This is a moment many of us have been waiting for and calling for. Today, your Cleveland Indians made the executive decision to release closer Chris Perez. The mercurial right-hander, infamous for calling out the Tribe fan base and blowing saves at critical moments, certainly developed a bad reputation over the last couple years of his tenure with the Indians, and as a result there’s no doubt that this is a jovial moment for us all. Similar to Brandon Weeden’s benching, I would suggest that this is a cause for celebration throughout the great city of Cleveland. Just be sure to avoid Perez’s notorious dog. Happy Chris Perez Is Gone Day!! Also, Happy Halloween!
Rebuilding a Winner: Cavaliers mean business in ’13-14 season
There was something in the air last night in the Quicken Loans Arena.
To be sure, there was a buzz surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers in the weeks leading up to the season- just like the Browns and Indians, the Cavs made a big splash in the offseason. Roster additions like veteran point guard Jarrett Jack (a key contributor to the Golden State Warriors’ success last year), superiorly athletic number one overall draft pick Anthony Bennett, and perennially injured but incredibly talented center Andrew Bynum gave the Cavs a huge talent upgrade, and new (but old) head coach Mike Brown brings familiarity and plenty of coaching experience to the table as well in his second head coaching stint in Cleveland.
The Eye’s Quarter 1 grades for the Zupan Administration
by Alastair Pearson ’14
DURING THE 2012-13 SCHOOL YEAR, PRESIDENT ZUPAN WON THE ELECTION ON A CAMPAIGN OF CHANGE. HE SAID HE WOULD TRANSFORM LIFE ON CAMPUS. THE IGNATIUS POLITICAT SERIES WILL CHECK HIS CLAIMS AND POST UPDATES ON HIS TERM THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. THE SECOND POLITICAT ARTICLE FOCUSES ON ZUPAN’S TRACK RECORD SO FAR: HOMECOMING, FULFILLING PROMISES, PROMOTING SCHOOL SPIRIT, AND KEEPING STUDENT SENATE IN LINE AND ON DEADLINE.
Homecoming
828 couples attended Homecoming, bringing total attendance to a jam-packed 1,656 dancers. Each one of those couples had to pay a pricey $40 bid to gain access to a dance that was generally viewed as a success, despite an occasionally objectionable soundtrack and a perceived lack of enthusiasm for the throwback “Great Catsby” theme.
Although Zupan said that Senate was hampered by a low balance sheet at the end of last year ramping up the cost of attendance represents what could be a willingness to pass costs along to the student body. Seniors like Matt Kobunski were not pleased.
“The bid was grossly overpriced,” Kobunski said. “What are you trying to get out of kids? $40 for a bid – kids at other schools pay $35, $30. I know this is Saint Ignatius and we overprice everything, but come on.”
From a management perspective, Homecoming itself was executed with few significant flaws. Students did give negative feedback about song selection, for which Zupan accepts responsibility.
“Personally, criticism, I forgot to remove the Cha-Cha slide,” Zupan said. He noted that the choice to play the Cupid Shuffle was unacceptable as well as the quality of the gym decor, provided by an outside contractor. If errors were made, he’s facing up to the responsibility – but the fact remains that price jumped. GRADE: B+
School Spirit
Despite promises to promote school spirit, cheering has been down at football games, which Zupan acknowledges. He chalks the lowered enthusiasm up to the increased number of games with out-of-state teams and the revolving door at the quarterback position.
“We took a big hit this year in terms of attendance,” he said. “We just don’t know who we’re playing.”
Although Zupan is not officially connected with the Gold Man Group, the student organization formed to increase attendance at non-mainstream sporting events, he said he understood the group’s struggles to increase attend and realizes how difficult it is for most students to attend competitions.
“It’s impossible for me to even go to those games,” Zupan said. “Nothing against the team. They’re doing really well.”
Student Senate co-moderator, Mr. Popelka, who works with Mr. Kelley as a faculty advisor to Senate, said that he understood Zupan’s difficulties and noted that the school community has historically resisted spirit initiatives. GRADE: C+
Goobye Winter Formal, Hello Carnivale
The first Senate pre-Class Competition planning meeting has been held, and the elimination of the winter dance has been confirmed. Winter formal is to be replaced by an event following the Class Competition, which students can expect to be relatively informal compared to most school events.
“I’ll just give you one word that we’re considered: carnival. From there, imaginations can wonder,” Zupan said.
Mr. Popelka confirmed the elimination of the dance and said that students should not feel that they have to bring dates, although he tried to skirt around using the term “mixer” to describe the event.
Mixers may conjure repressed memories of awkward flirting and arms-length dancing for upperclassmen, but Zupan said that the event he has planned will be worth students’ time. We’ll see. GRADE: A-
Getting the Job Done
When it comes to the basic duties of the job, which include attending Boards of Regents meetings, organizing events like Freshman Spirit Day and Open House, leading Student Senate meetings and tracking Senate initiatives, Zupan seems to be on top of things. His superiors agree.
“We’ve been lucky. We’ve had a lot of good presidents,” Popelka said.[pullquote]
“There’s never a day Mike’s not doing something.” Mr. Popelka
[/pullquote]
Popelka said that Zupan clearly loves the school and has displayed a solid work ethic as well as a willingness to delegate when necessary to fellow officers like cabinet member Blake Yoho.
“If he tells Blake to do something, it’s going to get done,” Popelka said. “There’s never a day Mike’s not doing something.”
Zupan said that he appreciated the good reviews from Mr. Popelka, which he said were rare.
“The only positive feedback he ever gives is ‘We did alright,’” Zupan said.
He’s managing the easy things well – but not all presidents are organized, and that means something. GRADE: A+
Overall Grade: A-
Zupan’s got most things under control, even if he jacked up homecoming bids. The challenge will be making sure the long-term vision happens, maintaining spirit, and keeping everything on schedule while he manages his own college application season.
School spirit will probably never be as enthusiastic as presidents want. Students have more things on their mind than cheering and institutional camaraderie. The real test of Zupan’s presidency will be the Class Competition. For an indicator of how he manages big projects, watch for the rollout of the race relations survey at the start of the 2nd semester.
Soccer season ends in heartbreak, defeat in penalty kicks
by Pat McGuire ’14
The most controversial officiating call this October may not have come in Game 3 of the World Series after all. After exhausting two overtime periods, Saint Edward defeated the #1 seed Saint Ignatius during penalty kicks after a kick that photos show striking the inside goal post was ruled no good.
Saint Ignatius and Saint Edward met for the third consecutive year in a district final match. Last year, the Eagles bested the ‘Cats in penalty kicks on their own home field, and in the previous year, the Wildcats defeated the Eagles on a “golden goal” game winner from Nate Fahey. This season’s district final seemed to be no different than last year’s.
Coach Mike McLaughlin’s Wildcats entered with the number one seed, while the Eagles garnered the second seed. This match could not have started worse for the Wildcats: a foul in the box resulting in a penalty kick. Braden Davies, a senior cocaptain for the Eagles, buried his PK a mere seventeen seconds into the match.
Early on it seemed as though the Eagles controlled all the momentum, but the Wildcats responded with a second-half goal off the head of Matt Nigro. The pass came from a cross by senior co-captain Colin Cleary, and Nigro snuck it past the Eagle keeper. That header from Nigro knotted the score at one in the second half, which would carry all the way until the end of regulation.
The match was gritty and tough from the get-go, with both teams rapidly accumulating both yellow cards and fouls. With the score tied, both teams headed to overtime as the freezing cold rain continued on Wasmer Field. Neither team could get any real attack going in the second half, ending the overtime periods without a winner. For the second straight year, Saint Ignatius and Saint Edward decided the district final championship on penalty kicks.
For Saint Ignatius, underclassmen Stephen Milhoan and Hayden Parente put away their kicks, but Saint Edward came out victorious, making good on their last three penalty kicks to capture the district championship.
Scheduling out-of-state teams makes for an unusual football season
by John Selby ’15
Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Maryland, and Canada. These states and one country represent the areas in which the Wildcat football team’s opponents’ high schools are located. And one of those schools – Eastern Christian Academy – is an online school.
The 2013 season has certainly been an anomaly for the football Cats. They’ve taken on seven out-of-state schools, and attendance has suffered as a result. Cold Saturday nights, when Byers Field would normally be filled with brisk air and the sounds of the crowd resonating through the stadium, instead have turned into afternoons at Byers Field in which the only noise comes from the quarter-full student section and the tambourine lady sitting two sections over.
“The scheduling of out of state teams comes out of necessity,” says Mr. Rory Fitzpatrick ’88, the school’s athletic administrator. “The reality is that there are only so many teams that are willing to play us during a given season.”
Mr. Fitzpatrick is in constant communication with athletic directors to work on the schedule, and although he says he would prefer to play a more local teams, scheduling out of state teams is just what needed to be done.
Many issues have arisen “out of” this “out of” state situation. For instance, to accommodate travel, most of these games were scheduled at afternoon times; this impacted crowd size dramatically as most students found trouble in being able to attend the games. Moreover, Mr. Fitzpatrick adds, “What is really lost is the chance to develop and maintain good local rivalries.” He cited the more recent rivalry against Mentor as an example saying, “It has become a must watch game for many area people.”
“In a way, [playing out of state teams] has made the season more interesting to me,” says senior kicker Matt Colella. “We’re used to playing most of the same teams year after year, so it’s kind of exciting to play teams we’ve never gone up against.”
Furthermore, playing schools, such as Eastern Christian Academy from Maryland, that have great football programs strengthens the Wildcats’ ability to play some of the more challenging teams in Ohio, such as Saint Edward (as they have already demonstrated) and some of the teams the Wildcats could hopefully face in the playoffs.
Most would agree that the Saint Ignatius-vs.-Saint Edward rivalry is one of the greatest rivalries in the state, and it would be nice to see this historic program get the chance to form new lasting rivalries that the next generation of Wildcats could experience. Mr. Fitzpatrick lastly stated, “…hopefully we will get that chance in the coming years.”
Wildcat Cross Country team captures regional crown, is state-bound
by Pat McGuire ‘14
Saint Ignatius Cross Country captured its third straight regional title from Tiffin and will be heading to the state championship meet. Coach Mike Gallagher ‘71’s team has been competing well all season and took their momentum into the regional meet. Luke Wagner ‘14 ran a solid race, placing third with a time of 15:49 while the team finished with a strong average time of 16:18 allowing the team to place for the 85th annual OHSAA State cross country race. Luke also placed third overall with his 15:49 time while Elliot Thorkelson made a tremendous charge in the last 200 meters of the race, clocking in with a 16:17 time.
Other racers for the Wildcats: Jim Rogers with 16:25, Tim Trentel with 16:26, Tom Sullivan (16:31), John Nemes (16:39), and Jeff Foerg finished well with a 17:10 time. From top to bottom, the Wildcats dominated the Regional meet, with all the racers within about a minute and a half of each other. The harriers of Saint Ignatius will be heading down to Hebron, Ohio on Friday, for the National Trails Raceway to compete at the State meet.
Rebuilding a Winner: Chud Chooses Campbell over Weeden, Cleveland Rejoices
“Good day, good luck, and good riddance!!!”
To quote an all-time Christmas classic, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (if you haven’t seen it, chances are I probably won’t talk to you anymore), that is exactly what I would like to say to embattled Browns QB Brandon Weeden, as head coach Rob Chudzinski has finally brought an end to his abysmal tenure as the starter by opting to start veteran Jason Campbell. I recapped Weeden’s most recent pathetic excuse for a performance in my last post, and I also voiced a plea to finally bench him once and for all. Thankfully, that plea has been answered, and Campbell has at last been given the call. Now, I think it’s obvious that we can’t expect Campbell to turn this team around or anything, as there is clearly a reason why it has taken this long for the coaching staff to finally give him a shot this year, but I do think that he will give us a better chance to win for the remainder of this year than Brandon Weeden could ever give us.
Rebuilding a Winner: Weeden Horrendous against Packers, Coach Chud Considers Change
Another Brandon Weeden start, another spectacularly horrific performance. This week against the Green Bay Packers, Weeden went a WHOPPING 17 of 42 for 149 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Once again he looked clueless, uncomfortable in the pocket, and hopelessly hapless. It seems that he has learned absolutely nothing since entering the NFL! Some throws were launched yards out of the reach of his receivers, and some were thrown ridiculously wide of their targets. My personal favorites were the check-down throws he would make to his running backs that were thrown as if he were still pitching and attempting to hit 100 mph on the radar gun. And, of course, there was The Flip 2.0- Brandon’s classic last-ditch effort to save a play by attempting to “shovel” the ball to a nearby target. It resulted in a comeback-killing interception last week, but this week it just served to amuse whoever had the opportunity to see it happen again, as the game was lost for the Browns by this point.
This repetition of the flip throw (there is no way it qualifies as a pass) demonstrates his bizarre inability to learn from mistakes and actually improve. All in all, Weeden has proved time and again that he simply does not have what it takes to be a starting quarterback in the National Football League. At this point, his play has become pathetically bad, and honestly, it just can’t be tolerated any longer. I think we all saw that with a decent quarterback at the helm (*cough* Brian Hoyer ’04), the Browns are a very capable football team (not to mention a legitimate competitor for the AFC North title), but with Brandon Weeden at the reins, it is abundantly clear that they aren’t going anywhere. It is clear, though, that Coach Rob Chudzinski is at least aware of this, as he announced earlier today that he would be meeting with his staff to discuss what should be done regarding the Browns’ quarterback fiasco.
Golf team finishes 8th in Ohio
by Patrick McGuire ’14
The Saint Ignatius golf team finished off the 2013 season with a state tournament appearance, finishing eighth amid the wind, rain, and cold.
[pullquote]
Division 1 Golf Results
1 Dublin Jerome 641
2 Pickerington HS North 646
3 Cincinnati St. Xavier 647
4 Toledo St. John’s Jesuit 648
5 Cincinnati Moeller 655
6 Springboro 659
7 Cuy Falls Walsh Jesuit 670
8 Cleveland St. Ignatius 671
9 New Albany 672
10 Lakewood St. Edward 682
11 Findlay 707
12 Twinsburg 710
[/pullquote]The 2013 golf state tournament took place over two days on The Ohio State University’s Scarlet Golf Course. While the Wildcat golfers faced a difficult course, the ‘Cats turned in a 333 on day one and a 338 score day two of the tournament. The weather from the course made for abnormally high scores across the entire field due to the wind and fierce wind. However, these scores were enough to place the Wildcats in 8th for Ohio.
The Wildcats were led by Jack Coyne (80, 78) and Kevin Duncan (82-81). Coach Brian Becker said, “While the 8th place finish wasn’t what the team had hope for it did finalize a very solid season.”
Coach Becker praised his 2013 team for their performance not only in the freezing cold of the state tournament, but throughout all of the regular season. “The 2013 golf team faced a difficult road all throughout the season to even get to the state tournament,” Coach Becker added, “It is very difficult to just advance through the sectional and district tournaments.”
This year’s golf team saw many successes including tying the school’s lowest team score ever, as well as below-par rounds of 68 and 69 by Senior Jack Coyne ‘14. There was more good news for the Coach Becker and the Wildcats: Senior P.J. Malik accepted a golf scholarship to the University of Dayton.
The Wildcats ground the Eagles, 23-17
by Patrick McGuire ’14
“Why not us?”
This was the motto of the seniors on the Saint Ignatius football team as they prepared to face the St. Edward Eagles last week. They had been doubted all year, and and even Wildcat faithful were wondering entering Saturday’s night game.
At the 2nd annual safety forces game at First Federal Lakewood Stadium, the Eagles started out of the gate hot. 4-Time state champion track star Shaun Crawford put his team on the board 15 seconds into the game with an 80 yard rushing touchdown.
St. Edward would capture the early lead, but the Wildcats were not rattled.
Ignatius quickly responded with a drive of their own. Senior John Thomas led the Wildcats down the field, eating up most of the first quarter, culminating in a 4 yard touchdown run by senior tailback Mike Vitale. 7-7. However, QB Brett Kean and the Eagles soon responded with a touchdown of their own leaving 16 ticks left in the first quarter.
The second quarter was a very different story as the Wildcats gained momentum on seemingly every play. A strong showing from the Saint Ignatius defense held the potent offense in check for the second quarter and the rest of the game. John Thomas hit senior Mike Siragusa in the corner of the end zone for a 7 yard touchdown, tying up the score 14-14. At this point, the Wildcats had the momentum heading into the locker room for halftime.
Coach Chuck Kyle and the Wildcats could feel victory within reach as they started the second half. Saint Ignatius would put up 9 points off 3 difficult Matt Colella field goals, kicking against a swirling wind. This would put the Wildcats up 23-14 , when St. Edward would answer with a Matt Ramser field goal of their own.
The score was 23-17 with less than a minute left. Matt Colella came on to attempt an essentially game-ending 4th field goal, when Saint Edward incurred a fatal running into the kicker penalty. This gave the Wildcats an automatic first down, and since Saint Edward used all of their timeouts, the Wildcats had clinched the game. Your Saint Ignatius Wildcats defeated their cross-town rival and the number 1 team in the state of Ohio.
This victory was crucial for the Wildcat playoffs hopes as they earn an enormous amount of computer points that will help to vault them into the playoffs and possibly even a home game at Byers Field. The ‘Cats will try to keep the ball rolling as they will take on a very talented but struggling St. Xavier Bomber team. The Bombers stand at 4-4 and the Wildcats improve to 5-3. The ‘Cats will play this Saturday on the campus of John Carroll University at Don Shula Stadium.
“Why not us?”
