1997_05 The Daily Collegian May 1997

              Timeout
THE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Monday, May 5,1997
A promising
athletic career
cut short
By Bethany Thompson
The Daily Collegian
A couple of weeks ago I went
to one of the Fresno Slate soft-
ball games. The experience
made me reflect on my own bril¬
liant softball career that was
tragically cut short in the eighth
grade. While at the game. I
thought to myself: Could I have
been NCAA material? Could I
have played a game like this?
I had to come up with a re¬
sounding NO to both. Not be¬
cause I wasn't a decent player,
but because I was lacking one
quality that is generally consid¬
ered pretty important when play¬
ing softball. I could never slide.
There was just -something
about the idea of intentionally
throwing my body onto hard dirt
and then slamming my feet into
a hard base while people tried
lo tackle me that just didn't sit
right with me. So while I had a
very brief softball career in Little
League.! never once completed
anything that even remotely re¬
sembled a slide.
Not that I didn't try. While all
the other kids would be practic¬
ing throwing and' catching the
coaches would take me aside
and spend hours trying to teach
me to slide. But my body just
wouldn't go for it
s~> I would run and then the three
/ feet from the base I would just
/     stop and Hop on the ground
\^  thinking I had completed a slide,
whereupon my coaches would
say something like "Not quite.
Trv again." In fact, once during
a game I thought I had slid and I
got up proud, thinking I had fi-
nallyulonc the impossible, only
to find all the coaches and my
teammates laughing at me say¬
ing "What was that?!" »
But it was precisely my in¬
ability to slide that tragically
ended my softball career, when,
on the last day of eighth grade. I
made a valiant effort to make it
to second base, safe and with¬
out sliding. The end result was
that when I stopped moving, part
of my leg continued to move
tearing the ligaments in my
knee, which effectively ended
that brilliant career and a bril¬
liant career in volleyball that I
never even got to start. (I was
called out too if you can believe
that.)
But all this got me thinking,
because I once had a brilliant
career in gymnastics loo in the
fourth grade. Only I was lack¬
ing a pretty important qualifica¬
tion of a gymnast. Mainly thai
quality that allows you to ihrow
yourself in the air and flip
around and land in positions thai
are surely unnatural:
So when the time came for us
little gymnasts to take our turn
on the vault Itiad some rcscrva-
Please see CAREER page 4.
Yon< III
Firearms can put women at risk
By Sam Gitchell ■Jr*^^---^vj»^r--C
Nearly half of all suicides and
k murders of women take place in
a household where a gun is
present, according to a five-year
study conducted at the Univer¬
sity of Tennessee, reported in the
Archives of Internal Medicine.
"Household use of illicit
drugs, domestic violence and
readily available firearms place
women at particularly high risk
of homicide," the researchers
write. "Instead of conferring
protection, keeping a gun in the
home is associated with in¬
creased risk of both suicide and
homicide of women."
Another staggering statistic
from the study: 82 percent of the
women involved in a homicide
were killed by someone they
knew, typically a spouse, lover,
or first-degree relative. Most in¬
cidents involved an argument,
domestic fight, or assault.
The findings arc congruent
with the results of previous stud¬
ies showing that women arc far
less likely than men to be mur¬
dered by a stranger.
The researchers urge health
care providers and law enforce¬
ment agencies to encourage
family members to store fire¬
arms securely or remove them
from households that have prob¬
lems with domestic violence,
substance abuse or depression.
They suggest that legislation
should be adopted to prohibit the
purchase of firearms by con¬
victed batterers and those under
restraining orders for stalking or
harassment.
Source: Archives of Internal
Medicine (1997; 157:777-782)
"Your Heath" also appears
weekly on the Fresno State elec¬
tronic informationsystem.
Sam Citchel is a health educa¬
tor at Health & Counseling Ser¬
vices.
ACROSS
1 Rascals
5 Wonderland
heroine
10 Dak used in
poker
14 Food regrmen
15 Heroism
16 Sharpen
17 — Karen ma
18 MN city
19 Urter's smallest
20 Avoid
22 Has a meal
23 Words of
understanding!
24 Prepared to
drive
26 Wardrobe
assstants
28 Pub potion
30 Agt.
32 Mine entrance
33 Jaws
36 Crevice
40 ■Of — and Men"
41 Omar's output
43 Seed cover
44 Paafic
46 Knack
48 Polka —
50 Ruby or Sandra
51 Comp. pt.
52 Convict on a
trumped-up
charge
56 Moist
58 Florence's rrver
59 Easy task
61 Incursions
64 Assorted: abbr.
65 Viotri, briefly
67 Genuine
68 Cheat in a
child's game?
69 Class of the
class
70 Italian noble
famiy
71 Concordes
72 Units ol force
73 Fret
DOWN
1 lupnoand
Tar bell
2 WeasoTs prized
cousin
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3 Contrition
4 Gaze fixedly
5 St.
6 Burden
7 Homers epic
8 Differentiated
9 Expunged
10 Designer Dior
11 Residence
12 Sanctum or
circle
13 Rose and
Rozele
21 Actress Garr
25 Home mortgage.
e.g.
27 Go astray
28 Bullets
29 Not of the cloth
31 In a rice way
34 impasses
35 Remnant
37 Most repulsive
38 Disapproving
sound
39 Otherwise
42 Raced
45 Negative word
47 Rend
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49 Flipped 57 Foal feeders
52 Freeway exits 60 Appefczer offer-
53 The Ram
54 Map wifrim a
map mem
55 "Mack me Knife" 63 Large number
singer 66      Moines
62 Social engage-
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• •