SMOKE SIGNALS, March, 1992— Page 3
Braves dribbling to national tournament
The weekend of March 5-7, the Braves wrapped up their regular
season, with a 21 -6 overall record, which for the 12th consecutive
year amassed 20 or more wins under Head Coach Bob Burke. The
Braves, seeded #3, ojjened the Region X tournament defeating the
#6 seed Lenoir Community College 88-87.
The following night, the Braves tangled with Louisburg in the
semi-finals and defeated the Hurricanes 87-76 to move into the
championship round Saturday evening against the top seed Spar
tanburg Methodist College. In what best can be described as a
classic confrontation, the Braves knocked off the Pioneers 95-92
in double overtime to win the Region X Championship and qualify
for the national tournament.
By virtue of their Region victory, the Braves traveled Tuesday,
March 10 to Brunswick, Georgia to play Brunswick College, win
ners of Region 17 and the Georgia state Junior College Champion
ship in the opening round of the national tournament. Behind a
solid shooting performance in the second half, in which the Braves
shot 68% from the field, they defeated the Mariners 83-78 to
qualify as one of the top 16 teams in the nation and to travel to
Hutchinson, Kansas, site of the national championships.
This victory was the 300th career win for Coach Bob Burke as
head coach of the Chowan Braves. Burke’s basketball program has
averaged over 25 wins per season during his 12-year tenure.
The Braves, 25-6, will play Butler County Community College
of Kansas, Wed., March 18, at 1:00 p.m. in the second round of the
national championships. This game will be broadcast live on local
station WBCG 98.3 FM.
Chowan College Braves
1992 Baseball Schedule
Mar. 2
Muhlenburg College
Home
DH
1:00
Mar. 4
Rappahannock CC
Home
DH
1:00
Mar. 16
Anderson Jr. College
Home
CDH
Noon
Mar. 17
Keystone Jr. College
Home
DH
12:30
Mar. 18
Prince George
Home
DH
1:00
Mar. 21
Garrett CC
Home
DH
1:00
Mar. 24
Southeastern CC
Away
DH
1:00
Mar. 27
North Greenville
Home
CDH
1:00
Mar. 28
Brevard Jr. College
Home
CDH
1:00
Mar. 31
Lenoir CC
Home
DH
1:30
Apr. 3
Anderson
Away
CDH
1:00
Apr. 4
North Greenville
Away
CDH
1:00
Apr. 6
Southeastern CC
Home
DH
1:30
Apr. 8
Louisburg
Home
CDH
1:30
Apr. 9
Newport News App.
Home
S
2:00
Apr. 11
Brevard
Away
CDH
1.00
Apr. 12
Spartanburg
Away
CDH
1:00
Apr. 14
Newport News App.
Away
DH
1:00
Apr. 16
Lenoir CC
Away
DH
1:00
Apr. 18
Spartanburg
Home
CDH
1:00
Apr. 21
Louisburg
Away
CDH
6:00
May 7-11
Conference Tournament
May 14-16 Eastern District Tournament
May 23-30 Nationals
My Turn
By Daniel Butler
fm n
i
The Chowan Braves —1991-92
REGION 10 CHAMPIONS
headed to the big show!
|l fr> -• ni I
Allstars capture intramural basketball crown
By Larry Meeks
Director of Intramural Sports
Well, the long-fought battle
finally came to an end February 20
in the Helms Center, as the Allstars
ended the regular season as
Chowan’s Intramural Basketball
Champions. The Allstars put to
gether a winning record of 8 wins
and no losses.
The Ghetto Boys finished sec
ond with a 7 and 1 record, followed
by The Champions, finishing third
Intramural Basketball
Regular Season
Standings
w L
Allstars 8 0
Ghetto Boys 7 1
Champions 6 2
Darryl's Squad (F&S) 5 3
Superb "6" ^ ^
Dunn Gone 3 5
Hoosiers 3 5
Oreo Express 1
The Elite Teams (F&S) 0 8
By Amador Padilla
Coach Dave Maas took his
wrestling squad to participate in
the Mid-AUantic District tourna
ment on February 15-16 at Sewell,
NJ, in the eastern part of the coun
try. After having two a day pra^
tices and putting in so much work
throughout the whole season.
Coach Dave Maas was somewhat
confident of his team s perform
ance. .
The Braves got off to a good
start but as the tournament went on
they dropped some crucial matches
thus putting them out of conten
tion for the team title. . , , .
Coach Maas said, “I think *at
we performed quite well consider
ing that there was only one sopho
more on the lineup, and 1 think that
the lack of experience is the only
thing that hurt us, otherwise we
were in great shape and our tech
nique was right.” Even though the
Braves did not come back to Mur-
with a 6 and 2 record.
The Intramural Basketball
ChampionshipToumament started
Monday night, February 24. The
Championship Game will be
played March 2 at 7:00 p.m., in the
Helms Center, with the winner
advancing to East Carolina Uni
versity to compete in the 1992
freesboro with
the team title,
they did come
back with a
champion in
Nathan Ludke,
who won the
126 pound
weight class.
Coming in to Nathan Ludke
the tournament
Ludke said, “I felt confident but I
wasn’t sure what to expect because
there are many great wrestlers out
there, but I will do my best for my
self and the team.” Nathan Ludke
was redshirted last year because he
was still fresh out of high school.
As coach Dave Maas said,
“Nathan has great ability and there
was no doubt on my mind that he
could win the tournament, but to
my surprise he was ranked 3rd in
the conference because he had lost
to the number 2 kid, so I was a little
worried.” When the team took to
North Carolina Collegiate Extra
mural Basketball Championship to
be held on March 21 and 22 at
Christenbury Gym on the campus
of East Carolina University. The
starting time for Saturday, March
21 is 10:00 a.m.
We hope that the Chowan fac
ulty, staff and students will come
the mats they had only one thing in
mind which was to win for them
selves as a team.
Nathan also said, “I was mainly
concerned at the beginning with
taking one match at a time in the
season as well as on the tourna
ment because I knew that I could
not get too over confident, so I
wrestled my hardest through out
the whole year.” Even though
Nathan Ludke thought he could
win and his coach also thought he
could win, he did not get too con
fident, as he said.
“I will take it one match at a
time.” Nathan also added, “I think
I’m prepared for nationals and I’m
not so concerned with the Mid-
Atlantics. My main objective is to
place and concentrate on the Na
tional tournament because it is
much more of a big deal to me and
I’m not sure I may not feel to
nervous right ix)w but as soon as I
get there I think I will be.” Nathan
out and give the winning team some
support.
Members of the Allstars team
are: Coach Kip Hicks, David Perry,
Kim Richardson, Silas George, Phil
Campbell, Dee Wells, John Bread-
more, Mike Dowdy, Barry Wat
kins, Larry King and Troy Dol-
lyhigh.
Ludke had been working hard all
season and to those who saw him
wrestle, know he wrestles with
heart and aggressiveness.
When Nathan trained with his
coach, Dave Maas, they worked
mostly on conditioning to get his
stamina for the “Big One,” be
cause there was no point in learn
ing new things since he already
knew pretty much what he had to
do to win.
Nathan began wrestling at age
9. He is the son of Richard and
Kathy Ludke, from Accokeek, Md.
Nathan says, “Even though my
parents are not here with me I know
they are very happy for me and 1
also know they are proud of me on
my way to the National tourna
ment." Ludke represented Chowan
in the national tournament Febru
ary 28-29 in North Dakota. He
finished 4th place in the 126-lb.
division. He was named to the 2nd
Team All-American Squad.
Modern Medicine: Friend or Foe
So what’s up Chowan? Nothing
as usual, but check this out:
The world of medicine is con
stantly changing with the help of
new and improved technology.
When a new
procedure or a
new medicine is
invented, it has
. to und^^o e)s-,
periments and
testing before it
can be intro
duced into the
public market.
Sometimes the AMA will let cer
tain procedure or medicines be in
troduced into the public while they
are still in the experimental stage.
For example, the Eximer Laser is a
new product for treating heart pa
tients. The Eximer Laser was in
vented to replace balloon
angioplasty. Now balloon
angioplasty is where the doctor
inserts a cathoder through the leg
and runs it through the body until it
reaches the arteries of the heart.
Then the doctors find the blockage
in the coronary arteries and try to
break through it by inflating the
balloon on the end of the cathoder.
Sounds like fun to me. The pur
pose for the operation is to basi
cally unclog the blocked arteries of
the heart to prevent future heart at
tacks, and for the most part the op
eration is that if the artery has a
large amount of blockage in it,
then the balloon on the end of the
cathoder will not help. This is the
reason that the Eximer Laser was
invented. The Eximer Laser uses a
cathoder with a laser on the end of
it instead of a balloon. The laser
disintegrates the blockage instead
of simply breaking it apart. Now
(unlike what it may seem) I’m not
trying to give a lesson in medical
procedures, but let's look at the
Eximer Laser, for example, and
how it's put to use.
You see, since the Eximer Laser
is still in the experimental stage,
most insurance companies will not
pay for it. This means that the
patient has to pay well over
$25,000. Now maybe many of you
are saying, “Well if you want to
stay alive, who cares how much
you have to pay!” Point taken; but
if the procedure is still in the re
search phase, then why do we have
to pay anything at all for it?
Studies have shown that balloon
angioplasty is just as effective as
the Eximer Laser, and a great deal
cheaper! So why can’t the insur
ance companies or the people who
sponsor the laser fork out the cash?
Any guesses? I’ll tell you why:
you see when the patient has to pay
the bill, it helps underwrite the cost
of research. In other words, if four
people have the operation, then the
hospital can buy another laser (by
the way, the running cost on the
laser is about $200,000). So now
you might be saying, “So what!
Someone has to pay for it!”. Once
again that is a point well taken;
however, there is more to this story
than meets the eye.
.Eor instance, the. researchers
who test the Eximer Laser claim
that it is the best procedure around
today. Unfortunately, the research
ers have never compared the laser
to the balloon angioplasty, its
nearest competitor. Therefore, how
can it be the greatest thing around?
Most importantly, many research
ers own large amounts of stock in
a company called AIS. So what,
you ask? Well AIS is the company
who bought the rights to the Eximer
Laser and who also started mass
producing it. OK, here comes a
common sense lesson: if you owned
a large amount of stock in a com
pany and you just happened to be a
researcher, would you tell the truth
about your product, or would you
spice up the results a tiny bit?
Maybe the fact that you sank thou
sands of your own hard-eamed
dollars into the product would help
you make a decision. So why am I
making such a big deal about a
stupid little laser? If you’re not
bored to death by now and you’re
still reading this article, here’s why:
The researchers are none otherthan
our own medical physicians. You
know, the people whom millions
of Americans trust each day with a
decision about my life when deep,
down inside himself he may be
thinking about profits. There could
be thousands of heart patients who
are being suckered into having the
Eximer Laser procedure!
So where have our morals taken
us in this country. Is everyone only
concerned with making a fast buck?
I know I am, but that’s beside the
point! If I were a doctor perhaps 1
would think differently. You see
this story strikes me close to home.
My father had two heart attacks
and he had to undergo triple by
pass surgery. I am thankful that he
survived, and most importantly that
he had a physician that was honest,
a physician who cared more about
saving lives than making money.
Before I go I would like to say
one final thing: Why did Jeff
Dahmer have to even go to trial to
see if he was insane? The man
mutilated and dismembered bod
ies, then he ate them. Jesus! What
does a guy have to do these days to
be called insane?
Live your dreams.
Peace.
Allstars
Intramural
Nathan Ludke takes district, national honors