The independent student newspaper of Kent State University Monday, February 13, 2012 BREAKING NEWS AT KENTWIRED.COM DKS DAILY KENT STATER MAJOR PLAYERS: Jason M. Cope •Found by the SEC to have defrauded 190 investors of $8.7 million in late 1999 and early 2000 •Pledged on March 17, 2011, to transfer $1 million in stock to the men’s basketball and golf programs •Withdrew donation on Jan. 5, 2012 Joel Nielsen •Athletic director at Kent State since 2010 •Was the main contact in athletic department when discussing Cope with university administrators Matt Geis •Associate athletic director and executive director for athletic advancement; leads Kent State’s athletic fundraising •Cope’s main contact within the university Lester Lefton •President of Kent State Board of Trustees •“The governing body of the university,” according to its constitution Eugene Finn •Vice president for institutional advancement; leads Kent State’s fundraising efforts University Communications & Marketing •Iris Harvey, vice president for university relations and chief officer for marketing, communications and government relations •Thomas Neumann, associate vice president of Uni- versity Communications & Marketing •Emily Vincent, director of media relations HOW WE REPORTED: Despite numerous attempts over two weeks, no university employees associated with the Cope Court donation spoke to the Daily Kent Stater for this article. One trustee hung up his phone after one minute and another emailed one sentence saying she agreed with the university statement; the rest never talked. The university administrators and board members featured in this article were all informed what would be published and ignored attempts for comment. Information was gathered solely through obtaining public records, including hundreds of pages of emails with attachments sent to and from university admin- istrators, and audio and documents from the Dec. 13 Board of Trustees meeting. On the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 27, Vincent emailed Daily Kent Stater reporter Doug Brown for a meet- ing first thing the following Monday morning with Nielsen, Finn, Harvey, Willis Walker, vice president for human resources and chief university counsel, and Charlene Reed, secretary to the Board of Trustees and chief of staff to the president. The Stater declined that meeting because they were prohibited from record- ing it on-camera and several records requests were not yet fulfilled. Vincent and Neumann have since refused every interview attempt, even after the Stater promised to only record the audio to ensure accuracy. Numerous phone calls and emails to individually reach Lefton, Finn, Nielsen and Geis for comment all went ignored. The Stater also contacted each board member through multiple emails and left messages for those with listed telephone numbers. On Feb. 1, Vincent emailed the following statement: “The acceptance by the university of the Cope Family gift complied with all existing donor gift acceptance and naming rights policies. It also followed the nor- mal submission process with the usual level of detail being provided to the Board of Trustees. The Advance- ment and Athletics administrators who worked with the donor family considered the available public information regarding Mr. Cope. Their interpretation of the record was that the litigation is a decade old; he has made the required restitution; and no criminal charges have been made against him.” “Beyond this statement, the university has nothing else to say at this time,” she wrote. She wouldn’t say what public information was considered or if they knew if he made the required restitution. On Feb. 10, the Stater sent an email to Vincent, Neumann, Nielsen, Finn, Geis, Reed, Lefton and all 11 trustees, attempting for the last time to seek com- ment from anybody before this article was published. Only Neumann responded. “Just to clarify, the Board Chair speaks on behalf of the entire Board of Trustees, therefore her statement reflects comments from the entire Board. Similarly the university statement reflects the position of all those involved,” Neumann wrote. Still, nobody from the university has answered questions. The courting of Cope Hundreds of emails obtained by the Daily Kent Stater under state open records laws document how: • Athletic Director Joel Nielsen and other univer- sity officials accepted a $1 million donation to the athletic department from alumnus Jason M. Cope in March 2011 • The Board of Trustees voted its unanimous approval of the donation and the naming of the basketball court in Cope’s honor,without being informed of the SEC violations in his past • Cope withdrew the donation as the Stater was investigating his past • University officials worked in the background to present a unified front as the media began to inquire about the donation From: Eugene, Finn Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 6:32 PM To: Reed, Charlene Cc: Lefton, Lester; Nielsen, Joel Subject: Re: Record Courier Article Cope From: Nielsen, Joel Sent: Tuesday December 23, 2011 4:45 PM To: Geis, Matt; Kleinlen Thomas Subject: RE: FYI – Cope Court approved by BOT today. Will be up on our site tomorrow morning. Yep… was there to see the vote. Only question from a BOT member during the meeting was, “did we get enough $$ for the naming?” … I assured them we did. Athletic Director Joel Nielsen sent this email after pitching the Cope Court resolution to the board. Nielsen didn’t inform the Board of Trustees of Cope’s past at the meeting. From: Jason Cope Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 8:52 PM To: Geis, Matt Subject: Fwd: As my friends know, this is a very sensitive subject with me because I am not the type of person to act unethically in any way. Thank you for your personal support, loyalty, and friendship. Cope’s first mention in emails of his SEC violations. Carrie Blazina [email protected]Kent State announced Friday the university would introduce its new provost Monday. The four finalists for the job visited campus over a two-week period and took questions at forums with faculty and students. They are David Francko, the asso- ciate provost and dean of the Graduate School at the Univer- sity of Alabama; Todd Diacon, the deputy chancellor at University of Massachusetts Amherst; Bernard Mair, the associate provost for undergraduate affairs at the Uni- versity of Florida; and Kent State’s own Timothy Moerland, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Despite calls to several provost search committee members and the candidates themselves, there is no confirmation on who the next provost will be. President Lester Lefton makes the final decision. Whoever is chosen will replace departing Provost Robert Frank, who accepted the presidency at the University of New Mexico, his alma mater, starting in Fall 2012. As the press release states, the provost is Kent State’s chief aca- demic officer and is the second- highest ranking university official, behind Lefton. The new provost will be intro- duced at an 11 a.m. conference with Lefton. —Carrie Blazina, academics reporter for the Daily Kent Stater New KSU provost to be announced Monday morning Rex Santus [email protected]In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a new proposal: If colleges and universities do not work toward decreasing net tuition prices, they risk losing federal money. “For the last 3 years, our tuition increase has been about [3.5] per- cent. I believe two years prior to that, it was 0 [percent] because of state cap,” said Mark Evans, direc- tor of Student Financial Aid. “From what I recall, we could be going in a pattern of that [3.5] percent increase.” According to the address, Kent State University is at risk of losing federal financial aid funding: Per- kins loans, work-study programs and grants designed to assist stu- dents from low-income families. “Kent State University has around 18,000 students who rely on a Pell Grant, as an example, throughout the eight-campus sys- tem,” Evans said. “So if there were any reductions in the federal grant program, obviously it would have a negative impact on access to higher education.” Conversely, the president said universities that continue to pro- vide more affordable options to students without increasing tuition would be rewarded with increases in financial aid funding. For exam- ple, the Perkins loan program would increase its funding from its current $1 billion to $8 billion. “The federal government has not put any new money … in the Perkins loan program for the last six years, so any increase in the program would be welcomed, obviously,” Evans said. The increase in Perkins loan funding, however, is a “two-edged sword” because students will be expected to pay the loan’s interest while enrolled at the university, Evans said. “The proposal for a number of years was to convert [the Perkins loan program] to an unsubsidized one, meaning a student, then, is responsible for the interest while he or she is in school,” Evans said. “We’ll put more money into the program, but the student has to bear more of the interest responsibility.” Kent State risks losing federal aid SEE OBAMA, PAGE 4 SEE COPE, PAGE 2 Flashses take victory on national stage against Ball State. Sports Page 6 Go online to see video of Robert Wood’s memorial service KENTWIRED.COM KENTWIRED.COM Go online to read emails, listen to audio from the board’s meeting and see documents presented to the board. Jason M. Cope chose this logo for the court that would’ve been named after him and his wife had he not withdrawn his donation. There is no established “policy” but we do research on all of our high level prospects. Keep in mind that we did know about Cope’s past but felt it was no longer an issue based on the information we had. But obvi- ously we still do not have a clear sense of what might still be out there for the SEC. After the original Daily Kent Stater article was published, the university’s top fund- raiser responded to a trustee’s question about background checks for donors. Doug Brown [email protected]Jason M. Cope, a 1995 Kent State finance graduate, was one of four defendants required to pay more than $19 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for sell- ing 190 investors fraudulent stocks worth $8.7 million 12 years ago. His broker license was permanently revoked because of it. Cope, who had previously giv- en about $13,000 over a four-year period to the Kent State Athletic Department, now runs two golf courses under the company Cope- land Group, LLC, and emails show he is still heavily involved in the stock market. He pledged to transfer $1 mil- lion in stocks to the athletic depart- ment on March 17, 2011, according to emails sent to the athletic depart- ment. The university didn’t pub- licly disclose the donation for nine months until the board officially approved it on Dec. 13. Kent State’s Board of Trustees has given no indication it was aware of Cope’s past SEC violations when it voted unanimously to rename the basketball court “Cope Court” after he and his wife, Stacie, pledged $1 million. “Yep… I was there for the vote,” Athletic Director Joel Nielsen reported to Matt Geis, associate athletic direc- tor and executive director for athletic advancement, and Tom Kleinlein, deputy athletic director, in an email immediately following the board’s approval. “Only question from a BOT member during the meeting was, ‘did we get enough $$ for the naming?’ … I assured them we did.” Cope withdrew the dona- tion on the evening of Jan. 5 — nine days before Cope Court would have become official in an elaborately planned pregame ceremony and one day after emails show Nielsen warned him about the Stater working on a story about the SEC violations. That story was published on Jan. 6 and reposted online that evening by the Record-Courier. The Akron Beacon Journal and The Plain Deal- er wrote about the withdrawal on Jan. 10. University officials contend they were “well aware” of the donor’s SEC violations before Cope agreed to the $1 million donation. THE BOARD APPROVES President Lester Lefton, Eugene Finn, vice president of institutional advancement, and Nielsen present- ed the “Cope Court” resolution to the Board of Trustees on Dec. 13. The 11 trustees approved it — with no objections — in exactly two minutes. Board Chair Jacqueline Woods called the resolution “won- derful” and praised Nielsen and Finn for their “hard work on that.” Nielson had known about Cope’s SEC violations since at least March. None of the documents prepared for the presentation to the trustees mentioned the violations, nor did the oral presentation given that afternoon. The board has given no indication that it knew of the possi- bly controversial nature of the dona- tion before voting. Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said in a phone interview on Jan. 30 that too often trustees don’t ask questions and aren’t fully informed before making decisions. “As best as I can tell in this par- ticular case, obviously questions were raised about the donor after the announcement of the gift,” Neal explained. “That should be up to the board to determine whether that was appropriate on behalf of the institution to accept the gift.” The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a non-profit organiza- tion that evaluates and works with higher education leaders. A records request for the back- ground information drafted by ath- letic department and institutional advancement staff and presented to the board shows a document that did not reflect Cope’s entire past. Under the “Alternatives and Con- sequences” section, it says, “There are none. The proposal would bring a degree of highly merited recogni- tion to the Cope family for its generosity, and it is consistent with uni- versity naming policy.” THE BOARD REACTS Board members were notified of the past of the basketball court’s namesake from the Stater’s Jan. 6 article, which was posted on KentWired.com and later reposted by the Record-Courier, accord- ing to emails sent to and by board members. Charlene Reed, secretary to the Board of Trustees and chief of staff to the president, sent all 11 trustees a link to the story the evening it was published. “Whether it’s large gifts, academ- ic quality, or athletic programs, it is essential that boards be informed and engaged and ask questions,” Neal wrote in an email to the Stater fol- lowing the phone interview. “In too many places, they simply are rubber stamps, or left out in the dark.” A Jan. 7 email from trustee Pat- rick Mullin to Reed asked, “What does our current policy require as far as back group checks for major gifts?” Reed forwarded the email to Finn. “There is no established ‘policy’ but we do research on all of our high level prospects,” Finn responded about a background check. “Keep in mind that we did know about Cope’s past but felt it was no longer an issue based on the information we had. But obviously we still do not have a clear sense of what might still be out there for the SEC.” Finn did not respond to interview inquiries from the Stater to explain what information they had about Cope. In a brief telephone interview with Mullin on Jan. 25, the trustee confirmed he wasn’t informed of the donor’s past before voting to approve the resolution. “I don’t know anything about it, so I can’t really help you at all, other than what I read in the paper,” Mul- lin said. “I was not involved with this at all; I don’t know anything about it, and I’m not going to answer any follow-up questions.” Mullin hung up and promptly reported the call to Reed, who sent an email to the 11 board mem- bers and Lefton with the subject “URGENT-Heads up.” #KWCope
Transcript
The independent student newspaper of Kent State University Monday, February 13, 2012 BREAKING NEWS AT KENTWIRED.COM
DKSDAILY KENT STATER
MAJOR PLAYERS:Jason M. Cope•Found by the SEC to have defrauded 190 investors of $8.7 million in late 1999 and early 2000
•Pledged on March 17, 2011, to transfer $1 million in stock to the men’s basketball and golf programs
•Withdrew donation on Jan. 5, 2012
Joel Nielsen•Athletic director at Kent State since 2010
•Was the main contact in athletic department when discussing Cope with university administrators
Matt Geis•Associate athletic director and executive director for athletic advancement; leads Kent State’s athletic fundraising
•Cope’s main contact within the university
Lester Lefton•President of Kent State
Board of Trustees•“The governing body of the university,” according to its constitution
Eugene Finn•Vice president for institutional advancement; leads Kent State’s fundraising efforts
University Communications & Marketing•Iris Harvey, vice president for university relations and chief officer for marketing, communications and government relations
•Thomas Neumann, associate vice president of Uni-versity Communications & Marketing
•Emily Vincent, director of media relations
HOW WE REPORTED: Despite numerous attempts over two weeks, no
university employees associated with the Cope Court donation spoke to the Daily Kent Stater for this article. One trustee hung up his phone after one minute and another emailed one sentence saying she agreed with the university statement; the rest never talked.
The university administrators and board members featured in this article were all informed what would be published and ignored attempts for comment.
Information was gathered solely through obtaining public records, including hundreds of pages of emails with attachments sent to and from university admin-istrators, and audio and documents from the Dec. 13 Board of Trustees meeting.
On the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 27, Vincent emailed Daily Kent Stater reporter Doug Brown for a meet-ing first thing the following Monday morning with Nielsen, Finn, Harvey, Willis Walker, vice president for human resources and chief university counsel, and Charlene Reed, secretary to the Board of Trustees and chief of staff to the president. The Stater declined that meeting because they were prohibited from record-ing it on-camera and several records requests were not yet fulfilled.
Vincent and Neumann have since refused every interview attempt, even after the Stater promised to only record the audio to ensure accuracy. Numerous phone calls and emails to individually reach Lefton, Finn, Nielsen and Geis for comment all went ignored.
The Stater also contacted each board member through multiple emails and left messages for those with listed telephone numbers.
On Feb. 1, Vincent emailed the following statement: “The acceptance by the university of the Cope Family gift complied with all existing donor gift acceptance and naming rights policies. It also followed the nor-mal submission process with the usual level of detail being provided to the Board of Trustees. The Advance-ment and Athletics administrators who worked with the donor family considered the available public information regarding Mr. Cope. Their interpretation of the record was that the litigation is a decade old; he has made the required restitution; and no criminal charges have been made against him.”
“Beyond this statement, the university has nothing else to say at this time,” she wrote. She wouldn’t say what public information was considered or if they knew if he made the required restitution.
On Feb. 10, the Stater sent an email to Vincent, Neumann, Nielsen, Finn, Geis, Reed, Lefton and all 11 trustees, attempting for the last time to seek com-ment from anybody before this article was published.
Only Neumann responded. “Just to clarify, the Board Chair speaks on behalf of
the entire Board of Trustees, therefore her statement reflects comments from the entire Board. Similarly the university statement reflects the position of all those involved,” Neumann wrote.
Still, nobody from the university has answered questions.
The courting of CopeHundreds of emails obtained by the Daily Kent Stater under state open records laws document how:
From: Eugene, FinnSent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 6:32 PMTo: Reed, CharleneCc: Lefton, Lester; Nielsen, JoelSubject: Re: Record Courier Article Cope
From: Nielsen, JoelSent: Tuesday December 23, 2011 4:45 PMTo: Geis, Matt; Kleinlen ThomasSubject: RE: FYI – Cope Court approved by BOT today. Will be up on our site tomorrow morning.
Yep… was there to see the vote. Only question from a BOT member during the meeting was, “did we get enough $$ for the naming?” … I assured them we did.
Athletic Director Joel Nielsen sent this email after pitching the Cope Court resolution to the board. Nielsen didn’t inform the Board of Trustees of Cope’s past at the meeting.
From: Jason CopeSent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 8:52 PMTo: Geis, MattSubject: Fwd:
As my friends know, this is a very sensitive subject with me because I am not the type of person to act unethically in any way. Thank you for your personal support, loyalty, and friendship.
Cope’s first mention in emails of his SEC violations.
Kent State announced Friday the university would introduce its new provost Monday.
The four finalists for the job visited campus over a two-week period and took questions at forums with faculty and students. They are David Francko, the asso-ciate provost and dean of the Graduate School at the Univer-sity of Alabama; Todd Diacon, the deputy chancellor at University of Massachusetts Amherst; Bernard Mair, the associate provost for undergraduate affairs at the Uni-versity of Florida; and Kent State’s own Timothy Moerland, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Despite calls to several provost search committee members and the candidates themselves, there is no confirmation on who the next provost will be. President Lester Lefton makes the final decision.
Whoever is chosen will replace departing Provost Robert Frank, who accepted the presidency at the University of New Mexico, his alma mater, starting in Fall 2012.
As the press release states, the provost is Kent State’s chief aca-demic officer and is the second-highest ranking university official, behind Lefton.
The new provost will be intro-duced at an 11 a.m. conference with Lefton.
—Carrie Blazina, academics reporter for the Daily Kent Stater
In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a new proposal: If colleges and universities do not work toward decreasing net tuition prices, they risk losing federal money.
“For the last 3 years, our tuition increase has been about [3.5] per-cent. I believe two years prior to that, it was 0 [percent] because of state cap,” said Mark Evans, direc-tor of Student Financial Aid. “From what I recall, we could be going in a pattern of that [3.5] percent increase.”
According to the address, Kent State University is at risk of losing federal financial aid funding: Per-kins loans, work-study programs and grants designed to assist stu-dents from low-income families.
“Kent State University has around 18,000 students who rely on a Pell Grant, as an example, throughout the eight-campus sys-tem,” Evans said. “So if there were any reductions in the federal grant program, obviously it would have a negative impact on access to higher education.”
Conversely, the president said universities that continue to pro-vide more affordable options to students without increasing tuition would be rewarded with increases in financial aid funding. For exam-ple, the Perkins loan program would increase its funding from its current $1 billion to $8 billion.
“The federal government has not put any new money … in the Perkins loan program for the last six years, so any increase in the program would be welcomed, obviously,” Evans said.
The increase in Perkins loan funding, however, is a “two-edged sword” because students will be expected to pay the loan’s interest while enrolled at the university, Evans said.
“The proposal for a number of years was to convert [the Perkins loan program] to an unsubsidized one, meaning a student, then, is responsible for the interest while he or she is in school,” Evans said. “We’ll put more money into the program, but the student has to bear more of the interest responsibility.”
Kent State risks losing federal aid
SEE OBAMA, PAGE 4SEE COPE, PAGE 2
Flashses take victory on national stage against Ball State.
KENTWIRED.COMGo online to read emails, listen to audio from the board’s meeting and see documents presented to the board.
Jason M. Cope chose this logo for the court that would’ve been named after him and his wife had he not withdrawn his donation.
There is no established “policy” but we do research on all of our high level prospects. Keep in mind that we did know about Cope’s past but felt it was no longer an issue based on the information we had. But obvi-ously we still do not have a clear sense of what might still be out there for the SEC.
After the original Daily Kent Stater article was published, the university’s top fund-raiser responded to a trustee’s question about background checks for donors.
Jason M. Cope, a 1995 Kent State finance graduate, was one of four defendants required to pay more than $19 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for sell-ing 190 investors fraudulent stocks worth $8.7 million 12 years ago. His broker license was permanently revoked because of it.
Cope, who had previously giv-en about $13,000 over a four-year period to the Kent State Athletic Department, now runs two golf courses under the company Cope-land Group, LLC, and emails show he is still heavily involved in the stock market.
He pledged to transfer $1 mil-lion in stocks to the athletic depart-ment on March 17, 2011, according to emails sent to the athletic depart-ment. The university didn’t pub-
licly disclose the donation for nine months until the board officially approved it on Dec. 13.
Kent State’s Board of Trustees has given no indication it was aware of Cope’s past SEC violations when it voted unanimously to rename the basketball court “Cope Court” after he and his wife, Stacie, pledged $1 million.
“Yep… I was there for the vote,” Athletic Director Joel Nielsen reported to Matt Geis, associate athletic direc-tor and executive director for athletic advancement, and Tom Kleinlein, deputy athletic director, in an email immediately following the board’s approval. “Only question from a BOT member during the meeting was, ‘did we get enough $$ for the naming?’ … I assured them we did.”
Cope withdrew the dona-tion on the evening of Jan. 5 — nine days before Cope Court would have become official in an elaborately planned pregame ceremony and one day after emails show Nielsen warned him about the Stater working on a story about the SEC violations. That story was published on Jan. 6 and reposted online that evening by the Record-Courier. The Akron Beacon Journal and The Plain Deal-
er wrote about the withdrawal on Jan. 10.
University officials contend they were “well aware” of the donor’s SEC violations before Cope agreed to the $1 million donation.
THE BOARD APPROVESPresident Lester Lefton, Eugene
Finn, vice president of institutional advancement, and Nielsen present-
ed the “Cope Court” resolution to the Board of Trustees on Dec. 13.
The 11 trustees approved it —with no objections — in exactly two minutes. Board Chair Jacqueline Woods called the resolution “won-derful” and praised Nielsen and Finn for their “hard work on that.”
Nielson had known about Cope’s SEC violations since at least March. None of the documents prepared for the presentation to the trustees mentioned the violations, nor did
the oral presentation given that afternoon. The board has given no indication that it knew of the possi-bly controversial nature of the dona-tion before voting.
Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said in a phone interview on Jan. 30 that too often trustees don’t ask questions and aren’t fully informed before making decisions.
“As best as I can tell in this par-
ticular case, obviously questions were raised about the donor after the announcement of the gift,” Neal explained. “That should be up to the board to determine whether that was appropriate on behalf of the institution to accept the gift.” The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a non-profit organiza-
tion that evaluates and works with higher education leaders.
A records request for the back-ground information drafted by ath-letic department and institutional advancement staff and presented to the board shows a document that did not reflect Cope’s entire past.
Under the “Alternatives and Con-sequences” section, it says, “There are none. The proposal would bring a degree of highly merited recogni-
tion to the Cope family for its generosity, and it is consistent with uni-versity naming policy.”
THE BOARD REACTS Board members were
notified of the past of the basketball court’s namesake f rom the Stater ’s Jan. 6 article, which was posted on KentWired.com and later reposted by the Record-Courier, accord-ing to emails sent to and by board members.
Charlene Reed, secretary to the Board of Trustees and chief of staff to the president, sent all 11 trustees a link to the story the evening it was published.
“Whether it’s large gifts, academ-ic quality, or athletic programs, it is essential that boards be informed and engaged and ask questions,” Neal wrote in an email to the Stater fol-lowing the phone interview. “In too many places, they simply are rubber stamps, or left out in the dark.”
A Jan. 7 email from trustee Pat-rick Mullin to Reed asked, “What does our current policy require as far as back group checks for major gifts?”
Reed forwarded the email to Finn.
“There is no established ‘policy’ but we do research on all of our high level prospects,” Finn responded about a background check. “Keep in mind that we did know about Cope’s past but felt it was no longer an issue based on the information we had. But obviously we still do not have a clear sense of what might still be out there for the SEC.”
Finn did not respond to interview inquiries from the Stater to explain what information they had about Cope.
In a brief telephone interview with Mullin on Jan. 25, the trustee confirmed he wasn’t informed of the donor’s past before voting to approve the resolution.
“I don’t know anything about it, so I can’t really help you at all, other than what I read in the paper,” Mul-lin said. “I was not involved with this at all; I don’t know anything about it, and I’m not going to answer
any follow-up questions.”Mullin hung up and promptly
reported the call to Reed, who sent an email to the 11 board mem-bers and Lefton with the subject “URGENT-Heads up.”
#KWCope
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Daily Kent StaterPage 2 | Monday, February 13, 2012
From Page 1 COPEThe courting of Cope
In the email, Reed warned the board members about a reporter asking about the trustees’ knowledge of the donor, and reminded them about “keeping with the Board’s protocol” by directing any communication to Woods, the board chair.
On Jan. 31, the Stater emailed Woods and requested an interview. The email laid out for Woods how the Stater’s examination of the university officials’ email conversations showed the board was unaware of Cope’s past before approving his donation.
A day later, the Stater received a response from Reed with a statement on behalf of Woods: “The sub-mission to the Board of Trustees of the Cope Family naming gift followed all normal university practices and policies regarding donor gifts including the level of detail that was provided to the board.”
“At the end of the day, trustees are legally respon-sible for the academic and financial health of their organization, and they are ultimately accountable for decisions of the institution,” Neal said. “If they don’t know what’s going on or haven’t insisted on a full briefing when there are complex matters, they are not doing their job.”
Despite numerous interview requests and emails sent by the Stater, the only direct response from Woods came in a Feb. 4 email: “I am out of town and agree with the statement the University has provided.”
Emily Vincent, director of media relations, who was informed of the specific topics being reported for
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this article, did not respond to numerous requests for recorded interviews with Lefton, Nielsen, Finn, Geis and all members of the Board of Trustees. Multiple phone and email messages left for those individuals were ignored. Specific questions relevant to this story were never answered. On Jan. 27, Vin-cent did offer a collective interview with Reed, Nielsen, Finn, Willis Walker, vice president for human resources and chief university counsel, and Iris Harvey, vice president for university relations and chief officer for marketing, com-munications and government relations, but specified the interview could not be recorded on video. The Stater declined the group inter-view on the grounds that it could not be video recorded but later attempted to arrange other interviews through Vincent, specifying the meetings would be taped on a digital audio recorder. Vincent did not reply to the requests for interviews but replied with the university’s statements.
THE PRESS ASKS QUESTIONSOn Dec. 21, emails showed Tom Nader,
Record-Courier sports editor, was the first to ask if the athletic department was aware of Cope’s SEC violations.
“He wasn’t really looking to do any-thing negative with it, just asking more if we were aware of it before moving forward with the court name,” relayed Todd Vat-ter, interim director of athletic communi-cations, to Nielsen, Tom Kleinlein, deputy director of athletics, and Geis on Dec 22. Nielsen responded and said, “We were aware of the 2000 SEC case,” and copied into the email Harvey and Tom Neumann, associate vice president of marketing and communi-cations, Finn, Steve Sokany, senior associate vice president of institutional advancement, Lefton, Reed and Walker. “Todd, let’s get with [University Communications & Marketing] to discuss drafting a response to media should this question arise again.”
UCM worked with the athletic department and institutional advancement for the next two weeks on a statement that said they were aware of Cope’s history and still supported the court naming.
Although emails showed the Record-Couri-er had the information about Cope on Dec. 21, before other media, the paper didn’t publish anything until it reposted the Jan. 6 story by the Stater on its website.
“I told them to go slow on it because I didn’t know the validity of it, and I didn’t want to mess up a relationship between Kent State and a donor,” said David Dix, Record-Courier publisher, in a Jan. 26 telephone inter-view about why his paper held off. “I just said be very careful because if it’s wrong and if we cause them to lose a million dollars, or what-ever they were going to get, they will never forgive us. Whereas a student newspaper, they will just chalk it up to youthful indiscretion.”
Hours before the Stater interviewed Nielsen for its Jan. 6 story, the university had finished drafting the statement and had it approved by Cope.
At 12:25 p.m. on Jan. 4, an email from
Vatter to Nielsen, Neumann, Vincent, Iris Har-vey and Geis showed what took two weeks to draft.
“The university was well aware of the past litigation involving Jason Cope before begin-ning the discussions about his recent gift to Kent State,” it read. “Jason is a proud alumnus and has been a loyal supporter of our athlet-ics program for many years. He has an unde-niable passion for the academic and athletic pursuits of our student-athletes.”
At 5:10 p.m., Nielsen emailed top univer-sity administrators saying he had spoken to a Stater reporter about Cope Court.
“I essentially gave him the language from our statement verbatim,” he wrote. “I’d antic-ipate he’ll write a story for publication next week. Nothing new came from the conversa-tion. I also spoke directly with Jason [Cope] this afternoon to alert him of this individuals interest in the ‘story.’”
Cope withdrew his $1 million donation in a short email to Nielsen on the evening of Jan. 5.
“Joel,” said Cope, “I am very sorry to inform you that due to an unforeseen change in my personal situation I will need to cancel my gift to the athletic department. I hope that the situation here changes going forward, and I will keep you informed if and when it does. Regretfully, Jason Cope.”
The withdrawal came a day after emails showed Nielsen saying he warned Cope about the Stater writing an article about his past SEC violations and 42 minutes after Vatter forwarded a message to Nielsen and Geis that the Stater had unsuccessfully tried to reach Cope at his home in an attempt to interview him about his past and the donation.
It was also two days after Cope approved the university statement saying it was aware of his violations and was standing behind his donation and three days after Cope sent in the information for transferring the first $60,000 of his donation.
THE BENEFITS OF GIVINGCope and his wife, Stacie, flew with the
Kent State football team to its season opening game against Alabama on Sept. 3. In emails to Casey Wolf, assistant athletic director for foot-ball operations, Geis asked for their son to be added to the flight at the last minute.
“Sorry about the late notice but this is important,” wrote Geis at 3:45 p.m. Sept. 1, two days before the game. After Wolf answered, “I’ll do my best,” Geis reiterated the request’s importance: “Thanks. This is the guy who recently gave us $1M.”
A couple of weeks earlier, Cope indicated in an email that Geis bought his wife jewelry.
“Again, THANK YOU for the ring and necklace for Stacie,” wrote Cope. “We both love them! She is wearing hers today. I look forward to hanging with you soon.”
Cope also asked Geis for free tickets to multiple Kent State basketball games, includ-ing last year’s MAC tournament, where Geis provided four tickets and invited Cope to his suite.
Geis also indicated in an email that he was getting tickets to the NCAA basketball tourna-ment in Houston last year.
“Final Four tickets will be sent to me mid week,” wrote Geis to Cope. “Hotel rooms are already booked in downtown Houston at the Omni — walking distance to the arena. I’ll send you all of that information.”
Giving free tickets to games is a common occurrence for large donors, said a former athletic department fundraiser who retired from the athletic advancement staff just over a decade ago.
“They are giving you a ton of money, you give them tickets in return,” he said.
Large donors regularly travel with teams to away games when there is room available.
“Somewhere like Kent State, you would want to fill up the plane rather than have it three quarters full,” he said.
But he doesn’t recall the advancement staff
giving donors some of the other perks indi-cated in the emails between Geis and Cope.
“I don’t ever remember any gifts of any sort,” he said, referencing the jewelry and Final Four tickets. “I don’t know how that would work exactly.”
Geis never responded to phone calls and emails over a period of two weeks to explain his correspondence with Cope.
RARELY DISCUSSEDDespite the university’s statement that they
were “well aware” of Cope’s SEC violations, it was never discussed in the hundreds of pages of emails from Kent State officials until they began drafting statements for the press on Dec. 22—nine days after the board of trustees approved the donation.
Within the context of the emails, no one expressed any hesitation about accepting Cope’s donation, nor was there any acknowl-edgment or anticipation that the public might react negatively to naming the basketball court after him.
Instead, Kent State’s communications spe-cialists worked with athletic department and institutional advancement staff to emphasize Cope’s commitment to Kent State sports.
The only mention of the violations from Cope came in a Jan. 3 email to Geis, after he was told the Stater would be interviewing Nielsen about the donation. He attached a New York Times article that told a story about the other main figure in the fraud case, Ira Monas, and how “he acted alone,” according to Cope.
“I think it is bad to get in debate over this, and agree with the strategy to try to make it a non event and move forward,” he wrote to Geis. “As my friends know, this is a very sensi-tive subject with me because I am not the type of person to act unethically in any way. Thank you for your personal support, loyalty, and friendship.”
The Times article Cope sent in an effort to clear his name was published on Feb. 27, 2001. Five months later, on Aug. 14, 2001, the United States district court issued the $19 mil-lion judgment against Cope, Monas and their companies.
Cope was suspended from the National Association of Securities Dealers in 2002 because of the violations, and then officially barred in 2003 “from association with any [NASD] member in any capacity” after not challenging the suspension, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Doug Brown is a senior enterprise reporter for the Daily Kent Stater.
Sales Manager Paul Gimmel 330-672-0888 Senior account executive Korie Culleiton 330-672-2697Account executive Heather Fesenmyer330-672-2585 Account executive India Hines 330-672-2585
Account executive Andres Solano 330-672-2697TV2 Executive Bridgette O’Reilly330-672-2590Kentwired & BSR Executive Andy Rolinc330-672-3251Campus Cash & Kent Cribs ExecutiveTommy Grasso330-672-3251
CORRECTIONSIn Thursday’s Daily Kent Stater, in the
photo story on Page B4 titled “Scrapbook Family,” the subjects photographed were unaware of the tone of the story, and they were not told that it would be submitted for publication. Because of a photogra-pher’s error, the photos and cutlines did not accurately portray the current situa-tion of the individuals.
STOCK TRANSFER:
•Cope’s donation was to be split between the men’s basketball and men’s golf teams. Cope was the college roommate of assistant golf coach Rob Wakeling.
•The $1 million donation was to be made up of a transfer of stocks over a period of years from Cope to the university, which “may offer better tax benefits than a gift of cash,” according to the university website — a common practice for donors.
•Although Cope committed to the donation last March, the university received the stock information on Jan. 3. He often didn’t respond to emails from Geis and KSU Foundation employees inquiring about send-ing his stock information. It left athletic department employees wondering for months about when they could start their projects, and where Cope wanted to designate his money be spent.
SPENDING THE MONEY:
•The first priority for spending Cope’s donation was to attract basketball recruits through a $50,000 basket-ball office upgrade.
•Three months earlier, Nielsen, Geis and Kleinlein began to discuss where the money would go. Kleinlein was an advocate for the basketball office upgrade “to show some emphasis in that area similar to what we have done in football.”
•Nielsen, on the other hand, wasn’t sold on the idea, saying the pressure for the upgrades “is partly a carry-over from Geno bitching to the staff about not getting anything,” he wrote about former basketball coach Geno Ford, with whom the university opened a lawsuit after he was hired away by Bradley last March. “Also, the urgency from the basketball coaches is specifically tied to doing the work for football… just wait until other sports start chirping.”
•He suggested Cope’s money go to “paying off some of our accumulated debt,” an idea that Geis said Cope wouldn’t approve.
•“If we continue to have a prolonged recession, which appears to be the case, we’ll have to be cog-nizant of operating budget money and our ability to cover any funds that might go away in future annual budgets – we are not in control of 80% of our rev-enue,” Nielsen wrote. “It’s great to build new things, but we still need to pay the bills each June 30.”
•Three months later, Geis asked Cope to consider the office upgrades first.
CAMPUS CALENDAR
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
TUESDAY
MONDAY
ContaCt Leighann MCgivern with your event inforMation at [email protected]
n Girls’ Night When: 7 – 9 p.m. Where: MLC, 2nd floor KSC
n Puss in Boots When: 11 p.m. Where: Kiva
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THURSDAY
WEDNESDAYFor the week of Feb. 13 to 18
KENTWIRED.COMGo online to read more on this story.
Equating sports with war
Daily Kent Stater Monday, February 13, 2012 | Page 3
Jeers Cheers & of the Day
NATE BEELER’S VIEW
VIEWourJody Michael
Columnist
Seth CohenColumnist
Cheer: Cheers to the men’s basketball team for beating Ball State on Saturday.
Jeer: Jeers to the students who didn’t come to a nationally televised game.
OPINIONThe Opinion Page is an outlet for our community’s varied opinions.
editor: taylor rogers
opinion editor: Courtney Kerrigan
managing editor for visuals: Jennifer shore
managing editor: raytevia evans assigning editor: daniel mooreed
itori
al
subm
issi
ons The Stater hopes to encourage lively debate about the issues of the
day on the Opinion Page. Opinions on this page are the authors’ and not necessarily en dorsed by the Stater or its editors. Readers are encouraged to participate through letters to the editor (email them to [email protected]) and guest columns. Submis-sions become pro perty of the Stater and are subject to editing without notice.
“The Office” ran an episode this season in which Andy, the new boss, takes his employees on a field trip to Gettysburg for inspiration because “business is war.” It was stupid, like most episodes have been since Steve Carell left, but it ended with Jim thank-fully knocking some sense into Andy.
“Andy, this whole idea of our situ-ation being just like war? It’s just not true,” Jim said. “We just work at a paper company.”
It seems easy to slip into the anal-ogy that something completely unlike war is somehow exactly like war. It happens in politics — polarizing the parties into absolute opposites like “leaders” and “enemies,” referring to debates and primary elections as “battles.”
I would argue that the worst offender of war rhetoric is the sports industry; and within the sports indus-try, Nike Inc. undoubtedly takes the cake.
In 2009, Nike Inc. created special one-time uniform designs for 10 col-lege football teams. Dubbed the “Pro Combat” line, the company made a big deal about their uniforms being 37 per-cent lighter than the standard design. But the real intention was obvious: Sell more jerseys, make more money.
Schools with timeless uniforms like Ohio State and Louisiana State Univer-sity now had outlandish new designs to wear. Clearly, Nike Inc. hated that some of its clients preferred tradition over tweaking uniforms each year, just to have another new product to sell. “Pro Combat” solved that untapped revenue stream.
That’s not the worst part. To make these designs seem extremely impor-tant, and to pretend that the incentive for making them wasn’t for profit, Nike Inc. lavished its marketing with war references.
Florida State’s design paid tribute to Native American warriors. Mis-souri’s apparently drew inspiration from the state’s Air Force base. Virginia Tech hyped its uniform unveiling by parking a Humvee on campus adorned with Nike Inc. swooshes.
Press releases mentioned “college gridiron warriors” wearing “next-generation battle gear” and the slogan “Prepare for Combat.” My dictionary defines “combat” as “fighting between armed forces,” which football teams are not. Nevertheless, three years later, Nike Inc. continues to make new “Pro Combat” uniforms.
Others are also at fault: Teams of every sport and level often wear cam-ouflage uniforms under the guise of supporting troops, but that’s the type of “slack-tivism” that does absolutely nothing.
Uni Watch blogger Paul Lukas com-mented, “Much like a ‘Support Our Troops’ car magnet, a camo uniform is an empty gesture that makes the gesturer feel good but demands no sacrifice, no contribution, nothing sub-stantive.”
I consider it just another attempt to elevate athletes to the status of actual military members who put their lives at stake for their country.
Last week, this comparison of sports with war reached its apex. New York has held ticker-tape parades for servicemen from World War II and the Vietnam, Gulf and Korean wars. Nearly two months since the Iraq War ended, Mayor Michael Bloomberg still refuses to hold a parade for those veterans.
Two days after the Super Bowl, Times Square held a celebration for the New York Giants.
Jody Michael is a junior broadcast journalism major and columnist
In 2007, the treasure-hunting company Odyssey made a spectacular discovery, locating the wreck of the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frig-ate laced with over $500 million dollars worth of gold coins. This historical and potentially profit-able find was quickly overshad-owed, however, by a prolonged legal battle over the possession of the treasure, a case just recently settled in favor of the Spanish government.
Of course, the issue of dis-puted possession is nothing new in the field of archaeology. The primacy of possession versus “finders-keepers” ideology has proved both complex and conten-tious, leading to a number of dip-lomatic disputes between various European countries (notably Eng-land, France, and Germany) and the former colonies from which these goods were extracted. England, for example, is still in possession of countless Greek and Egyptian artifacts, despite having recently returned a few gems such as King Tut’s burial mask. When sorting out these possession claims, a question of time arises; did the statue of limitations for ownership already expire on these goods if they’ve been lost for a certain amount of time? What if the govern-ment of a country initially gave permission to another govern-
ment to take the artifacts? Did they have that right? On top of this, there is the issue of items that reflect the cultural heritage of one country, but are located within the borders of another (i.e. Greek ruins in Turkey, or Roman ruins in Lebanon).
Such issues are complicated enough for discoveries made on land, when items are found clearly on the soil of one country, but with shipwrecks, counter-claims that started as complex can become almost impossible to sort out. In the case of the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, for example, the gold coins were recovered in international waters, so no country had ter-ritorial claims. Furthermore, like today, not all ships actually belonged to a country 200 years ago; they were often the property of private merchants, meaning that countries, like Spain, could lack a legitimate claim in many circumstances. In addition, with regards to the latest legal battle, Odyssey argued that these coins shouldn’t belong to the Spanish, regardless of the current legiti-macy of the government’s claim, as these gold coins originally came about as a result of Spain’s
unjust exploitation of the colonies in America.
The last and most hotly debat-ed issue has been that of identi-fication. The inherently decrepit state of an ancient shipwreck makes a positive identification of the ship possible. This was the most hotly contended issue in the Atlanta and Tampa courts where the trial took place. In the end, it was ruled that a ship need not be conclusively identified in order to determine its national origin, a determination that precluded Odyssey from keeping the gold-laced shipwreck.
While this decision may be a short-term victory for Spain, in the long term it creates an incen-tive problem that may drasti-cally inhibit the future discovery of archaeological treasures. Treasure recovery, after all, is extremely expensive and would not be something into which the austerity-stricken Spanish government, or any govern-ment for that matter, is likely to invest. If the interpretations of laws regarding aquatic archaeo-logical finds remain tilted against private companies and treasure seekers to this extent, it is unclear how many shipwrecks and his-torical artifacts will unnecessarily remain lost.
Harvard Political Review, Har-vard U. via UWIRE
As the primaries get underway from Minnesota to Maine, Newt Gingrich was quoted in many of his speeches comparing himself to former President Ronald Reagan, a favored Republican during his administration. It’s 2012, but he’s acting like it’s 1976.
1976 was the year Reagan ran his steeled primary campaign as tough and demanding as humanly possible against Gerald Ford.
As history shows, Reagan ran with backbreaking effort after he lost Illinois, New Hampshire, Florida and Iowa. In mid-March, Reagan rose to the top as he won North Carolina. He then started winning the late Southern and Western primaries. It was not enough to defeat Ford, but Reagan went all the way to the Republican convention. Jimmy Carter ended up winning, but after four years, Reagan finally made it to the West Wing.
Gingrich has worked with Rea-gan before, but in Reagan’s diary, he only mentions the name Gin-grich once. While Gingrich may look up to Reagan as the man who made a name and reputation for the Republican Party, Reagan him-self wasn’t too fond of Gingrich’s ideas.
Gingrich does refer to Reagan quite often, and at times claims that he worked closely with the president in the 1980s.
According to staff writer Nate Silver of The New York Times, Gingrich has actually dropped the name Reagan 55 times. Politico and The Washington Post revealed several quotes from “The Reagan Diaries,” Jan. 3, 1983, with one quote mentioning Gingrich’s name, and it’s not very flattering.
“Met with a group of young Repub. Congressmen,” Reagan wrote. “Newt Gingrich has a pro-posal for freezing the budget at the 1983 level. It’s a tempting idea except that it would cripple our defense program. And if we make an exception on that every special interest group will be asking for the same.”
Snap! Not to say Gingrich is a horrible candidate, but his ide-als and future aspirations for the country were not even Reagan-seal approved. If only Reagan had lived seven years longer to see Gingrich turn into this veteran Republican candidate, would he have written a new paragraph in his diary?
“No, I’m talking about using every asset available to the United States,” Gingrich said in the Flor-ida primary. “Including appropri-ate covert operations to maximize the distance, what Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher did to the Soviet empire, bring together every asset we have to minimize the survival of the dictatorship and to maximize the chance for freedom in Cuba.”
Doesn’t seem like Reagan’s view would have changed — even if Gingrich is promoting him in a positive light. Although they have the same political beliefs, Gingrich and Reagan are two completely different people. To be fair, we all have idols or role models in our lives that we worship, some more than others. We tell ourselves that we’re going to be like them, but when it comes down to it we are nothing like our role models. They influence us and we hope to suc-ceed as they did, and these same constrictions fall on Gingrich as long as his campaign is driven by the Reagan ideals. For now, I want to hear what Gingrich has to say — not Reagan.
Seth Cohen is a senior magazine journalism major and columnist for
Remember the quick and expensive transi-tion in high school when the purse your mom bought you at Kohl’s was replaced by a splurge on purses from Coach, Dooney & Bourke and Louis Vuitton?
It’s arguable that the black leather depart-ment store bag was as good as, if not better than, the bag with the label and the hefty price tag. Fast forward to our college years, where along with paying for purses we’re paying to not get pregnant, and Georgia Republic archi-tect Irakli Kiziria crafted something to appeal to your inner trend-loving self: a Louis Vuitton condom.
In traditional brown packaging, the con-doms also have raised LVs in the rubber. Six packs of 12 regular-sized condoms retails for $68, but they aren’t actually endorsed by the legendary design team.
“In fact, Kiziria has no affiliation with the Louis Vuitton company and drafted the con-doms in collaboration with Design Provocation
as a design-project,” according to the Huff-ington Post. “The team hoped to launch the product on World AIDS Day and donate the proceeds to AmfAR, The Foundation For AIDS Research.”
While we can appreciate the philanthropic nature of Kiziria, we’re concerned about the lawsuits waiting to happen. If Louis Vuitton didn’t sanction the production, this could cost the architect more money than the condoms raise for charity.
It is good that there are people out there gearing condoms toward the demographic that needs them — but tends to not use them — however, in this case, there’s no guarantee that purchasing the luxury rubber will actually benefit AIDS research.
Remember Kent State, practice safe sex, but don’t be stupid with your spending.
The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board whose names
are listed above.
We don’t condone these condoms
Summary: Louis Vuitton condoms are pricey and don’t offer more protection.
Gabriel RosenGuest Columnist
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Daily Kent StaterPage 4 | Monday, February 13, 2012
But with the national stu-dent loan debt continuing to climb — and the public becom-ing increasingly aware of this problem — it’s unsurprising financial aid reform is such a prominent issue.
Ohio, specifically, has dras-tically decreased its grant funding to its state universities over the last few years.
Four years ago, the maxi-mum award amount for a state grant was $2,496, Evans said. That amount has decreased almost 75 percent to a maxi-mum award of $672.
Despite the state’s drastic funding cuts and the increase in the university’s tuition, Kent State has worked to provide scholarships and other afford-ability options to students.
The university instituted the Last Dollar Scholarship fund two years ago, Evans said, through which President Lefton “challenged faculty and
staff to participate in a new initiative … where they could contribute part of their income to a scholarship.” To date, over $100,000 has been collected and donated to the fund.
In fall 2011, the university created a scholarship-match program for incoming Pell Grant-eligible freshman, Evans said. If students obtained exter-nal scholarships, Kent State would match those scholar-ships as an “incentive to moti-vate students to go out and look for those local scholar-ships.” More than 200 students qualified and brought in close to $500,000 in scholarships.
The university also offers a variety of payment plans, including a three-month semester payment plan, a 10-month annual payment plan and a 42-month payment plan, Evans added.
“At Kent State, we really are following any opportu-nity that the federal govern-ment provides … to make it easier for students,” Evans said. “Kent State is definitely investing in students to make [college] more affordable.”
As for Obama’s proposal, Evans said it was too early to tell how it would affect Kent State students.
“We have been dealing with more changes in federal programs in the last three years than in the 30 years I’ve been working in financial aid, so the likelihood of changes continuing to occur is 100 percent,” Evans said. “Obvi-ously, it won’t look identical to [Obama’s] proposal, but … this is a process to continue to make college affordable.”
Evans recommends, in the meantime, students focus on filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the next award year.
“This is the time of the year that you want to reapply for financial aid for next year,” Evans said. “We have a pri-ority process date. We would like families to complete [the FAFSA] next week … so the student could be reviewed for the maximum amount of aid available.”
Rex Santus is the administra-tion reporter for the Daily Kent
Stater.
A WINTRY WRECK
JACOB BYK | DAILY KENT STATERJim Tomlanovich, from Merrill, WS, walks through the snow next to the car that his semi-truck acciden-tally rammed into on I-80 West on Saturday afternoon right outside of Streetsboro. Tomlanovich “took the guard rail,” to avoid hitting anyone, but ended up hitting someone anyway.
From Page 1 OBAMAKent State risks losing financial aid
Daily Kent Stater Monday, February 13, 2012 | Page 5
By Nancy Black
Today’s Birthday (02/13/12) Rely on your team to go all the way; aren’t networks amazing? Grow yours this year. Your friends are your most valuable wealth, gifting you with laughter and love, fabulous ideas and surprises. Pay it forward, even in advance. Plant seeds of kindness.
To get the advantage, check the day’s rating: 10 is the easiest day, 0 the most challenging.
Aries (March 21-April 19) Today is an 8. Mercury is in Pisces from today until March 2nd, shifting to a flowing, live-in-the-moment per-spective on communications. Relax. Talk about it as it comes.
Taurus (April 20-May 20) Today is an 8. Take time for mind, body and spirit. You may find yourself tempted to a more “laissez-faire” point of view. Let it be.
Gemini (May 21-June 21) Today is a 9. Utilize your best administrative and management skills to handle the workload today. Find support from an expert and generate even better results than you expected.
Cancer (June 22-July 22) Today is an 8. Invent a fun, new game at work, a new vision for the future. Release cynicism or fear. Imagine the world you’d like to see for your children and contribute to that.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) Today is an 8. Spend time with friends, and figure out how you can work together. Networking benefits your career for the next few weeks. Let people know what you’re up to, what you want, what you can offer.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Today is an 8. Your partner seems more perceptive, and you have an easier time expressing yourself through the end of the month. How about writing a book? Find your voice.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Today is a 9. Organization increases income. Explore the great human mysteries of life, death and love. Keep listening and gain insight.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Today is a 9. You’re in charge, and you know it. How do you define “success”? It’s more powerful if it in-cludes laughing at yourself. It doesn’t last forever, so enjoy.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Today is a 7. Indulge your social yearnings. It’s in your interest to talk to a person of higher position. What could you create together? Let go of a preconception.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Today is an 8. Get in touch with spe-cial friends you haven’t seen in a long time. Make a phone call, write an email or even send an old-fashioned love letter.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Today is a 9. Today you’re especially attuned to creating new business. Launch a marketing campaign, and contact clients you appreciate.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) Today is a 7. There’s so much to do today, and you have the power to make it happen. Do the research, but don’t let it slow you down. You’re a steam locomotive.
horoscopePregnant? Need to talk? Call Preg-nancy Center of Kent 330-839-9919
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All real estate advertised herein is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to ad-vertise “any preference, limitation or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, fa-milial status, or national origin, or intention to make any such pref-erence, limitation or discrimina-tion.” State and local laws forbid discrimination based on factors in addition to those protected under federal law. We will not knowingly accept any advertising for real es-tate that is in violation of the law. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are available on an equal opportunity basis. If you feel you have been wrongfully denied housing or dis-criminated against, call the FHAA at 330-253-2450 for more informa-tion.
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Classified ads can be placed by FAX at (330) 672-4880, over the phone at (330) 672-2586 or by e-mail at [email protected]. If you fax or e-mail an ad, please be sure to include run dates, payment info and a way for us to contact you.
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Amid a snow storm and after an unusually early start, Kent State defeated Ball State, 76-55, Saturday at the M.A.C. Center.
In front of a national tele-vision audience, the Flashes extended their winning streak against Mid-American Confer-ence West Division opponents to an even 30 games.
“I didn’t want to talk about [the streak] until we were done playing the West,” coach Rob Senderoff said. “Because like a baseball pitcher throwing a no-hitter, you don’t want to talk about it. It’s a great accomplish-ment for our players.”
Kent State’s Justin Greene was matched up with one of the best forwards in the confer-ence, Ball State’s Jarrod Jones. Greene not only scored 18 points, but also held Jones, who entered the game averaging 16.7 points per game, to a mea-ger seven points. Jones made just two of 12 shot attempts as Greene played well both offen-sively and defensively to lead the Flashes to their sixth victory in a row.
“Jarrod Jones and [Greene] came in the same year,” Sen-deroff said. “There were a number of NBA scouts here to see [Jones] ... when you’re at the same position as [Jones] and you’re compared to him because Jones was the fresh-man of the year, you play with a chip on your shoulder against that person. Justin cer-tainly does that and he did that today.”
“That started my freshman year,” Greene said. “[Former head coach Geno Ford] used to mess with me a lot. Tried to motivate me and tell me Jarrod Jones has the freshman of the year in his hands and it’s all his, he’s the best in our class. I always take it personal playing against him. I know he’s one of the best players in the league and one of the best bigs in the league as well, so I’ve got to try to match his intensity and out-play him. Especially at home and on national television, I don’t want to get exposed.”
With the win , Greene remained undefeated in his career versus MAC West opponents.
“Justin Greene, he hasn’t lost a game to the MAC West,” Senderoff said. “That’s a great accomplishment for him, something he can take with him forever.”
“It feels real good, [it’s the] regular season though,” Greene said. “You never know, we might see them in the MAC Tournament, but I don’t plan on losing to them then either.”
The streak, which dates back to Feb. 2, 2008, includes MAC Tournament games, and Kent State is likely to face at least one MAC West opponent in the tournament.
“We may still play one of these teams in the MAC Tour-nament,” Senderoff said. “A lot of these games have been very close and come down to the wire. Our kids have found a way to win. It’s obviously a great accomplishment. For our seniors, there’s still a 50-50 chance that we’re going to face somebody again from the West and we’ll have to play well.”
Four players scored in dou-ble-digits for Kent State in the victory: Junior guard Randal Holt scored 13 points, senior guard Carlton Guyton scored 14 points and junior forward Chris Evans came off the bench to score 11 points for the Flashes.
Evans was again the pro-vider of highlight-reel plays, including an alley-oop in the first half that was part of a 16-5 run that gave Kent State an 11-point lead.
“I’ve never seen anybody jump like Chris Evans,” Greene said. “He’s crazy athletic. He’s put in the right system with us. We love to run so as soon as we get a rebound, we’re ready to push it and you’re going to find him on that wing running for the alley-oop. Mike [Porrini] and Scootie [Carlton Guyton] and Randal [Holt] do a great job looking for him. They put it anywhere, all he’s got to do is go get it.”
“That dunk today should be on [SportsCenter] top 10,” Greene said. “I hope it is. Try to get us some recognition and get him some recognition.”
Ball State started the second half on a 10-2 run to come with-in a point of tying Kent State, but the Flashes responded with a 20-6 run to take a 60-40 lead with 10:17 remaining in the game. The Flashes remained
ahead for the rest of the game and came away with a 21-point victory.
Kent State’s hopes of earn-ing their third regular season title in a row looked unlikely after the Flashes fell to both Ohio and Akron. With a con-ference record of 2-3, Senderoff and his seniors met to discuss the state of the team and their aspirations for winning another championship.
“We just talked about how time is running out and you’ve got to play the right way every game to win,” Senderoff said. “We watched the last 12 min-utes of the Akron game and from that point on. Our kids have just really focused on winning each game. We haven’t talked about anything big-pic-ture, except to say that every-thing is still in front of them. By doing that, we’ve been able to keep rattling off wins and now we’re in the home stretch.”
Since the discussion, Kent State has won six straight con-ference games and will face the MAC East again starting Tuesday when the Flashes host Buffalo.
“These last six games, we’ve been defending the ball and rebounding a little better,” Greene said. “As we continue to get better at those two things, we can keep this thing rolling into the MAC East and right on into the MAC Tournament.”
The game between Kent State and Buffalo is set to begin at 7 p.m.
Nick Shook is the men’s bas-ketball reporter for Daily Kent
After reaching the semi-finals of the National Duals Championship, Kent State fell hard to Minnesota and found itself out of the tournament.
The Flashes reached the semi-finals after defeating Rut-gers 19-13 in the first round. However, they had little suc-cess against Minnesota, fall-ing 35-3. Before the loss to the Golden Gophers, the Flashes win streak in dual meets hit 11-straight.
Minnesota, ranked No. 4 in the nation by the National Wrestling Coaches Associa-tion poll, controlled most of the dual, winning nine out of 10 matches against the Flashes. The Gophers earned a pin, a technical fall, and three major decisions in the matchup.
“Minnesota is a very good team,” coach Jim Andrassy said. “We just didn’t match up well against them.”
Junior Mallie Shuster scored the only points for the Flashes against Minnesota with an 8-4 victory. He was also the only Kent State wrestler to go 2-0 for the day.
The Flashes (13-5, 5-0 MAC) looked good at the start against Rutgers, as senior Nic Bedelyon earned an 11-0 major decision over the Scarlet Knights’ Vin-cent Dellafave. The dual went back and forth for a while until Kent State got back-to-back victories from Shuster and senior Ross Tice. Shuster was one point away from scoring a major decision against Dave Seidenberg, and Tice earned a 9-3 victory over Doug Hamann.
With Kent State leading 16-13 going into the final match, senior heavyweight Brendan Barlow’s match against Rut-gers’ Carl Buchholz went into overtime tied at two. In the sec-ond overtime period, Barlow scored a swift takedown for the 4-2 sudden victory, securing the win for the Flashes.
Bedelyon, who is ranked No. 4 nationally in the 125-pound weight class, according to Inter-Mat, suffered only his third loss of the season against No. 2 Zach Sanders of Minnesota. Bedelyon’s only losses this sea-son have come against higher-ranked opponents, one loss to Sanders and two losses to No. 3 Alan Waters of Missouri.
The Gophers took the
first four matches against the Flashes, two of them by major decision. After Shuster’s win, Minnesota won the last five matches.
Barlow wrestled his sec-ond overtime match of the day against Minnesota’s Anthony Nelson, who is ranked No. 4 in the nation by InterMat. Barlow had an early lead, but Nelson ultimately won 5-4 after a sec-ond tiebreaker.
The Flashes were once again without freshman Ian Miller, who has missed the last four meets after being injured against Central Michigan. Senior Marcel Clopton fought hard in his place but lost to two top 10 opponents.
Minnnesota went on to defeat Missouri in the finals to take first place in the National Dual regionals.
Kent State will compete in their last dual meet of the season next Saturday against Clarion University.
Tim Dorst is the wrestling reporter for the Daily Kent Stater.
Wrestling team falls in semi-finals of National Duals Championship
Gymnastics coach Brice Biggin says his Flashes must learn to take the positive things they’re doing in practice and apply them when it really matters — in meets.
“Some of the girls get out there and let their emotions get the best of them,” Biggin said.
The Kent State gymnastics team fell to conference rival Central Michigan Saturday 194.475 to 193.550. This win is the Chippewas’ 26th straight win against MAC opponents.
Through the first two rotations, the Flash-es were well within striking distance as they executed some solid routines on both the vault and bars.
Freshman Whitnee Johnson topped the vault competition with a 9.850, and senior Rachel Goldenberg tied for second.
Junior Rachel Guida and senior Erin Rochrock posted matching 9.800 scores on bars. That score earned them a tie for second place in the event, but was not enough to push the Flashes ahead.
“Some girls gave some good routines in those first two rotations,” Biggin said. “We felt we were still within reach, but we know we would have to go out and execute.”
Execute is something the Flashes did not do.
“Things changed a little bit when we got to the floor,” Biggin said.
He said major mistakes by two gymnasts caused the Flashes to begin to slip farther from gaining the lead.
“We just couldn’t fully get the momen-tum,” Biggin said.
The Flashes, trailing 145.825 to 145.700, headed into the final rotation and two Kent State falls on the balance beam were enough to allow Central Michigan to secure the win.
Biggin said the balance beam has been distressing the Flashes this season. He said although the team is showing improvement on the apparatus in practice, the time spent is simply not enough.
“It takes more than a couple good weeks of practice on the beam to get it right,” Biggin
said. “We just need to keep plugging away.” Next week, the Flashes return home to take
on Northern Illinois for the annual Flip for the Cure breast cancer fundraiser.
“Hopefully we can get back on track next week in front of a home crowd that will be cheering us on,” Biggin said. “The girls will feel a little more in their element.”
Erica Mucci is the gymnastics reporter for the Daily Kent Stater.
Mistakes earn gymnastics team second loss
@TimmyD_DKS
MATT HAFLEY | DAILY KENT STATERThe M.A.C.Center sold out on March 4, 2011 for the Kent v. Akron game.
Women’s basketball team has lost its last four in a row with the latest loss coming Saturday at East-ern Michigan 83-47.
The track and field team broke multiple school and personal records over the weekend.
Where are the fans? The official attendance for Sat-urday’s national televised men’s basketball game against Ball State was a mediocre 2,472.
