Four Red Grapplers Claim Titles

By wpengine | December 1, 2003

While most Cornell students went home to visit their families and eat turkey and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving break, the wrestling team spent its time mashing opponents at the Mat Town Invitational at Lock Haven University. The Red won the tournament with 156 points, as the victory marked the team’s second first-place finish in as many weeks.

Though the victory pleased head coach Rob Koll, it did not thrill him.

“It was nice to win, but it was nothing more than we expected,” said head coach Rob Koll. “At the beginning of the year, we have certain goals and expectations, and even though we won, I thought we could have wrestled better.”

Yet, four of the team’s grapplers earned first-place finishes that helped propel Cornell to the top spot on the scoreboard. Individual champions included junior Travis Lee at 133 pounds, sophomore Dustin Manotti at 149 pounds, junior Tyler Baier at 174 pounds, and senior Matt Greenberg at 197 pounds

The most exciting match of the tourney was Lee’s 133-pound title bout against Penn State’s Josh Moore. Coming into the match, Lee and Moore were ranked first and second in the weight class, respectively, and the close match proved why. Both wrestlers fought fiercely for three periods, but Lee emerged victorious with an 11-9 decision to capture the championship. More importantly, the win solidified his No. 1 national ranking and helped him earn the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler award

“I was very pleased with Travis’s performance,” said Koll. “Moore had pinned almost everybody he’d faced up until now, and Travis really did a nice job against him in the match.”

Manotti, who entered as the tournament’s top seed after winning the Red’s Body Bar Invitational last weekend, also delivered impressive performances. He captured decisions over North Carolina’s Andrew Slack, Buffalo’s Pat Lloyd, and Rider’s Labe Black en route to his finals match. In that bout, Manotti defeated Lock Haven’s Mike Maney 6-2 to take the championship.

Baier also came into Saturday’s matches favored to win his bracket. Dominating performances throughout the day validated the ranking. After earning shutout decisions over Ryan Summers of Lock Haven and Charlie Pienarr of Slippery Rock, Baier defeated Ohio’s Ed Willis, 9-4, to advance to the title match. Baier faced second-seeded, Buffalo’s Ed Pawlak, and defeated him handily by a score of 8-4.

Finally, after disposing his opponents during preliminary matches, Greenberg found himself in a tough bout against Buffalo’s Kyle Cerminara for the title. Though lower scoring than his teammates’ final contests, Greenberg’s match was nonetheless a nailbiter, as Greenberg won by a slim margin, 5-4, at the end of regulation.

Senior Scott Roth was the only Red wrestler to reach the finals and not pull away with a championship. The No. 2 seed in the 157-pound weight class, Roth fell to top-seeded Jake Percival of Ohio in a tight 9-8 match for the title.

A pair of third-place finishes from junior Joe Mazzurco and senior Randy Stout also helped Cornell strengthen its lead during the tournament. Mazzurco entered the day seeded second in his division and earned decisions over Ohio’s Vinny DiGiovanni and Nick Rausenburger of Buffalo before falling to third-seeded Tim Foley of Virginia, 5-3. After a medical forfeit by Lock Haven’s Jason Gilligan in the consolation bracket, Mazzurco advanced to the third-place match, where he edged fourth-seeded Jeremy Reitz of Clarion, 4-3. Stout had a very successful day, going 5-1 as an unseeded wrestler in the 184 weight class. His pin at 2:42 against fourth-seeded Mike Greenberg advanced Stout to the third-place match, where UNC’s Mark Canty forfeited.

“Dustin [Manotti] wrestled great, Matt Greenberg did a great job, and so did Tyler [Baier],” said Koll. “But we also had some really nice finishes by [Joe] Mazzurco, Scott Roth, and Randy Stout. I was really pleased with all of them.”

In spite of the team’s overall finish and several outstanding performances, Koll knows that his men will have to improve as the season progresses in order to finish strongly at the NCAA tournament in March.

“Right now, we have a couple of weight classes where I expected more, but we’ll figure things out,” he concluded. “We have some good and tough freshmen and seniors competing for spots, but whoever wins will have to not only take the place, but be outstanding. Our competition next semester is against a lot of top-10 teams, and if our guys aren’t nationally competitive, they’ll lose.”

The team’s next test will come Dec. 29-30, when the Red travels to the Midlands Invitational hosted by Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.

Archived article by Everett Hullverson

Eels Assumes Post

By wpengine December 2, 2003

According to a recent survey conducted across the country, 85 percent of university counseling center directors reported a significant increase in the number of students using mental health services. In response to this trend, Gannett: Cornell University Health Services, has welcomed a new director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), Dr. Gregory Eels, to address the increasingly pressing issue of mental health on campus. “One of the things that attracted me to this position is that there is a real commitment to mental health here at Cornell,” said Eels. “I think the university is thinking far into the future by seeing a trend that has been recognized nationally.” Specifically, Eels has placed emphasis on dealing with suicide prevention, substance abuse and eating disorders. “I think the stakes are highest with those issues,” he said. “This is an environment that does have a lot of stress and pressure and it’s important that people know there is help out there — they don’t have to do these things on their own — and there’s not a stigma attached to it. … It’s ok to ask for help if you need it.” In addition, Eels is in the process of implementing programs to target certain student communities, which may be underserved through traditional services, through outreach programs. “People for whatever reason may not be seeking our services, so we try to do some things in a non-traditional way to reach the people who aren’t being reached in those traditional ways,” Eels said. For example, Dr. Velma Williams at CAPS currently hosts “Sister Chat” meetings during which African-American students can discuss their concerns in a less formal setting. Gannett programs also target the Latino community, LGBT students and Asian American students among other groups. Eels is currently working to develop a program targeted at graduate students. Eels is also considering the creation of an eating disorders clinic within Gannett in the future. The clinic would integrate social workers from CAPS, medical nurses and nutritionists. “To integrate that is just so important,” Eels said. “To be in the same building, and be part of the same organization — you are going to get care as a student that would be pretty rare to get out there unless you pay lots and lots of money.” Eels got his masters at Eastern Illinois University and his Doctorate at Oklahoma State, and spent the last seven and a half years at University of Southern Mississippi as a counselor, and later director of Counseling and Services for over five years. In addition to serving as director of CAPS, Eels is an associate director of Gannett and part of Gannett’s steering team. “Greg has brought great new energy, fresh ideas and enthusiasm to CAPS. Although he has only been here a couple of months, it is already clear that he is committed to providing high quality counseling services to Cornell students,” said Randy Patterson, a CAPS therapist. The dynamic, fast-pace of a university drew Eels to college student counseling. He enjoys working in an academic environment which his says continually challenges him to be aware of his surroundings and his field. In addition, he enjoys working with students who, during their college years, are undergoing great changes. “You’re working with students who have the flexibility to change … There is a certain dynamic atmosphere here to see people who are 18, 19, 20, 21 — they’re making changes that can move their lives in different directions … you are also reaching people in this critical time in their development,” he said. Currently, Gannett has one of the largest counseling and psychological services divisions in the country. CAPS includes 23 professional staff members and 5 support staff members. According to Sharon Dittman, associate director of community relations at Gannett, “Our staff size [within CAPS] has doubled in the last 7 years and the client number has paralleled that … We have students who are saying, ‘I’m waiting too long,’ and so we add more staff, but as soon as we add more staff, the number of students grows by the same amount.” Eels is dedicated to addressing this overwhelming national trend. “There’s definitely more of a change in the national landscape, and the expectation is you need to be more cautious, especially where students lives are at risk — you have to take more of an active role,” he said. Archived article by Stacey Delikat
C.U. Students Protest FTAA

By wpengine December 2, 2003

Last week, seventeen Cornell students migrated to Miami via automobile to join thousands of others in protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings being held there. If ratified, the FTAA proposes to create a free trade zone encompassing all the countries of the Americas except Cuba. Officials working on the FTAA hope to have a deal set by 2005. The main protest was scheduled for Nov. 20, and that morning the Cornellians joined an unauthorized procession toward the building where negotiations were taking place. “People were speaking over megaphones to the crowd at some points, at some points people were just dancing banging on drums, chanting various things,” said Peter Montalbano ’04, who estimated between two and three thousand rally participants. “There were a fair number of middle aged people, so it was a pretty eclectic mix — the only thing that was lacking were any sort of major parties, like the Greens or Oxfam,” Montalbano said. Along with the dancing and camaraderie scheduled for the morning session, anarchists, known as the “black block”, planned to attempt to take down the chain link fence that separated the protesters from the negotiations. Activist and writer Naomi Klein has espoused at great length on the psychological and metaphorical connotations of fences, on how they are used by governments to restrict citizens’ access to resources, information, and political dissent. With numbers dwindled to approximately one thousand, marchers approached the fence and were confronted by riot police. “People were starting to get a little more congested and they, I guess, had decided that they didn’t want to let the cops tell them where go anymore and push them around, so they sort of did the arm linking, human wall thing– -obviously some words were exchanged between protesters and cops,” Montalbano said. “There were no threats made towards the cops, there was no aggressive body language being taken towards them, except for standing there with their arms linked.” There was, however, violence reported by participants. “I did witness a riot cop hit a woman in the head about clear as day with his club. When that happened, everybody screamed, ‘No, what are you doing? Stop.’ The protesters were screaming, ‘Calm down’ to the cops,” Montalbano said. According to witnesses, while riot police were preoccupied with protesters, several “black block” members made an attempt at tearing down the fence barrier. Several Cornell students were among those in the front line opposite the riot police. “All of the riot cops behind the fence started to open fire onto the crowd with, I would presume, rubber bullets and paint balls filled with pepper spray,” Montalbano said. “Everyone scattered — somebody grabbed the tear gas and threw it back at the police, over the fence, at which point another round went off into us again.” Another student, Tina Lax ’05 took to a tree to get a better view of the action, but was spotted fairly quickly. “The riot police saw me in the tree and like fifteen of them surrounded me,” Lax said. With the crowd dispersed, the student participants took the opportunity to grab some coffee and rest on a grassy amphitheater before the official noon proceedings were set to begin. “We kind of thought that the worst had ended,” Montalbano said. Shortly before noon, vans filled with steelworkers arrived — union men and women with T-shirts reading, “FTAA sucks,” “Buck Fush” buttons and union flags. Also present were the United Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the AFL-CIO, Oxfam, the Green Party, United Students Against Sweatshops, the International Socialist Organization and the Socialist Workers Party. Reported estimates vary, but somewhere between eight and seventeen thousand protesters attended the afternoon proceedings. “When the steelworkers got there, the whole mood changed, everybody was happy. They poured out of their busses by the hundreds. They were probably the largest single presence there,” Montalbano estimated. The protesters reassembled after the official organizers of the march arrived and began to creep closer to the line of riot police. This is when another clash between protesters and police occurred, according to witnesses. “… The cops all start[ed] chanting in unison with their billy clubs, ‘Back! Back! Back! Back!’ And they [took] a step forward every time and they slam[med] their clubs forward with both hands every time,” Montalbano said. This act of violence was unprovoked, according to Mantalbano. “Nobody did anything, the closest person was about five feet from the cops, we weren’t even in their face anymore,” he said. Danfung Dennis ’05 was hit multiple times by riot police. “I was shot six times, once on the side of my neck and the rest on the back of my body as I ran away. I crumpled to the ground in pain, my groans stifled by the gas mask I was wearing,” he said via e-mail. Asa Wilks ’04 was hit with pepper spray as the Cornell students returned to the amphitheater where labor affiliated groups were stationed, according to Montalbano. Wilks was distracted momentarily by a woman wearing an AFL-CIO jacket whom Montalbano suspects may have been in cahoots with law enforcement, and was subsequently pepper sprayed in the face by an officer. With severely swollen and burning eyes, Wilks ran as the officer continued to pepper spray him in the back of the head for several seconds before returning to formation, according to Montalbano. Montalbano is convinced that the police force, which included the National Guard, state troopers, Miami-Dade county sheriffs, SWAT team police and snipers perched on top of skyscrapers, wanted to fight that November day. “In my mind, the police incited a riot. They bottlenecked everybody, they were shooting at them for no reason if they came anywhere close to them, thousands of people were all of a sudden compacted into one city block. That’s just the formula to start people breaking shit. And that’s what happened — I think the response of law enforcement was disgusting, it was uncontrolled, it was thuggish,” Montalbano said. The Miami FTAA meetings concluded a day early. Archived article by Clark Merrefield