Oct. 15,2010 I The Clarion
Page 5
Fantasy football translates into real life hopelessness
By Daniel Heyman
Managing Editor
Copy Editor, David Alexander couldn’t have
said it better when he posted a Facebook status
that read: “How well your week goes is directly
related to winning in fantasy football.” I have to
say, the past four weeks have been awful.
Given that my fantasy team boasts the 2010
powerhouse Arian Foster and the always
dependable Philip Rivers, you’d think I’d laugh
away nearly all of my opponents. However, lady
luck has it out for me and consequently I find
myself teetering on the edge of crippling despair
each Sunday.
Things started off beautifully in week one,
Arian Foster rushed for three touchdowns. Matt
Forte pulled in two receptions for scores, and
Phillip Rivers had a solid week, scoring me 19
fantasy points. I crushed some joker named
Layton Smith in my ESPN league (we needed
two or three filler teams). This was shaping up
to be the best semester of my life.
Week two was a let down; my team gave a
lackluster performance. Rivers put up his always
pleasing numbers, but I had obviously given too
little attention to the wide receiver position. I
took a risk drafting Pierre Garcon, which has
yet to pay off, and the Eagles defense wasn’t
putting up the numbers they were proj ected to. I
had never expected a season like 1972 in Miami
though, so after a few days of heavy drinking
and intense purging I made some moves and
prepared for week three.
The Eagles defense played an all-star game
in week three, but Foster and Forte proved that
they couldn’t be depended on week to week.
With three non-scoring players on my line-up I
was easily done away with.
Week four put any of my remaining optimism
to rest. Foster had a two score game, but one
player can’t carry the team. BC senior Zack
Christy’s line-up featuring the always productive
Drew Brees, Rashard Mendenhall and Antonio
Gates took any semblance of happiness I had left
in me and stomped on it with a golf cleat.
My most formidable opponent in week five
was none other than myself Forgoing Cedric
Benson for Ahmad Bradshaw, I put myself
just out of reach of a win. It was bittersweet
to watch Forte run all over the Panthers, but
I knew it was for my own good. The Panthers
aren’t winning any championships this year and
my sanity was at stake. However, it was in vein;
I benched the players that would have put me
over my opponent’s total score and his kicker,
Nick Folk, went for five field goals, including
one more than 50 yards long.
Currently, I’m at the point where the seven and
a half waking hours I don’t spend in the Clarion
office each week are squandered wondering
why, if fantasy football is so trivial, I can’t catch
a break—It should be noted that it is early in the
season and I am certainly one to overreact.
Editors Note: If you, or someone you
know, is exhibiting behaviors like these,
please get them help. Many addiction
hotlines are toll free.
THE Clarion
Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest: Old-growth beauty
Senior Staff
Editor in Chief
John M. Climer
IVIanaging Editor ....
Daniel Heyman
Business IVIanager. . .
Position Open
Copy Editor
David Alexander
News
Position Open
Opinion
Position Open
Arts & Life
Position Open
Sports
Position Open
Photography
Position Open
Faculty Advisor
John B. Padgett
Other Staff
Chantel Azevedo
Ashley Fortune
Parl Baler
Jacob Liske
Karam Boeshaar
Alex McCracken
Sarah Bowers
Chris Novak
Danielle Burch
Daniel Schreiman
Zack Christy
Krisma Sellers
Kathleen Crady
Patrick Veilleux
John Dorner
Caleb Welborn
The Clarion is a student-run college newspaper
produced by student journalists enrolled at Brevard
College. Unsigned editorials represent the collective
opinion of the staff of The Clarion. Other opinions
expressed in this newspaper
are those of respective
authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the
faculty, staff or administration of Brevard College.
All correspondence should be mailed to:
The Clarion, Brevard Colleg
e. One Brevard College
Drive, Brevard, NC 28712, or send E-mail to
clarion@brevard. edu
www.brevard.edu/clarion
These Hills...
By John M. Climer
Editor in Chief
For this week’s edition of These Hills, we’ll
travel a little further away from Brevard to an
amazing spectacle that we have the privilege
of living close to: the Joyce Kilmer Memorial
Forest.
You may wonder: what
distinguishes Joyce Kilmer
from the other nearly countless
natural wonders that surround
us in Western North Carolina?
The answer: it’s one of the
few remaining old-growth
timber forests in the country.
The Forest’s old-growth status
means that the trees in Joyce
Kilmer have never been harvested, allowing
them to grow to enormous sizes.
The protected wilderness area in Joyce Kilmer
came to fruition by what some might call fate. In
the late 1890’s the logging company working in
the Slickrock Creek Watershed, the area where
Joyce Kilmer is located, went bankrupt. This
spared the roughly 30 percent of unharvested
forest from being logged. Additionally, further
possible logging operations were permanently
ended after the construction of the Calderwood
Dam flooded logging roads in 1922.
The Forest’s name came about after World
War I, when the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars
lobbied the government to create a memorial
forest for a fallen soldier, author and poet named
Joyce Kilmer and the 3 800 acre wilderness area
then became subject to federal protection. As
time passed, more land was added to the area
by the government, with the final designation of
17,394 protected acres coming about in 1975.
Like most other wilderness
areas in Western North
Carolina, Joyce Kilmer
offers outdoor recreation
enthusiasts beautiful
scenery, great camping and
hiking. However, because
Joyce Kilmer is one of few
remaining old-growth forests,
the amount of hiking is limited
to 60 miles of trail in the
entire Forest. Additionally,
users must abide by strict Leave No Trace ethics
when in the Forest so that it remains in pristine
condition for future generations.
Although Joyce Kilmer is not at our backdoor,
it is an amazing natural phenomenon and
provides visitors with an incredible example
of how the forests of Western North Carolina
looked when the first settlers arrived to our
country and it is well worth the two hour drive
to take in the scenery.