The Student Newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Volume XVI, Number 46 Charlotte, North Carolina Tuesday, March 3.1981 Student Sports Promotion Causes Stir By Chip Wilson Carolina Journal Staff Writer Kevin Bryant walked into the Cone Center caucus last week to pick up his $15 paycheck. It wasn’t there. Since he serves as a presidential assistant to Ron Olsen, he went upstairs to the Student Government office for it. He found no check in his mailbox, in fact no mailbox. The nametape was removed from it. Thinking he could have been fired from his student athletic promotion post, he went to see Olsen, the Stu dent Body President. He asked, “Have you dismissed me ?” Olsen replied, “No. I’m just not going to pay you anymore.” “What do you mean? You’re not going to pay me anymore,” Bryant asked. According to Bryant, Olsen “started talking real loud and said, “You’re not working for me. You’re working for Clyde Walker (UNCC Athletic Director) and Dave Taylor.” “I told him, I’m not working for you Ron, I’m working for the students,” Bryant said. Bryant was appointed by Olsen to work as a liason between Student Government and the Athletic Depart ment to promote sports on campus, according to Dave Taylor, Sports Pro motion Director. “He works for Ron, not for us.” Olsen contends Bryant has not been reporting to him, but says he has not been dismissed. “He has done a good job, but if he is working for the Athletic Department, let them pay him,” Olsen said. Olsen cites one example: “I didn’t know about the bus trip to the Ap- palachain State game until I saw it on posters around campus. He ended up not filling the bus.” Bryant admitted not checking in with Olsen regularly. “There was some trouble earlier with members of Student Govern ment misusing their block of seats. Everytime I would walk into the of fice I would get these looks from all the people that work there. I figured Bryant what’s the use when the interest wasn’t there. I was getting a lot of bad vibes coming over there. Plus a lot of the stuff really didn’t concern him. I found his interest wasn’t really there,” Bryant said. “He acted like he was all concerned about it. He wrote up the ticket distribution plan and everything. But he was the one going against it; fin ding ways to get around it. According to Bryant, officials of the Student Association abused the assigned block of seats at home basketball games. “A lot of people were sitting in those blocks that real ly didn’t have a thing to do with stu dent government. Especially when they would have 120 people in the block. They quit giving the names of people who were using the block, which was one of our rules. “The general thing was... Hell, I just quit going over there. A lot of times I would go over there, and he wouldn’t be in. One whole week I went there and he was gone. Bryant says losing his monthly stipend is not the issue. “It’s just the principle of the thing; That he wasn’t man enough to write me a letter and tell me about it.” Olsen says he gave Bryant advance notice of the cut stipend. “That’s an outright lie. He did not tell me that before my stipend was cut.”01sen dropped hints, Bryant said, “One day I was selling Davidson tickets and I was up there at 7:30 in the morning, working all day. He started getting on me saying, “You just wait and see what happens. Olsen told me that he was responsible for getting all those students to the Marquette game, Bryant said. A reported rift between Olsen and the athletic program may have caus ed the entanglement with Bryant. “Some members of Student Government were giving away tickets to their assigned block. There was official action taken,” Bryant said. “I went in there one day after that and he started talking about the athletic department and how he didn’t know what was going on over there. “He doesn’t care for Clyde Walker, or Dave Taylor. He said he was going to Chancellor Fretwell and Doug Orr (Vice-Chancellor for Research and Public Service) and tell them what was going on over at the athletic department.” “I don’t know what he thought was going on over there,” Bryant said. “When Ron Olsen says something stupid like that, I just say, “Whatever you think Ron. Whatever you think.” Bryant said,“A lot of people may think Olsen is right. I’m just bothered at some of the things he has done this year and that he has talked Student Body President Ron Olsen sports a con troversial “Where the Hell is David son” T-shirt at last week’s game. shit about the athletic department. Let me tell you this. When you have a losing team, there’s not a lot you can do. You just keep working hard and we have been working hard. At the Davidson game, the student section was packed. I even took my own money and bought the T-Shirts— the where the hell is Davidson T-Shirts.” “On speculation I would say that he did not pay for them,”Olsen said, “If he did not sell them all, the Stu dent Government would have had to supply the money.” “It really hurts me,” Bryant said, Fretwell Tells House ‘Don’t Cut Budgets’ By Rick Monroe Carolina Journal Editor UNCC Chancellor E.K. Fretwell told a Senate subcommittee the bud get cuts proposed by the Reagan ad ministration would “deal higher education a serious blow,” restricting student access to and damaging the research capacity of colleges and universities. “The reductions recommended by the administration are devastating,” Fretwell told the House Subcommit tee on Postsecondary Education last Thursday in Washington. In his prepared text, Fretwell listed several effects of the cutbacks: • a substancial reduction in postsecondary opportunities. The American Council on Education, of which Fretwell is chair, estimates this would probably decrease college enrollment by 500 to 750 thousand students. • serious cutbacks in research programs at major research universi ties, especially in social sciences and research training in health sciences. © a significant rise in the cost to “because Olsen’s big confidants act like everything is such a big deal when it’s not. They act like its the damn White House or something. “They need to relax and consider what is good for the students. I don’t think Olsen has done that this year. I think he’s got this-big power thing. I don’t understand that, but it bothers me. I feel kinda sorry for him,” Bryant said. “Just because I don’t come up there and hang around, doesn’t mean I’m not doing my job, because the job got done.” students, graduate as well as under graduate. • a decline in quality at all types of institutions. The body of Fretwell’s testimony dealt with the reduction and eventual elimination of Social Security Educa tional Benefits to students, cuts in Pell (formerly Basic Educational Op portunity) Grants and in Guaranteed Student Loans. Although agreeing the Social Sec urity Educational Benefits program, which was established prior to the other need-based student aids, was in need of an overhaul the Chancellor said these benefits were primarily for low-income students to be used as family support. “Therefore, elimination of this ma jor source of assistance will inevitab ly place a serious strain on the rest of the system and work a hardship on the neediest families trying to finance a college education, even if no other aid programs were reduced. “Yet,” (Continued On Page 3)

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