By September 3, 2004
Even though tri-captain senior defender Scott Palguta has earned years of battle wounds, tough defeats and struggles, there is no doubt he’s ready for the men’s soccer team’s first game of the season tonight against Lehigh. “I still get excited for every game,” Palguta said. “We’re super fired up. Everyone’s been waiting for this game since the last one.” Justifiably so, since the Red last ended on a sour streak — losing six out of its last seven games in the second half of the 2003. But Palguta, men’s head coach Bryan Scales and the rest of the team are looking at the 2004 season as an opportunity to turn a new leaf — and the Red will hope to use tonight’s game to open the season on the right foot. “We want to win,” Palguta said. “I think we’ve had a really good preseason and that’s the bottom line — we want to turn this thing around.” The key to earning an important first win might rely on which team adjusts to the speed of a real game according to Scales. Although Palguta and other teammates went to scout Lehigh in a preseason game last week and are familiar with the Mountain Hawks 4-4-2 formation, tight defense and well coached side, Scales notes that both teams will suffer from the lack of real match play. On the other hand, the Red will benefit from new Ivy League regulations which enable it to start its regular season earlier. Although it has only trained for less than two weeks, Lehigh will also be playing its first match of the season — a fact, Scales said, that will affect both teams. “It’ll take us a little while to really get into a good rhythm,” Scales said. “We’re excited to start strong [tonight]. You can train and practice all you want but you only get better by playing games and so these games at the beginning of the season are very important.” Last season, the Red had trouble getting the ball in the back of the net — a problem which was especially highlighted when it only managed three goals in their last seven games. To add to the Red’s potential difficulty tonight, it will be going up against senior Lehigh goalkeeper Sam Bishop. Bishop, who was a second team All-Patriot League selection last year, allowed a stingy 0.64 goals per game — a Lehigh record. Yet, Scales is particularly confident that his team will be able create more scoring opportunities. Leading the line are forwards Nick Leonard and Kuda Wekwete — two players Scales predicts will cause problems for Lehigh as well as other teams this season. In addition, to stop the progress of the Lehigh attack, Scales is depending on the senior captain triumvirate of defenders Palguta, Peter Lynch at the back and goalkeeper David Mahoney as well as younger players looking for opportunities to move forward. “It is always difficult to break teams down that are organized and it will give us an opportunity to see number one, what type of attacking team we have, number two, what kind of imagination we can have in putting together combinations and get forward and get goals. And it will be a very good test for us to see how we can break down other teams,” Scales said. Lehigh, which earned a 9-4-7 record last season and appeared in the Patriot League’s championship game, shut out ten opposing teams in the 2003 season. Similar to Scales however, Lehigh head coach Dean Koski knows that it will take his team some time to shake off the cobwebs of the offseason. “It’s not going to be high level soccer,” Koski said. “I expect Cornell to be very technical, very organized and very competitive.” With seven games in September, it is especially important for the team to get to a good start, according to Mahoney — especially with rivals Syracuse and Colgate waiting in the wings over the next week. But, he and his excited teammates have faith in the squad’s abilities. “It’s definitely nice to get rolling and get off to a good start,” Mahoney said. “We’re definitely confident that we’re going to win.”Archived article by Brian TsaoSun Senior Editor
By September 3, 2004
Renowned neurologist and A.D. White Professor at Large Oliver Sacks attracted students, faculty and residents to Statler Auditorium last night for a lecture entitled “Creativity and the Brain.” After a brief introduction by Prof. Roald Hoffman, chemistry and chemical biology, Sacks stepped up to the podium. He described himself briefly before embarking on a multidisciplinary commentary on perception and creativity as it involves living creatures. “I feel my whole life is at large, unfocused and unsystematic,” Sacks said. Sacks then delineated some of the fundamental differences in behavior amongst plants, which have no nervous system, animals with simple nervous systems and animals with complex nervous systems, such as humans. “Plant adaptation exists in terms of molecular virtuosity, but they don’t move,” Sacks said. Animals, whose bodies are less efficient at utilizing available substances, “move; they have behavior,” Sacks added. For instance, “insects are dazzling in all sorts of ways, but only have a few hundred neurons,” while “an octopus has over 300 million neurons,” and “humans have over 100 billion neurons,” Sacks explained. These differences in the nervous system’s complexity lead to differences in the degree of behavioral variation found in each animal. For example, when dealing with insects, “one would speak of instincts,” Sacks said. However, as the nervous system becomes larger, “this hardwiring becomes less and less,” to the point where “the human infant is not rigidly programmed, or if it is, it is programmed to learn,” Sacks said. Sacks further explained that a growing human requires experience, “an interaction between the senses,” which he reinforced with a story about a blind man named Virgil who was given the ability to see at the age of 50. Sacks explained that when the surgeon took the blindfold off of Virgil’s eyes “he had a blank bewildered look on his face.” It was only when the surgeon began to speak that Virgil’s eyes uneasily focused on the surgeon’s mouth. Before that instance, Virgil saw only the chaos of colors and textures, devoid of any meaning or context; but after the surgeon spoke, Virgil connected the surgeon’s voice to a mouth and made his first visual association or perception. Sacks then described the process of learning in children and expressed awe at the brain’s capacity to sort through so much information and organize it into perception. “It is very easy to model something like color perception by mechanical processes,” Sacks said. “It is however, much more difficult to model processes of adaptation, association and discernment,” he added. Finally, in defining creativity, Sacks merely described it as coming “from a greater depth than any reproduction.” He explained that creativity is often motivated by “dissatisfaction with the status quo,” and by an inherent tendency for “skill to become creative.” At end of the lecture, Sacks quickly previewed some of the work being done to better understand the brain, before being exposed to over a dozen questions from inquisitive audience members. “Why is the brain more complex, more evolved than other parts of the body?” asked one audience member. Sacks responded by saying he believes “there is [not] much need for the heart or the kidneys to evolve, because they are highly efficient already.” However, the cleverness provides the much needed adaptability that enhances survival. Sacks then introduced his own question, “So what will happen to the brain now, will it get larger?” He explained that the modern brain has become more powerful through language, writing, and computers, but that he does not think that the brain’s “raw abilities are much more than they were during early times.” A second audience member expressed dissatisfaction with Sacks’ definition of creativity saying, “I do not understand your definition of creativity. . . Are there not everyday types of creativity?” Sacks agreed, saying, “I think there are, I think a life which is open and flexible, not too rigid is essentially a creative life.” A few more questions followed before Hofmann concluded the lecture. The lecture was part of Cornell’s A.D. White Professor at large program, which brings professors from around the world to Cornell to lecture on various topics. Hoffman nominated Sacks for the title and served as his official sponsor. “[Sacks] is much more than a neurologist,” Hoffman explained in an interview, “he is a writer of great popularity and skill.” Sacks has written over nine books, a few of which are used as text books in Cornell courses, and a variety of awards for his work in neurology. However, “what is remarkable about Sacks is the way he humanizes disease and looks at a diseased person as someone with great dignity,” Hoffmann added. Archived article by David Andrade Sun Staff Writer