Tony Jarboe is a journalism student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Great academics and, well, they have sports there too. Here are some previous "Jabs" columns from the soon to be junior.

HIGH JINX...(5-4-08)
As a college student, waking up at 7:15 in the morning is never fun.
Waking up at 7:15 on a Saturday morning borders on cruel-and-unusual
punishment.
And yet that is exactly what I found myself doing today as I prepared
for the Outdoor Leadership Retreat. One of my classes this quarter is
a leadership development class. Unfortunately this retreat was
mandatory.
Since the day would be filled with physical activity I grabbed some
breakfast from the dining hall. On the way back I saw a group of
bicyclists pass by. It looked like they were racing. To get up at
7:15 under threat of death (ok, failing a class) is one thing. To get
up at 6 o’clock in the morning, VOLUNTARILY, to participate in a bike
race? The only “common sense” those folks had were pennies and nickels.
The buses left campus just after 8:00 as we embarked on an 80-minute
ride to a suburb on the other side of Chicago. When we got there we
were divided into ten groups of ten (there were about 100 people
there). We went for a short walk through the woods and came upon a
massive rock climbing wall.
“That better be for decoration,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry. That’s not for you,” said our leader, Terry.
Next we came upon a rather large and rickety-looking ropes course
suspended 35 feet in the air.
“This is for you,” said Terry. Darn. Where’s a rock wall when you
need one?
We went through all of the safety devices (helmet, harness, ropes)
and procedures. Then it was time to climb.
 < Dramatizations. >
I was one of the only one’s brave enough (or crazy enough) to
volunteer to go first, so I climbed up a pole to a large wooden
platform. I then waited up there as everyone else joined me up
there. I also assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that
no matter which direction I went I was in deep trouble.
I chose to delve right into things and take the path of most
resistance. Basically I had to traverse eight wooden “swings” to get
from my platform to the next station. Two ropes were suspended from a cable and attached to a wooden plank about thirty inches long. This
in itself is no cakewalk. Add a twenty-five mile an hour wind, and
you have yourself an adventure.
I went from plank to plank, steadying myself before stepping to the
next. It went pretty smoothly until the last one. Someone was on the
platform ahead of me, so I had to wait things out on the plank. I was
being supported by a small wooden board thirty-five feet in the air
being blown about like a kite. I have never prayed so hard in my life.
I spent the next hour or so doing various stupid/ crazy/ insane
stunts on the ropes course before we went to lunch. We were provided
with boxed lunches of a sandwich, fruit cup, chips, and cookies. Our
table resembled the baseball’s Winter Meetings as we wheeled-and-
dealed our assorted cookies (I’ll give you an oatmeal raisin for an M
& M).
After lunch we did a few other leadership activities such as holding
hands with one another and trying to get six hula hoops all the way
around the circle (three went clockwise, three went counter
clockwise). Then came the piece de resistance: the 12-foot wall.
This was the ultimate in teamwork. How do we boost everyone over
this sucker? As one person so succinctly stated, “That’s a f---ing
high wall!”
We had two volunteers to boost the first person up, but the problem
is there would be no one pulling him up from the top. The problem,
then, was finding someone crazy enough to go first.
Actually, it wasn’t a problem. Apparently I had left my common sense
back on campus (loaned it to the bikers?) and figured I was up for the
challenge. The two boosters lifted me to within about three inches of
the wall top, but I was juuuuuust short. A strong second effort gave
me all the lift I needed as I reached the top and barrel-rolled over
edge onto the platform on the other side.
I then helped pull two others up (the max we were allowed to help)
and then jumped back down to encourage other souls who felt the need
to pull one last crazy stunt. Unfortunately there were way too many
safety precautions to say I risked death that day, but I think any
time you do a ropes course and climb a twelve-foot wall qualifies as
an adventure.
After each activity we talked about how we overcame the challenge and what leadership qualities had been present. Obviously we won’t likely
ever actually be in one of the situations we were put in, but some of
the skills we used were definitely applicable to other area. All in
all, it was a very good day. Plus, I learned something about myself.
Some people pray best in a quiet meadow. Others while locked in their
room. Or maybe in a church. Me? I pray best while doing my wind-
chime impersonation 35 feet off the ground.

 

THE VID KIDS…(4-27-08)
I have been at Northwestern for almost two years now and I still don’t have a handle on just what the “college experience” is. Does it involve large amounts of alcohol? Does it include many hours of metaphorically bashing your head against the wall trying to cure your writer’s block for a four-page paper due in eight hours (hypothetically speaking, of course)?
Although my college experience has consisted almost exclusively of the latter, I would still argue that you do not get the full college experience until you and your friends do something stupid. Take tonight, for instance.
It had been a relatively quiet Saturday night. James and I were doing homework at about 12:30 when Greg came in and said, “Hey, let’s go!” Apparently, the new Mario Kart game was out and, rather than wait for a more sensible hour, Greg just had to have the game now. So he and James went to the game store at 12:30 in the freakin’ AM to pick up Mario Kart. The saddest thing was they weren’t alone. Some other 50 gaming fanatics who seriously need a new hobby were also standing in line waiting for midnight to role around (and hence the game to be released). Really, is there no better way to spend your Saturday night than waiting for a video game? That’s almost as bad as spending your weekend studying.
Greg and James come back and of course have to play it right now. I figured I would give the new game a shot to see what all the fuss was about. Mario Kart is a racing game, with the old Nintendo characters like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, etc. You race around a track a set number of times on little carts with the object, of course, being to come in first.
It is kind of like NASCAR, but with a twist: you can pick up various objects to help you/ deter your opponents. You can lay down banana peels for your rivals to slip on, pick up mushrooms to give you a speed burst, or throw explosive shells at your opponents. By the way, can you imagine NASCAR’s ratings if they allowed this? Who wouldn’t want to see Jeff Gordon spin out on a banana peel, or Ryan Newman chucking explosive shells at Dale Earnhardt Jr? And you just thought NASCAR was popular now!
Anyway, James, Greg, and I raced for about 30 minutes, with me coming in last just about every time. Not a strong showing on my part, to say the least. I lobbied to have the rules changed to golf scoring (lowest total wins). That went over like a lead balloon.
There is one positive to my absolute ineptitude in video games: it shows that I don’t play them very often. That’s because I have more important things to do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go practice Mario Kart some more. I have a lot of ground to make up!

ELECTION MANIA...(4-20-08)
Northwestern held their elections for the student body executive board (called Associated Student Government, or ASG for short) this week. As far as I am concerned, the elections could not have ended soon enough.
This year students were ambushed by ASG presidential hopefuls as the candidates and their representatives went all over campus shaking hands and trying to secure votes. There were five people running for that office this year, which as far as I know is unprecedented. Last year there were two candidates, and the year before the winner was unopposed.
All of the candidates even made websites devoted to them. One campaign, eventual winner Neal Sales-Griffen, had a staff of 24 people helping him. One night I saw he had at least three different teams with stencils writing “NSG for ASG” on the sidewalk alongside Sheridan road, the most heavily-travelled path at Northwestern. Stencils! I can’t imagine how much time and money he (and other candidates, for that matter) sank into this campaign. Is ASG president really that powerful of a position?
Every square inch of sidewalk was covered with chalk encouraging you to vote for this person or that person. Finding a clear spot on the sidewalk was nearly impossible. Those areas that did not have enough chalk were papered with flyers conveying the same message.
Despite the very in-your-face style of this campaign, students did not seem any more motivated to vote than in the past. Only about 3,000 students cast an on-line ballot, the same as last year.
If nothing else, however, the plethora of candidates did make things interesting. To win a candidate must receive at least 50% of the vote, a nearly impossible total for someone to reach given four other competitors. One guy, Neal, did manage to rack up 40% of the vote, so he faced the second place Mark Crain (23%) in a run-off election on Thursday. Unfortunately this meant two more days of campaigning, flyers, and sidewalk messages.
Thankfully it’s over now, so I can walk to class without being bombarded by “Vote for Me!” messages. In the end Neal did pull it out, but at a 53-47 margin Mark at least gave him a run for his money. Now there is some time to breathe before the “other” presidential election heats up in November.

SQUIRRELS LIKE CHOCOLATE? WHO KNEW?...(4-20-08)
Not enough to turn into a full column, but I discovered today that squirrels like chocolate. I helped set up an Easter egg hunt at the Catholic center here at Northwestern, hiding eggs all around the front lawn. Since I am fairly tall, I figured I would be clever and hide a few eggs higher up where no one would find them. Well, no human anyway.
Before the hunt even started Krystyna, the president of our youth organization, came in and said a squirrel was eating one of the eggs. Wait...what?
I went outside and, sure enough, the egg was laying on the ground, claw marks all over it, and the squirrel was sitting in the tree downing a Krackle bar. I was not aware squirrels even liked chocolate.
Later that same squirrel mauled another egg and stole a Hershey’s kiss. At least he has good taste.


MEET ME IN ST. LOUIE...(4-13-08)
By now you have probably figured out it doesn’t take much of an excuse for me to see a baseball game. “Hey, it’s your cat’s birthday?! Let’s go see a baseball game!” “It’s Flag Day? This calls for a ball game!” “Today ends with a “y”? Let’s celebrate with some baseball!” (note: I may have used one or more of these as an actual excuse)
So perhaps my reasons for heading down to St. Louis last weekend were not the strongest. Greg had been wanting to go down there for some time to visit his friend Kara, who was going to Washington University in St. Louis. He chose that weekend in particular because his hometown team, the Washington Nationals, were playing the Cardinals. And, well, St. Louis can be a scary place so I couldn’t let him go by himself. So James and I accompanied him because that’s what friends are for. And if I happened to see a baseball game while in town, so be it.
The bus ride down was pretty smooth. It was around 11 PM that we rolled into a parking lot in St. Louis, right in front of a bar called Señior Julio’s. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was supposed to be Señor Julio’s, but hey, maybe it was a bar for old Hispanic people. Or maybe someone screwed up and because St. Louis is only 3% Hispanic nobody noticed.
Kara came to pick us up with the assistance of Jerome (he actually had a car) and took us back to her dorm. It was nice! She shared a suite with three other friends, with a large common room, a bathroom, and four individual bedrooms.
We were introduced to her suitemates Sarah, Jen, and Christina, and had a great conversation with them. At some point during our visit there was a knock on the door from a group of guys who had been congregated in the hallway, visiting. Jen opens the door and one of the guys tosses a piece of chicken into the room. Later I found out it was because the girls were very particular about their room and didn’t like having a bunch of food around. At the time it was kind of weird though. Here I am in a strange place, meeting these girls I don’t know, and all of a sudden someone throws a piece of chicken into their room? Is this normal?
We all finally went to bed around 2 AM. After all, I need to be at full strength for the game!
I leapt out of bed as soon as I woke up. It was game day! I put my Cardinal’s gear on and sat anxiously as I waited for everyone else to get ready. Finally we were ready to go. Kara brought four of her friends: Jerome, Danny, Ben, and Corey. Jerome was the guy who drove us, and the other three we had met the previous night after they threw the chicken into the room (what are friends for?).
St. Louis has the strangest public transit system in the country. It is punctual, smooth, quiet, and efficient! What is wrong with these people? They need something like the el, which never runs on time, gives you motion sickness when you ride, and sounds like nails on a chalkboard through a megaphone.
We got to the stadium, found our seats, and took in a great ball game. It was 65 and sunny, with just a slight breeze. I truly never wanted to leave St. Louis. Of course it didn’t hurt that the Cardinals won 5-4 either.
After the game we went to a show called Carnaval, put on by the Alliance of Latin American Students. It was a show about the different types of Latin American cultures and their traditional dances with a skit thrown in. Usually I don’t go for that type of thing, but Christina was part of it, so I gave it a shot. It actually turned out better than I thought.
On Sunday we went to the park for a while before heading back to Chicago. It was an absolutely perfect day at 70 and sunny. I think I saw more sun that weekend than I had the previous three months combined in Chicago. Absolutely perfect.
Sadly, we actually did have to leave. We said our goodbyes, boarded the bus, and headed out.
On the way back Greg was talking to his dad. He said there was snow in North Dakota and it was probably headed for Chi-town. I really hate Chicago!  

THE FRIDGE...AND I DON'T MEAN WILLIAM PERRY! (4-5-08)
There is always a little anxiety involved with coming back to your college dorm room after a long break. Did you remember to lock the door? Did you leave the window open? Did you leave anything running?
Thankfully I have never had any of those problems before, but this past week something was clearly amiss. When I entered my room I smelled something that was a little off, but I just assumed it was James’ dirty laundry. My dad walked in behind me and politely said, “Well, it’s not the freshest smelling room...” This was akin to saying of the tower in Pisa, “well, it’s not the straightest building…”
I said goodbye to my parents and then plugged in all of my electronics. Before leaving I had to unplug my alarm clock, refrigerator, and such. I then started to unpack all of my clothes.
A little while later I got a call from James, letting me know he had just landed in Chicago but would not be back until after midnight because of traffic and such. Then things got ugly.
He said he had not had dinner yet and asked if I happened to order take-out, which I hadn’t. Then came his immortal words: “That’s ok, I think I still have some stuff in my fridge.”
I was really, really, REALLY hoping he was joking. He wasn’t.
While still on the phone I opened the fridge and beheld perhaps the most disturbing image I had ever seen. Two blocks of now-melted cheese and a stick of summer sausage were sitting in a pool of 2-week-old orange juice that had seeped out of the container. A melted pint of sorbet ice cream sat in the freezer. Hiding beneath the icebox was a container of… well, I’m actually not quite sure what it was. The white walls and orange (juice) floor went quite nicely with the green mold.
I then became aware of this rather distinct aroma that seemed to eminate from the fridge. I slammed the fridge door shut and ran over to the window, opening it and inhaling deeply. That “rather distinct aroma” makes the top five worst scents I have ever known.
Obviously cleaning that mess out was not at the top of the list of “Things I Wanted To Do My First Night Back At Northwestern”, but something needed to be done, and fast. I found a garbage can, opened the door, threw everything from the fridge into the garbage can and closed the door as quickly as I could so as to avoid gagging. So far, so good.
Next came the spilled orange juice. I had to use paper towels to sop up the mess. However, I had to be careful not to let the stuff spill out of the fridge on to the floor. That would be a disaster. I did a majority of this job looking away from the fridge, as the odor was just so strong that I could not deal with it for prolonged periods.
After the orange juice I gave the mold a quick wipe and got some of it off. By now the fridge was off of my “Top 5” list of worst smells, down to “repulsive”. 
I had gotten the worst of it and decided that would be good enough until James could get the rest of it. As we speak James is soaping out the inside of the refrigerator and wiping it down.
From all experiences, good or bad, I always like to take a life lesson. I guess here the life lesson is “don’t leave cheese, orange juice, and sausage in a refrigerator that will be unplugged for a week and a half.”

 

WELCOME BACK MY FRIEND...(3-30-08)
Ah, Opening Day. Is there any more beautiful phrase in the English language? Okay, maybe “free beer”, but still, “Opening Day” is up there.
What is it about Opening Day that makes it so great? After all, it is only the first day of a six month season. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?
Yes. Because Opening Day is about more than one game. It represents the return of baseball season. It conjures up memories of seasons past. The nail-biting wins. The heart-breaking losses. Most of all, Opening Day is about beginning a new chapter as a baseball fan. It is about the anticipation of watching a story unfold before our very eyes.
Opening Day is also about hope. Fans of teams such as the Royals, Pirates, and Giants know that they probably won’t win the division this year. But that doesn’t matter on Opening Day because everyone is tied with zero wins and zero losses. And who knows? They just might surprise some people.
Opening Day also represents a rebirth. Whether it is a young gun getting his first crack at the bigs, or an aging veteran looking for one last chance, Opening Day is about beginning anew. Last season is over and everything is reset to zero. Now is your chance to make the most of this opportunity.
 < Opening Day...a beautiful sight.
Yes, Opening Day is just one game of 162. But it is about so much more than just the game. It is about reliving some of our fondest memories. It is a symbol of hope for the hopeless, where maybe, just maybe, your team can shock the world. After Opening Day a harsh reality sets in for most and their dreams are crushed, but they still have that one glorious day where anything is possible. Yes my friends, baseball is back! 

SPRING BREAK IN A BUS STATION?...(3-23-08)
 Following my last final I could not wait to get home. I was stressed out, tired, hungry and in desperate need of a break. At home I would finally be able to catch up on sleep and be able to enjoy a week off to relax and unwind. Little did I know that I would need to unwind more from the trip home than from my tests.
I started the journey by hauling two bags of dirty laundry nearly a mile to the nearest Metra stop so I could head to downtown Chicago and catch a bus at Union Station. No ripped bags this time, thankfully, but I did have to stop several times to readjust my (over)stuffed luggage.
I got into the city and had to walk several blocks once again to get to Union Station. Hauling 30 lbs. of luggage. At 9:30 at night. Through downtown Chicago. What, no dark alley?
I got to Union Station with about 20 minutes to spare. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. 10 o’clock came and went. 10:15 did the same. 10:30 and 10:45 followed suit. Seven busses pulled up during this time. With each one I ran up to it and asked if they were going to Champaign. Nope. One was going to Minneapolis, one to Cincinnati, and the rest were going out of service.
 < Chicago's Union Station...a favorite destination of college students on spring break!
By this time I had gathered with a contingent of others that were (theoretically) going to Champaign. I had managed to befriend a gentleman named Vince as well as a few University of Illinois students who were on their way back from spring break. With each bus that approached we looked expectantly, praying it was for us. Alas, each bus came and went, but still no Champaign. The worst part was a snowstorm was bearing down on Chicago in a couple of hours. If we had to wait until the next bus at 11:00 the next morning, we would be snowed in. Time was not on our side.
It was just after 11:00 PM when yet another bus pulled up that said out of service. I personally volunteered to hijack and drive the bus myself just to get back home. And I was not joking.
That proved to be unnecessary, however, because the driver got off and said, “Y’all going to Champaign?” Our little group let out a celebratory cheer.
The driver, a guy named Dwayne, apologized profusely and said it was “Idiot Night” at the dispatchers office. Apparently there was a mix-up and he was unable to get a bus until an hour after he was supposed to.
From there it was a relatively easy journey home. Traffic was light and Dwayne took the speed limit as more of a suggestion than law as we flew down the highway. We pulled into Champaign about a half-hour later than scheduled, which was not bad considering we got started an hour late.
It was rather annoying being delayed over an hour, but we beat the snowstorm and it only cost me $1.50 to go from Chicago to Champaign. Let spring break begin! 

CAVING IN...OR BENDING? (3-16-08)
Last week Harvard University announced that it was closing one of it’s gymnasiums to men for a few hours every week to accommodate Muslim women who did not wish to work out in front of men for religious reasons.
This decision has caused a pretty big stir around the country with many, myself included, wondering what kind of precedent this sets. Mostly I was hoping Northwestern would not do something similar and close down one of its gymnasiums to men for certain hours of the day.
At first glance it appears to be the majority bending over backwards to appease a small minority. If you close down a gym to men for a small group of Muslim fanatics for religious reasons, what next? Can you close down dining halls to men for religious reasons? Of course men feel like the (if you’ll pardon the expression) odd man out in this case because in the pursuit of political correctness many guys feel like “male-bashing” is in, and as long as men, especially white men, are the only one’s getting hurt, then everything is hunky-dory.
About the only thing I could find in defense of the ruling was a quote by a Muslim woman saying, "The majority should be willing to compromise. I think that's just basic courtesy. We must show tolerance and respect for all others." Of course my first thought was that tolerance and respect does not include kicking half the student body out of the gym but hey, what do I know?
Unlike most media outlets, however, I have access to an impartial insider at the university. My friend Shawn is a sophomore at Harvard and said the situation was not as bad as my “fellow” journalists made it out to be. The gym will only be shut down to men for six hours out of seventy operating hours every week, and it is Harvard’s smallest one. It is about a twenty minute walk from the main campus, whereas the other two are right there. According to Shawn, about the only place that the ruling was not a big deal was Harvard.
Of course that helped ease my concerns a little. I still disagree with shutting down a gym to half the student body. After all, men pay half the expenses to help keep the gym running. However, in the end Harvard is a private institution and I guess that means basically they can do whatever they darn well please. That said, I hope Northwestern does not follow suit.

 

NOT A BED OF ROSES...(3-9-08)
Rooting for bad teams is nothing new to me. The Bulls of the early 2000’s struggled to get to 20 wins. The University of Illinois managed to go 0-11 one season and 1-11 in another. The Chicago Bears have only won two playoff games since I began watching them ten years ago. And yet I believe that none of them were as bad as the 2007-2008 Northwestern’s mens basketball team.
The Wildcats played their last regular season game yesterday, losing to Wisconsin. Northwestern finished last in the Big Ten, going 1-17. Once you factor in non-conference games against powerhouses such as Texas (Pan-Am that is), their record “improves” to 8-21. There were of course many problems, but one of our biggest weaknesses was rebounding. Of the 328 teams in mens division one basketball, Northwestern finished dead last in rebounding margin per game. Words cannot convey just how pitiful our rebounding was.
As always, when things are this bad there is plenty of blame to go around. I would love to pin this on high academic standards Northwestern has, but that hasn’t stopped Stanford from putting together a very good basketball team (Duke has also experienced varying levels of success in the past 20 years or so).
The biggest issue is that the Northwestern basketball is and always has been awful. They have only managed three appearances in the National Invitational Tournament and have never punched their ticket to the Big Dance. They cannot sell recruits on the present and they cannot sell recruits on the past. With a history like that it is really tough to sell recruits on the future.
Take Notre Dame football. They had an absolutely horrible year this season, going 3-9. And yet they had the second strongest recruiting class in the nation according to rivals.com Why? Because they are NOTRE FREAKIN’ DAME!! They have a fantastic history and will continue to be great. Even with a few mediocre years (going “only” 9-3), Notre Dame will continue to recruit top-notch athletes because they want to become a part of that tradition. Northwestern basketball (or football for that matter) just doesn’t have that same appeal. Without a good team we can’t attract good recruits, and without good recruits we aren’t going to win many games. Not a good combination
So the Wildcats are doomed to be mired in mediocrity for the foreseeable future. And that’s okay. Obviously it’s more fun to follow a good team than a bad one, but rooting for a team like Northwestern has it’s benefits. For example, when most teams beat Michigan (9-18), it is nothing more than meeting expectations. In fact, if they don’t win by at least 10 points they are downright disappointed. But last week when Northwestern beat the Wolverines it looked as though they had won the Big Ten Tournament. The players celebrated like there was no tomorrow and Coach Carmody was grinning ear to ear. For teams like Northwestern, it’s all about the small victories in life. Mostly because we won’t be getting any large (or even medium) victories any time soon.
That said, I have to give credit where credit is due. Despite being three notches below awful for most of the season, the team never looked like they ever quit. They were able to hang with #14 Indiana, losing by only three at home. So the effort was there. Unfortunately, the talent was not.
The season was not all bad. Northwestern did manage to pull out the one Big Ten game against Michigan. Other than that...yeah, the season was all bad.
On the bright side, at least we finally won a game. On the down side, that one stinkin’ win cost me six pages of wall space*.
*=For those who don’t get this reference, check out my “Don’t Bet On It” column from a week after the Super Bowl.

NO SLACKERS…(3-1-08)
Ask anyone how they have been recently and almost invariably they will tell you that they have been “busy”. They love to drop the “b” word whenever possible to make themselves feel important and to make you realize just how lucky you are that they deemed you worthy of a few precious minutes.
People love to “complain” about how busy they are but in reality it seems as though they are actually bragging to one another about how hard they work. Apparently people take satisfaction in telling someone else that they “don’t have time” to do something.
Certainly it’s true that people today are busier than those a generation ago. People in today’s society are always rushing around and rarely stop to smell the roses. This is probably because anyone who has time to smell the roses obviously is not busy enough, a crime so heinous that anyone found committing it will promptly be branded with the scarlet letter “I” for “Idle” and be cast out of mainstream society.
I found out the hard way just how damaging an accusation of “idleness” is, especially on a college campus. For a journalism project I did a story on sleep deprivation in college students. One person I interviewed said he got the recommended eight hours of sleep. I was impressed and asked how he managed it. Unfortunately, I then committed a cardinal sin and inadvertently insinuated that he wasn’t busy enough. He immediately got defensive and started listing off every activity he was involved with and punctuated his spiel with, “I’m a pretty busy guy.” I think he would have been less offended had I accused him of being an alcoholic pedophile.
 <This...not that. >
That’s not to say that this hyperactivity is all bad. Technology continues to advance exponentially and today we in the United States have a standard of living unmatched anywhere else in the world. However, the stress of our busy lives is mitigating these advancements so people are no happier now than they were 50 years ago (according to both Harris Polls and Pew Research Center).
The argument could be made that since we are no less happy than in the past we should continue pushing ourselves to the limit in order to remain on the cutting-edge of technology. However, technology and happiness is not an either/ or proposition; you can have more of both technology AND happiness. It’s just easy to forget that sometimes because we get so wrapped up in our jobs and such that we forget to look at the big picture. I am as guilty as anyone of getting wrapped up in things that are ultimately unimportant and forgetting those that are.
The bottom line is that we as a society need to be success driven in order to stay ahead of the technological curve. However, there can be too much of a good thing. Sometimes we need to reign in that desire and remember there are more important things in life than a fancy job title.
So please remember to relax every now and then. In fact right now, just close your eyes, take a deep breath…. Now get back to work!
 

QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS…..(2-23-08)
It was coming. I could feel it bearing down on me faster and faster. I tried to stop it but to no avail. It was inevitable. Like it or not, I was going to have a birthday.
Yesterday I turned 20. The big 2-0. Two decades.
 < Jarboe? Nah. He's too old for me.
Yes, I know at 20 years old I am not exactly geezer. I still have all (or most) of my hair, arthritis hasn’t set in quite yet, and I am yet to receive any AARP-related mail. Even so, although it was just one more year, it marked an important transition from one decade to the next.
At 19, I’m a teenager. I mouth off to my parents, talk on the phone too much, sleep until noon, and go to class in my spare time. Goofing off is a full-time job.
At 20, I’m basically an adult. In this decade I am supposed to get married, have children, buy a house, get a job and be...responsible. Who wants that?
I still have over two years of schooling and my entire career ahead of me but yesterday made me realize life is coming at me fast. For the past two decades my parents have raised me a certain way, teaching me to work hard and build towards the future, a future that was so, so far away. Until now.
So in the midst of the usual hustle and bustle of college life I have taken time to reflect on the past, present and future. After some panic and reflection, I have finally come to the realization that although I might not be a kid anymore, but I still have my entire life ahead of me to do with as a please. It will be scary as college ends and I have have to enter the real world but I’m not the first person to make the jump and I won’t be the last. So, yeah, turning twenty is not the end of my life. In fact, it’s just the beginning.
P.S. The worst part about the a quarter-life crisis is, unlike it’s mid-life counter part, I don’t have enough money to go out and purchase a shiny new sports car. I guess for now I can just buy a poster of said sports car and wait another 20 years to actually purchase it.
 < Someday Jarboe...someday.

DON’T BET ON IT…(2-10-08)
I have never been much of a betting guy, but in college I will occasionally lay down a friendly wager with my close friends. As a group we are (ok, I am) far to cheap to bet actual money, so instead we bet space on our dorm walls. We will bet a few square feet on things such as football games, poker, and the like.
If you win another person’s wall-space, then you get to decorate the wall however you choose. Once the bet is over you have one week to decide what to put on the wall, or it is left blank for the rest of the year. The most popular decorations are pictures designed to tick off the loser of the bet. For example, I currently have an Eli Manning poster on my wall (more on that later).
I got out to a rocky start in the betting, losing a basketball game and a poker match early. Looking to get those back, I turned to the football playoffs to win back the parts of the wall I had lost. Jared, James, Greg, and I all picked the team we thought would win the Super Bowl, with the catch no one could take the Patriots.
I took the Cowboys and Greg took the Giants, so I figured it was a good time to take back what was lost. Dallas was favored by a touchdown and was playing at home, so it was a no-brainer, right?
Following the Cowboys heartbreaking 21-17 loss to New York, I now owed Greg four square feet on my wall, since we went double or nothing on what he had previously won. Of course now I became desperate, but the Giants were playing the Packers the following week. Greg was stuck with the Giants, so I offered him a bet of quadruple or nothing on the Green Bay/ New York game. He accepted! I laughed on the inside, counting down the hours until I got my wall back. Sure Favre had lost a step, but come on! It was Favre and the Packers at Lambeau versus a good-but-not-great Giants team. No contest!
I watched on helplessly as the kick sailed through the uprights to give the Giants a 23-20 win in overtime against Green Bay. How? They had beaten the Cowboys in Dallas and the Packers in Green Bay after going into both games as seven-point underdogs. Although it was difficult, I still had one trump card up my sleeve...the New England Patriots.
I really did not want to have to bet on New England; they were like the Yankees of baseball. Yeah, they would likely win, but do you really feel good about it afterwards? They had been destroying teams all year by an average of 20 points. For most teams a 34-17 win is total domination. For the Patriots it was just another day at the office.
I offered Greg a bet of octuple or nothing on the Super Bowl. I really did not care what I had to put on the line to get my wall space back, because I knew the Patriots would win. They were a perfect 18-0. They were favored by two touchdowns. They could not lose. This was the most sure bet I had ever taken.
After the Patriots 17-14 loss to the Giants I officially changed my name to Tony “I hate Eli Manning” Jarboe. Hence the Manning poster now adorning my wall. Once I realized that I could not even safely bet on an undefeated team, I swore off betting for good.*
 < The first rule of wagering...never bet against Eli!
*=This does not include a bet that had already been in progress with James. I bet James six square feet that neither Northwestern basketball team, men or women, would win a Big Ten game this year. So far so good, as the men are an imperfect 0-9 and the women are 0-11 in conference play. Oh well, at least I guaranteed one of our basketball teams a Big Ten victory this year.

COLLEGE ACTIVISM…(1-27-08)
One thing I have noticed about college campuses over the last year-plus is that you are never short on people with opinions. And because they feel strongly about a cause, gosh darn-it, so should you! Oftentimes groups will station people at popular student locations such as The Arch or The Rock and hand out flyers promoting their various causes. Just yesterday I was stopped by someone with Greenpeace asking me to become a member and donate to their organization.
I must say that I am impressed with Greenpeace’s efforts, even if I myself am not the “greenest” person on the planet. They have volunteers all over Evanston in the freezing cold stopping passers-by, giving a 30-second spiel about saving the planet, stopping global-warming, etc. The girl who stopped me knew her stuff and made a fairly convincing argument. She seemed sincere in her cause, so I did not have the heart to tell her that I am an SUV-driving Republican who wants to pave over the rain forests to make room for big businesses to exploit more poor people (note: the preceding sentence may or may not be true). Needless to say, I told her “thanks, but no thanks.”
 < Not Jarboe's bag.
Greenpeace has had the most aggressive recruiting campaign, but many other groups have also ratcheted up efforts to support their cause. A couple of months ago a group was handing out brochures promoting vegetarianism and putting an end to animal cruelty. I read it over and got a good chuckle out of it. Much of the brochure promoted “tasty” vegan alternatives. Right next to the pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
One group held a rally last week to support the Jena 6. They marched around campus chanting pro-justice phrases. Unfortunately for them, only about ten people (literally) showed up. Probably not quite the turn out they were hoping for.
There is plenty of activism around, but from my understanding Northwestern is actually pretty laid back in terms of political activity compared to other schools. I guess its true that while there are plenty of activities, political rallies, and the like, they are usually poorly attended. Apparently students are too busy doing productive things.
I am glad to see that most students at Northwestern have enough common sense to minimize their activist activities. After all, activists rarely accomplish anything other than ticking people off by getting in their faces and telling them how wrong their opinion is. The nice thing about America is that they do have every right to be out there, saying what they want. If you feel strongly enough about a cause that you are wiling to make a complete fool out of yourself, then go for it. Just leave me out of it.

BUSINESS AS (NOT) USUAL...1-13-08
It is always tough to get back into a groove after some time off. Winter quarter classes started up this week as I scrambled to set my schedule, gather the needed textbooks, ensure I had the necessary supplies, etc. It was a bit of a struggle for me to get into the swing of things, but apparently I was not the only one. Two days after the quarter started someone in the journalism class that I wanted to take dropped out, so I quickly grabbed the open slot. Unfortunately, there was already a problem. This was no ordinary course where you go to a classroom, the teacher lectures, and then you leave. In this course the classes are spread throughout various regions in Chicago, so the location was listed as “TBA”. Great. We were supposed to meet in twelve hours and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I figured I could call the professor the following morning to get everything straightened out, but I already have a habit of being “last-minute” sometimes, and this seemed to be a really bad omen of things to come. I got in touch with the professor and found that, luckily, we were meeting on campus and would then proceed to the “storefront” in the city. The storefront is what they call our classrooms in Chicago, because from the out side they basically look like just another shop or store. The storefront is where we will be doing most of our work for the quarter. Since the class had actually met on Monday (I had not been enrolled in the class then), everybody else got CTA passes to ride the “el” for free during the quarter. Unfortunately, because I had not been there I did not get one (mine is coming soon). One student had been unable to make it to class that day, so I could borrow theirs. However, there were two minor problems: 1) the CTA passes have photos and names on them, and 2) the person missing was female. I suppose it was not a big deal because no one really looks like their photos anyway, but even so, I think a complete gender change was a bit extreme. The plan was for us to meet an alderman’s aid in our storefront and hold a mock press conference with him. We would then write as story, turn it in, and have the professor rip it to shreds. Simple enough, right? Bad omen number two occurred when we got off the “el” and the professor gathered us around with a huge grin on his face. In my experience a smiling teacher is a very bad sign. He had forgotten the key he needed to get into the storefront. So instead of going there, the seventeen of us trudged into a nearby coffee shop. The professor offered to buy everyone a drink to make up for the mistake. He then left us alone for about twenty minutes to check to make sure that, indeed, the door to the storefront was locked and we could not get in. In the meantime, we were just sitting there, and all the people behind the counter were gearing up for the moment we all rushed the counter. Serving coffee to sixteen college students does not sound like much fun. The coffee people were granted a reprieve when our professor came back and said there was a pizza place nearby and that he would buy us lunch instead. The seventeen of us paraded down the street to the pizza parlor and sat down. Now it was their turn to be very, very scared. You may have heard that college students like pizza. The professor once again left us alone, this time to find the guy who was supposed to speak to us to explain the situation and have him speak to us there in the pizza parlor. However, he again came back, some twenty-five minutes later (this was a good hour and a half after class was supposed to start) and said we would meet the guy in his office just a couple of blocks away, where it was quieter. This, of course, was a very bad sign because it meant no pizza, at least for the time being. & < No pizza for Tony and friends! Once again the seventeen of us are marching through the Chicago streets. At this point we had walked through approximately half of the Greater Chicago Area in the middle of winter. Good times. We finally reach the guy’s office, and to my great disappointment, things proceed normally from there. We held our mock news conference, got our assignment, and went back to campus. Our next class is Monday and I’m really hoping this happens again. We never got our pizza so I am hoping we could bargain our way into a steak dinner with the prof.
 
NFDL? (1-6-08)
In last week’s column I mentioned in passing that NCAA’s “football-factory” schools were essentially a farm system for the NFL. Many of the top athletes rarely or never go to class and see college simply as a necessary evil while waiting to move on to the NFL. Why should they even go to college in the first place? Academically, many of them have no business being there. They have little or no interest in going to class, while the university has no interest in teaching them anything. They are little more than professional football players in a college setting. Why not allow those athletes to bypass college altogether and go straight to the pros? They would get where they wanted to go more quickly, and we could drop the charade of “student-athlete”. The best option, of course, would be to have these players go straight to the NFL, similar to the way high-school students were eligible to enter the NBA draft prior to a recent rule change. However, there is obviously much more contact in football than basketball and physically a high-school senior would simply not survive in the NFL. Additionally, many players talk about how much faster the college game is from the high-school game, and again how much faster the NFL is than college. Clearly, even the most supremely talented high-schoolers would be unable to make the jump straight to the NFL. This is where the minor league comes in. It would serve as an incubation period while the player physically and mentally matured while still allowing him the opportunity to cash in to some degree on his God-given ability. A good starting point for a structure for our hypothetical NFDL would be the NBA’s D-League, formerly known as the Developmental League. There are 14 teams, all affiliated with anywhere from one to three NBA teams, with most affiliated with two. Ideally, the NFDL would have sixteen teams, with each team being jointly-owned by two regional NFL teams. The NBDL allows for up to two first- or second-year players per NBA team. However, a basketball team consists of only twelve players, so we would have to increase the number of players an NFL team can send. Let’s keep this simple: since the NBA draft is two rounds, an NBA team is allowed to send one-half of its eligible players to the D-League. Thus, if the NFDL were to allow up to seven players per NFL team, we would have the same ratio, up to half of the eligible players could be sent down. One added stipulation would be that a player must remain in the D-League if he is not at least three years out of high school. Again, this is to allow the player to physically and mentally develop enough to avoid injury as much as possible. When you have 350-pound guys running toward you at top speed, there is plenty of risk without worrying about being physically under-developed. The rest of the rosters would be filled out by those players ineligible for college, either because their four years are up, or after three years they entered the draft, hired an agent, and then were not drafted (according to NCAA rules, a player forfeits his amateur status if he hires an agent). These players, just like in the D-League, would sign a contract with the league itself rather than a specific team. Players would then be allocated based on team needs. These players would then be considered free agents and any NFL team could sign them at any time. Is it worth it to put together a league of this type? Logistically, of course it would be very tough to pull something like this off. If there were sixteen teams, each consisting of a roster of fifty players, that is 900 players that need to be found. Additionally, with up to seven first- or second- year players (plus any third-year players who were drafted directly out of high school), there could be some matter of playing time if the two clubs that jointly-owned the team both had a prospect at the same position. This would also pull the best athletes from the college game earlier, as some of the top freshmen and sophomores, as well as a few elite high school prospects, would opt for the NFL rather than college. Thus, the product that NCAA teams could field would be diminished to some degree. The NFL could suffer a little initially as well, as in the later rounds, rather than selecting rookies who could have immediate impact, teams would instead draft a younger player and send him to the NFDL for seasoning. This could cause a similar problem the NBA had where teams draft talented but raw high-schoolers in hopes that they develop into something. Obviously teams would have to get some pretty substantial benefit in order to even attempt to put together something like this. Probably the most significant benefit is that they would get many talented young kids under their control sooner, meaning that the team would be able to put the final polish on the player’s development. Since the NFDL teams would be jointly-owned by the two NFL teams, they would have significant control over the type of offense and defense the team employed. In college, players often come to the NFL and must learn an entirely new set of plays. With the NFDL, the player would already have been exposed to many of those plays and would be ready to contribute to the NFL team more quickly. This is also another avenue for teams to evaluate and sign players. NFL scouting is not perfect, and they can often gloss over very good prospects because of what is perceived to be a significant flaw. This gives undrafted players an opportunity to show that they can play, and NFL teams another way to ensure that only the best players reach the NFL. In the end, it ensures the NFL has the best product on the field possible, and when that happens, everyone benefits. The NFDL would also help purify the college game. Yes, the on-field product would be diminished, but now, the athletes would truly be student-athletes, rather than some of the “student-athletes” we have now. It would also help to clear some of the corruption, as talented players would likely opt to jump straight to the pros rather than select whichever college had the highest-paying boosters. The NCAA would no longer be just a farm system for the NFL. The addition of the NFDL would also add to the drafting strategy. Do you take the more polished, low-risk/ low-reward college senior, or do you draft the high-risk/ high-reward college freshman? Teams would have to carefully balance drafting for the here-and-now and drafting with an eye towards the future. Perhaps most importantly, the NFDL could be relatively cheap. If each player were to make the same salary, say $35,000, then a fifty-man roster would only cost $1.75 million, or a little under $900,000 for each NFL team that owns it. They pay that for a decent kicker. The “everybody-makes-the-same” salary structure would work, because here players are fighting for a spot on an NFL roster, not a paycheck like in the NFL. That would be enough for the player to live off of, but is also low enough to keep salaries reasonable and costs controlled. Yeah, it would be tough to pull together, but in the end the NFDL would be a benefit to all. The NFL gets a true farm system, the NCAA game is purified of its corruption, and players can go pro when they determine they are ready, not when the system does (currently three years out of high school). So, I guess the question is: “Are you ready for some National Football Developmental League?” (Still working on the slogan).

SELLING YOUR STANDARDS FOR SUCCESS...12-29-07
Academic success or athletic success? With few exceptions, universities are forced to sacrifice one for the other. As college football revenue continues to rise, the temptation to fudge admission requirements to allow a star athlete into the university increases as well. As a student at a strong academic university whose athletic program is less than stellar, it would be easy for me to get on my high horse and mount a full-scale assault on football-factory schools that lower their admission standards in order to allow top-tier athletes to get in. After all, a university’s primary purpose is to educate, and if the potential student struggles to read One Fish, Two Fish, what difference does it make if he can run? The main argument in favor of lowering recruiting standards is that the five teams generally recognized as maintaining some sort of standard for their admitted football players- Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Rice, and Vanderbilt- went a combined 19-41 and are not exactly considered powerhouses in pigskin. Whenever an argument can be made that Northwestern’s football team is the best of a given group of football teams, said group is less than stellar. I am not adamantly opposed to schools lowering their standards some in order to allow athletes admission. The barometers used to measure academic excellence, the SAT (or ACT in the Midwest) and grade point average, are flawed measurements that give only a rough sketch of a student’s true academic ability. Again, a university’s primary purpose is to educate, so in general they should admit the strongest academic candidates, but some allowance should be made for special talents such as athletic ability. Just do not go too far the other way. If the guy thinks a graduated cylinder is a tomato can with a diploma, I do not care if he is the next coming of Jim Brown. He should not get in. The reason that this is such a big debate now, whether or not schools should allow athletes with inferior academic records than the general student population, is two-fold. First, as always, it is about the money. Obviously, the better your football team, the more money you make, and to have the best football team you need the best athletes. Unfortunately, not every football player is Albert Einstein, so sometimes admission requirements must be fudged in order to allow them entry. The second reason this is such a big debate in football, and to a lesser extent basketball, is because the NFL and NBA cannot draft players straight out of high school, unlike baseball. In baseball, the most talented players who have no interest in college can go directly into the professional ranks and polish their raw skills in the minor leagues. In the NBA players must be at least one year out of high school, and in the NFL it is three years. Thus, even those players that know they will eventually go professional must spend some time in college, effectively making the NCAA a farm system for the NFL and NBA under the guise of an educational system. That said, the current system in place does have benefits. The most obvious one is that it ensures the highest level of competition in NCAA football. If the most talented athletes were allowed to bypass college entirely, the overall quality of the product would be lower, meaning fewer fans and, ultimately, less money to help fund the non-revenue sports. But at what cost does this money come? One of the most obvious costs is that more-qualified students are shut out to make room for the athletes. After all, colleges can only admit a certain number of students, meaning if they add one, they must subtract another. Of course, with more money and higher stakes comes more corruption. With so much money on the line from BCS bowl berths, the chance that a few over-zealous supporters of “football-factory” universities will, shall we say, help to subsidize the star athletes, skyrockets. And corruption is usually perceived as negative (Chicago politics not withstanding). Another cost is that it devalues the term “student-athlete”. By and large that is not an issue because, even of those elite few selected to play D-I football, only a few will be selected to move on to the NFL, so they actually work towards their degree. But there are a handful of athletes to whom college is a Purgatory, a place where they must wait before entering the Promised Land. They have no interest in learning what the university has to teach, and the university has no interest in teaching him what he has to learn, which is kind of supposed to be the ENTIRE POINT of college. But I digress. Clearly, both sides have merit. On one had, money has a very corrupting influence that can lead college athletics down a path that it would probably rather not travel. At the same time, however, that money is used to subsidize non-revenue sports, enhancing the college experience of many others, and fostering school pride for students and alumni alike. In the end, I don’t have a big problem with schools allowing a lower set of standards for athletes because they do have other talents that add to the university experience (except in extreme cases). That said, I am proud of schools such as Stanford, Duke, and Northwestern for holding their ground and not giving in to the pressure to admit under-qualified athletes. Students at schools such as those understand that athletics is secondary to education, and thus you will sacrifice whatever pride you get from having your school play in prestigious bowl games. Really, I doubt too many students would pass up Stanford for Oregon simply because the Ducks have a better football team. Plus, it means I always have New Year’s Day free because my team is not playing in some goofy bowl game.