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)