstream sound than be-fore, one that could be com-pared to the manufactured sounds of bands like All Time Low and Panic! at the Disco. Despite the bland theme of the album as a whole, it’s few standout tracks take solitude in songs like “Mona Lisa” and lyrics like “Your bed’s been made now go die in it” and “It may be safe to bet there will be a day I forgive you, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

The main problem with the album is despite the strength that the songs lead off with, they lose their structure mid-way. All in all, the album is somewhat of a disappoint-ment that to be quite honest, falls flat and hits a dull carry out on the way.

Bayside blunderBright Eyes boasts new sound

The art department held a “Sweet-Art” show on Wednesday, Feb. 16. The show featured pieces made by stu-dents in various art classes, ranging from ceramic figu-rines to paintings made of jel-ly, eggshells and other organic materials.

The show was originally planned for Feb. 9, but had to be rescheduled after the bad weather days.

“We had to postpone it because of the ice days [which] kind of threw people off a little bit,” art teacher John Garrott said. “But all in all, for as busy as it is in February, we had a really good turnout.”

Garrott said that the de-cision to hold the Sweet-Art Show was based mainly on the success of the “Bad to the Bone” Halloween show held in late October. Because of the large turnout and positive re-sponse, the art department de-cided to hold another themed show. Isabelle Walker, a junior in Jewelry Design II, attended both shows.

“I personally liked the Halloween themed [show] better just because there was more variety,” Walker said. “But they were both great shows.”

In addition to the assort-ment of pieces on display, which ranged from life size statues made of plastic to sil-ver and copper jewelry, the art show featured jugglers and plate-spinners. Origami and ceramic pieces were sold at a stand near the entrance.

Jessica Cruz, a sophomore in Ceramics II, stayed after school the day of the show to help set up, and volunteered to man the stand throughout the night.

“I [sold] origami orna-ments and puffy hearts,” Cruz said. “The ornaments were made by art teacher, [Amy] Gilly, and the hearts were made by her students.”

Cruz said that the stu-dents in ceramics had the option of selling their pieces, and that they would keep the money from their personal sales.

Though the Sweet-Art Show’s success pleased the art department, Garrott said that it was probably the last themed-show of the year. There will be a large com-petition show within a few months.

For now, Garrott said that the Sweet-Art Show was a success, and a good experi-ence for the students to show-case their hard work to the community.

“A lot of parents and a lot of friends came,” Garrott said. “It was a good turnout.”

Department hosts Sweet-Art show

Top: Daniel Varella plays math teacher Mr. Cocker.

Above: Christian Aderholt and Max Zimmer fight over

Right: Dominic Pecikonis performs as Feargal.

Top: Kaley Were performs a musical number.

Above left: Luis Garduno Torres, Jacob Catalono and Christian Aderholt were best friends in the play.

Above right: Blake Lee recites his monologue during the musical.

story by Margaret Wells staff writer

story by Alec Spicer staff writer

On February 17-19, the theater department put on the “Back to the 80s” musical in the Lowery auditorium. -photos by Elisabeth Dillon and Kailey Warren

Singing to the music

New albums receive mixed reviews

13ed

itorialthe eagle angle

Issue 6M

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llen High School

PoliCY:900 copies of each issue are distributed on cam-pus to faculty and students. Content may be viewed online at www.allenisd.org/newspaper. Letters to the editor should be submitted to ea-gleanglestaff@yahoo.com. Any errors found with-in the publication will be rescinded in the follow-ing issue. Businesses who wish to advertise should contact Callie Wiesner, newspaper adviser, at 972-727-0400 x 2207. The Eagle Angle reserves the right to deny publication of advertisements. Advertisements are not necessarily endorsed by the staff or administration. All editorials reflect the views of the authors, and do not necessarily rep-resent the views of the staff, adviser or administra-tion. The Eagle Angle is a member of Quill and Scroll, the Interscholastic League Press Confer-ence and JEA/NSPA. ViEW ThE EAGlE ANGlE oNliNE AT

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Alec SpicerAshley ChangBrandon BolinBriahna EllisConner MartinDavid BarrElaine KirbyJacob LostoskiJillian Wade

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Allen High School • 300 Rivercrest Blvd. Allen, Texas 75002 • (972) 727-0400 • eagleanglestaff@yahoo.comthe eagle angle

I n response

to the anticipated $18

million budget cuts for Allen ISD, the board

of trustees is considering compensations for the shortfall, including raising student to teacher ratios, increasing property taxes and reducing staffing positions through attrition.

These solutions, while simply in response to the unfair proposals of the state, will only temporarily solve problems and will ultimately disrupt the district’s foundation for education.

Currently, the district plans to increase student to teacher ratios from the hard cap of 21 students to that of 24 students in K-4. This jeopardizes the already precarious situation

of bursting classes and schools

throughout Allen. With

a current growing rate of approximately

three percent, the district will accumulate around 560 additional students for the next school year, adding to the current 18,700 students in grades K-12. Until the additional elementary school opens in August 2013, student to teacher ratios will soar. This in turn will result in less individual attention for students, and therefore lower grades. As well, teachers will feel obligated to work additional unpaid hours during tutoring times to help students pass their classes. Allen ISD promises to maintain “acceptable student-to-staff ratios and class sizes through the hiring of additional staff or redistribution of students to ‘sister’ campuses if necessary.” The definition of acceptable will surely be questioned when grade point averages begin to sink

Turn on any

television in America to any

news station. What do you see? Conflicts in

Libya where a ruler refuses to acknowledge a revolution in

progress? Obama’s plans to heal the economy by selling unused federal real

estate? A 17-year-old stabbing and gutting his 5-month-old son in Los

Angeles? Nope. You’ll most likely see

why authorities took Charlie Sheen’s children from him.

Or the results of his last drug test. Or maybe an

update on his live-in supermodels.

In fact, type the letter “C” into

Google and one of the “popular”

searches is C h a r l i e

Sheen ( r i g h t

a b o v e Coach). Sheen,

as of March 2, has surpassed a shooting at

Frankfurt Airport that killed two U.S. airmen, Libya’s Gadhafi threatening the U.S. and NATO with the death of “thousands” if they intervene in a revolution he still denies and the Supreme Court’s ruling that legalizes Westboro Baptist Church’s anti-gay protests of soldiers’ funerals on CNN’s website.

It’s pathetic that I even need to say this, but there are more important things than a pitiful old man who we once thought was one in “Two and a Half Men,” but has now just become half.

For what it’s worth, we are a society of bottom feeders. We foam at the mouth over a success story (need I

throughout the district. A n o t h e r

solution proposed by the board is an election

to increase property taxes by 13 cents, which would raise around $9.6 million. On top of the bond for the new stadium, auditorium, CTE center and service center, these additional taxes will be too much for taxpayers, who are already questioning the bond purchases with the impending budget cuts. Increasing property taxes will only upset taxpayers further, especially those who did not approve of the initial bond.

Whatever the board decides, the effects will be disastrous because the district is unable to plan accordingly when the budgets cuts from the state are only tentative estimates. While the district is obligated to decide its budget cuts by July 1, the state isn’t required to submit the finalized cuts until Sept. 1. The state needs to give a definite budget to districts rather than

remind you of

a certain homeless man?)

and we listen intently when someone hits their

own personal rock bottom. We’re a demoralizing, over-analytical, judgmental and horrible society.

But we also love. We love our soldiers, our children and probably most of all, our country – our home. We love when we are victorious, when we rescue the “poor communist country” and when our kids win 1st place at the science fair.

We love when we can hug our soldier sons and daughters at the airport, we love those that are long gone but will forever live in our hearts and we love to say “I’m an American.”

We love humanity.

T h e o n l y

answer to this

battle of loves is that we are lost

as a people. We are choosing our disgusting

lust and frothing bigotry over our love for each other. The only thing we can hope is that we snap out of this nightmare and remember that people like Charlie Sheen are our personal embodiment of that ever-present thought – “better him than me.”

It’s our job to have compassion and respect for our fellow man, not obsession with the next Hollywood train wreck.

It’s our job to remember what is important. It’s our job to wake up from here and carry on. And we’re up to the task.

approximations in order for appropriate planning to take place. By only giving estimations to school districts, the state is allowing for a large margin of error under which districts are likely be highly under or over prepared. This will cause unnecessary jobs to be lost, or too few taken away, both drastically affecting the students and resources of a classroom. As these are decisions that will influence the course of many students’ educations, it is important for districts to receive exact, definitive amounts rather than estimated guesses.

Rather than risk affecting student education through various cuts, the state should consider taking funds from the collected excess funds over the years. This rainy day fund, which holds nearly $9.4 billion, will allow the state to give m o r e

It’s pathetic that th

is needs to

be said

District b

udget solutions in

adequate

definitive b u d g e t cuts for the f o l l o w i n g school years and will give districts time to prepare for more reasonable solutions.

editorial by The Eagle Angle staff

story by Kyleinabinettemanaging editor

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erything fit together.”Ingram’s injury also

proved his work ethic to coaches.

“He played through a tournament with a pretty big limp. That’s just the competi-tor he is,” head baseball coach Paul Coe said. “That tells you what he wants for the team, how much he wants to be out there. It sums him up to go out and play on one leg.”

After recovering, Ingram proceeded to become a third baseman and then designated hitter (DH) for the team af-ter playing second base and shortstop in previous years.

“It was hard work on him to change positions, to adjust to a different ballgame,” Coe said. “But he worked hard. He gets in the cage on his own swings, does what he needs to do whenever we don’t have practice.”

Ingram’s increased per-formance in turn influences competitive underclassmen. But by becoming a leader, he is constantly under the “pres-sure” of teammates who want his spot.

“By being held to a higher standard, you can’t mess up as much,” Ingram said. “You always have to be picture per-fect because you’re a senior. You always have to be on your game every time you prac-tice, every time you play. It’s stressful.”

The leadership position is not only because of Ingram’s senior title, but also because of his dedication and achieve-ments. As a junior, Ingram made first team all-district, batted a .451 and received the Performance Star of the Year award.

“The kids see him work-ing and swinging, going to the ballpark early. They see what he does, how he plays and how good he plays,” Coe said. “You need that kind of player

on your team. It’s an example for them to shoot for.”

Regardless, while playing, Ingram stores his competition inwards and approaches each game and practice with a re-laxed attitude.

“I don’t like showing my competition because then I get stressed,” Ingram said. “I then start doing bad, messing up and getting angry with my-self. So I just go with it.”

Coe said Ingram is a lead-er by example rather than a vocal leader. Ingram’s per-sonality meshes with those of other varsity players, making a strong foundation for the team.

“We all have our spot, we all have our place where we fit in,” Ingram said. “We have one player who gets every-one riled up and another that checks the other players when they are goofing off. I make sure I do things right and al-ways come early and stay late after practice.”

Personal goals versus team goals are a serious con-sideration in baseball, as per-fecting a single player’s swing or form can ultimately affect the outcome of a game for a team.

“If I make an error, I make an error,” Ingram said. “I’ll make the next play or I won’t strike out the next time. There are some moments I wish I could switch, but that’s in the past. I’ve got to focus on what will happen so I can do better.”

During in-season, Ingram typically practices just under five hours daily. Before a team practice of fielding, batting and working on fundamen-tals, he works on hitting with another available player.

“Our coach wants us to do good at practice, but he also wants us to have fun,” Ingram said. “If you’re serious all the time during practice, then you don’t really get to enjoy it as much. You have to have fun, but you have to know

what you’re doing at the same time.”

While Ingram agrees that at times baseball is a boring sport to watch, he says that it requires its players to be fast, strong and mentally focused.

“To pick up a 90 mph fast-ball and then hit it later on 400 something feet, that takes some real skill,” Ingram said. “To have the hand-eye coor-dination, to be able to field a groundball and throw it across the diamond before the run-ner touches the bag, that takes some serious skill.”

As senior year is coming to a close for Ingram, he is interested in playing for the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Ark. However, Ingram plans to focus on a de-gree and deal with the possi-bility of continuing to play in

minor or major leagues when it comes.

“Whatever he does, he’ll continue to be successful just because of his work ethic, just because of his attitude, just because of the way he car-ries himself,” Coe said. “He respects people. He doesn’t play favorites. He’s going to treat each and every person the same way no matter who they are.”

It all comes back to fam-ily for Ingram. He said a team that is in sync with one anoth-er to be able to produce runs and have a strong defense, is inevitably more like a family - a family that will be hard to let go of at the end of his last high school season.

“Players that I’ve played with are all going to go to dif-ferent colleges next year,” In-

gram said. “There will be new practices and new jokes. But I’ve enjoyed it. All the coaches I’ve liked, all the players, all the fun times, bus rides, ev-erything.”

As the spring baseball season launches, Ingram is fo-cused on finishing strong.

“Of course you want to excel, to get noticed by some-one,” Ingram said. “You have to do good. You want to do good. But you play the best you can, you do the best you can. Because anything can happen out there.”

GTKYE ready for new season, district playcontinued from page 1

Aristotle once said “We are what we repeatedly do; therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.” And the Al-len wrestling team has made winning a habit.

On Feb. 26, Allen won their second straight state title, winning by a margin of 39 points over second place Flower Mound. Jerry Best also won the Coach of the Year Award for the state of Texas.

Jared Trotter, Nick Cobb and Ophir Bernstein won indi-vidual championships.

“We basically want to go out and demoralize our com-petition,” Best said. “And just score as many points as pos-sible.”

Wrestling also brought home their third straight dual state championship trophy on Jan. 15. The team has now won 40 straight duals. Their closest match was the finals match versus Flowermound, which they won by a score of 34-27.

“We pretty much knew we were going to win,” sopho-

more Oliver Pierce said. “We were never losing at any point.”

Pierce thinks after two full seasons of winning, the Eagles have the expectations to win every match they wrestle.

“I think it’s just kind of the mentality [that] we are expect-ed to win now,” Pierce said. “People know you’re the best, if they expect you to win.”

The Eagles won the dis-trict 17 championship by al-most 200 points. They scored 313 points. The next closest team was Plano who managed 183. All fifteen of the Eagles wrestlers qualified for region-als, which they also won, scor-ing 278 points, and winning by a margin of 194.

The team lifts weights twice a week, and practices before and after school. Pierce says the practices are tough on him mentally.

“There’s a quote, ‘Once you wrestle everything else in life is easy,’” Pierce said. “There is nothing harder than

it.”Pierce said it seems like

sometimes wrestling doesn’t get the credit it deserves.

“Sometimes I feel like we work harder than all the other sports and we still don’t get attention that we deserve,” Pierce said. “But that’s just the nature of the sport. It’s just not popular.”

Best, says the sky is the limit on how many more championships they will win.

“Hopefully, [we win] all of them,” Best said. “We have high goals here, and we expect our kids to have high goals too.”

It is easy for Best to under-stand why Allen keeps win-ning.

“We’re always the hard-est working team in the state,” Best said. We’re just ready to go compete.”

Wrestlers win second consecutive state title

story by Jacob lostoski staff writer

Batting a thousand

story by Megan Patoskie staff writerphoto by Elisabeth Dillonillustration by Kyle Inabinette

15sports

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March 7, 2011

Allen High School

Rate the reactions

*1 being no reaction, 10 being a big issue

Denzel Johnson

JuniorBowling

Grayson Master

JuniorVarsity Hockey

Korynna lara

SophomoreVarsity Softball

Cierra Threats

JuniorVarsity Track

01020304050607080910

Nick Weinberger

SophomoreRugby

Ashley hooper

JuniorVarsity Volleyball

“Seven: It’s not a contact sport but it’s really hard when you’re doing it, because you

have to be focused and it drains a lot of energy from

your shoulder.”

“Ten: It makes me strive harder for my future in volleyball.”

“Nine: I feel a sense of pride knowing that I

do the same things as [the professionals] do.”

“Seven: I really want to play more when I watch the pros and I want to play in col-

lege.”

“Ten: It helps me to stay confident and

never give up on my dreams...I believe it

makes me successful on the ice.”

How intense are you when you watch professionals play your sport?

“Eight: I like seeing people play my sport, because it makes me want to excel more in

what I’m doing.”

The atmosphere in the room is ecstatic, almost deaf-ening. As each participant walks up to the starting line, they are introduced with their “pump up” song playing in the background. Sophomore Ryan Robedeau steps onto the starting block.

He takes a deep breath, trying to shake the last bit of nervousness from his body. The crowd noise echoing throughout the arena makes it difficult for him to focus. Be-fore his competition starts, he glances at his teammates and a sense of confidence settles over him.

After finishing first over-all in district and third overall in regionals, the swim team clinched a spot to compete at the state level. Junior Justin Gibson qualified in two in-dividual events, the 50-me-ter and 100-meter freestyle. Freshman Jennifer Brennecke qualified in the 200 individual medley and senior Evan Wills, junior Austin Kong and Robe-deau qualified in the relay along with Gibson.

“I think the team this year believed they were good. Last year hoped they would be

good. We were very young last year and still are to a degree,” swimming coach Brent Mitch-ell said. “I think this team re-alized as the season went on how good they could be and really focused on working to be better.”

In order to prepare for the season, the team had practiced from 6:30 - 8:30 in the morning to strengthen their technique and work on endurance. Stu-dents can swim up to 6,500 yards per practice, totaling just under four miles.

“A lot of people think it’s just floating around, but it is one of the toughest sports,” Kong said. “It’s very exhaust-ing mentally to have [to focus] your mind right before a race. It’s also physically exhausting as well, because we workout every muscle in our bodies and go through a lot of endur-ance training.”

The day before a meet, swimmers will alter their nightly routine, even change their eating habit to prepare themselves both mentally and physically.

“[Before a meet] we will rest the swimmers from their training, bring them down in

yardage and give them a little more sleep to re-cover from t r a i n i n g , ” Mitchell said.

The girls won dual meet season and finished second in district. The boy’s team finished first overall in dis-trict and won the non-re-gional cham-p i o n s h i p s . None of the students that competed in state placed in their events.

“I have a great group of kids every year, but this year was special. This senior class has dealt with the tough-est senior group of swimmers in our district. It is an amaz-ing class in our Region. A lot of NCAA caliber swim-mers in this group,” Mitchell

Five swimmers advance to compete in state

Jennifer Brennecke was the first Allen freshman to qualify for state. She competed in the 200 individual medley.

Swimming circles

said. “They didn’t give in and worked to make this team bet-ter. I was very proud of them.”

Mitchell said the team’s success didn’t come just from hard work.

“You don’t get district coach of the year and regional coach of the year,” Mitchell

said, “without a great group of kids to work with.”

story by Josh Friemel sports editorphoto by Elisabeth Dillon

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The roar and noise of the crowd is thunderous. Mallory Martin stretches, getting into her zone. Pushes down the butterflies in her stomach with a deep breath. Mentally runs through the 81-move form she learned just two weeks before. Laughs and jokes with the oth-er 14-16-year-olds in her ring.

She hears her friends cheering loudly for her and the other competitors. She knows this ring with girls from around the world is extremely competitive and difficult to place in. These are the black belts, and she’s had hers just two weeks. She bows into the ring, and lets muscle memory take over as she goes through the set pattern of moves.

The next thing she knows, she’s placed in the top three for the form she learned 14 days ago.

Martin, a senior, has been taking taekwondo for four years, and been a black belt for two years. Martin is a first degree, out of a total of nine degrees of black belt. There’s currently only one ninth de-gree in the world.

Martin first started ac-tively competing as a brown belt, halfway through the nine color belt levels that are nec-essary to get to black. Martin was forced into her first com-petition by the school owner, Sr. Master Sustaire, but tour-naments have now become her passion.

“I’m very competitive in sports. I love the competi-tive feeling. I love feeling like I have to work to be num-

ber one,” Martin said. “I love meeting new people and so it’s meeting new people, it’s doing something I enjoy and it’s win-ning.”

Martin has been to over 30 state tournaments, one na-tional and one international tournament.

“An average competition is actually a lot of fun. My ring has been really small and it’s been really big,” Martin said. “The competition is re-ally high but everybody in the ring gets to know each other really well and we start cheer-ing each other on. It’s like a big family even though we’re against each other.”

Two years ago Martin competed on an international level, at the World Champion-ships tournament, and will be competing for the second time this summer at Little Rock, Ark. Martin practices with the American Taekwondo Asso-ciation (ATA), but the World Championship competition consists of three different types of taekwondo from all over the world.

Half of the week at Worlds is spent watching the Top 10 compete. Top 10 competitors have to have competed in various national tournaments throughout the year. Each tournament competitors place in, they each get a certain amount of points, depending on how big the ring is and the size of the tournament.

Currently, Martin is sec-ond in the Top 10 for the world in the 17-29-year-old age group for sparing, which

is full contact fighting with protective padding. She is first in her age group for forms - a complicated series of blocks, kicks and other techniques that are put together in a set pattern, growing more com-plex with each belt rank.

With so many tourna-ments under her belt, Martin has learned the necessity of getting energized before she competes. She often listens to certain songs to get ready. She’s also learned a special trick to wake herself up for the early tournaments.

“When I compete early in the morning I eat a packet of sugar, like one of the packets of sugar you put in coffee. I’m not a morning person, so it’s hard to wake up,” Martin said. “I learned the week before black belt nationals that eat-ing a packet of sugar actually hyped me up enough. So be-fore I competed I ate a packet of sugar and I was able to get hyper enough for the competi-tion.”

Despite what she’s learned, every tournament is a unique experience. But the feeling is the same.

“It’s different every single time, you never know what to expect. Right before I go to compete every single time I know I’m going to do good,” Martin said. “But I always get a bunch of butterflies in my stomach and I get really ner-vous. But I fight through that and I just take a deep breath, and I just do my thing.”

When Martin competes, the thoughts going through

Senior competes in, teaches karateher head vary, but she often depends on the audience to help her relax.

“I think about several dif-ferent things. I think about the audience, I think about what-ever’s in my head. I just let my muscles take over with my form,” Martin said. “When-ever I spar, I don’t pay atten-tion to them, but whenever I’m doing my form I always make fun of them in my head because they look really goofy out there and it’s really funny. It makes me relax a bit more whenever I’m doing my form and my weapons.”

In addition to competing and attending classes to keep up her personal skills, she also teaches at Hornbuckel’s ATA in Murphy. Martin teach-es classes ranging from 3 to 4-year-olds to adults.

Martin’s positive attitude about karate and love for ev-erything about it also applies to her teaching.

“My favorite thing to teach is the white belts because they’re brand new,” Martin said. “They have no idea what they’re doing… and I get them fired up about taekwondo and I help them actually get to en-joy it. So it’s their excitement mixed in with my own excite-ment and it just makes things a lot of fun.”

Martin also feels that com-peting and teaching have af-fected each other.

“I always tell them what I really enjoy about it and it kind of gets them excited for it too. And then I always just try to have a positive attitude

and to get them as excited as well,” Martin said. “But teach-ing also helps me because I go through the basics that are in my form as well. So I improve my own skills while I’m teach-ing.”

Karate has become a sec-ond family for Martin, an ele-ment she feels is important to karate.

“You have to push each other to get through the class, you have to interact with each other and do partner drills all the time and so you get to know everyone in the class,” Martin said. “It’s important because it’s like basketball or football. Your team slowly be-comes one family and that’s how it is in Murphy. We just help each other out so much it’s like a family.”

Martin’s karate family has become a huge part of her competitions.

“I always go with people from the Murphy school and we actually get our groups together and go watch ev-erybody compete together,” Martin said. “It’s nice to have somebody to cheer you on.”

In spending four to five hours a day at her karate school, taekwondo has be-come a component of her life.

“Karate means a lot,” Mar-tin said. “It’s family, it’s work, it’s self defense. It’s everything basically.”

story by lydia Gardner staff writerphoto by Lydia Gardner

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the eagle angleIssue 6

March 7, 2011

Allen High School

The golf team played in four tournaments Feb. 16-23, winning three of them. Jared Allard won the Jaguar Hearthbreaker tournament shooting a 71 and Maddie Szeryk won the State Preview Championship shooting a 77-71. The team also received strong performances from Chris Ayers who finished second in the Jaguar Hearth-breaker, and Justin Newby who finished third in the Tee it Up for Troops Tournament.

The varsity boys track team tied for 4th place last week in Rockwall and the JV placed 2nd. There were several personal records and one school record. Collins Ateku broke the 20 year old Triple Jump record with a leap of 44’9”. The old record was set in 1990 at 43’7.5”.

The diving team’s season came to an end Feb. 28. This season, they had four divers advance to the region-al meet. In their post-district meet, Destinee O’Neal placed 2nd breaking the school record. Michelle Taylor also placed 4th in the tournament.

The varsity softball team played their first district game on March 1 against the Plano Senior Wildcats. During the 5th inning, Plano hit and scored 5 runs. The final score was 7-1. Allen will take on the Lewisville Fighting Farmers for their second district game on Tuesday, March 7.

The varsity girls track team placed in third place in their meet in Rockwall on Feb. 26. JV finished fifth. The next track meet will be held March 9 at the Pierce Relays in Richardson at 4 p.m.

the

sportsangle

Coach Justin Quest always tells his team that ‘pressure is a privilege,’ and to remem-

ber that. These words inspire them. These words push them. These words motivate them to

play their finest. Always.The JV and varsity ten-

nis teams began their spring season on Jan. 27. The spring season has several tournaments, including the Spring District Tournament on April 5 and 6, at which the team has the opportunity to move up to the regional and state levels of competi-tion.

Practices, which last about an hour and a half, usually be-gin with consistency work, which includes fitness and agility, and then transition into point-play and differ-ent match situations.

“I’ve always said practice is really where the majority of the work needs to be done, so I take practice very seriously,” Quest said. “In a match they’re basically just showing off what they did in practice.”

Quest says he tries to bring a lot of in-tensity and energy to practices, and senior tennis player Sarah Theriault agrees.

“He is one of the most intense coaches,” Theriault said. “I dare to say he’s more in-tense than the football coach… he pushes us

Tennis team prepares for upcoming spring matchesreally hard. He wants us to succeed so badly and I love it.”

Quest said it takes a dedi-cated person, with a certain personality, to be a competi-tive tennis player.

“Tennis is an individual sport, so it’s one of those sports where you have to be really comfortable in your own skin and you have to be able to handle adversity well,” Quest said. “I think to be a good ten-nis player you have to be very confident in your own self.”

Theriault also said a ten-nis player must have a certain mentality during a match.

“I usually think that I just need to relax and not focus on winning as much as focus on playing well and hitting through all my shots,” Theri-ault said. “It’s a [very] mental sport.”

The season is year-round, with the fall as the team sea-son and the spring more in-dividual. The Allen tennis program also hosts their own invitational tournament on March 25-26, which includes 16 teams from around the state, and a Tennis-a-Thon on April 29, in which the team plays from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. to fundraise for the tennis pro-gram.

Theriault said that not only is the sport unique, but the Allen tennis team is as well.

“I think the Allen tennis team is more of a family than other teams,” Theriault said.

“We’re all friends with every-one and we all love everyone. I don’t think other teams do that as much.”

Quest said that the stan-dards for the team have been raised, and next year’s tryouts will be competitive.

“The program’s moving in the right direction so any time you have that, the expecta-tions get higher,” Quest said. “I think in order for somebody to really challenge on this team they’ve got to love the sport, they’ve got to be dedi-cated to the sport and they’ve got to come in with a good amount of tournament experi-ence to where they can step on the court and be mentally con-fident in their abilities.”

Theriault also offers ad-vice for tennis team hopefuls.

“[Don’t] be nervous and remember that it’s just for fun,” Theriault said. “You have to enjoy [tennis]. Don’t do it if you don’t enjoy it.”

And when it comes down to the match point, Quest’s fa-vorite part of coaching tennis is watching his players suc-ceed.

“[Seeing that] is every-thing,” Quest said. “It’s really the reason I got into coaching and it’s terribly rewarding. There’s nothing more satisfy-ing than seeing somebody ex-cel at the sport.”

Senior Jonathan Bostrom returns a serve during a tennis match in October. The district tournament is set for April 5 and 6.

Serving victory

story by Kailey Warren staff writerphoto by Allyson Messer

With four games remain-ing in the regular season, the boys soccer team finds them-selves in the midst of the play-off race. They currently rank fourth in district play, with their next game being against Plano West.

“Certainly, playoffs are a big goal and just getting to that point is very difficult, being that we have the most difficult district in the area. The state champions have come from our area the past four seasons, coach Robert Jacobs said. “So making the playoffs is a big deal. And we’re just trying to get one of the top playoff spots for this year.”

Jacobs, who has coached at Allen for seven years, said this year is different from past seasons, as far as team chem-istry.

“Maybe, they need to panic a little bit. But instead of sniping at each other and try-ing to tear each other down, they realize their mistakes and they talk about it and that’s a pretty big deal,” Jacobs said.

Senior captain Kevin Mor-rison, said playing as a team with other friends is one of the reasons he enjoys soccer, even though being captain is a big responsibility.

“[My role as captain] is just to lead people and moti-vate others to try their best,” Morrison said.

Jacobs said the team cap-tains are the ones the team can look up to when something bad happens on the field.

“The captains’ character and [leadership] by their play [inspires] the rest of the group to pick up their game,” Ja-cobs said. “Off the field, in the locker room, in meetings, or at team dinners, things like that, their title is ‘leader’ but at the same time, their personalities are really important in keep-ing the team in great spirits.”

The team’s composure has led them to a 2-2-4 record in district with six games left as the Eagle Angle went to press. Their overall record is 4-3-8.

“They get along great [this year]. In the past, we had little cliques here and there and we really don’t have as much as that this year, even with the dif-ferent classes that we have,”

Jacobs said. “The sophomores have been welcomed and they contribute. Seniors recognize that. There’s not really a divi-sion with ‘this group of friends and that group of friends’, so they get along pretty well.”

Coach Jacobs hopes the bonds between the players will continue to bring them success.

“These kids all just get along. There are funny mo-ments every day,” Jacobs said. “The games we’ve played well in, which is most of them, we’ve done good things like coming back from one deficit to tie a game, [and that really] defines the character of the team.”

Boys soccer team begins season

Run with it

Senior Jackson Granger dribbles the ball towards the goal on Friday, Feb. 25. The team has a record 4-3-8.

story by Jocelyn ortiz staff writerphoto by Elisabeth Dillon

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As guard Barrington Ste-vens brings the ball down the court, he calls out the play to his teammates. Center Bobby Farquah sets a pick and Ste-vens drives the ball to his right. Farquah then rolls to-wards the basket, knowing the ball will be waiting for him when he gets close enough for the easy dunk.

It’s been that way for as long as he can remember.

“I [feel like I have been] playing basketball since I came out of the womb,” Stevens said. “The first time I played I was like three-years-old and my dad bought me a Michael Jordan basketball goal, and on the backboard in the square it had a picture of Jordan. I used to watch him play and ever since then I’ve always wanted to play basketball.”

For starting seniors on the basketball team it feels like they have been playing together forever. In elemen-tary school they were on the playground and formed Al-len Sports Association (ASA) teams together. In middle school they started on the bas-ketball team and played Ama-teur Athletic Union (AAU) summer ball together.

With missing the play-offs, the experience of playing together came to an end. The team finished with a 21-13 re-cord.

“I’m more disappointed that the guys didn’t get to ex-

perience the playoffs,” coach Steve Specht said. “I just wish we could have done that. You just want it for the kids.”

Specht said missing play-offs is partially because of the strength of the new district teams. Flower Mound Marcus, Lewisville, Hebron and Flow-er Mound were the four new teams introduced into district 8-5A this year. Last year Al-len was in a district with only two teams posting a winning record.

Specht said he couldn’t be more proud of what this team was able to do this year.

“As far as our talent level and our potential, they’re go-ing to be one of those teams I remember fondly with their ability [to win] some of the big games along the way,” Specht said.

Farquah is ready to move past the defeats.

“I mean, I’m still sad but we’ve got to move on, espe-cially me being a senior,” Far-quah said. “I have to move onto college, but I am defi-nitely going to be coming back and check up on the team.”

Even in the offseason, bas-ketball never stops for players like Farquah and Stevens.

“Basketball is a vehicle for life basically. It can help you do so many things, meet new people, travel to places that you wouldn’t be able to visit otherwise,” Stevens said. “It teaches you discipline and

how to stay dedicated and that if you work hard you will reach your goals.”

For Stevens, the highlight of the season was when he hit a game winner at Coppell.

“I was three or four feet behind the three point and I drained it at the buzzer,” Ste-vens said. “Their crowd was yelling and stuff but after that it was pure silence like they couldn’t believe it.”

Even though they had high expectations, the senior leaders want their teammates to remember this season and prepare to do even better next season.

“[The next step is to] go back to the drawing board and see what roles the cur-rent juniors can play. [We need to move players] up from JV to find their niche and their role,” Specht said. “[We need to assess] the sophomores coming up that can help and get placed on varsity or on JV and you start molding that team. You’re taking that clay and you’re remodeling it and that’s what we do as a staff.”

Stevens has drawn na-tional interest from colleges like Stanford, Texas State, Col-gate, Missouri State, Marshall and conference USA schools. Farquah has heard from pro-grams like Texas A&M, but also has Mary Hardin Baylor, Hendrix and Central Missouri on his list.

“[The next step is to] play

Division I basketball. I’m still going on trips over the next two weeks. I’ll be going to visit Missouri State,” Stevens said. “I’m going to go to a game and the coach wants me to play with the players and then maybe I might get an offer out of that because normally that’s what happens.”

Having the drive to get better is something that the coaching staff hopes that these players walk away with.

“As far as their success, I think we wish them the very best in basketball and hope they can compete and have fun with it,” Specht said. “But college is about going to school and about getting an education and then preparing for stuff beyond that.”

The coaching staff works to prepare their players to play good basketball in the fu-ture, but they also equip them with skills to use in other as-pects of life.

“To be honest I hope they have big dreams but we also hope we instilled in them that they have to be ready to do something once basketball is done,” Specht said. “To be good fathers, good husbands and good at whatever they end up choosing to be and hopefully we left a little bit of an impact there.”

Bittersweet victoryDistrict changes cause playoff miss

The boys basketball team went 21-13 in their season, a better record than last year when the team made the playoffs. From left to right senior Bobby Farquah, senior Andrew Roehrig, junior Jacob Rothbauer, senior Barrington Stevens and senior Marquis Chatman played throughout the season.

Slam dunk

story by Brandon Bolin staff writerphotos by Elisabeth Dillon and Jordan Reagan

19sports

the eagle angleIssue 6

March 7, 2011

Allen High School

The Mayans predicted that the world would end in 2012 in some catastrophic event. But as far as sports fans are concerned, the Mayans were a year off. Because of la-bor issues, the NFL and NBA’s player associations are both threatening strikes, which would mean the end of sports as we know them in 2011.

The futures of both the NBA and NFL look bleak, as players and owners continue to bicker over how to split up their millions of dollars. Unless the players suddenly realize that they’re already overpaid to play a game that the vast majority of us would play for free, then a lockout will occur. And next year there will be no NFL or NBA. This is a disaster. Without the NFL, what will we do with our weekends? Watch NASCAR? The horror. And with no NBA what will we do on our week-nights? Our homework? The only bright side to an NBA lockout would be that the Cavaliers would finally have found a way to not lose.

The NBA and NFL are multi-billion dollar industries, and the NFL estimates they would lose $1 billion if there

was no season. The players in turn would make no mon-ey from their contracts, and would lose their health care benefits. So why are both sides willing to let a strike occur? It’s all about how they split the revenue.

The owners make hun-dreds of millions of dollars while the players only make millions (those poor things). When the players whine about their meager wages, it only shows how spoiled they have become. It infuriates me that they can whine about making millions of dollars, when the rest of America is suffering so greatly.

I don’t feel bad for the players. I feel bad for the peo-ple whose jobs will be affected by the lockouts. The NFL Play-ers Association recently sug-gested that a lockout would cost 160,000 people their jobs, whether they are stadium workers, security, police or hotel and restaurant owners. These lockouts reach farther than many people realize. It doesn’t just affect the play-ers, the coaches or the own-ers. It affects everyday people, whose livelihoods are depen-dent on sports.

in America? The NFL’s draft gets better rat-ings then

the World Series, and

Lebron James’ narcissistic free

agency special “The Decision” out rated the Stanley Cup. The leagues will probably be just as popular as they are now if they ultimately skip a season. But why risk it? That’s bad business.

So don’t do it NFL and NBA. Don’t get greedy. If it’s really that bad getting paid millions to make a few bas-kets then I’ll take that burden from you. NBA and NFL I’m begging you, you are the most popular sports in America, and losing you would be apoc-alyptic. Please don’t lockout. Please save us from Sundays without football and week-nights without basketball. Please save us fans. I really don’t want to watch NASCAR.

Track wasn’t on my list of sports to worry about. I did track in middle school, I keep myself in decent shape, and I run pretty fast (I thought I did anyways). I hadn’t done any serious running since middle school, but I still play basket-ball with my friends almost every day. I thought I was going to be fine. And what I didn’t know almost killed me.

As I headed up to the track field, the feelings of awk-wardly sticking out among the athletes and falling embarrass-ingly far behind the normal pace of the team were noth-ing new. Fortunately for me, stretching is not a race and I was only slightly embarrassed by my lack of flexibility (ev-eryone could touch their toes, an art that has escaped me my entire life). There wasn’t a whole lot of talking among the athletes, just every person quietly going about their rou-tine. That kind of relaxed but efficient atmosphere didn’t change the entire practice. Of course, I was the only one who was aware of how unprepared I was for what I was about to do.

The coach made it seem like it was going to be an easy practice when he explained the workout, at least for regu-lars. I, on the other hand, was all but ready to throw in the towel as soon as he was fin-ished talking. The group was supposed to run eight 400’s, or eight laps around the entire track. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. I never was much more than a 100 or 200 meter

sprinter, and doubling or qua-drupling that was not really in my best interest.

The rest between each lap was supposed to be around a minute. But when you’re gasping for breath and trying to see straight, it feels a whole lot more like ten seconds. Dur-ing the first lap, I was some-where towards the end, but not bringing up the rear. I was thinking man, we only have eight of these? What was I all worried about? I answered my own question about halfway through the second lap when my legs reminded me that I don’t do this much running and this really wasn’t a great idea. I was definitely the ca-boose for lap number two. It wasn’t even close. The kid in front of me, who I had been killing myself to stay with, decided to go into ‘wait, the guy next to me is the news-paper guy and I can’t lose to the newspaper guy’ mode. He left me off in the distance like a Ferrari leaving a Civic at a stoplight.

Just when I thought I couldn’t get any farther be-hind the group, I one-upped myself on the third and fourth laps. I really wish there was some great way to tell you just how sad it was. Think of that feeling you get when your best friend tells an absolutely awful joke and thinks it’s hi-larious, and you want to laugh but you can’t bring yourself to fake a laugh. Multiply that feeling times 1,000, and you would get my track practice. What made it worse was that

no one else was really even breathing hard. I was strug-gling just to stand, and these guys were cracking jokes and relaxing.

But, I did have an ex-cuse for barely finishing my fourth lap. I have extreme al-lergies to grass. (Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I mean, didn’t you just think ‘wow, who’s allergic to grass?’ You did, didn’t you? You did.) The lawn outside the field had just been mowed, the wind was blowing the grass all over the place and I was running really hard. That, my friends, is a recipe for disaster. More specifically, a recipe for an anaphylactic re-action. Basically, what hap-pens is I break out in a huge rash all over my body, my throat begins to close up, I start not being able to breath and I go into shock. Better yet, if I’m not treated in time, I can die. Fortunately, Josh Friemel, the sports editor, had my back and grabbed my medicine so I ended up being fine. I did decide, though, that more hardcore running was not going to happen, so I settled on do-ing one of the field events: the long jump.

There could not be a sim-pler idea for a sport. Just run and jump. That’s it. No pole to vault with, no tall bar to leap over. Just you and a pit of sand. But the technique that goes into the run, the jump and the landing is extremely complex and takes a lot of practice. Some of the team

tried to fix my form, but, re-ally, nothing short of divine intervention could help my sprawled, airborne body from colliding with the sand about as gracefully as an elephant.

Track was definitely more intense than my other sports, but it was one of the more en-joyable ones. Running is such a liberating experience, and I still felt the joy that comes

with it, even though I was dy-ing. The long jump was fun too, but it takes a lot of prac-tice and wrecked my knees on impact. All in all, I’m no track star, but I had fun being the caboose of the well-oiled train that is the track team.

Overtime with David Barr

And what about the fans, who will have nothing to watch? There will be no more professional foot-ball (unless we watch an Auburn game). To many fans these teams are like family, they bring them into their h o u s e s , revel in their tri-u m p h s a n d mourn in their defeats. S p o r t s teach us life les-sons, that every now and then David does slay Goliath, that miracles are possible. That’s why we watch, so we can feel like anything is at-tainable. And the NBA and NFL want to take those feel-ings away from us.

In the end, everyone loses from the lockouts. The fans lose their passion, the players and owners lose money and

the w o r k -

ers whose live-lihoods are d e p e n d e n t on the NBA and NFL lose their jobs. There’s ev-

erything to lose a n d noth-ing to g a i n .

C a n the ath-

letes and owners really feel like they need more money? Do they really want to risk their spots as the two most pop-ular sports

After going into anaphylactic shock, David returned to track practice the next day to do the long jump. It was more difficult than he anticipated.

Long shot

story by David Barr staff writerphoto by Josh Friemel

Fans brace for sports apocalypse

story by lucas lostoski staff writerillustration by Kyle Inabinette

Signing off

left: Head football coach Tom West-erberg takes balloons from the tables.

Above left: Hunter Wright signed with Arkansas State to become the first Allen student to sign a rugby scholar-ship.

Top: Athletic Director Steve Williams quiets the crowd to begin Signing Day.

Above right: Marissa Dodd (left) signed with Wake Forest and Jessa LaBarbera (right) signed with Colo-rado State to play golf.

Below right: Kayla Keating (left), signed with Louisiana Tech, and Hailey Pescatore (right), signed with Arkansas University.

left: Matt Garrity, with defensive co-ordinator Cory Cain, his mother and father and head coach Tom Wester-berg, signed with Drake University.

Below left: Megan McLaughlin is con-gratulated by her coach for signing with Ouachita Baptist University.

Student athletes who signed with a college to play sports participated in the Signing Day ceremony on Feb. 17. Twenty-one athletes in six dif-ferent sports signed. Photos by Elisabeth Dillon and Jordan Reagan.