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Graduate assistants play an integral role in team success.

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Get to know the man behind twitter account @ringbyspringlu.

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Courtney russo| Liberty Champion

MUSICIAN — Jon Foreman performed for Liberty students in a sold-out LaHaye Event Space Saturday, Feb. 28.

Healthy living in a digital worldCenter for Digital Wellness encourages plugging into a happy and active life

Town hall confronts concernsDean of Students hosts speaker panel

m a k i n g m e l o d i e s

Emily Hoosiereahoosier@liberty.edu

The Dean of Students Office invited students to voice their concerns and com-plaints at the biannual Town Hall meeting Wednesday, Feb. 25.

This semester’s Town Hall meeting was in DeMoss Hall 1105, where an audience of students took the opportunity to ask a panel anything they wanted about life at Liberty. Robert Mullen, dean of students, moderated the seven-person panel.

Mullen introduced himself to each person who walked in the room, asking about their majors and career goals. As the moderator, he began the meeting by giving away eight of the 16 prizes by drawing names. The priz-es included gift certificates to Zaxby’s, The White Hart, Bloom and Wasabi. The remain-ing eight prizes were given at the end.

“The purpose (of this meeting) is not just to win prizes, but to hear from the panel,” Mullen said.

Quincy Thompson, Student Government Association (SGA) president, reviewed some of the issues discussed in the last Town Hall meeting. He said some on-campus students experienced trouble opening their mail-boxes. If students still experience this issue, Thompson said they could contact Liberty Postal Services.

Another issue discussed in the last meet-ing was R-rated movies. Thompson said there is now a process to request approval of a movie that is rated R, but there is not a list of approved R-rated movies.

Students asked questions about a variety of topics ranging from campus Wi-Fi to rumors about Convocation schedules. Two dominating topics of the meeting’s discus-sion were campus safety and bus schedules.

One student asked about the role of stu-dents with a conceal carry license if a live-shooter emergency happened on campus.

“Is there any way LUPD can come up with a plan on how to instruct students on what to do if there were ever a shooter incident?” the student asked. “It would be helpful and safe to actually instill that.”

Mullen said the conceal carry licenses are not about campus security.

See TOWN HALL, A9

photo provided

BALANCE — Author began the first digital wellness program in the nation.

Living Well LibertyLiving Well Liberty@

Quinn Foleyqfoley@liberty.edu

In order to promote healthy living, Liberty University has started a Center for Digital Well-ness, the first of its kind in the nation on a college campus. The center aims to help students maintain a healthy balance in a digital world.

Sylvia Hart Frejd, the execu-tive director of this new pro-gram, is both an author and a speaker. According to thedigital-invasion.com, Frejd co-authored

the book “The Digital Invasion” with her father Archibald Hart. The book helps people to wake up to their relationship with technology, assess what technol-ogy has stolen from them and their families, and reclaim their real life and relationships and redeem their wasted time.

“After writing this book, we got so many responses from parents, teachers and pastors wanting more resources and help with this digital topic,” Fre-jd said. “The Center for Digi-tal Wellness is the nation’s first

center that is dedicated to the healthy use of technology and theology of technology.”

Frejd said she believes this center will prove beneficial on college campuses.

“I wanted the center to be at a university because it is a great place to learn how to have healthy digital habits,” Frejd said. “Students are away from their parents for the first time. Nobody is saying ‘Get off your phone,’ or ‘Get off that video game,’ so for these students, it is just a time in their life where

they are going to have to decide what their relationship is going to be with technology.”

Frejd said it is important to be aware of how digital usage is af-fecting relationships, grades and even future careers.

“When I guest lecture in class-es, I say, ‘Ten years from now, it is those of you in this room who can manage your digital life well that are going to be the most successful in your jobs, your lives and in your relationships.’”

See HEALTHY, A9

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Students head to D.C.The Washington Fellowship provides internship opportunities for all majors

Annual A-Day approaching

Shannon Rittersritter2@liberty.edu

Every year, Liberty Univer-sity takes one day to cancel residential classes and receive student feedback through as-sessments such as surveys and focus groups. With that feedback, the university makes changes in the areas that need improvement. This year’s An-nual Assessment Day, or A-Day, will take place March 25.

According to Assistant Director of Analytics Elicia Charlesworth, A-Day is not intended to be a “free day” off from classes. Rather, its purpose is to give the stu-dents a voice so that the uni-versity knows where to make improvements.

“We’re giving students the opportunity to give feedback about the things that are im-portant to them,” Charles-worth said. “We really need all students to participate be-cause everyone’s feedback is important.”

This feedback is particu-larly used when the university submits compliance reports to maintain its accreditation. Ac-creditation is crucial for stu-dents, because employers and graduate schools typically give preference to applicants who have degrees from accred-ited institutions. In addition, a university must maintain its accreditation in order for stu-dents to be eligible to receive financial aid. The input pro-vided by students during A-Day serves as a major source of information that Liberty academic and co-curricular departments use to make im-provements, which are high-lighted in the university’s accreditation reports.

The planning process for A-Day begins at least six months in advance, according to Charlesworth. However,

Charlesworth said she has A-Day on her mind all year round. She solicits input from academic and co-curricular departments and assists them with the design and schedul-ing of the various assessment activities they wish to conduct.

“Starting a year ahead, I have ideas for the next year,” Charlesworth said. “Right after this Assessment Day, I’m (going to) look at every-thing that happened … and (say), ‘OK, what could I have done better?’”

Assessment Day is split up into two sessions — one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

The morning session is co-ordinated with academic de-partments. These assessment activities affect all aspects of academia — including courses, programs and professors. Resi-dential students will be con-tacted by their department if they have been selected for the morning assessment activities.

The afternoon involves ses-sions conducted by the co-curricular departments such as the registrar’s office, the bookstore and the LaHaye Student Union. All residen-tial students will be invited to participate in either one of the afternoon focus groups or one online survey.

Many positive changes are the results of students’ feed-back on A-Day. According to Charlesworth, these changes include ideas for the new Jerry Falwell Library, an increase in the number of merchants that accept Flames cash and the overall improvement of cours-es, departments and activities.

For more information about A-Day, please visit Liberty.edu/ADay.

RITTER is a news reporter.

Ellie Fraserefraser2@liberty.edu

Washington, D.C., one of the most well-known cities in the world, could be a Liberty student’s next home. The thriving city hosts all three branches of the U.S. gov-ernment and countless companies where students could potentially find their next job.

The Washington Fellowship, a Liberty University program, gives students the chance to intern full-time in Washington, D.C., during the fall, spring or summer se-mesters. The program provides Liberty housing in the Capitol Hill district, with a dorm situated two blocks away from the Capitol building and close to the Union Station Metro.

Shiree Craft, the Washington Fellowship recruitment coordi-nator, assists students in the be-ginning stage of the Washington Fellowship process.

“I meet with students to speak with them in detail about the fea-tures and cost of our program, as well as explain to them the com-ponents of the application pro-cess to the program,” Craft said.

Reggie Leonard, the Washing-ton Fellowship placement coor-dinator, works with accepted stu-dents to help them create cover letters and a résumé — as well as practice for interviews — all with the goal of finding a beneficial in-ternship.

Once accepted into the Wash-ington Fellowship and settled with an internship, students are ready for a valuable work expe-rience that will also look good on their résumé after college, according to Craft.

“Spending a semester in Wash-ington, D.C., will not only make

students stronger competitors for jobs in the future, but will also allow them the opportunity to develop professionally and spiritually as they navigate their time working and living there,” Craft said.

Justine Lisa, a senior fashion merchandising major, is currently interning at Snobswap, an online luxury marketplace for selling or buying pre-owned, high-end de-signer fashion items. Lisa heard about the program during her sophomore year and decided to try it.

“I just felt like it was some-thing that I seriously needed to pray about,” Lisa said. “I’ve al-ways had a desire to live in a city, and I thought that starting off in our nation’s capital would be an adventure for sure.”

Lisa works with the authentica-tion of the high-end products, or-ganization of the website and in-ventory, communication support, preparation of images and special projects like event planning.

“All the work that I do at my in-ternship is completely relevant to fashion merchandising,” Lisa said. “It’s the behind-the-scenes work that makes a fashion company flourish. I love it.”

Seth Montgomery is a senior majoring in business administra-tion with a concentration in mar-keting and a minor in criminal justice. When Montgomery found out that the Washington Fellow-ship had direct connections with his ideal internship, he decided to participate.

“I wanted to intern with the US Marshals Service (USMS),” Mont-gomery said. “I went to the Career Center and asked if they had any connections with the USMS, and they told me that was their main

connection. The Washington Fel-lowship was the direct route to get into the USMS internship.”

According to Craft, any ma-jor is able to participate in the Washington Fellowship.

“We have had students from various majors serve as interns at many noteworthy institutions in Washington, D.C.,” Craft said. “Some examples include the United States Secret Service, C-SPAN, National Geographic, the White House, NCIS, USMS, DC United, Anthropologie, American Psychological Association, Con-cerned Women for America and many, many more.”

Additionally, Craft said each se-mester two or three Washington Fellowship participants get job offers from the companies where they interned.

Apart from the internship ben-efits, Lisa said the best part about living in Washington, D.C., is the diversity.

“I absolutely love it,” Lisa said. “The food, cultures and shop-ping are so unique. It’s such a his-torical city, yet it’s so young and exhilarating.”

Although city life can be fun, Lisa has a 40-minute commute to work every weekday.

“One of my least favorite things about living in Washington, D.C., has been the daily commute on the metro,” Lisa said. “I defi-nitely miss the luxury of getting in my car and having the freedom to go anywhere I want.”

Montgomery said his favor-ite part of living in Washington, D.C., is the people he works with.

“Their wisdom, expertise and

advice has been a complete bless-ing and learning curve,” Mont-gomery said. “I get to handle some very sensitive cases on the job, and their knowledge and experience has been immensely valuable to everyday life.”

Any interested students should contact Craft to learn more about the program and application process.

“It’s not too late to apply for summer 2015 – our application cut-off for summer 2015 is March 13,” Craft said.

To request an appointment, visit liberty.edu/washington and select “Appointment Request,” or email washington@liberty.edu.

FRASER is a feature reporter.

Emily BEckEr| liBErty champion

NETWORK — The Washington Fellowship helps students prepare for their future career field.

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Matthew Vossmvoss@liberty.edu

Liberty University is preparing for its 4th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is just a few weeks away. The fac-ulty administrator heading up the symposium is Dr. Carey Roberts, associate dean for the College of Arts and Science.

The Undergraduate Research Symposium will take place Sat-urday, April 11, from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Jerry Falwell Library. The event will feature different sec-tions of work, including presenta-tions on research, poster projects, historical documents and mar-keting strategies. Students will be given the chance to show their own work and learn from and critique each other. The deadline for submissions for the sympo-sium is March 28. There will be awards for presentations, $100 for each, in the categories of best arts and humanities, physical and life sciences and social sciences presentations.

According to Roberts, the Un-dergraduate Research Symposium began four years ago when Dean of the College of Arts and Sci-ences Roger Schultz realized there was a gap in the research agen-da for most of the university’s departments.

“He realized that students needed an outlet through which to present their research in a public forum that was both friendly and encouraging,” Roberts said. “… This actually began at the college of arts and sciences, … and over the past four years, it has grown into a university-wide event.”

Although students are generally allowed to present as long as there are openings, they must have a faculty member or faculty mentor recommend their participation in order to qualify. Roberts believes students who participate have an advantage when it comes to applying for graduate schools

and jobs.“This is an excellent opportu-

nity for students to present, to actually add an important and critical part to their résumé and applications for graduate school,” Roberts said. “It allows them to prove to prospective graduate schools that they are a researcher, that they have conducted pub-lic presentations, they have filled the questions on those presenta-tions and that they can hold their own in an academic environment. And these students then go on to use this as a way of increasing their chances of getting into their graduate school of choice.”

Students are also being given the opportunity to have their

research published in the new undergraduate research journal, The Montview Liberty University Undergraduate Research Jour-nal. The submission date for the undergraduate journal is April 25.

“The expectation is that by March 28 (the students) may not have their project finished yet, but they know what they are doing,” Roberts said. “They have an ab-stract, and they send that in to us to be included. On the day of the presentation, during the sympo-sium on April 11, they will pres-ent their main conclusions, but then again, it may not still be a perfectly complete and final proj-ect. But they will then have the opportunity after the symposium

to submit the final version to be included in the journal.”

Roberts was adamant about continuing the growth of the symposium as the school continues to expand.

“We are actually now turning it into Undergraduate Research Week,” Roberts said.

The symposium will be taking place during the University’s Col-lege for a Weekend, one of the busiest and most packed times on campus. This was done in an effort to promote students’ hard work even further and help con-tinuing to recruit students that want to further their education. The event schedule begins Tues-day, April 7 and will run through

Saturday, April 11 with different events each day.

“There will be events including Dr. Beisner speaking on (climate and energy policy, the poor and biblical earth stewardship), an Honors Student Research Sym-posium, events in Appomattox for the 150th anniversary of Gen-eral Lee’s surrender and a Family and Consumer Sciences Fashion Show,” Roberts said.

For more information on the Undergraduate Research Sympo-sium, visit digitalcommons.liberty.edu/symp_undergrad/2015.

VOSS is a news reporter.

Students prepare for seminarUndergraduate Research Symposium welcomes academic achievements

Kevin Manguiob | Liberty news service

OPPORTUNITIES — Students are able to connect with fellow classmates during academic research symposiums.

Tré Goins-Phillipsdgoinsphillips@liberty.edu

The good old boys in Washington, D.C.’s elite Re-publican club seem to have their hearts set on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to be the party’s 2016 nomi-nee. But the voters’ eyes are looking elsewhere.

If last week’s Conserva-tive Political Action Con-ference (CPAC) is any indication, Bush — who received underwhelming applause from a sparse (and booing) crowd when he took the stage — is no contender in the more conservative minds of the Grand Old Party’s (GOP) base.

So to whom should the GOP be paying attention? Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walk-er, the blue-collar conser-vative star, the less-known Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, ris-ing Republican star and for-mer California U.S. Senate candidate, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the young gun libertarian favorite.

“President Paul,” sup-porters shouted repeatedly during the senator’s rousing CPAC speech.

At the close of the conference, Paul won the

presidential straw poll with 25.7 percent of the vote, and Walker came in a close second at 21.4 per-cent, according to CNN. Bush trailed far behind at a lackluster 8 percent.

It is worth noting that Walker has made major strides, surging to second place from his 7 percent showing in 2014, according to The Washington Times.

Though the straw poll is not always a presidential predictor, Paul has won the contest for the last three years running. Historically, the poll has been referred to as “meaningless,” though, as CNN’s John King said, “winning is meaningless, if you win once.”

“But most repeat winners — Reagan, Kemp, Romney — do have better résumés,” King continued.

Additionally, Paul has already opened up an of-fice in Silicon Valley — an emerging battleground area in the ever-evolving tech age, according to CNN. Already competing with Hillary Clinton, the GOP’s all-but-certain op-ponent, Paul carries some clout in the area for his unflinching defense of a free and open Internet, not to mention the techland’s

libertarian leanings.Though that may seem

trivial, the technology in-dustry and its coffers are a major political player, and you can bet the Silicon Valley visionaries have paid attention to Paul’s commitment to Internet liberty and privacy.

“You do have a right to privacy,” Paul said. “Your rights are who you are, your rights are what you are, your rights are in your DNA — and the government can, quite frankly, get over it.”

This is where Fiorina could come in handy.

Though the former Hewlett-Packard CEO — the company’s first fe-male executive — has a somewhat tumultuous business history, Fiorina does wield influence in the industry Paul is after and could gather establish-ment, business-friendly Republican friends on Capitol Hill.

Even with less name recognition than many in the crowded field of GOP hopefuls, the West Coast executive garnered thun-derous applause during her CPAC speech and is already being discussed as a possible No. 2 contender.

“(Hillary Clinton) tweets about equal pay for wom-en but won’t answer basic questions about her own of-fices’ pay standards — and neither will our president,” Fiorina said at CPAC. “Un-like Mrs. Clinton, I know that flying is an activity, not an accomplishment.”

Fiorina’s advisers said that line has gotten under Clinton’s skin, according to the National Journal.

Whether or not she actu-ally gets the nod from the eventual nominee, it would

be wise for the Republican National Committee to put her on the campaign trail.

Fiorina affords the Re-publicans the possibility of bridging its female voter gap, she could assist Paul in his California efforts and, based on her performance at CPAC, she has a knack for motivating the conservative grassroots base.

In my mind, regard-less of whether or not Fiorina is Paul’s running mate, the two could make a spectacular fundraising

team in the march toward the nomination. And, this go ’round, the good old boys network in D.C. bet-ter pay attention to its core constituents.

Most candidates are ex-pected to make their an-nouncements and launch official campaigns within the next few months.

GOINS-PHILLIPS is the opinion editor.

Sports bring out the best in people. It seems that every day there is a touching story about teams or athletes spreading hope and happiness to kids or adults with terminal dis-eases or special needs.

But sports also bring out the worst in people.

In competition, reputations, bragging rights, wins, records and championships are at stake. During big games, it is as if nothing else matters, and fans, coaches and players are all tense and emotional. And when there are emotions involved, something bad is bound to happen.

This was the case in the Vanderbilt win over Tennessee Thursday, Feb. 26. As the last seconds ticked off the clock, Vanderbilt freshman guard Wade Bald-win IV taunted the Volunteers players. Tennessee coaches took exception to the obnoxious gesture, however, and alerted Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings about Baldwin’s antics.

Then, Stallings let loose on Bald-win, loudly and profanely berating him for his lack of sportsmanship. Stallings even went so far as to say, “I’m going to f------ kill you.”

Although Stallings apologized to Bald-win and made a formal apology to the media, and though Stallings admitted that he would never actually physically harm his players, Stallings’ outburst was definitely not the display of sportsman-ship he expected from his player.

While I appreciate Stallings’ com-mitment to making sportsmanship “a high priority” and holding his players

accountable, the tirade was uncalled for and inappropriate. Sportsmanship does not just apply to how opposing players treat each other. It extends to the intersquad relationships as well.

According to ESPN basketball insider Jeff Goodman, Stallings and Baldwin’s relationship was probably already on rocky ground, and Baldwin’s Thursday-night actions were likely just the latest in a string of displays of poor sports-manship. Baldwin just happened to strike exactly the right nerve in Stallings that night.

Do not get me wrong. I know that the words used by Stallings are part of the lexicon of sports. I do not pretend to think that no curse words are uttered by angry fans, players or coaches. I know that during games, in the locker room and on the sidelines, emotions run high and choice words are used. But that does not make it acceptable.

Most college basketball fans and

analysts will agree that Stallings should have waited a few minutes until they got into the locker room to lay into his im-mature guard. Being caught on camera and yelling at Baldwin in front of the Volunteers in the way Stallings did exac-erbates the mistake. But Stallings should have never let his emotions push him that far — even without the camera lights shining on him.

I will never know what Stallings says to his team behind closed doors, but the location in which bad language is used should not determine whether it is OK or not.

Athletes and coaches are expected to present themselves in a dignified and ap-propriate manner when they are in front of other people — and they should be expected to do the same when they are not. We need to stop perpetuating the double standard that bad language and poor behavior in sports is acceptable in some cases, but not in others.

OPINIONA4 March 3, 2015

Voters lean libertarian

Joe Biden, king of gaffes

Kentucky senator secures third straw poll victory, Silicon Valley CEO shines

Vice president’s continuous blunders may knock him off 2016 candidate list

GooGle ImaGes

RALLY — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul takes the stage at annual CPAC Friday, Feb. 27.

Matthew Ozburnmozburn@liberty.edu

Vice President Joe Biden has provided no shortage of public relations nightmares for President Barack Obama’s White House.

With the rest of Washington, D.C., mak-ing it through their snow day last week, Biden was definitely not missing any action. A picture and video were taken during the swearing in of new Defense Secretary Ash-ton Carter that show Biden whispering in his wife’s ear and resting his hands on her shoul-ders in an extremely discomforting — and creepy — manner.

Reporters at The Washington Post seem to think Stephanie Carter, the wife of Ashton Carter, looked more annoyed than happy about the encounter. Especially considering all of this awkward mess was being photographed and streamed live with millions watching.

Her expression was “piercing: Furious but frozen, it is the expression of anyone being touched or groped who really, truly doesn’t want to be,” according to Tim Teeman from the Daily Beast.

Even though most news outlets are claiming this is just another one of his hilarious “gaffes,” this photo seems a bit more telling.

She genuinely looks disturbed in the

photo. I cannot think of anyone who would not be disturbed with a creepy old man, who just happens to also be the vice presi-dent, coming up behind them whispering in their ear and grabbing their shoulders.

Sure, Biden has had his hilarious moments, especially on the campaign trail,

and has provided us more than a few laughs, but this is where hilarity crosses the line. His most recent actions were uncalled for and extremely distasteful.

Biden — in a failed PR stunt to rectify the situation — even joked about the pho-to that was taken at the press conference,

saying, “I will be available for photos in this room if you want one, but I don’t blame you if you don’t,” getting laughs from the press in the room, according to Politico.

This man is the vice president of the United States, not a comedian. It is not his job to crack jokes and make America laugh. His job is to help run the country and defend the Constitution to the best of his ability.

So do us all a favor, Biden. Forget about 2016.

Biden needs to be called out by Obama to issue a formal apology to the secretary and his wife and to America for acting in an unprofessional manner.

At any major television station, you are expected to act a certain way on camera when viewers are watching, and the same standard, if not a higher one, should be expected of our president and vice president.

The fact is that this will go unpunished because Obama is completing his term as a lame-duck president where moments like this do not affect his White House as much as it would have in the past.

But rest assured, America, if Biden does run for office, there will be plenty more awkward photos in our future.

OZBURN is an opinion writer.

GooGle ImaGes

WEIRD — Joe Biden at the swearing-in of Sec. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall in 2014.

by Emily Brown

opinion Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | A5

LETTERS TO THE EDITORPOLICIES & INFO

Emily Browneditor-in-chief

Gabriella Fullergraduate assistant Tom Footegraduate assistant

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Dave Van Dyknews editor

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Breann Blackgraphic designer

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The Champion encourages community members to submit letters to the editor on any subject. Letters should not exceed 400 words and must be typed and signed. The deadline is 5 p.m. Friday. Letters and columns that appear are the opinion of the author solely, not the Champion editorial board or Liberty University.

All material submitted becomes property of the Champion. The Champion reserves the right to accept, reject or edit any letter received—according to the Champion stylebook, taste and the Liberty University mission statement.

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C O N V O C O N N E C T I O N B Y: E R I N K E L LY emkelly2@liberty.edu

They say that laughter is the best medicine. With ex-ams looming, students were able to start their week off with a heap-ing dose of laughter brought on by come-dian Brad Stine. Stine shared some political insight while making everyone laugh. I am certain I was not the only one with a side ache after Stine finished sharing.

Annie Murphy Paul shared her TED Talk, a globally recognized non-profit conference promoting “ideas worth spreading,” with students Wednesday, de-scribing the scientific evidence that proves unequivocally that learning begins in the womb. Paul described how a baby can ac-tually hear, understand and remember be-fore he or she is born. I was overwhelmed by the plethora of scientific facts she shared that ultimately exemplify and mag-nify the majesty of God. I have always believed that life begins at conception,

but after hearing Paul share some of her insight, I am encouraged and motivated to continue to choose life and help others do the same.

The week ended with Dr. Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board.

“Every person has a life on mission,” Ezell said. “Be the best at what God has called you to do.”

Regardless of what we are studying in school or what our vocation is, we are called to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is no greater calling or joy. But it is a choice. God will not force us to do his will. He will not make us love or live for him. He has given us the free will to choose him rather than the pleasures and pitfalls of this fallen world. Will you live a life on mission wherever God has you right now in this moment?

Ezell’s thought-provoking message reminded me of an A.W. Tozer quote I once heard: “This life of yours will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

KELLY

© Copyright 2014 Liberty University, Inc.All Rights Reserved

ISIS trumps Russian threatTerrorism remains superior threat amidst other diplomatic tensions abroad

No chance for ChristieNew Jersey Republican governor faces insurmountable climb to the topLee Sutherlandlsutherland6@liberty.edu

For the past several years, Chris Christie, the Republican New Jersey governor, has been a favorite presidential candidate for many in the Grand Old Party. There were a number of reasons why many conserva-tives thought he could win the nomination, including his dynamic personality, his fund-raising abilities and the strategic location of his home state.

However, Christie’s chances have re-cently taken some severe hits. With all this momentum in his favor, it is surprising that he has fallen to the point where many are describing his campaign as “crumbling.” Yet even with the shock of his fall, there are a few reasons that can be identified to describe it.

Inexplicable political mistakes have plagued Christie’s political career. Recent reports have stated that the governor is almost impossible to reach, as he refuses to return phone calls and often shows up late to meetings. His trip to London a few weeks ago was an absolute disaster, as he butchered a response to a question on measles vaccinations.

Throughout the rest of the trip, he re-fused to answer questions from the media, even yelling at one reporter who dared to speak to him.

“He didn’t appear a hardworking pub-lic servant losing patience with bleating reporters — he had the air of a plutocrat irked that the little people weren’t doing what they were told,” Andrew Ferguson

wrote of Christie’s bullish attitude. Even more has been written about his

expensive taste and poor associations. From his bizarre playoff football appear-ance embracing Dallas Cowboys owner Jer-ry Jones to his time spent at multiple parties with U2’s Bono, many are coming to ques-tion the people-first persona Christie has effused over the past few years.

“The jets, the meals, the concerts, the parties with celebrity pop musicians — we have at last learned that Christie is neither a populist nor a plutocrat, but a man striving to live out the fantasies of a teenage boy,” Ferguson wrote.

One of the most concerning aspects of Christie’s fall is the loss of many of

his most important donors. He has had a reputation for being a great fundraiser, as he brought in more than $100 million as chair of the Republican Governors As-sociation. Yet this has come into question over the last few months as many of the donors who gave this money say that it was because of their “interest in supporting various governors up for reelection” rather than Christie’s fundraising abilities.

Other donors are leaving the governor for more prominent moderate candidates, such as Jeb Bush. Important individuals like Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets (who play in Christie’s home state), have put their support behind Jeb Bush instead of the outspoken New Jersey

governor. Even worse, three very critical New Jersey donors have deserted Chris-tie for Bush in the past few weeks. A lack of effort and an arrogant approach have driven many who should back Christie to instead support the former governor of Florida.

A clear contrast would be the campaign of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. In some ways, he is similar to Christie — he is the governor of a very important state for Republicans in 2016, and he also had a misstep on a recent trip to England.

However, this is where the similarities end, as Walker has worked tirelessly and humbly to win the hearts of conservatives all across the country. Because of his recent performances, Walker has shot to the top of many polls in these early months. Many credit Walker’s experience in running tough campaigns, as he has survived repeated challenges by Democrats in his home state.

Although Christie has obviously won races for governor, he has not faced the kind of grinding, difficult campaign that the 2016 election season promises to be. His lack of experience in tough campaigns may be showing.

“(Christie’s) a very popular figure, but he’s made a mistake by not creating the nec-essary momentum for the kind of national organization you need to be successful,” Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge fund manager supporting Walker, said. “He’s not touching enough people. And I think this is a classic rookie mistake.”

SUTHERLAND is an opinion writer.

Leah Depieroldepiero@liberty.edu

When a disease is not fully treated, it can resur-face with the same inten-sity, perhaps with even more intensity than its pre-vious appearance. History provides many instances of this happening figura-tively, and many Americans believe this is occurring today in the form of Russia.

According to a Gallup pole shown in an article from The Week, 18 percent of Americans surveyed say that Russia is the United States’ greatest enemy. This is compared to only 3 per-cent of Americans in 2011. Russia even topped Iraq — at 9 percent — in 2015.

This is mostly due to Rus-sia’s recent acts of aggres-sion toward Ukraine and its annexation of a Ukrai-nian province, Crimea, last

year, according to the BBC. These issues appear to be the kindling for a fire that could spark a new Cold War between the United States and Russia.

Ever since 1991, when Communism and the Cold War ended in Russia, a re-emergence of the Cold War loomed on the horizon but has only fully shown itself in recent years. Despite the U.S. having a military bud-get more than seven times that of Russia, Americans fear the return of a war be-tween two vastly different political ideologies.

Yet, Russia has done nothing blatant to America to spark this fear. Russia has neither taken Ameri-cans hostage nor commit-ted acts of terror against our nation. Russia may have a large army and may also have plans the West is unaware of, but it is only one country against many.

At this point in time, Americans have bigger issues with which to be con-cerned. America is current-ly at war against terrorism, a radical ideology dedicated to seeing the destruction of the West and Israel.

The number of Islamic nations desiring to eradi-cate America pose a much greater threat than Russia does. ISIS is openly court-ing war with America and the West. Other terrorist-related issues in places such as Palestine and Nigeria also pose potential threats to America. Additionally, the U.S. faces several non-Islamic international issues, including the Communist nation of North Korea with its cyber hackers.

Domestically, America is also facing economic issues such as unemployment and growing national debt — issues much more likely to impact Americans at a

personal level. In the Gallup poll, 2 percent of Americans said they believed the United States itself was its own deadliest enemy.

All of this is not to say that President Barack Obama should sit by and watch idly while Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin bullies Ukraine and potentially other Eastern European na-tions, sucking them into a neo-Communist vacuum. The U.S. should do some-thing more than just giving Russia another sanction.

However, right now, Americans have larger issues to worry about. Russia left unchecked would be less dangerous than an unchecked and uncontrolled ISIS.

DEPIERO is an opinion writer.

GooGle ImaGes

TENSE — Diplomatic dealings have been rough between President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin.

GooGle ImaGes

SHAMBLES — Chris Christie placed tenth in a recent poll of presidential contenders.

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Although the month of Febru-ary is dedicated to celebrating the achievements of African-Ameri-cans in history, it is also used to highlight areas in which progress needs to be made. At Liberty, the Center for Multicultural En-richment (Center4ME) tries to educate the student body about different cultures.

Kerensa Huffman, associate director of cultural competency and assessment for Center 4ME, said this event was called a De-liberate Dialogue. The purpose was to inform students about the past, present and future for Afri-can-Americans in culture. Derek Polley, CEO of the Lynchburg Titans, spoke to students about to-day’s African-American commu-nity. His goal was to inform stu-dents how the culture impacts the

African-American community.“Derek Polley focused on ev-

ery area of current culture, in-cluding education, media, politics and every career, and he really came up with some great infor-mation touching on all of those areas,” Huffman said. “He was great at painting a very realistic picture of what African-Ameri-cans are going through and get-ting past Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and looking at African-Americans today. He did a great job of really honing in on where we are, but (also) showed we still have room for improvement.”

Polley first described the economic standings of Afri-can-Americans. In 1963, the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 10.9 percent, but today it has increased to 12.6 per-cent. Polley also said that accord-ing to the racial wealth gap, white

Americans are worth seven times more than black Americans.

Another topic discussed by Pol-ley was the education of African-Americans. According to Polley, nearly half of African-American students live in low-income areas with dropout rates around 40 to 50 percent. In fact, Polley said that seventy-three percent of all dropouts are African-Americans. He also said the education these children are receiving is subpar to other children’s education.

“If you do the research, it’s a lot worse than people will say,” Polley said.

Polley also encouraged students by telling them that these statistics do not have to remain true. There is still time to change the eco-nomic standing and educational opportunities many African-Americans encounter. To prove his point, Polley shared the story of how he was able to change the

course of his life and not become a statistic.

Polley grew up in Texas and was the youngest of five children. He said he attended the fourth worst high school in America. At the school he attended, there were of-ten no books for class, and there were no security guards prevent-ing people from being mugged or shot on school grounds.

At one point in his youth, Polley was sent to prison. How-ever, during his time in pris-on, he learned about living a structured lifestyle. Later, Pol-ley lived with his grandmother. Playing basketball became his outlet, which ended up saving his life.

Polley came to Liberty to study physical therapy but eventually changed his major to business. During his time at Liberty, he was challenged by a professor to pur-sue his dream of being an owner

of a professional basketball team. When he was laid off from his job, Polley decided to make his dream a reality.

After receiving financial help from a few sources, Polley even-tually worked his way up to the position of owner of the Lynchburg Titans.

“The best thing I ever did was to start,” Polley said. “I took the first step.”

Polley highlighted throughout the night that even though there is much work to be done within America, there is hope.

“After (hearing Polley), we felt empowered, because (we) gained knowledge and actually under-stood,” Huffman said. “I think we were able to walk out of there with very foundational facts. We know where we are, so let’s move forward.”

FROST is a news reporter.

Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | A7news

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HERITAGE — Center4ME hosts several events each Black History Month to remember and honor African-American history.

Center4ME raises awarenessAfrican-American culture is celebrated during ‘Deliberate Dialogue’ session

pHoto provided PERSEVERE — Derek Polley used his own story to encourage students to move forward through difficult times in their lives.

newsA8 | March 3, 2015 | Liberty Champion

MAR. 21 . V I N E S C E N T E R . 11:30 P.M.

PURCHASE TICKETS AT LIBERTY.EDU/SAGA TICKETS: $3

Quality care around the cornerHealth Services provides numerous resources to help students combat illness

Ashley Bunnerabunner@liberty.edu

With winter comes the all-too-common, but never welcome, cold and flu season.

While Liberty’s Health Services provides healthcare service to stu-dents with the cold, flu and strep throat, they also offer a variety of additional treatments.

“We’re like a regular doctor’s office, so we can do physicals, we can do blood work, X-rays if necessary, medication refills or follow-ups, and of course we see acute symptoms (such as) strep throat, the flu and injuries,” Medical Office Associate Kristie Newcomb said.

Liberty’s Health Services pro-vides healthcare to current stu-dents, faculty members and their immediate family members, in addition to members of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty Christian Academy, according to the Health Services Web page.

“Typically, a lot of those that come through (with injuries) are staff members that work here that have been injured on the job, and of course, students that participate in sports activities,” Newcomb said.

According to Newcomb, Health Services can still see pa-tients that have been seen previ-ously but have not been employed within the last three years.

Health Services provides ex-ercise and obesity counseling, sports physicals, Electrocardio-gram, an annual well-woman exam, minor surgeries, such as laceration repair, and removal of minor lesions, skin tags, moles and warts. A variety of immuniza-tion shots are also administered at Health Services.

“We do tetanus or Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria and per-tussis), measles, mumps and ru-bella (MMR), polio, chickenpox,

hepatitis and flu,” Newcomb said. Health Services also treats pa-

tients with broken bones and frac-tures by doing castings. However, if patients require surgery, then Health Services will refer them to a hospital.

“We can see emergency type things, but if it’s something se-rious, then we’d end up send-ing them there (to the hospital) anyway,” Newcomb said.

The cost of a visit to Health Services, depending on the se-verity, is $100 to $150, according to Newcomb.

“That doesn’t include any lab

testing, X-rays or procedures that may be done,” Newcomb said. “So that’s just for the actual visit with the doctor.”

How a student pays for a visit depends on what type of insur-ance they have, Newcomb said.

“If (students) have a co-pay with their insurances that’s re-quired upfront, then we would bill their insurances for the remain-ing (amount),” Newcomb said. “Then, of course, some insur-ances require authorization, so we try to encourage the patients to familiarize themselves with their insurance policy or ask their par-

ents to make sure that they’d be covered here beforehand.”

Students who are not insured can still see a doctor, but they will be required to pay a minimum of $80 on the day of their visit, Newcomb said.

According to Newcomb, on average, Health Services sees ap-proximately 80 to 90 students a day during the school year. Dur-ing the summer, they receive ap-proximately half as many patients.

Students suffering from acute symptoms can walk into Health Services without an appointment. However, students suffering from

chronic illnesses must schedule an appointment.

Health Services is open Mon-day through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. but is closed daily from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

For more information about Health Services, visit liberty.edu/studentaffairs/healthservices or call 434-200-6370 to make an appointment.

BUNNER is a feature reporter.

Leah SeaverS| Liberty Champion

TREATMENT— Students can go to Liberty Health Services to get physicals, bloodwork, X-rays, medicine refills and immunization shots.

HEALTHY continued from A1

Frejd referred to chapter 10 in her book, titled “Protecting your Godspace,” and how this issue is important to students’ spiritual health.

“Our overuse of all our digital devices is impacting our spiritual lives,” Frejd said. “One of the ways we develop our relationship with God is through silence and solitude, so a big piece of what we do at the center is to get students to realize how (technology and the digital age) is impacting your relationship with God. There are so many wonder-ful things about technology. ... There is a lot of technology that can help students grow with the Lord, but there is also

a lot that is distracting.”According to Frejd, this

center has already been help-ing students who have wanted to change their relationships with technology.

“The Center for Digital Wellness has inspired and en-couraged me to have a healthy digital life,” a student, who wished to be kept anonymous, said. “The Center for Digi-tal Wellness has taught me to engage in other people’s lives on a face-to-face level. In-stead of me sending a mes-sage on Facebook to check on a friend, I’ve learned to meet that friend face-to-face and share the love with hugs and communication. Further-more, the Center for Digital Wellness has challenged me to take my earphones out and

be active with people I come across on a daily basis. I was amazed at the conversations that I started and people who I met because of this simple challenge.”

For more information on the Center for Digital Well-ness and “The Digital Inva-sion,” visit thedigitalinvasion.com or the Liberty Univer-sity Center for Digital Well-ness on Liberty’s website or Facebook page at LUDigi-talWellness. Follow on Twitter @LUDigitalWell. The office can be found in Green Hall in the Center for Academic Sup-port and Advising Services.

FOLEY is a news reporter.

Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | A9news

Lauren adriance | Liberty champion

CONNECTED — Center for Digital Wellness teaches the benefits and dangers of technology.

Drones over LynchburgLiberty University School of Aeronautics establishes growing UAS program

TOWN HALL continued from A1

“It’s more about freedom,” Mullen said. “There is a plan if something like that were to take place.”

LUPD Chief Col. Richard Hin-kley could not attend the meeting, as LUPD was monitoring the weather to make a decision about when Liberty should open the next morning.

Some students asked if there were safety precautions in the event of an emergency during Convocation.

Dustin DuBose, director of stu-dent leadership, said the best thing is always for people to stay calm and move toward the nearest exit. He said that if an emergency happens, stu-dents should take directions from the stage about whether to stay seated or leave the building.

“Liberty University Police De-partment has a plan in place if there were a disturbance,” Mullen said. “But it’s somewhat the nature of our culture whether you go to a bas-ketball game or the mall. Use good, common sense.”

Students also brought Liberty transit issues to the panel’s attention.

“There are no weekend buses for any of the apartments,” said one off-campus student. He said he could not fully utilize his commuter meal plan, take advantage of the new Jerry Fal-well Library or participate in some campus events and social activities with the current bus schedule.

“I really appreciate the LU service throughout the week,” the student said. “But we could definitely use it

during the weekends.” An on-campus student said that

because there is no bus stop at the square on East Campus, most stu-dents walk from East Campus to DeMoss Hall for class.

After a student asked if it were pos-sible for a bus to exclusively drive to and from the Annex, Mullen said that a representative from LU transit will be invited to the next meeting.

“We’re going to have LU tran-sit meeting next time,” Mullen said, jokingly.

A student living in a South Campus dorm asked about the status bill pre-viously proposed, which would return bus service to South Campus.

Thompson said the bill passed all the way through SGA, and now it is in the hands of the administration.

“There are talks to get the (busses) back there,” Thompson said.

One of the last issues was about commuter meal plans. One student asked about involving more options at Green Hall in the meal plans for commuter students.

“It has changed since last year, and I’m grateful for the different tiers to choose from,” the student said.

The panelists did not answer every question, but instead took notes to pass on to the appropriate department.

Students with questions or con-cerns about life at Liberty can con-tact SGA at sga@liberty.edu or the Dean of Students Office at deanofstudents@liberty.edu.

HOOSIER is a news reporter.

David Van Dykdvandyk@liberty.edu

Retired Air Force Col. John Marselus, associate dean of the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) program and former A-10 Thun-derbolt II and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter pilot, is currently the only School of Aeronautics (SOA) staff member in charge of the infant UAS program. Designed to train future unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operators, the new degree program is taking off faster than anticipated.

“I am the only person in charge of this program,” Marselus said. “I quite often feel like the guy in the Wizard of Oz behind the cur-tain throwing the levers to make the great Oz put out green smoke and fire trying to keep up with everything.”

However, Marselus also called himself something that con-trasts the image of the great and powerful lord of the Emerald City.

“Despite this lump of clay that is talking right now, God has blessed us immensely,” Marselus said. “All the glory and honor goes to him.”

According to Marselus, the program officially taxied to the runway a year and a half ago after it was found that UAV technol-ogy was here to stay. At its begin-ning, Marselus was able to speak with industry leaders and explain to them the hopes and goals for graduates of the program ask-ing them what they were look-ing for in potential hires. After hearing the vision, industry lead-ers told Marselus they would be thrilled to help.

“We’ve had Cloud Cap Tech-nology giving us 90 percent off their software products, and in addition providing our program with information technology ex-pertise at no cost, and their docu-ments, all of them, at no cost,” Marselus said.

Marselus went on to explain how Textron provided software, command and control expertise and invaluable teaching services to him at no cost. Textron also sent instructors to help develop and teach a UAS course giving students the very latest in industry curriculum at no cost.

According to Marselus, anoth-er industry partner that is help-ing extensively is UAV Pro. UAV Pro offered their program and its many documents on UAV train-ing and technology. UAV Pro

has also let the UAS program house its simulators, ground con-trol stations, and aircraft at the SOA facility.

“Our students pay $25 an hour for their simulators that at oth-er schools cost $200 an hour,” Marselus said. “I passed that on to UAV Pro, and they said ‘We’ll just keep it at $25 an hour for you right now.’ Those are just three of our industry partners that have given us literally pennies on the dollar, and as a result our UAS program is very inexpensive.”

According to Marselus, come this football season, Liberty Uni-versity will have its own blimp in the form of a Cessna 172 with a TASE 300 pod on it.

Cloud Cap Technology do-nated two TASE 300 pods that normally cost $90,000. UAV Pro is helping develop the ground control station that will allow an operator on the ground to utilize the pod while fitted on a Cessna 172 in the air.

According to Marselus, the pi-lot of the Cessna 172 does not have to even touch the targeting pod. The vision is for the op-erator on the ground to forward the live feed from the TASE 300 pod to Liberty Flames Sports Network (LFSN), which can go on TV screens and on the Wil-liams Stadium Jumbotron, much like a blimp.

Marselus also spoke of a part-nership opportunity shared with Virginia Tech, University of Maryland and Rutgers University

during a Federal Aviation Admin-istration (FAA) selection phase to choose six UAS test sites. Dur-ing the selection phase, Marselus was able to help the state universi-ties because of Liberty’s aviation expertise, according to Marselus.

“I want to say this very care-fully, but God allowed me to be a part of this initiative,” Marse-lus said. “At the end of that year, we got picked as one of the six test sites in the United States of America. Because of this, we are tied in with the very latest as far as UAS integration into the national airspace system is involved.”

According to an FAA news release, the selection process spanned 10 months that included 25 proposals from 24 states. Fac-tors involved included geography, landscape, safety and airspace use.

Marselus had the opportu-nity to talk with Ken Isaacs, vice president of programs and gov-ernment relations for Samaritan’s Purse. Through key connections associated with the UAS pro-gram, Marselus was able to con-nect the Samaritan’s Purse execu-tive with Jim Hill, president of Aircover, a company that excels in UAS technology.

Jim Hill offered Samaritan’s Purse a UAV and an operator at no cost to Samaritan’s Purse Di-saster Assistance Relief Team (DART) operations. Now, when a DART team touches down in a disaster relief area, they will be able to launch a UAV to map out the area and conduct surveillance

of the affected region to obtain almost immediate situational awareness.

Norman Khan, a student pur-suing a degree in the UAS pro-gram, appreciated the opportuni-ties he is able to take advantage of while undergoing his studies.

“We are the only private uni-versity in the nation that pro-vides the certification for the small-unmanned aerial systems (SUAS),” Khan said. “This kind of opportunity gives the students a chance to be on the front lines of this growing industry. We have some great faculty members like Mr. John E. Marselus, who is al-ways looking for opportunities for his students to progress in the industry.”

Marselus highlighted the fact that students graduating from the degree program have been able to secure jobs with industry leaders with a six figure starting salary.

“Last week, one of our LUSOA graduates were hired by General Atomics to fly the MQ-9 Preda-tor,” Marselus said. “This is yet another company that is seeing the excellence of our graduates. God has continued to open doors where only he could open.”

Khan underscored an opportu-nity he and fellow classmates had with a state-of-the-art aircraft.

“In the fall semester of 2014, we were able to visit the training center for the Aerosonde (UAS) which was a great experience for us as a student body,” Khan said. “In the summer of 2015, for the

first time, the School of Aero-nautics will be training students, providing hands on experience flying the Aerosonde, which is a $500,000 aircraft.”

According to Marselus, the UAS program at Liberty requires a student to complete his or her private pilot license as well as an instrument rating. Nationally, UAV operators are generally not required to complete an instru-ment rating. By completing an instrument rating, the advanced certification allows Liberty grad-uates to be more competitive in the job hunt.

Safety is another top concern for the UAS program.

“We have to keep (the UAV) in sight at all times,” Marselus said. “We also have an observer that is looking out for traffic for other aircraft in addition to the person that’s flying it. So you have to have a minimum of two people, one person flying it and another clearing.”

Concerning the actual opera-tion of the UAV, Liberty’s part-nership with the test sites shared with Virginia Tech, University of Maryland and Rutgers Univer-sity will allow them to operate UAVs. Being in this partnership gives Liberty the opportunity to be at the forefront of UAV technologies and operations.

Marselus also touched on the impact of UAV operations on privacy.

“I personally believe we have the laws in place that will be able to protect our citizens’ privacy,” Marselus said. “What we have to do is figure out how to apply those laws to UAS. The sheriffs got together two years ago and signed a document that basically said, ‘Here’s how we’re going to responsibly use UAS technol-ogy. We’re not going to wait for the federal government to tell us how to do it.’”

Marselus remains optimistic concerning the future of UAS technology. As a former fighter pilot, he understands the lim-its manned aircraft have and the ability that UAVs bring to the table.

“I don’t believe UAVs are nec-essarily the future, but they cer-tainly are a major part of the fu-ture of aviation, and regardless of people’s opinions, they’re here to stay,” Marselus said.

VAN DYK is the news editor.

photo provided SMALL PACKAGE — Students will train further with the Aerosonde UAV this summer at Liberty SOA.

Lauren Glossnerlbglossner@liberty.edu

“We Need to Talk.” Those four words have

been known to send chills down the spine of the lis-tener. According to Dr.

L i n d a M i n t l e , however, “conflict is a nor-mal part of every relation-ship, and we need to learn

how to handle it well to grow our relationships.”

Mintle, who is in her first year as a full-time fac-ulty member at Liberty and currently serves as the chair of Behavioral Health in the College of Osteo-pathic Medicine, will be signing her newest book, entitled “We Need to Talk,” March 27 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Liberty University Bookstore.

“I am excited to do my first signing of this book at Liberty and launch the kick off of the release here at Liberty,” Mintle said.

Mintle has written sev-eral books, chapters and articles. “We Need to Talk” is her 19th title, and it ad-dresses the issue of conflict in relationships.

According to Mintle, her books give practical advice

for solving problems in people’s lives.

“My hope is that when someone finishes one of my books, they have tools,” Mintle said. “They know what to do. They can take the very practical help that is in the book and apply it to their life.”

Mintle was inspired to write a response to the concerns and problems that she has observed and dealt with as a practicing

therapist for more than 30 years. She noted that her thought process about writ-ing a book on conflict reso-lution was the same as for her other topics.

“My thinking in writing a book is always, ‘So many

people bring up the same concern. Maybe I could ad-dress it in a book and help more people at once rather than one-on-one in the office,’” Mintle said.

Mintle believes this book is timely and important be-cause conflict is rampant in culture today, and many examples of people dealing with conflict are negative. Mintle wants to see biblical models discussed more in the larger culture.

According to Mintle, learning to deal with con-flict is an important life skill, because conflict is a normal and consistent part of everyday life. The way people handle conflict is vital and can either grow or destroy their relationships. In her book, Mintle aims to help change the way people think and respond.

Mintle wrote from a bib-lical perspective and incor-porated scripture and bibli-cal teachings in her book. She used real-life examples, including ones from her personal relationships, and integrated what she has learned throughout her professional practice and her life.

According to Mintle, she receives feedback from people via email, Facebook and Twitter. She noted that it is encouraging when peo-ple who felt hopeless now feel like they are empow-ered with knowledge.

“The most rewarding part is to see the impact on people’s lives and to be part of facilitating people in healing their relationships,” Mintle said.

For more information

visit her website drlinda-mintle.com, follow her on Twitter @drlindahelps or-buy her new book.

GLOSSNER is a feature reporter.

newsA10 | March 3, 2015 | Liberty Champion

Living Well LibertyLiving Well Liberty@

Mintle releases new book

How to resolve conflict

Renowned author will sign copies of ‘We Need to Talk’ at Liberty bookstore

Linda Mintle discusses how people can settle disputes in a healthy manner

Courtney russo| Liberty Champion

FRIENDS COLLIDE — According to Dr. Linda Mintle, refusing to address the problem in a relationship does nothing to deflate the tension growing between two people.

Tobi Walshtwalsh12@liberty.edu

When Dr. Linda Mintle talks about conflict, there is one story she always likes to tell first. The story involves her husband, Dr. Norman Mintle, dean of the School of Communication & Creative Arts.

“It was early in our marriage,” Linda Min-tle said. “He came from a family that avoided conflict, and I came from a family that was loud, intense and passionate. We confronted head on.”

While Linda Mintle does not remem-ber the exact cause of the argument, the emotions involved are still fresh in her mind.

“We were in our apartment in Chicago and I was coming at him so intensely, be-cause I was going to get this thing resolved, and he didn’t want anything to do with it because of the way I was responding,” Linda Mintle said. “He wanted to avoid the problem.”

Of course, avoiding the problem did not help either of them, she said.

“I continued to rant, ‘I need to talk to you,’” Linda Mintle said. “He said that he was not talking to me when I was in such a wound-up state.”

Linda Mintle explained that this situation seems to be a pretty normal one for many couples. There is a pursuer and a distancer pattern. One runs after the person, and the other does his best to avoid. People bring into relationships what they know or learn from their original families.

“Now our conflict interactions no longer look anything like that,” Linda Mintle said. “The good news is that you can change. You’re not a victim of whatever you grew up with.”

Yet, how do people change how they handle conflict? In her new book, “We Need to Talk,” releasing in March, Lin-da Mintle shows readers how to do just that and gives them the tools to do it successfully.

First, Linda Mintle suggests that an

individual needs to know his or her “style” of handling conflict. People can find their primary style by taking the free self-assess-ment on her website, drlindamintle.com

For some people, it is avoidance.“You can ignore conflict,” Linda Mintle

said. “But eventually it catches up to you.”Avoiding conflict can also make a person

resentful.“There is research to show that there are

negative physical repercussions of conflict avoidance on the body,” Linda Mintle said. “Isn’t that interesting, because we know that scripture tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger.”

Linda Mintle said that though avoid-ing problems feels good for the moment, it does come back to hurt the individual in the end.

She also points out that some people need to tone their intensity down, which was something that she had to learn. Inten-sity can be OK, but too much of it makes it difficult for some people to listen.

“The way you talk about an issue

determines the way it’s going to go,” Linda Mintle said. “If you start defensively, it’s not going to go anywhere.”

Linda Mintle said people should not be afraid of conflict, because it is a normal part of every relationship. What matters is how people handle it.

“It’s important to learn how to deal with conflict,” she said. “You’re going to have conflict with your friends, in the dorm, with your boss or professor, your spouse and basically anyone with whom you do life.”

According to Linda Mintle, students can begin to train themselves by becom-ing more mindful of their behavior when a conflict presents and then look at scripture.

“Dealing with conflict well comes back to self-control and the fruit of the spirit,” Linda Mintle said. “The more you are filled with the love of Christ, the more those fruit are going to operate in your life. Then, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you make necessary changes.”

WALSH is a feature reporter.

MINTLE

photo provided

SPAT — Book offers wisdom and advice for quarrels.

“The most rewarding part is to see the impact on people’s lives and to

be part of facilitating people in healing their

relationships.— LINDA MINTLE

Greg Castel gcastel@liberty.edu

College students are required to bud-get their time wisely in order to balance assignments and a social life. Add in the responsibilities of being an athlete,

and living by a highly structured schedule becomes even more necessary. Throw in a second sport and a new, rare breed of student-athlete has been created.

Junior Sadalia Ellis is one of those select

few, as she is both a point guard on Liberty’s Division I (DI) women’s basketball team and a jumper for the track and field team.

According to Ellis, a 2012 graduate of Cypress Falls High School in Houston, the idea of attending a Christian college had always been appealing. After being recruited to come to Liberty on a bas-ketball scholarship, Ellis made the cross-country move to Lynchburg, Virginia.

“I like the atmosphere here at Liberty,” Ellis said. “I wanted to go to a Chris-tian school (after) coming up in a Chris-tian background. ... The Lord brought me here.”

In high school, Ellis averaged 10 points per game and 6.8 assists per game. But El-lis’ high school success extended beyond the hardwood as well. Ellis set school re-cords in both the high jump (5-7) and long jump (18-8).

Ellis said that while basketball is her passion, she also enjoys track and field.

“My first love is basketball,” El-lis said. “(But) I get the best of both worlds.”

However, before heading over to the track during the outdoor season, which will begin at the end of March, Ellis hopes to help lead the Lady Flames to a Big South Championship. According to Lady Flames Assistant Coach Brittany Hoyt, Ellis has stepped up as the vocal leader and “quarterback” on the court.

“(Ellis is) the one who is able to keep cool and keep calm, (and her teammates) look up to that,” Hoyt said. “The play-ers want steady and they need something to rely on. A calm, heady point guard is extremely important.”

Ellis, who is averaging eight points per game and 4.2 assists per game, is looking to earn her second conference champi-onship ring in her time at Liberty. After being knocked out of the tournament last season by the Winthrop Eagles, the Lady Flames hope to regain their title. Liberty currently holds an 18-1 Big South Conference record and is the No. 1 seed heading into the tournament.

The Lady Flames will play the winner of the game between No. 8 seeded UNC Asheville and No. 9 seeded Coastal Caro-lina Thursday, March 5 at 12 p.m. The game takes place in Conway, South Caro-lina, and will be televised on ESPN3 and broadcast on 90.9 FM The Light.

CASTEL is a sports reporter.

W. Lacrosse W. Lacrosse W. Basketball W. Tennis W. Tennis

M. LAX @George Wash.March 7 @ 7 p.m.

Baseball vs. WVU March 10 @3 p.m.

WE’LL SEEYOU ATTHEGAME

Liberty Campbell

64 57Liberty Longwood

5 2Liberty Richmond

10 13

M. Tennis vs. Longwood March 3 @ 1 p.m.

Baseball vs. Kent State March 6 @3 p.m.

Liberty UNC-A

7 0 Liberty GW

17 13

Baseball vs. Kent State March 7 @ 5:30 p.m.

SPORTSMarch 3, 2015 B1

ELLIS

Follow @LUChampSports for Flames athletics coverage

Leah SeaverS | Liberty Champion

CLOSE CALL — Sophomore outfielder Will Shephard (34) dives for home plate just as the ball arives.

Back in actionFlames sweep Bulldogs in a three-game series

Two- sport star

Joel Schmiegjaschmieg@liberty.edu

Alex Tichenoratichenor@liberty.edu

The Liberty Flames won the game 3-2 over the Bryant Bulldogs after gaining two runs in an unorthodox way on Friday, Feb. 27 at Liberty Baseball stadium.

With a freshman pinch hitter at the plate, runners on the corners and two outs, Liberty Head Coach Jim Toman cooked up a plan to tie the game by drawing a throw to second to advance the runner on third. For-tunately that plan did not work ex-actly the way planned and the Flames scored two instead of one.

“You don’t take wins for granted,” Toman said. “It’s hard to win in col-lege baseball, and we are happy we won. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.”

The Flames started the game with Jared Lyons on the mound, and he was throwing heat until he was pulled in the sixth inning after feeling some tightness in his arm. Lyons left the game with the Flames down 1-0, but he had only given up three hits and had nine strikeouts. Shawn Clowers came in to relieve Lyons and picked up right where Lyons left off, striking out the first two batters he faced.

“They all pitched great and they gave us a chance to win, we just got to score more runs,” Toman said. “Our offense is not where it

needs to be right now.”In the top of the eighth, just after

Clowers struck out his fourth batter for the second out of the inning, Cole Fabio hit a line drive up the middle to bring in AJ Zarozny from second. Clowers retired the next batter, but the damage was done. The Flames were now going to the bottom of the eighth down a run once again with not much offensive production to show for on the day.

“I felt like I gave us a chance to win,” Clowers said. “I gave up the run for them to take the lead, and I was sweating it a little in the dugout. … But fortunately, we were able to turn it around pretty quickly.”

See HOME, B2

t a k e m e o u t t o t h e b a l l g a m e

Paul Vandenboschprvandenbosch@liberty.edu

Earlier in the season, Winthrop did something that no other women’s basket-ball team in the Big South has been able to do this year — beat Liberty.

A little more than a month later, the Lady Flames (23-6, 19-1 Big South) made certain it did not happen again during their Feb. 24 rematch with the Eagles (17-12, 13-7), dominating from the start in a 91-71 victory in the Vines Center. The Lady Flames have now won 10 in a row and 12 straight at home and hit the 90-point mark in a game for the first time this season.

Liberty redshirt junior forward Ash-ley Rininger led the way with a phe-nomenal performance for the Lady Flames, pouring in 27 points on 12-14 shooting just three days after moving into the 1,000-point club in a win over

Charleston Southern. Rininger matched her season high in points and finished two points shy of her career high. She added 13 rebounds to record her 10th double-double of the season and fifth straight against Winthrop.

“I think I just got a lot of really good looks,” Rininger said. “It was just one of those nights where the ball came to me at the right moments.”

Redshirt senior guard Emily Frazier added 14 points, five assists and five re-bounds in her final home game as a Lady Flame. Two days after her 21st birthday, junior guard Sadalia Ellis was all over the court, putting up eight points and seven assists, adding three blocks and three steals for Liberty.

Sophomore forward Erica Williams and sophomore guard Aliyah Kilpatrick each had 19 points for Winthrop. Junior

See STREAK, B4Leah SeaverS | Liberty Champion

HOT — Ashley Reninger led all scorers.

Streak extendedLady Flames enter conference tourney as No. 1 seed

sports B2 | March 3, 2015 | Liberty Champion

Cierra Cartercmcarter18@liberty.edu

Liberty University athletes are known to dominate on the field, but a little known fact is that they do the same in the classroom.

With an overall GPA of 3.10, Liberty student-athletes fare even better than the rest of the student body, according to libertyflames.com. Keeping students on track acadmically is no easy task, but Kristie Beitz, senior associate athletics director for academic affairs, and her crew are up for the challenge.

“We’re excited by what our student-ath-letes are doing, but it literally takes a village to make it happen,” Beitz said. “It takes the support of our president, our athletics director, our deans and chairs. … It’s not just one person or one group that makes this happen, it’s everybody investing in the lives of our student-athletes that make this possible.”

Joining Liberty’s Athletics Department staff in 2006, Beitz has continued to see substantial growth in the success of the university’s student-athletes, an unfamiliar tale in today’s world of college sports.

“When I started here eight years ago, … we had a 2.99 cumulative GPA,” Beitz said. “We have worked in every single semester that I have been here, and our cumulative GPA has risen for our student-athletes. We are very proud of what our student-athletes are doing.”

Individual determination plays a big role in the success of each student, but there are also several programs put in place to help them along the way. The Summer Bridge program, along with S.T.A.N.D (Study To-gether Achieve New Dreams) for freshman

and R.I.S.E (Responsibility in Studying Everyday) for upperclassmen, keeps these busy athletes up to speed with courses and major requirements. Beitz also said Lib-erty’s student-athletes are even graduating at an even higher rate than the rest of the student body.

The Summer Bridge is a three-week in-tensive for student-athletes of all sports who are new to Liberty University. It allows them the ability to assimilate into college life, participate in community outreach, and get a head start on general education courses. According to Beitz, participants typically start off their college career with a 3.5-4.0 GPA.

According to libertyflames.com, Lady Flames field hockey finished the 2014 fall semester with a 3.47 GPA, among the high-

est of all Liberty sports teams, despite the fall being their active season. Senior mid-fielder Erin Dombach was a contribut-ing factor on a Northern Pacific Confer-ence (NorPac) Championship winning team, while bringing in one of the team’s highest GPA’s.

“At first it was really hard, knowing how to balance field hockey and academics, but it’s definitely something you get used to the longer that you’re (at Liberty),” Dombach said. “You have to set priorities and know when you need to get something done and when you have time to hang out with your friends.”With plans to pursue her master’s degree

in public health in the fall, the NorPac champion will obtain a bachelor degree in health promotions in May after just three

years at Liberty. With her perspective reaching far beyond the field, Dombach shared her plans for the future.

“I would love to work with a non-profit or Women, Infants and Children, which works with women, pregnancy and nutrition,” Dombach said.

So how does an athlete who is constantly practicing, traveling and training manage to be a successful student?

“I literally write down everything in my agenda planner so that I know what’s com-ing up the next week,” Dombach said. “I can look and see when things are due and then what I have to do for field hockey.”

Dombach also advised student-athletes to think ahead in order to combat procrastination.

“Just staying on top of what needs to be done and along with that being able to see what needs to be done and then doing it, not just putting it off until the last minute (helps get things done),” Dombach said. “Anticipating being tired and not wanting to stay up late, that’s a big thing for me.”

Beitz is quick to sing the praises of play-ers, coaches and staff, who all collectively help make it possible to boast in the 14th nationally ranked academic support pro-gram by the NCAA. A real team approach to academic success is taken, including team-specific academic advisors, color-coded schedules and action plans and one-on-one meetings.

“We truly are about building our student-athletes academically, athletically, socially and spiritually, and I think that we are do-ing that,” Beitz said. “Academic affairs for athletics really has a positive and lasting role in the lives of our student-athletes.”

CARTER is a sports reporter.

Flames first-in-classStudent-athletes continue to be successful on and off the field and court

HannaH Lipscomb | Liberty cHampion

STUDENTS FIRST — All Flames have access to a variety of academic assistance.

HOME continued from B1

The bottom of the eighth in-ning was an interesting one for the Flames because Liberty had two runners reach base on walks from James Karinchak, and after a wild pitch and a groundout, the Flames had James Shepherd on third and Tray Johnson on first, pinch running for Sankey.

Johnson started the chaos when he took off from first, and he got halfway to second when Logan Lessard turned and caught him in the middle. At this point, Shep-herd jumped from third, causing Lessard to whip a throw over to the third basemen. But the throw was wild, and it got far enough away that Shepherd took off to-ward home. The third basemen finally recovered the ball and launched it toward home, but his throw went over the catcher’s head and Shepherd was safe. All the while, Johnson was running for his life and came sliding in right behind Shepherd for the go-ahead run.

“Tray never stopped, and he can run — that’s one thing he can do — and he came around and scored,” Toman said.

That play was the decider in a game that had only two earned runs by either team. The freshman pinch hitter at the plate struck out immediately following the play, and just like that, the Flames were three outs away from victory.

“I hear all the time players win

games, but the coaches win the close games, and that was a great call,” Clowers said.

The top of the ninth was no stress-free outing for the Flames defense, however, as the first batter singled and the second grounded out but advanced the runner into scoring position. The next batter hit a deep line drive, but Josh Close made the catch and the Flames were one out away from victory. The next batter was walked to put the go ahead run on first for the Bulldogs, and finally, it came down to John Mullen, whom Clowers struck out to end the game.

Roberts said the Flames still have plenty to work on right now and will try to “sneak (in) some wins” in the meantime, but they will figure it out and go from there.

Liberty and Bryant combined for 21 runners left on base and were 2-20 with runners in scor-ing position. Both teams were 0-3 combined with the bases loaded and had eight batters strike out looking.

The two Liberty pitchers com-bined for 14 strikeouts, and the two also had one earned run apiece. The three Bryant pitchers combined for 11 strikeouts and zero earned runs, but the three errors for Bryant killed them in the end.

“The way we pitched, we cer-tainly deserved to win, but offen-sively, I don’t think we did enough to win,” Toman said. “But some-times there’s a little bit of luck

involved, and the good Lord was looking down on us on that play.”

Game 2: Liberty 6, Bryant 1Junior lefty pitcher Victor Cole

took a no-hitter into the ninth in-ning against the Bulldogs before giving up a double to the first batter he faced in the final inning.

Cole dominated all afternoon, wrapping up a complete-game victory with eight strikeouts, allowing only the single hit.

Errors once again marred a quality pitching performance by the Bulldogs pitchers, who did not yield a single earned run.

Senior first baseman Alex Close led the Flames with two hits on the day, including an RBI double in the third inning to put the Flames up 2-0.

Game 3: Liberty 11, Bryant 4Freshman outfielder Josh Close

did his part to remove himself from his brother’s shadow in the Flames 11-4 Sunday win, smash-ing a second-inning grand slam over the left field wall to give the Flames a comfortable 5-0 lead early in the game.

The brother of Flames stand-out first baseman Alex Close, Josh

Close has enjoyed a strong start to his first year at Liberty, hitting .308, including a grand slam and a triple, while starting four of the Flames first nine games.

Last year’s freshman sensa-tion pitcher Parker Bean also got the win, but struggled with com-mand, walking seven batters and giving up four earned runs in five innings.

SCHMIEG is a sports reporter.

TICHENOR is the sports editor.

LeaH seavers | Liberty cHampion

SAFE — Sophomore outfielder Will Shephard (34) dives home just before the ball arives.

Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | B3sports

Offer valid at this location only:1038 Wards Ferry Rd. • Lynchburg

434.237.2651

Limited-time offer. Valid on Mondays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. only. Must present valid ID. Each restaurant independently owned and operated. Offer not valid at any other locations. © 2014 Zaxby’s Franchising, Inc. “Zaxby’s” is a registered trademark of Zaxby’s Franchising, Inc.

Liberty University students and faculty receive 20% OFF any meal on

Mondays, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Must present valid ID.

MONDAY IS ZAXBY’S®

COLLEGE DAY

UVA Asthma and Allergic Diseases Center

ddm9q@virginia.edu | 434.982.3510

Do You Have Asthma?

Asthma Study Participants from

Liberty University Needed

Volunteers are needed for a study about asthma

and the common cold.

You must have asthma, not smoke and be 18-40 years old.

Screening at UVA is in progress now and involves 2 visits

($40 for the 1st visit; $60 for the 2nd). $30 reimbursement

for gas mileage for Liberty University participants will also

be provided. Those who qualify can participate with payment

of up to $1,870 for completing the study.

For more information, please contact the

UVA Asthma and Allergic Diseases Center via

email at ddm9q@virginia.edu or 434.982.3510.

(HSR#12656 and 14427)

Clinical Trial | Asthma Study

Alex Tichenoratichenor@liberty.edu

Thankless jobs are never easy to do.

Washing uniforms, carry-ing bags, breaking down film — doing all the tasks players and coaches would rather not do is not a glamorous life. But it involves basketball, and that is enough for Liberty men’s basket-ball graduate assistants Griffin Williams, Reggie Chambers and women’s team graduate assistant Joyous Tharrington.

“I love being around the game, so it doesn’t really bother me to be (at the gym) all day,” Chambers said. “I’m around the game of basketball, I can’t have too much to complain about.”

Most college basketball fans will always know their favorite team’s players and head coach, and maybe even their assistant coaches. But graduate assistants go by under the radar. More like off the radar, really.

So what exactly does a gradu-ate assistant do? At a smaller bas-ketball school like Liberty, they are a jack-of-all-trades, members of the coaching staff who some-times have to do jobs that would be designated for managers at a bigger school.

Williams earned his undergrad-uate degree from the University of Cincinnati while working on the basketball staff as a student manager. At Cincinnati, a big-time basketball school, Williams said graduate assistants did not have as wide of an array of responsi-bilities as at Liberty. No washing jerseys after practice like Wil-liams, Chambers and Tharrington have to do.

“Stuff like carrying bags or handing out jerseys on road trips

falls on (graduate assistants’) shoulders at a place like Liberty,” Williams said. “But it’s no big deal. It’s not brain surgery.”

Liberty’s graduate assistants are still key cogs within the coaching staff, spending plenty of time in the film room and working with players on their games. Since the men’s team has Williams and Chambers, they split up the tasks — Williams spends more time working on film and Chambers spends more time on the court.

Chambers played four years of college basketball — two at Flori-da Gulf Coast University and two at West Virginia Wesleyan College — while Griffin’s athletic career ended at Loveland High School in Loveland, Ohio, where he starred for his basketball and baseball teams. Chambers, who played in college as recently as 2012, noted how tough it can be to watch from the sidelines after being a part of the action for so long.

“The toughest part (of being a graduate assistant) is not actu-ally being on the court,” Cham-bers said. “I was a point guard, so I’m so used to talking and get-ting guys in the right position and motivating them.”

Additionally, graduate assistants have one responsibility outside of basketball that other mem-bers of the coaching staff do not have — school.

“(There) can be long days when you have assignments due,” Thar-rington said. “I bring my own food. I bring breakfast, I bring lunch, so I don’t really leave.”

Each graduate assistant is tak-ing classes that count toward a master’s degree, even while plan-ning to go into coaching. Thar-rington and Chambers hope to continue coaching on the col-lege level, but Williams, who is

studying to get his master’s in sec-ondary education, wants to coach and teach high schoolers.

The impact of a graduate as-sistant on players can go far be-yond rebounding for them during a spontaneous late-night shooting session (graduate assistants are always on-call if a player wants to work out or get shots up). Tharrington, who helped initiate an Athletes in Action chapter at George Mason during her playing days, acts as a spiritual mentor for the Lady Flames.

“One neat thing that Coach (Carey) Green allows me to do here is mentor and disciple the

girls,” Tharrington said. “That’s my favorite part of the job that people don’t see, just being able to do Bible studies with them and impact their lives.”

Senior guard Karly Buer, who transferred to Liberty from Mis-souri State, has seen how big of a impact the spiritual togetherness has made on the team.

“With me being a transfer stu-dent, I know what it’s like be-ing at a secular school,” Buer said. “I do feel like Liberty’s basketball team is more of a unit and tight on certain levels (because of the spiritual bond).”

Graduate assistants will never

get credit from the media for helping a team succeed. They will probably never be recognized while roaming around campus. But they will still always be in the gym, doing whatever is needed for the team to get better.

“The biggest thing is just being a helpful hand,” Chambers said. “Just being around and doing whatever is asked of you. That’s the biggest part of my job — being as helpful as I can.”

TICHENOR is the sports editor.

For the love of the gameBasketball graduate assistants go mostly unnoticed but make a big impact

Courtney russo | Liberty Champion

TEACHER — Women’s basketball graduate assistant Joyous Tharrington has made an impact this year by leading the team in Bible studies and assisting in games and practices.

Alex Tichenoratichenor@liberty.edu

The Most Valuable Player (MVP) award has always meant more in the NBA than in all other American professional sports.

Baseball essentially has four MVPs per season (American League and National MVP and Cy Young awards). Wayne Gretzky might still be get-ting the Hart Trophy (the NHL’s MVP award) every year. And football gave an MVP to a kicker one time. Yes, the dude who kicks field goals and extra points.

The NBA is the only one of the four major professional American sports leagues where every MVP is a Hall of Famer. Derrick Rose is the only player remotely threatening to end that streak, and that is only because his knees decided they hated him. The bottom line: the MVP matters way more in the NBA than any other league.

And this year features a particularly juicy MVP race. The reigning MVP (Kevin Du-rant) has missed most of the season with various injuries. The injury bug also found Anthony Davis, who was having one of the best two-way seasons in recent history. Still, the list of potential deserving candidates is longer than normal.

Historically, MVP races are between two or three players, if there is even a race at all. Durant and LeBron James have won the past two MVPs and received a combined 239 of a possible 246 first-place votes.

It is impossible to talk about any MVP discussion without mentioning James. From 2010 to 2014 — the time period when James was in Miami after leaving Cleveland — the Cavaliers were the worst team in basketball, owning a 97-215 record during that stretch.

After a slow start, the Cavaliers have won 18 of their past 22 games, claiming their place as prohibitive favorites in the East-ern Conference. Meanwhile, James’ former team, the Miami Heat, has been mediocre, sitting at 25-33 as of March 2. James is still probably the best and most important player in basketball, even if he is not having the best individual season.

While it may not be traditional to give MVP to a player on a team not contending for the top few seeds in the conference, Rus-sell Westbrook may force voters to reconsid-er. After all, there is nothing traditional about the season Westbrook is having.

The Oklahoma City point guard has been an absolute force of nature, putting the Thunder into playoff position with Durant sidelined. Over the past 11 games, the Thun-der are 8-3 with Westbrook averaging 31.7 points, 8.9 rebounds and 9.9 assists.

If those numbers did not pop off the page and punch you in the face, read that sentence again. Now go ice your jaw.

Those two are both deserving candidates, and we have not even mentioned the two MVP favorites yet — Stephen Curry and James Harden.

Curry might be the most popular player in the league and is absolute must-see TV every time he takes the court. No other player com-bines deadly shooting, passing and dribbling abilities as potently as Golden State’s point guard. Curry is more of a basketball artist than basketball player.

Everyone would be fine with Curry win-ning MVP — he is the unquestioned star of the league’s dominant team, a near-perfect teammate and as likeable of a star that has ever played in the NBA.

Still, the MVP should not go to the play-er that would be the most fun to see win. It should go to the player who is the most valuable to his team — a player who has taken his team above and beyond thanks to remarkable individual excellence.

So far during the 2014-2015 season, that player has been James Harden.

Harden has tortured defenders with a steady mix of step-back jumpers, crafty drives and foul-drawing voodoo all year. With his defense no longer Vine-worthy, the Rockets have transformed into the seventh-best defensive team in the league en route to the West’s third-best record. Even with Dwight Howard dealing with knee issues, the Rockets have stayed near the top of the treacherous Western Conference.

Not only is he leading the league in scor-ing with 27 points per game, he is 10th in assists per game and fifth in steals. No matter whom the Rockets play, Harden leaves the deepest imprint on the game.

Sorry, Kevin Durant’s mom, James Harden is the real MVP this year.

TICHENOR is the sports editor.

sportsB4 | March 3, 2015 | Liberty Champion

TICHENOR

Tich’s Take

Feeling at homeTheo Johnson is red-hot going into Big South tourneyNate Haywoodnahaywood@liberty.edu

Sacramento, California. Charleston, South Carolina. And now, Lynchburg, Virginia. This was the journey taken by Theo Johnson, the Flames men’s basket-ball team’s active leading scorer. And this was no short journey. The transfer stu-dent out of College of Charleston is hav-ing the best season of his career, but the scary thing is that this season almost did not happen for him.

Johnson, one of eight newcomers, was born and raised in Sacramento, Califor-nia. Basketball was the sport he loved. In high school, his game blossomed. Ac-cording to maxpreps.com, the forward averaged 19 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. He was ranked 70th in the state of California, but drew little interest from colleges along the West Coast.

“Honestly, when I was in high school, I didn’t have any offers from the west coast,” Johnson said. “I was probably gonna end up on the East Coast anyway.”

And that is exactly what he did. He collected offers from schools on the east coast, but a particular institution stuck out above the rest.

“(College of) Charleston was my first offer,” Johnson said. “… I ended up in Charleston because, like I’ve told every-body, once you visit Charleston, it’s hard to not decide on Charleston.”

The Cougars procured the forward’s signature, and Johnson was headed to an area in which he fell in love. Everything seemed perfect. But eventually, trouble arose in paradise.

“Pretty much me and the head coach (of College of Charleston) didn’t re-ally get along like we should’ve (gotten) along,” Johnson said. “I don’t really know exactly what it was to this day, but it just didn’t work out, and I guess that wasn’t God’s plan for me.”

Due to the evident clashing between Johnson and the College of Charles-ton’s Head Coach Doug Wojcik, Johnson believed that it was time for a change of scenery.

Flames men’s basketball Head Coach Dale Layer caught wind of Johnson and his desire to transfer. Liberty expressed some interest in the California native, but the staff was eventually sold on Johnson after they received a phone call from a familiar name.

“There was an assistant (athletic director) at College of Charleston who used to work here, who (Liberty’s

Athletics Director) Jeff Barber knew.” Layer said. “I had met him, but didn’t know him. He contacted us and said, ‘Here’s a guy who’s a good kid and seemingly got a raw deal. You all might be interested.’”

So Layer and his coaching staff did some further research and found out that Johnson was a viable option for the Flames. Johnson wanted to stay on the East Coast and also wanted to go some-where where his spiritual life could grow, and both Layer and Johnson felt that Lib-erty was the right place for Johnson to get that fresh start.

And so, the next chapter in his life be-gan in Lynchburg, but Johnson was not even sure that he was going to play this year. Due to the way in which Johnson left South Carolina, Liberty was able to bypass the transfer laws that prohibit transfer students to play in the season in which they arrive. But Johnson still planned on redshirting this season.

“Originally, I wasn’t planning on play-ing,” Johnson said. “I decided to (play), but then I sprained my ankle. So then that definitely brought the thought back if I should redshirt or not, because I wanted to be 100 percent healthy when I came back.”

Johnson mulled over redshirting for a while, but he simply “had to play.” And that is precisely what he did.

He chose to suit up, donning the No. 14 jersey, a number he has worn with pride since high school. Initially, he came off the bench behind forward Tomasz Gielo.

But after Gielo went down with a season-ending injury, Johnson saw an increased opportunity for shots, points, minutes and most importantly, leadership.

“There’s no question (he’s emerged as a leader),” Layer said. “He’s got great confi-dence and has found his niche as a player. … He’s so talented that sometimes he tries to do too many things. But I think he’s gotten locked into a really good role.”

In Gielo’s absence, Johnson was the source of much of the Flames offense. His length, combined with his athleti-cism, propelled him to lead all active Flames in points per game. He also said he has connected with all of his team-mates, especially his roommate, Joe Retic.

“I definitely get along with everybody,” Johnson said. “But I think people don’t know the relationship me and Joe have. ... We talk to each other and we see each other all the time. But I don’t think people realize how much we talk off the court.”

In his junior year, he has already doubled his averages from his first two seasons in nearly every offensive cat-egory. With the Big South Champion-ship around the corner, Johnson looks to do as he has done for a majority of this season and carry the Flames. However, regardless of the outcome, Johnson will be back for the Flames next season look-ing to further improve his game, grow as a Christian and lead the Flames to a successful season.

HAYWOOD is the asst. sports editor.

Leah SeaverS | Liberty Champion

FOLLOW THE LEADER — Theo Johnson (14) leads the Flames in scoring.

STREAK con-tinued from B1

forward Pamela Deche-va added 18 off the bench for the defend-ing Big South champi-ons, who missed their chance to become the only team to beat Lib-erty three consecutive games during Lady Flames Head Coach Carey Green’s tenure.

Both teams traded baskets early on, and Winthrop took its first and only lead of the night following a made free throw from Wil-liams on an and-one that put the Eagles up 5-4 with 17:38 remain-ing. Liberty answered with a 15-0 run that began with a Rininger tip-in off a missed free throw from Karly Buer. From that point on, it was all Liberty.

“We were just re-ally focused,” Frazier said. “We ran ‘fist,’ which is a ball screen, … the whole night, because we knew we were gonna have the pull-up jumper or the post ducking in, and if we just stayed patient, (Winthrop) would eventually break down, and we’d get an even better shot.”

The Lady Flames led by as much as 20 and went into the locker room at halftime lead-ing 47-31. The 47 points were the most in a first half this season

for Liberty thanks to a 64.7 field goal percent-age, which was also the best first half of shoot-ing Liberty has put up all season.

“I know (that kind of offensive produc-tion) is what we’re ca-pable of,” Frazier said. “So (we) always hope for that, but I don’t think (Winthrop) ex-pected that either.”

Winthrop only pulled as close as 14 in the second half as Liberty continued to knock down shots (57.6 field goal percent-age total) and dominate inside, scoring 58 of its 91 points in the paint.

It was a complete-ly different Liberty team than the one that shot only 29.7 percent against Win-throp a month ago.

Liberty has now won 23 straight home contests against Win-throp, who knocked Liberty out of the Big South Women’s Bas-ketball Championship last year.

“We looked at (this) game not as a revenge game, but as a great op-ponent and as a tour-nament atmosphere,” Green said.

With just under a minute to play in the game, Frazier and Buer, two starters, came out of the game to a rous-ing ovation from the crowd in their final home game at Liberty. Frazier admitted it was a very sentimental moment for her.

“It was emotional,” Frazier said. “Both of us have been through some injuries, and

we’ve had to overcome a lot of trials, so it was really cool.”

Green also took some time to brag on his four seniors — Frazier, Buer, Jas-mine Gardner and Ellee Rollins.

“They’ve given us great leadership,” Green said. “They’ve been involved in so many details in the game and outside the game. … We’re go-ing to miss those four. They’re champions for Christ, no doubt about that.”

Tuesday’s matchup served as the Lady Flames annual Play 4Kay game in support of breast cancer aware-ness. Liberty dedicated the game to Michelle Meadows, Long-wood’s senior associate

athletics director, who is currently battling breast cancer.

The Lady Flames were presented with their Big South Cham-pionship trophy fol-lowing the game for clinching the regular season conference title, giving them their 15th conference champion-ship in 18 years.

Liberty took care of business in its final regular season game as well, toppling Campbell (18-11, 13-7) 64-57 in Buies Creek, North Caro-lina. Buer led all scor-ers with 19 points, going 4-5 from three- point range.

Next on the horizon for the Lady Flames is the Big South Cham-pionship in Conway, South Carolina, which begins March 3. Lib-erty has a first-round bye as the No. 1-seed and will play the win-ner of Tuesday’s UNC Asheville-Coastal Car-olina matchup. The Lady Flames defeated the Bulldogs and Chan-ticleers by an average of 12.3 points in four regular-season clashes.

With a triumph in this year’s champion-ship, the Lady Flames would capture their 16th tournament title in 19 years.

VANDENBOSCH is a sports reporter.

Leah SeaverS | Liberty Champion

NO. 1 — The Lady Flames celebrate another regular season championship.

Nate Haywoodnahaywood@liberty.edu

Alex Tichenoratichenor@liberty.edu

Liberty 80, Radford 69The clock showed zeros

across the board. The offi-cials blew their whistles and raised their hands, indicat-ing the game was over. The Flames men’s basketball team quickly made its way to center court for their routine post-game prayer. This time, their faces were riddled with excitement and jubilation. For the first time this season, the Flames de-feated a top-five Big South opponent, the Radford Highlanders (21-10, 12-6 Big South) Feb. 26, 80-69.

After trading baskets to begin the game, senior cen-ter James Johnson rolled to the basket after setting a screen for junior for-ward Theo Johnson. Theo Johnson then hit the screener, who elevated for a one-handed flush, giving the Flames the early lead.

Liberty’s defensive play helped the Flames maintain their lead. The Flames kept the Highlanders without a basket for nearly three minutes until junior guard Rashun Davis nailed a mid-range jumpshot, tying the game at four. But senior guard Ethan Layer broke the tie after knocking down a three-ball, his 28th on the season.

Two minutes later, junior guard Joe Retic made his return to the Vines Center after missing 12 games with a foot injury. Flames Head Coach Dale Layer said Ret-ic’s second game back from injury was an effective, efficient one.

“How (Retic) started was great,” Layer said. “How (Retic) finished was great. He gave us another stable hand.”

After Smith made a pair of free throws, the High-landers amped up their de-fensive pressure. Radford dialed up a full-court press that caused the Flames many issues last time these two teams met, according to Layer.

Layer, however, counter-acted the press with a two point guard lineup featuring Retic and freshman guard Jordan Dembley, which Layer said they had only run for four minutes during

this season going into the matchup.

“(Retic) stabilized us,” Layer said. “(Retic) and Jor-dan handled the pressure as well as anybody could. … It’s not just breaking the press, its scoring on the press.”

After Radford’s trump card failed to work against Liberty’s backcourt, the Flames broke away from the Highlanders, gradu-ally increasing their lead. While the backcourt played a vital role in breaking the press, the frontcourt played an even bigger role in in-creasing the lead. Forwards David Andoh and Smith both attacked the basket for easy layups.

With seven minutes re-maining in the half, the Flames lead was 13. But when the five-minute mark hit, the Highlanders showed the Flames why they are the No. 4 team in the Big South.

The Highlanders finished the half on an 11-3 run that appeared to have the Flames reeling. A basket from Theo Johnson was the only field goal for the Flames in those five min-utes. Liberty still had the

lead, but the Highlanders sliced the deficit to only two points to trail 32-30 at half.

Radford came out in the second half as a team who appeared to have a lot to play for, as they did. Win-ning this game would earn them a bye week in the Big South Championship.

Senior guard R.J. Price started the second half with an open three-pointer, giv-ing the Highlanders their first lead since the opening minutes. Smith responded with a layup, and then Price hit another three-pointer. He later followed that up with a pair of free throws and another three-point shot. Price alone outscored the Flames in the first three minutes, 11-6.

Despite Price’s hot streak, the Flames were still tied at 41 with 16 minutes left. However, Radford ignited another run that included a ferocious slam from Green. Four different Highlanders contributed, giving Radford the 50-43 lead, their largest on the night.

With 14 minutes remain-ing, the Flames began to weather the storm. Smith hit a pair of shots to go along with scores by Theo

Johnson and David An-doh to put the Flames back in the lead for good. The Highlanders threatened to come back toward the end of the game, but Theo Johnson and the Flames were ultimately too much to handle, as the Flames came out victorious, defeating Radford 80-69.

Theo Johnson finished with a career-high 26 points. The 6-foot-7-inch forward made more shots at the charity stripe (14) than Radford’s team shot (12). His aggressive attacks to the basket kept him on the foul line.

“Coach just told me to attack,” Theo Johnson said. “That’s what he’s been telling me all sea-son, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

UNC-Asheville 95, Liberty 77

There was nothing pretty about Liberty’s fi-nal home game of the season, as UNC-Asheville poured 95 points on the Flames in a game most will remember for an ex-orbatant foul count above everything else.

Each team shot at least

38 free throws — 40 for the Flames and 38 for the Bulldogs — in a game fea-turing 57 combined fouls. That adds up to almost 1.5 fouls per minute.

Sophomore UNC-Asheville (14-15, 10-8 Big South) guard Andrew Rowsey, who is from near-by Lexington, Virginia and had a good number of fans in attendence at the Vines Center, led the Bulldogs in scoring, pouring in 27 points, including hitting 14 of 15 free throws.

Rowsey broke the game open midway through the first half, spurring a 23-6 run with two old-fashioned three-point plays — hitting layups through contact and converting each free throw — and hit a wide-open transition three-pointer to cap the Bulldogs scoring tear.

“He’s so small, you just lose him sometimes, hon-estly,” Theo Johnson said of guarding Rowsey.

Liberty’s seniors — An-drew Smith, Ethan Layer and James Johnson, along with manager Kyle Grif-fin — were honored be-fore tip-off. Smith was a rebound away from a

double-double in his last game at the Vines Center, tallying 11 points and nine boards. Layer added eight points and James Johnson finished with seven.

The Flames gave up their second-highest point total all season, only allow-ing more in a 96-56 loss to Coastal Carolina. UNC-Asheville hit 58.8 percent of its field goal attempts as it methodically picked apart the Flames defense.

Oddly enough, the two teams will face each other again in the first round of the Big South Champion-ship March 4 at 6 p.m. The Flames will need to buck a six-game losing streak to the Bulldogs in order to advance to play No. 3-seeded Coastal Car-olina in the quaterfinals.

Three players remain from the Flames 2013 title-winning team, but Smith is the only healthy one who was a key cog during that improbable run.

HAYWOOD is the asst. sports editor.

TICHENOR is the sports editor.

Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | B5sports

Leah SeaverS | Liberty Champion

POSTERIZE — Forward Andrew Smith played one of his best games of the season against Radford, finishing with 20 points and 10 rebounds to go along with two blocked shots.

Big South tourney nearsFlames split final two games of 2014-2015 year against Radford and UNC-A

2015 VisitMyrtleBeach.com

Championship12:30pm

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#4 Radford

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#2 High Point

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8 pm

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BIG SOUTH MEN’S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPWednesday, March 4 Friday, March 6 Saturday, March 7 Sunday, March 8

Big South Men’s Basketball Champion

Rachel Grafrgraf5@liberty.edu

Universal Music Group (UMG)

has offices in 60 countries and is the largest music corporation in the world, so being signed with their Christian label at age 20 is no small feat — something that Liberty University student Dam-aris Perez knows full well.

“Right now, here in America, I just feel like another student try-ing to get great grades in college,” Perez said. “I sometimes forget that I have a career in Brazil.”

Perez, a freshman at Liberty who is from Goiania, Brazil, performs under the stage name “Hadassah Perez.” Picking a stage name, however, was not an easy process for Perez, who said she did so because she wanted to avoid confusion with another popular Christian singer in Brazil.

Around the same time Perez began recording songs, a televi-sion series about the life of the biblical Queen Esther was being aired in Brazil. Perez, who loves Queen Esther’s story, immediate-ly wanted to use the same name. But something about “Esther Perez” just did not seem right. So, Perez chose Queen Esther’s birth name — Hadassah.

Before it became official, Perez said she wanted to seek God’s will, so she and her family prayed for three days. Soon thereafter, Perez received her answer at a church service her family was attending.

Perez was approached by a woman she did not know, who kept calling her “Hadassah.”

“That was like God telling me, ‘That’s your name,’” Perez said. “I was so, so happy because … Esther saved the Jews, by God, of course, but it was like she was saying I was going to kind of save a lot of young people in Brazil because of the songs and everything.”

Perez, who is studying artist development at Liberty, began singing and leading worship at the age of 12 in the church her parents pastored.

“I think God gave me this gift when I was little,” Perez said. “Really, when I was born. But I actually just started using it when I was 12. I really realized that was God’s thing for me.”

Four years later, when she was 16, Perez began recording music at her home church. Just before she turned 18, Perez released her first 12-track album, “Tudo Que Eu Preciso (All that I Need),” something she never imagined that she would do.

“At the beginning, when I was little, I liked to sing and every-thing, but it never came (into) my mind to be a singer and have a CD in hand and those things, but God had a different plan for me,” Perez said. “(That) year and a half was crazy. I was like, ‘How can I be this person? How can I be a singer and have a CD?’ But at

the end, I was like, ‘OK God, it’s done. It’s your project, not mine. So do (with) it whatever you want to do (with) it.’”

Her first performance — her CD release concert — was in front of an audience of 10,000 people.

Perez recalled the difficulty of breaking into the Brazilian music scene as a Christian artist, but said she trusted in God’s plan.

“At the beginning, it was re-ally hard because you start ev-erything, but you have no idea (of) the world you’re going into,” Perez said. “We had a lot of down moments, but at the same time God (gave) us really up moments. … I try to, in every moment, … show people that I’m not doing this because I want money (or) I want fame, but actually because God put me here, and he wants to use my body, my voice, to spread his word.”

A year after releasing her first album independently, Perez signed with UMG Brazil’s Christian group and spent three months in Rio de Janeiro recording remixes and promoting her music, which she describes as “electronic-pop,” a genre that was not widely popu-lar in Christian circles at the time. According to Perez, the genre has since gained popularity as Brazil-ian youth are now beginning to look inside the church for answers — and new music.

“At the beginning, that was a crazy thing to do because in Brazil, (Christian music) is kind of like just worship,” Perez said. “That was a crazy step in the dark, … a step of faith. … I realized when I started recording (that) I wanted to do music that I wanted to hear. … I realized that I needed to search in the secular world to find a song that I wanted to hear. That was why I recorded this style, because that was the style I was looking for.”

Following her time in Rio de Janeiro, Perez returned home, wrestling with God’s will for her life, trying to decide whether she wanted to be a full-time student or singer — she was studying dur-ing the week and performing on the weekends. She was not sure if she could do both.

Once again, Perez and her fam-ily began prayerfully consider-ing what to do. It soon became very apparent that God wanted Perez to cross a sea to come to Liberty University.

Perez had been introduced to Liberty in 2012 at the age of 17 at a Christian fair in Sao Paulo, Bra-zil. So when it came time to make a decision, Perez knew where she needed to be.

“I was so in love, so crazy in love about Liberty,” Perez said.

While the process of becoming an international student is often quite complex, Perez said every-thing worked out smoothly and right on time for her move to the United States last August.

Although she does have a career in Brazil, Perez said she feels like any other college stu-dent, trying to keep her grades up and enjoying time with friends.

“I think it’s funny because ev-eryone here that knows I’m a singer is like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s famous. She’s an artist in Bra-zil,’ … but at the same time, it’s like, ‘I’m just another person that wants everyone to know that (I’m) doing what God wants (me) to do,’” Perez said.

Perez stressed the fact that music is not just a path to fame, but a God path as well. God is the one who created music and she is simply trying to please him — whether she’s singing in front of an audience of 200 or 20,000 — one song at a time.

“Since the beginning, since I was a little girl, I learned from my mom to do excellent things,” Perez said. “If it’s for God, you

need to give your best. … God gave you the best — his son. So you need to give him your best. … Me being here is not be-cause I want to become famous in the world, no. I have this gift, and I really need to be excel-lent in it, so God can use me in his excellence.”

For now, Perez is content with taking a break from touring to study at Liberty. She digitally re-leased her first song in English, “Holy is the Lord,” last semes-ter, and is currently working to have her music made available on American iTunes and Spotify. A summer tour in Brazil is also in the works.

Perez admits that juggling both a singing and a college career can be quite challenging. But, as Perez likes to say, if it is God’s will, she will not say no.

Perez said, like the biblical Hadassah who became Queen

Esther, she sometimes finds it hard to believe that God called her to this task, but considers it a privilege to be able to share the love of God with others through her music.

“When I got here, people (were) like, ... ‘Why are you stopping your career?’” Perez said. “I’m not stopping my career. … I didn’t start my career for me. I started (it) for God. If God wants me to move to America and study for four years, that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t care if I stop (be-ing) famous in Brazil, if everyone forgets me. If it’s God’s will, then that’s what needs to be done. … Until the day he says stop, I’m not going to stop.”

GRAF is a feature reporter.

featureB6 | March 3, 2015 | Liberty Champion

For such a time as thisFreshman Damaris Perez ministers to Brazilian audiences through music

Photo Provided

CHANGE — In an attempt to minimize confusion between artists, Damaris Perez adopted a stage name.

ROCKING continued from B10a cello and a harmonica as the only instruments need-ed to deliver a night filled with entertainment.

“I don’t know what time it is, I don’t know how many songs we’ve played. We’re all here in this together,” Foreman said. “I love these kind of nights, where … it feels like you’re off-roading in a train. It’s just an in-credible feeling. Thank you so much for coming off-roading.”

The last song of the night was “Twenty-four” from Switchfoot’s “The Beautiful Letdown” album, to which au-dience members wrapped their arms around each other and swayed back and forth, voices singing in unison.

Even after the artists left the stage, students milled around the LaHaye Event Space reflecting on the night.

“It was a very restful expe-rience,” Liberty junior Mack-enzie Kern said. “You come back very refreshed and very changed by something that’s a seemingly simple experience.

… (Foreman’s) lyrics are just absolutely incredible. There were so many moments where I was just standing there soak-ing it in, closing my eyes and even praying and going, ‘OK, Lord, there are these words that are convicting me or draw-ing me closer to you.’ And I think it affects everyone in a very different way. … It makes you feel alive.”

GRAF is a feature reporter.

Courtney russo | Liberty ChamPion

UNIFY — The LaHaye Event Space provided a close setting for Jon Foreman to connect with the audience.

Photo Provided

INSPIRED — Damaris Perez gained her stage name “Hadassah” in honor of the biblical heroine Esther.

FYI According to landofbroken-hearts.org, Jon Foreman’s next

stop on “The Wonderland” Tour will be March 9 in Newport Beach,

California.

Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | B7feature

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY ASSESSMENT DAY

Wednesday, March 25

Afternoon participants will be entered

into a drawing for great prizes.

ASSESSMENT DAY GIVES LIBERTY THE INSIGHT TO IMPROVE YOUR

OVERALL STUDENT EXPERIENCE.

• Your school or department will contact you with details on required

morning activities.

• You will receive emails with details about afternoon surveys and focus

groups from Institutional Effectiveness.

• Convocation, some labs, and all classes (except those that only meet

once a week on Wednesdays) will be canceled.

www.Liberty.edu/ADay

Faces of FacilitiesLiberty junior Josh Baker manages being a full-time employee and a studentAmber Tilleratiller2@liberty.edu

Late at night when the weight benches are no longer squeaking and the basket-balls no longer thud on the hardwood courts, only a few sounds echo through the LaHaye Student Union.

These are the sounds of the Liberty University Facilities crew doing their jobs.

From 10:25 p.m. to 7 a.m. Wednes-day through Sunday, Facilities worker and part-time Liberty student 22-year-old Josh Baker makes his rounds in the LaHaye Student Union cleaning the floors while other Facilities workers clean all around Liberty’s campus.

Baker, a transfer junior and Bibli-cal studies major with a youth ministry minor, started working for Facilities in September of 2014.

While Baker grinned as he mentioned his love for his fellow Facilities co-workers and expressed his appreciation for the oppor-tunity to work, Baker’s brown eyes started to reflect a taxing burden as he explained that this job was the only way he could stay at Liberty and that he had nowhere else to turn.

“I would not be able to stay in school (without this job),” Baker said. “… I was going to have to start paying basically for myself because I don’t get any financial help whatsoever. So I had no credit, so I couldn’t take out any loans. I had no co-signer. So I was in a tough spot. (This job) just kind of worked out.”

Although his financial situation looked grim, Baker knew a few Facilities work-ers and decided to apply. He was offered the job shortly thereafter. Though he had found a job, Baker had to find time to sleep because of the night shift adjustment. His whole schedule had to change.

“I knew (the job) was going to be rough, but it’s worth it in the end,” Baker said. “… It’s worth it for the schooling, to not have to go into debt.”

In addition to being a full-time employee for Liberty University, Baker

also takes nine credits on-campus and vol-unteers at Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) with the college and high school ministries.

While Baker only has class Monday, Wednesday and Friday, he volunteers with TRBC on Thursdays. Regardless of the task, Baker said that he wants to ultimately glorify God in any task he is given.

“(I) want to be able to put everything (I) can into the job that (I) have, because that’s the way (I) glorify God through (my) schoolwork and the job that (I) have,” Bak-er said. “(I’ve) got to make sure that (I’m) going to be able to do both the best of (my) ability to glorify God as best as (I) can.”

Even though Baker’s shifts occur when most people sleep, he grins and still push-es through while listening to sermons as he cleans the floors. One Bible verse in particular, Philippians 1:21, helps Baker continue to work even after he has been awake for more than 24 hours, which

he said happens almost once a week.“It should always be Christ,” Baker said.

“For me, to live is Christ. Everything that I should do is to glorify Christ and bring God glory. So (I’m) just checking myself and making sure that I’m not putting my-self in that spot or (that) I’m putting mon-ey in that spot. (That) I’m not putting what-ever in that spot, that Christ always remains in that spot. … A way to glorify Christ is working hard and doing the right things.”

Even when the homework is adding up and the night hours seem to grow longer, Baker still continues to work hard.

“I just want to protect my reputation,” Baker said. “I don’t want to be known as someone who’s lazy and slacks off. I want to be known as a good worker.”

Though Baker expressed much love for his job, he offered one piece of ad-vice to prospective part-time or full-time student workers.

“Don’t grow up too fast, because hon-

estly that’s one thing I miss,” Baker said. “I don’t get to hang out with friends as much. I don’t get to go to sporting events as much.”

Baker’s job can be burdensome, but he still tries to make time for friends and hob-bies such as golfing, playing guitar, and ministering to others.

Though sometimes Baker’s eyes droop because of lack of sleep or his workouts ache a little more because of late nights, Baker’s smile still manages to light up his face even on the hard days.

“It’s definitely a humbling experience to be a janitor, basically cleaning up af-ter people,” Baker said. “But I guess the number one thing that (God) has taught me is his faithfulness because this job is a huge blessing.”

TILLER is the feature editor.

Courtney russo | Liberty Champion

LATE NIGHTS — Josh Baker works for Facilities from 10:25 p.m. to 7 a.m. cleaning the floors of the LaHaye Student Union.

featureB8 | March 3, 2015 | Liberty Champion

CELEB continued from B10football as a receiver.

Though it may seem counterin-tuitive to many sports fans, Single-ton said he is both a University of Florida Gators and Florida State University Seminoles fan. He also follows the NFL as an avid Green Bay Packers fan.

But while Singleton’s love for sports runs deep in his blood, he admitted that Twitter runs a close second among his top hobbies.

While he had a personal Twit-ter account before taking over the @ringbyspringlu account, a unique set of circumstances allowed him the opportunity to expand his social media footprint.

When he was only a follower of the account, he met the previous manager and founder, Chelsey Wolf, by bringing her a Cook-Out milkshake she requested via tweet. Following their first inter-action, Singleton and Wolf be-came friends, and Wolf eventually handed over the account in May of 2014 when she graduated.

According to Singleton, he uses the account purely as a means of entertaining his 15,000-plus followers.

“I don’t care about the number (of followers I have),” Singleton said. “I care that I get to tweet and have fun with it. … I’m (do-ing) this because I like Twitter and I like making tweets up. … It’s purely (because) I like mak-ing people laugh and having fun. … I’m just here to be funny and make people smile.”

Now, in order to keep those followers happy, Singleton said he keeps a running list of funny thoughts ready to tweet

at a moment’s notice. “I completely think in 140

characters,” Singleton said. “I’ll see something happen or hear something funny and I’ll just take one bit of it and I’m like, ‘Oh that could be a good idea,’ and I’ll think of 140 characters (for it). On my notes section on my phone, I have about 100 tweets that I’ve thought of, … and I just constantly post them.”

In addition to tweeting, Single-ton explained that he also works hard to interact with followers.

“I love reading people’s tweets,” Singleton said. “I love seeing what’s going on with people. … I like when people tweet something funny, so I want to encourage it (by favoriting that tweet). … I like interacting. I have fun with that.”

Recently, the opportunity for

interaction drastically increased when the @ringbyspringlu ac-count gained national and inter-national attention after Single-ton’s tweet was featured on the #hashtags segment of “The Tonight Show.”

According to Singleton, the tweet, which reads “One time I told a girl she was beautiful, and after she responded with thank you, I said ‘ya I’ve been watch-ing you a lot.’ #WhyImSingle,” is the abbreviated account of a real story from Singleton’s time at Liberty.

The awkward interaction took place during Singleton’s freshman year following a Convocation.

“I had in my head something else and what came out was really awkward,” Singleton said.

According to Singleton, his

mom told him Wednesday night about the #WhyImSingle hashtag that would be the basis of the Thursday-night segment, and Singleton quickly went to work carefully crafting the tweet.

“I just knew that type of tweet could get on there,” Singleton said. “… I tweeted the right type of way and the right type of thing, but I still didn’t think I had a chance.”

Though he follows the show pretty regularly, he happened to not watch the show on the night the tweet was featured.

“I totally forgot about it when it actually happened,” Singleton said. “I wasn’t feeling good that night, and I took NyQuil and … I woke up at 6:15 (a.m.) and I was just gonna look at my phone to see what time it was and I had 67

notifications. I was debating with myself whether I wanted to look at them or fall back asleep, and right when I was about to close my phone, I saw the words, ‘You were on Jimmy Fallon.’ … I had to charge my phone about four times that day. I gained about 200 followers in two days.”

While Singleton said he does not often care about keeping his identity hidden, he admitted that the need for anonymity did slight-ly hinder the celebration process.

“I was so excited, and the worst part was I couldn’t brag about it,” Singleton said. “… There are not many times when being anony-mous is annoying, but that time was annoying, because I wanted to tell everyone. I wanted to post on Instagram, but I couldn’t. … It was just funny that I couldn’t say anything to anyone.”

However, now that the atten-tion has mellowed out following the late-night feature, Singleton said he is perfectly content being a secretive celebrity.

“I don’t want to be a known campus celebrity,” Singleton said. “… Most people know of me, but no one really knows me, and I love that. I like being in the background.”

Planning to graduate in Decem-ber 2015, Singleton said he is not too worried about what he will do with @ringbyspringlu when he leaves Liberty.

“I just think about what I’m go-ing to tweet next,” Singleton said.

BROWN is the editor-in-chief.

Unleashing the McCrackenEnthusiastic basketball fan stays faithful to the Flames and Lady Flames

Photo Provided

FANATIC — Josh McCracken goes all out for Flames basketball.

Tobi Walshtwalsh12@liberty.edu

It was a tradition in Winchester, Virginia, at Millbrook High School basketball games. Someone would scream the phrase, “Unleash the McCracken.” When the call came, out of a painted cardboard box popped Josh “J.J.” McCracken, who screeched at the top of his lungs — just like the legendary sea monster, the Kraken.

“I came from a loud student sec-tion in high school,” McCracken said. “I started screaming when the other team would take free throws and realized it was useful.”

McCracken’s basketball ritual led to him receiving the Male Most School Spirit award during his se-nior year of high school. But when he packed up his box at the end of his high school career, he was far from finished showing his school spirit. The stands in Liberty Uni-versity’s Vines Center provided a new venue in which McCracken could show off his enthusiasm for his team.

McCracken said that he loves getting involved with the Liberty basketball games and being loud. During the regular season, he

tried to go to as many men’s and women’s basketball games as he could, adorned in red and blue face paint and equipped with his decorated box.

His persistence to be present got the players’ attention. McCracken said that before the games, the players often came up to him and said hello.

“I think the basketball play-ers really like that there’s some-one who comes to all the games,” McCracken said. “They’ll come by to say thank you and thanks for coming.”

During Liberty Flames and Lady Flames basketball games, every time a player from the opposite team takes a shot, McCracken screams his well-known, high-pitched scream. After a while, fans of the opposite team caught on to this tradition.

“One of the worst experiences I had was during a High Point girls game,” McCracken said. “A guy came over, I think it was one of the parents, (and) stood next to me and started screaming in my face.”

But McCracken did not react and just continued his Kraken-like wail while the man yelled.

“I thought it was funny,”

McCracken said. This is McCracken’s second sea-

son cheering on the Flames and the Lady Flames from the stands, and he decided to send in some footage of him at the games for the Big South Fan of the Year.

“I sent them photos and videos of me at the games,” McCracken said. “Unfortunately, I was only a finalist.”

Unmoved by not winning Big South Fan of the Year, McCracken still knows that what he does is pretty unusual and special.

“I’m a commercial aviation major,” McCracken said. “This is not something that you’d expect someone in that major to do.”

Although the commercial avia-tion major may be taxing, Mc-Cracken said he wants to stay committed to his home team next season. According to McCracken, he wants to bring back the face-paint, the screeching and the spirit to Liberty Flames and Lady Flames basketball next year, and he hopes more people will join him in his endeavor.

WALSH is a feature reporter.

Courtney russo | Liberty ChamPion

IDENTITY — The man behind the popular twitter account, pictured above, enjoys remaining anonymous.

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Liberty Champion | March 3, 2015 | B9feature

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Students serve LynchburgChristian/Community Service opportunity ministers to the local population

Emma Jane Maureremaurer@liberty.edu

On any given Saturday around 10 a.m., one may see groups of students preparing to fulfill the Great Commission throughout the Lynchburg community.

These students are part of the organization known as CampusServe.

According to Jonathan Susman, current director of CampusServe, the group was started in 2003 by Liberty alumnus Paul Atkinson.

“(Atkinson and his friends) recognized they were here in Lynchburg for several years, but they didn’t want to simply ‘be’ in Lynchburg and not be involved in the community,” Susman said.

According to Susman, the group began its ministry in Greenfield, a government housing development.

“(Atkinson and his friends) started going and knocking on doors and getting to know peo-ple,” Susman said. “They started inviting kids to come out and play with them. Through that, (they) sought to serve people and share the gospel with them.”

Since its beginnings in Green-field, CampusServe expanded to other government housing com-plexes, beginning with College Hill and Birchwood.

“The organization grew as people (started) seeing similar needs in different communities,” Susman said.

According to Susman, CampusServe currently serves 14 sites throughout the Lynchburg community. Some focus on spe-cific locations, while others focus on certain people groups.

One of the groups that serves Greenfield is “Respond,” whose focus is evangelism and adult

discipleship. In addition to serving on Saturdays, Respond and sever-al other groups serve throughout the week.

“(Atkinson and his friends)see Saturday mornings as a side thing,” Susman said. “Oftentimes they share meals with people throughout the week. Other times they may help them financially or (help them) find a job.”

Another group that serves Greenfield is “Mom’s Life,” whose focus is single mothers.

In addition to the housing development outreach groups, CampusServe has four other teams with two of them serv-ing nursing homes, The Elms and The Summit, which are two nursing home facilities

in the Lynchburg area.According to Susman,

“Branch” is CampusServe’s most diverse group, as members are in-volved in different projects each week. The projects are mainly manual labor ranging from rak-ing leaves to painting and tearing down walls in house. The group is currently renovating a house.

Another group, “Signs,” focus-es on ministering to the homeless.

For students interested in vol-unteering with CampusServe, Susman encouraged them to go to DeMoss 1113 on Saturdays at 10 a.m.

Although students can earn Christian/Community Service (CSER) credit through volunteer-ing with CampusServe, they are

required to serve 30 hours rather than the standard 20.

“We want to know that students are committed to serving and proclaiming the gospel and not just fulfilling a graduation require-ment,” Susman said. “So increas-ing the time required to serve is a way to measure that.”

While some students join Cam-pusServe to evangelize and earn CSER credit, some students come out just to minister to others in a different area of the community other than Liberty.

“Students can choose in what capacity they wish to serve and with whom — who they want to get to know in the community,” Susman said.

Susman encouraged students

to continually volunteer at the same site each week so as to develop deeper relationships with those they serve.

“We really have been working toward helping students see them-selves not just as going to some-thing, but as part of something,” Susman said. “(We are) calling them to consistency in the rela-tionships they are pursuing with people in the community because we see that Jesus was very consis-tent. He got to know people really well during his time with them, whether they were his disciples or others.”

Susman is a firm believer in the discipleship aspect of the ministry and aims to see every student at Liberty involved in this call.

“Part of the vision of Cam-pusServe is we want students to really take hold of the fact that if they are following Jesus, they are called to be making disciples,” Susman said. “So we want to see every person at Liberty engaged (with people who may or may not have the same beliefs).”

Susman also believes in the relationship aspect of the ser-vice rather than the act of service itself, hence why CampusServe hours were changed for CSER.

Students are invited to partici-pate whether the task is aiding at a nursing home, playing with little kids, helping build a home or just fellowshipping and ministering to others.

For more information about CampusServe, email campusserve@liberty.edu.

MAURER is a feature reporter.

Haley Jones | liberty CHampion

NEIGHBORHOOD — CampusServe provides students with a chance to aid children and adults through 14 different sites in Lynchburg, including the Brookhaven community pictured above.

FEATUREB10 March 3, 2015

Rocking acousticallySwitchfoot front man Jon Foreman played for a sold out crowd of 650 people

Courtney russo | Liberty Champion

UNPLUG — The alternative rock band’s lead singer Jon Foreman performed original songs and popular Switchfoot classics alongside singer-songwriter Garrett Green.

Rachel Grafrgraf5@liberty.edu

At a sold-out show in the LaHaye Event Space Saturday night, Feb. 28, lead singer Jon Foreman of the acclaimed alternative rock band Switchfoot unplugged from his conventional electronic elements for a more intimate, acoustic concert.

The concert began with Garrett Green, a South Florida native who now makes his home in Lynchburg, Virginia, as a worship leader for Thomas Road Baptist Church.

In the singer-songwriter vein, Green played songs that reflected a heart of worship.

Following Green’s opening, dozens of concertgoers pressed around the stage as Foreman prepared for his set, the audi-ence’s anticipation tangible.

“I love his music. I love how

acoustic it is,” Kristen Eppard, a sophomore at the University of Virginia who traveled to see the show, said. “You’re used to seeing large bands and a lot of extra percussion, which is always really fun, but it’s also really nice to get down to a core of a guitar and some nice sound.”

Some fans, such as Karen Ahmad of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, traveled for more than five hours to see the show put on by Student Activities.

“I’ve never seen a Jon Foreman solo show, just Switchfoot, and I love Switch-foot,” Ahmad said. “I’m actually finding my way back to my inner spirit, my faith, and they started me thinking (about my faith).”

Pam Branch of Latta, South Carolina, went to see the show with her husband. Also a Switchfoot fan, Branch said the al-bum “The Beautiful Letdown” had been instrumental in her walk with Christ.

“I was going through a tough time, strug-gling for some answers, … knowing there was still hope, but struggling to get there,” Branch said. “So the songs really resonated with me. I felt like I was losing my faith, and it helped me to realize that it was OK to ask questions and that faith is a struggle for everybody.”

Foreman walked onto a simple stage amid cheers and applause from the au-dience. Accompanied by friend and cel-list, Keith Tutt II, Foreman began their set with the song “Terminal,” a new song written by Foreman that describes the human condition.

As the night proceeded, Foreman ad-dressed the intimacy of the audience and the band partly because of the venue.

“Tonight is a different story,” Foreman said. “Tonight is a conversation where I can hear literally every one of y’all. That’s not

always the case with (Switchfoot).”Continuing the concert, the pair played

songs from Foreman’s solo albums, such as “Southbound Train” and “Your Love is Strong,” “Just Rob Me,” and the Switch-foot classics, “Dare You to Move,” “Only Hope” and “Vice Verses,” as well as a cover of Lorde’s hit song “Royals.” Foreman and Tutt also debuted some songs from Fore-man’s upcoming project “The Wonder-lands,” a series of four six-track EPs, the first of which he hopes to release in April of this year. Foreman said his desire is for the project to be a compilation of 24 songs, one for each hour of the day.

Although all 650 tickets to the event were sold, the harmony and comradery be-tween Foreman and Tutt gave the show an intimate feeling, with an acoustic guitar,

See ROCKING, B6

Emily Brownerbrown@liberty.edu

While 15,000 people know him for his humorous thoughts, per-fectly expressed in a mere 140 characters or less, few know the face or name behind the @ring-byspringlu Twitter account. His identity is one of the best-kept secrets at Liberty University.

But as followers continue trying to piece together the puzzle and capture his elusive identity, there is much more to the social media manager, who will be referred to as Jerry Singleton to maintain anonymity, than witty words for single people.

As is evident in many of his tweets, Singleton is a lover of Netflix and a self-proclaimed TV enthusiast.

“I can guarantee you none of

my 15,000 followers has watched as many TV series as me,” Singleton said.

According to Singleton, he has watched more than 80 TV series from start to finish, and some of his favorites include “The West Wing,” “The Office,” “Psych,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

In addition to his love for TV, Singleton said that the love he ex-presses for his cat, Avi, through the @ringbyspringlu account is absolutely true and not the least bit exaggerated.

“I love my cat,” Singleton said. “I’m a cat guy. I have a picture of my cat on my desk.”

But for all the time he spends playing with Avi or enjoying a good show, Singleton said he loves to work. As a “super senior,” Singleton works hard to balance

his responsibilities as a full-time online student and his duties as a full-time employee at Liberty.

“I’m a very motivated person,” Singleton said. “… I’m one of those people that will finish a class two weeks in. That’s just who I am.”

Singleton, who is currently a pre-law major, said he chose his field of study after switching ma-jors a couple of times. Accord-ing to Singleton, he mostly en-joys learning about contract law. However, his dream is actually not to pursue a job in law, but to someday go into management for a sports team or agency — a de-sire that has risen out of his love for athletics.

Coming from a family in which both his parents played college athletics, Singleton has played more than a few sports himself.

During his pre-college years, he played on soccer, volleyball, ulti-mate Frisbee and football teams. Before deciding to attend Liberty after visiting the campus during

College for a Weekend, Singleton was heavily recruited by NCAA Division I teams to play

See CELEB, B8

LU’s anonymous celebThe man behind @ringbyspringlu talks Netflix, cats and ‘The Tonight Show’

Leah seavers | Liberty Champion

NAMED — @ringbyspringlu was titled after Liberty’s popular phrase.