Women's crew kicked off its fall season at the Green Mountain Head Regatta in Vermont on Sunday, and fielded a total of 15 boats. Like most fall races, the Green Mountain Head was a head race, with boats going off at five-second intervals and the rowers racing against the clock.
Tufts Water Polo club finished on top of the North Atlantic division, improving on their third place division finish last year, and will finish their season in the upcoming National Championships this weekend.
The Tufts Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) hosted a talk on Nov. 5 led by former Washington Wizards interim head coach and long-time NBA executive Ed Tapscott (LA '75). The talk, which was moderated by sophomore women's soccer player Allie Weiller, is one of the first steps that SAAC has taken in advancing its organizational goals.Originally, a few years ago, when [SAAC] was really starting to pick up, [the goal] was simply to bring fans to sporting events, which Tufts kind of had an issue doing," Weiller said. "I think now, with Fan The Fire, that is not an issue anymore, and it's more of a routine. I think the next biggest thing we're working on is bringing athletes and non-athletes together." According to Weiller, talks led by individuals like Tapscott will be vital because they appeal to a wide range of students and can serve to bridge the gap between athletes and non-athletes. "Since we are branching out past Fan the Fire this year, I thought the best way of doing that was bringing in someone that could talk to the Tufts community about how their experiences helped them get to such a vibrant and amazing career that they have today," Weiller said. For Weiller and SAAC, Tapscott was an obvious choice. Life at TuftsTapscott, who graduated from Tufts with a degree in political science and a job coaching the Tufts freshman basketball team, believes his time at Tufts was extremely influential to his life - one of the reasons he agreed to speak at the university last week."I really believe that my athletic experience, as well as my academic experience [at Tufts], has really shaped who I became," Tapscott said. "I think that my experience here was certainly part of what helped launch me to things I ended up wanting to do and was able to do."One of the values Tapscott took out of his time at Tufts - and stressed during his talk - was leading a balanced lifestyle."I work in an athletic environment, and I see guys who have certainly emphasized their athletic development throughout their lives," he said. "As a result of that ... they have turned that into lucrative professional careers. However, the one thing they can't stop is aging, and at some point, the muscles that you use in your body will stiffen and slow, but the one muscle you can continue to develop is the brain. I left [Tufts] with a fairly good appreciation of how to use both."Tapscott, however, was not all brains and no brawn. During his Tufts athletic career, he was a captain of the basketball team for his junior and senior seasons and ended up eighth all time on the career assists list for the school. Tapscott used the unique atmosphere that Tufts provided to propel himself through life, and eventually, into a job in the NBA. From athlete to coach, and everything in betweenDespite his impressive post-graduate professional resume in athletics, Tapscott originally came to Tufts with the intention of becoming a lawyer. He went on to graduate from American University with a Juris Doctorate in 1980 and only began to get truly involved in athletics when he was promoted to head coach of American's men's basketball team in 1982. Tapscott finally left Washington, D.C. after eight successful seasons, leaving behind a legacy as the coach with the second highest winning percentage in school history. However, Tapscott, who preached the value of competitiveness during his talk, did not end his professional climb at American."I really tried to diversify my portfolio," he said. "I didn't want to be stuck doing one thing. When I left college coaching, before I even went into the NBA, I was an attorney agent. All of a sudden, I was out of coaching and in the business contract side of it. Then when I joined the Knicks, I was in the administrative side of things."Tapscott continued to build his resume, working in television and then for several pro teams in different capacities, before he got his big break with the Charlotte Bobcats. "I never seemed to specialize in any one thing," he said. "I was a jack of all trades, and that seemed to serve me extremely well."Tapscott was rewarded for his hard work when he was the first employee hired to run the Charlotte Bobcats as the executive vice president and chief operating officer. After he left the Bobcats, he joined the Wizards in an administrative role and was named the team's interim head coach in 2008. Tapscott explained that although he had experience coaching in college, the transition to the NBA required a different type of thinking."Coaching in college is an exercise in authority, and coaching in the NBA is an exercise in creativity," he said. "You have to create things that focus interest and attention, and do so in a manner that [the players] will embrace. It makes it interestingly challenging."Tapscott, who returned to the front office of the Wizards after the year, believes that his roles as both coach and administrator naturally play off of each other."Coaching and administration [have] so many parallels," he said. "It's about managing egos
Tufts lost at Bates on Saturday. The streak extended to 25 games. A loss is a loss.
To say the odds will be stacked against the Jumbos when they step onto Zimman Field to face the Middlebury Panthers tomorrow (12:30 p.m.) would be an understatement. Tufts has lost 30 consecutive games and is coming off arguably its worst performance of the season, a 37-0 shellacking at Colby. Middlebury is 6-1 and could win a share of the NESCAC title.But the Jumbos have something to play for in the season finale: their pride. The players and coaches see a program on the brink of recovery. A good effort against the Panthers would set the tone for continued improvement and show outsiders that this team is serious about competing. Our backs are against the wall," fifth-year receiver Nick Kenyon, the Jumbos' lone player who has experienced multiple victories, said. "There would be nothing better than sending us out with a win."The game carries special meaning for the nine seniors who have stuck it out to the end: Kenyon, tri-captains Sean Harrington and Connor Glazier, Nate Marchand, Nash Simpson, Cord Deal, Jon Sobo, Ryan Pollock and Matt Johnson. (Simpson and Deal were each away from the program for a year
The Jumbos have held a lead in all four of their games. They have scored first three times. They are 0-4.
There was no bright side this time. Throughout the season, there have been signs of progress from Tufts football. The Jumbos came within one stop of beating Bates. They could practically taste victory against Bowdoin. At Williams, they fell behind early before making a valiant comeback. Last week, they forced six Amherst turnovers and the score was tied at halftime.
Tufts was outmatched against Middlebury Saturday in the season finale at Zimman Field, scoring first, but ultimately losing 52-10. The Jumbos went 0-8 and have now lost 31 straight games dating back to Sept. 25, 2010, when they beat Hamilton.
In its last match before the NESCAC tournament, the No. 25 women's squash team added another victory on Wednesday over the No. 30 Boston College at Boston College in a close 5-4 match. The victory comes on the heels of another 5-4 win against Conn. College last Saturday.
Like its literary namesake, CEO's sophomore album Wonderland" is an eclectic adventure that combines elements from a great range of sources, which will - as they merge together in a wild amalgam of cheer and melancholy - both delight and depress listeners. A sometimes confusing but mostly fun blend of fantasy and color fills this daring album
It was a bit before 8 p.m. on a warm weekday in Milan this past June, and the sun was still shining brightly as fans worked their way inside the city's famed San Siro soccer stadium. As the stadium filled to near capacity, the atmosphere inside was simply electric: that night was not just a concert but an event. And like the flick of a switch, as strains of the epic walk-on song began to blare from the speakers, the 55,000-strong audience was whipped into a frenzy. Hundreds of small Italian flags were waving on the floor, while the crowd's cheering rose to a fever pitch. In the stands, thousands of fans created a massive sign that spelled the phrase Our Love Is Real" in the Italian colors. So just what exactly was the cause for all this commotion?Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.Yes, that Bruce - the American rock icon who reached massive levels of success with his 1984 album "Born in the USA." Beyond that commercial peak, Springsteen is known for writing character-driven songs that often explore political and class struggles in America, like on "Darkness on the Edge of Town" (1978) or "Nebraska" (1982), making him a sort of icon for the working class. Though some of his most successful albums are approaching 30 years old, Springsteen is anything but washed up. In fact, he has actually experienced a late-career surge in popularity since the early 2000s thanks to a series of strong new releases, and continues to be a major touring force in North America. That Springsteen is extremely popular in certain parts of America certainly isn't surprising
It is rare that a program juvenile enough to elicit headshaking and embarrassing enough to make viewers cringe - a program that is lazy to a blatantly noticeable degree - can continue to entertain over the many years it has been on the air. Straddling a dangerous zone between all of these categories, Workaholics" keeps delivering surprisingly consistent entertainment value and true heart.
Last spring, the annual Tufts Idea Exchange conference -- a TED-X style lecture series in which select Tufts students and faculty share their thoughts on various creative subjects -- included a lecture by Molly Wallace (LA '13) titled Putting the 'Arts' Back in Liberal Arts." In her talk, Wallace, the founder and former editor-in-chief of the Tufts Canon, spoke about the lack of inheritable literary culture at our university.Tufts, which proudly advertises itself as a bastion for creative young adults to collaborate and grow, has a few different identities that are constantly in conflict. There is the liberal arts version of Tufts -- an identity that includes campus publications like the Zamboni and the Public Journal: quirky, exciting ventures not necessarily geared towards those seeking a serious literary environment. There is also the research university version of Tufts that the administration is eager to promote in order to elevate the school's ranking and academic prestige. But in between these two identities lies a confused place, a place filled with a slew of campus publications and clubs. Here, things initially appear open and accessible, but oftentimes, they prove to be disappointing.Where does this conflict leave earnest students interested in joining the creative sphere? Wallace argued that it left them bereft of a campus culture. This past semester, almost as if in response to Wallace's plea for a community in this vein, two groups sprung up that challenge campus notions of creative success and collaboration. Dissatisfied freshmenParnassus, an arts and literary collective that focuses on work-shopping poetry and prose, and the Spoken Word Alliance at Tufts were both formed by students who couldn't quite find their niche in the creative community at Tufts. Julia Malleck, a sophomore and the president and founder of Parnassus, came to Tufts expecting to find a burgeoning literary community that was open to all. Unfortunately, Malleck found the environment on campus to be stifling: to her, the Tufts Observer seemed like a processing mill -- finding work, editing it and then publishing -- while Tufts Canon was too raw and unedited."I didn't feel like there was a forum for me to write and share, or to work on my writing," Malleck said. In response to her experience, Malleck dedicated herself to the creation of an accessible forum for writers and artists of all skill levels to come together and share or create new work.In a similar vein, freshman and Daily editorialist Jonathan Jacob Moore was inspired to create SWAT while scouring the Internet for spoken word clubs at Tufts. A native of Detroit who grew up with spoken word as a popular outlet of expression, Moore was shocked to find that Tufts lacked not only a team to compete at spoken word conferences, but also a spoken word club at all. Moore, determined to make substantial progress before he arrived on campus, used Facebook to find interested incoming students and create a group specifically for spoken word poets."It's coming out of ... the fact that there's a huge absence of spoken word presence on campus," Moore said as to the inspiration for the creation of SWAT.Using the social networking site, Moore was able to bring together students from all backgrounds to participate in the creation of Tufts' first ever spoken word collective. Moore, currently the president of the club, is particularly cognizant of creating an environment conducive to the discussion and debate of challenging social topics -- and the medium of spoken word is certainly a medium famous for addressing issues surrounding social justice, race, class, gender and sexuality among others. Role in the Tufts communityBoth Parnassus and SWAT have, since their respective inceptions, been eager to reach out to students who may not consider themselves particularly artistic or literary. This goal, however, has been difficult to achieve
Wednesday nights are looking a little brighter with the return of ABC's Modern Family." Fresh off of the its fourth consecutive Emmy win for Outstanding Comedy Series, the sitcom returned on Sept. 25 with two back-to-back episodes for its fifth season premiere.
Scandal" is one of the hottest shows this season, and with heart-stopping plot twists and gritty, compelling characters
Once upon a time in the 1980s, there existed two well-loved characters - a wacky scientist and his heartthrob teenage sidekick - who starred in a trilogy of blockbuster movies involving time travel, high-school drama and hover boards. Almost 30 years have passed since then, but Back to The Future" (1985) still remains a nostalgic trip. In recent decades, the stock characters of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) have been parodied to various ends, the most recent of which is animated Adult Swim series "Rick and Morty" (2013-present). This newest project from "Community" (2009-present) creator Dan Harmon features two characters oddly familiar to the duo from the original Robert Zemeckis movie. It goes without saying that "Rick and Morty" is a parody of "Back to the Future" at its most basic level, yet the show is so much more than that. Although it utilizes the stock profiles of the mad scientist and his sidekick, the tropes are reduced to their very core and then transformed into their own individual personalities. Rick (Justin Roiland), the mad scientist, is an alcoholic with a cold exterior - though perhaps somewhere deep on the inside he feels love. Morty (also Roiland) is an awkward 14-year-old that is probably as distant from Fox's character as can be, even if they look similar. What "Rick and Morty" manages to do best is to take these two absurd characters into even wackier adventures: You're never really quite sure what is going to happen next. This unpredictability can, at times, make "Rick and Morty" a rip-roaringly funny show, as the show seems to take an almost a no-holds barred approach. Serious topics such as feminism, alcoholism and divorce are lampooned alongside more conventional sources of comedy, such as toilet humor and references to sexual acts. Some of the show's best moments come from a bizarre combination of lowbrow and highbrow humor
Girls" is back. As her comedy continues to follow the turbulent lives of four 20-something women in New York, Lena Dunham - the show's tour de force creator, writer and star - delivers a third season with as much raw and unrefined comedic flair - and heart - as ever.
