MULTIMEDIA

Softball: Bobcats want to be best team in state

Post Pop: The Veronica Mars movie

Speaker aims to end sexual violence

Tony Porter, activist, lecturer and co-founder of A Call to Men: The National Association of Men and Women Committed to Ending Violence Against Women, is bringing his mission to the students of Ohio University.  

Post Streetview: Do you think electronic cigarettes should be allowed in classrooms?

APD will attempt to complete a variety of goals over next calendar year

From continuing its enforcement of the city’s noise nuisance party laws to updating its field training program, the Athens Police Department has set forth a diverse portfolio of goals for the next calendar year in its most recent annual report.

Sports Column: Does Opening Day deserve recognition as a national holiday?

Opening Day, the first day of a new Major League Baseball season, has become an American tradition.

Director's first show explores tragedy with humor

When it comes to his graduate directors’ first project at Ohio University, Dennis Delaney wants them to keep it simple.

New nanotech lab opens

As some students kick back to sip a cup of coffee at the Academic and Research Center’s café, their peers down the hallway are studying objects atom by atom through microscopes.

Film: ‘Veronica Mars’ is a sweet treat for fans

By Meryl Gottlieb| mg986611@ohiou.edu| @buzzlightmeryl

Transgender athlete bridges sports and LGBT gap during OU's Pride Week

Kye Allums, the first openly transgender Division I athlete, took the time to bridge the gap between the LGBT and sports worlds during his Pride Week visit to Ping Recreational Center on Tuesday night.

Vikings to invade The Convo in CIT battle

Ohio didn’t expect to still be playing at The Convo this late in March.

Seven awards given out to honor entrepreneurs at Innovation Awards Gala

The Second Annual Innovation Awards Gala was held on Tuesday night to honor the recipients of several innovation awards.

Athlete bridges sports and LGBT gap

Kye Allums, the first openly transgender Division I athlete, took the time to bridge the gap between the LGBT and sports worlds during his Pride Week visit to Ping Recreational Center on Tuesday night.Allums played basketball for George Washington University, and the journey to become a trans man was not overnight. One analogy Allums used to describe his journey and feelings toward gender and identity was finding the right, or completely wrong, song.“Being trans, for me, is a feeling,” Allums said. “Gender is a feeling.”Allums’ basketball career ended with a battle with concussions that left him unable to play his senior year of college.Now, Allums is an advocate, public speaker and LGBT mentor for youth. He also started “Project I Am Enough,” focusing on the significance of creative sharing, reaffirmation and storytelling on identity search.Allums said one of his first steps in redefining himself through a trans identity was officially changing his name and gender marker.“I didn’t realize that I could define myself,” Allums said.Taylor Hufford, Student Senate commissioner of LGBT Affairs, said the committee wanted to bring Allums in for Pride Week to celebrate the “T” in the community.The event was also held in Ping because Hufford said senate tried to bring the speech to an athletic community.“I’m hoping people know that we’re trying to bring the gap between LGBT, athletics and the rest of the community and try to bring them together,” Hufford said.Allums said the need for visibility and support for LGBTQ athletes is present, and that he’s not alone in either community.“There’s LGBT athletes everywhere and they deserved the right to feel comfortable in playing the sport that they do,” Allums said. “I’ve met way too many people, and I used to be one of them, who didn’t feel like they could be LGBTQ and play sports. That’s unacceptable.”Emma Wright, a senior studying anthropology, said she learned a lot from Allums and his perspective.“I was really moved by what he said about, ‘You are enough,’ ” Wright said. “Even though I identify as straight female, I think that it really inspired me to be the best that I can be and that I’m acceptable any way that I come.”Max Gulick, a graduate of Ohio State University and full-time staff member at Central Ohio Technical College, said Allums pointed out the importance of sharing your story, a message that can sometimes be lost.“It’s easy to get caught up in the policy making, in the rules, in trying to change people’s mind on policy level that sometimes you lose sight of the personal connection, how that can help people change their minds and get different perspective on issues,” Gulick said.Allums said onlookers should focus on being themselves, and noted that he has been a fluid person, constantly finding himself.“Just be patient and listen to yourself,” Allums said. “Don’t listen to anybody else. Only you know how you feel and who you are, and just take the time and listen to you.” rb605712@ohiou.edu@reb_barnes

Editorial: Sports reporting presents challenges in information access

In the spirit of Sunshine Week, today’s editorial touches on one of our coverage areas that frequently hits speed bumps when it comes to transparency and open access to public information: sports reporting.You might think sports reporting is composed of merely watching a game and keeping track of the score. It’s not quite that simple. At Ohio University and any other college in the country that has an athletics department with a pulse, our reporters go through sports information directors for information to add meaning and context to the contests.Ohio’s three SIDs are media liaisons whose job it is to promote Ohio’s athletic teams by updating their statistics, keeping their Web pages current and coordinating players and coaches’ interaction with the media, among a slew of other tasks.The nature of their job, as public-relations professionals, and the nature of ours, as journalists, creates an inherently contentious relationship at times. They want to give us their version of events; we want the truth.To give you a taste of the conflicts that can arise:We’re not allowed to talk with athletes without receiving permission from an SID, and we’re generally barred from interviewing injured athletes at all. Sometimes we’re embargoed from asking athletes certain questions — for example, we’re not allowed to ask swimmers and divers about former coach Greg Werner’s termination.Sometimes it seems as though they’re deliberately trying to throw us for a loop, like the time they sent us a copy of Werner’s personnel file late in the afternoon the Friday before winter break. Or the time they played phone tag with a reporter for several weeks after he asked about athlete scholarships. There’s a story in today’s paper about junior volleyball player Kelly Lamberti, who we interviewed despite Athletics’ original request that we just use quotes provided by the department.To be fair, this is not unusual behavior for collegiate media-relations teams. These positions need to exist so that student-athletes aren’t bombarded with interview requests everywhere they go and so that Ohio Athletics has some buffer from the press. But the helicopter public-relations squad is what makes reporting on sports at OU so difficult. Sure, the university has its hoops that we have to jump through, but at some point down the line we usually find what we’re looking for. If we want to talk to Student Senate or one of the student trustees, we only have to pick up a phone or stroll into an office. With athletes, it’s impossible to simply call them up to chat.Unless, of course, they’re on the hockey team.Ohio’s hockey team provides many counterexamples of the hardships we’ve experienced from Athletics. Because hockey is a club sport, we don’t have to go through the university’s press people for access to games, practices, coaches or players. If the head coach leaves his job (like he did this week), we can call him up and ask why (which we did; results on page three). This type of access is unprecedented for the university’s varsity sports, and it’s the reason hockey is one of the most coveted beats on our staff.Because the flow of information is unrestricted, the reporting process is smooth and the stories are more often than not rich with detail and context. And that’s the point: We love information. More information means better stories, which means that you, dear reader, are more informed.We understand that university sports-information divisions are an immovable beast of an obstacle, and we understand that it’s not our job to change them. It’s our job to train reporters to work with (around and over and through) them to make sure that at the end of the day we’re telling the story, not their story.Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.

Lamberti named to U.S. collegiate team

Through the first three years of her collegiate career, Kelly Lamberti has racked up many accomplishments as a Bobcat, and as of Tuesday she can add Team USA experience to her volleyball resume.

United Campus Ministry will honor individuals for their peace and justice efforts Wednesday night

For the past 31 years, the Board of Directors at United Campus Ministry has been recognizing individuals in the Athens community for their efforts to promote peace and justice. 

Does Opening Day deserve recognition as a national holiday?

Opening Day, the first day of a new Major League Baseball season, has become an American tradition.

The world’s still his stage

Orlando Bloom’s Romeo in David Leveaux’s Romeo and Juliet looked as if he popped out of an advertisement for Urban Outfitters.

Student Senate plans to dress up to celebrate international cultures

Student Senate’s Wednesday meeting will be a global affair.In honor of this year’s International General Board Meeting, members of Ohio University’s Student Senate plan to wear international costumes to celebrate the various cultures represented at OU.Speakers at the meeting will include Vice Provost for Global Affairs Lorna Jean Edmonds and Gerard Krzic, director of the Ohio Program of Intensive English.“I’m speaking to Student Senate tomorrow night to share where we’re at in terms of our development of our global strategy and reflect on where we are today,” Edmonds said.International Affairs Commissioner Hashim Pashtun encouraged anyone who plans to attend the meeting to wear international garb, if possible.Interim Chief Information Officer Duane Starkey and David Alexander, a systems and projects administrator for Office of Information Technology, will also speak at the meeting to give an update from OIT.Finally, Caleb Balduff, university life senator-at-large, will speak about the responsibilities students take on when they decide to host parties.cb536511@ohio.edu@CarolineBartels

New nanotech lab opens

As some students kick back to sip a cup of coffee at the Academic and Research Center’s café, their peers down the hallway are studying objects atom by atom through microscopes.