0 OPINION Page 4 Tuesday, December 7, 1982 The Michigan Daily Making a god out of a gifted athlete By Ron Pollack It was with utter bewilderment that I read Jon Weiss's article, " 'A.C.! A.C.!': Tribute to a gridiron god" (Daily, Nov. 30). For 23 paragraphs, Weiss paid homage to Michigan flanker Anthony Carter, concluding that the senior from Riviera Beach, Fla. "must be more than God's gift to football. He must be a god." EXCUSE MY cynicism, but such deification strikes me as rather repulsive. Consider what Carter has become renowned for these last four years. He stands motionless, and listens for another guy to yell a bunch of numbers, whereupon he breaks into a quick gait and tries to catch a funny-shaped ball. Teenagers on sandlots do the same all across America. Carter just happens to do it betters You might say he has the god-given ability to excel at this game. Nowhere doesitesay in the Bible that God runs down-and-out patterns or that the divine being must be able to go over the middle without fear of taking a crushing hit. CARTER IS exceptionally talented. He owns a bevy of Wolverine football records. And he may well be the finest college receiver in the nation. But he is not a god. There are far too many flaws which he must straighten out before he reaches such a lofty plateau. To begin with, he is lacking in the relatively commonplace characteristic known as tact. AFTER FOOTBALL games, the press con- verges upon the locker room. Most of the players are tolerant of reporters' questions. Quarterback Steve Smith is a perfect example. No matter how poorly he may have played on a given afternoon, no matter how much a defeat may be tearing him up inside, he always meets the press's questions head on. But just as the majority of the team is willing to talk to the media, two players care very little for scribes and broadcasters alike. They are linebacker Robert Thompson and Carter. The pair's handling of the press, however, is worlds apart. When approached by a media member and asked a question, Thompson politely replies, "I'm sorry, but I have nothing to say about the game." IN CONTRAST, Carter's response to the situation ranges from rude to ridiculous. Following the Oct. 23 game at Northwestern(in which the Wolverines routed the Wildcats, 49- 14, and had good reason to be in a jolly mood), Carter was dressed and was sauntering toward the locker room exit when the media entered the room. He suddenly increased, his pace toward the door. A group of reporters caught him and a question was asked. "Anthony Carter can't an- swer no questions," said Carter. "He's in a hurry and has to go." In a hurry to go where? As Carter left, most of the Wolverine players were slowly milling about in various states of dress. Where did Car- ter have to go that the others didn't? Did he have his own private jet awaiting his arrival? AFTER MICHIGAN'S 24-14 loss to hated task was left to an assistant coach who said so as the reporters shuffled away. Carter's teammates were equally pained by the defeat. Tears welled up in many of their eyes. Yet every player who was not up to the task of answering questions had the good grace and tact to politely say just that. Another trait of Carter's that qualifies as anything but god-like is clearly apparent on those rare occasions when he does answer a question. QUITE SIMPLY, he does not express him- self well. His grasp of the English language is not of a nature normally possessed by-no, make that expected of-a college student. In a recent Sports Illustrated feature on Carter, his verbal miscues were in evidence on more than one occasion. His access to one of the most ex- pensive public educations in the country ap- parently has not sufficiently improved his command of the language. What is sad about Weiss's "tribute to a gridiron god" is that he completely overlooks those Wolverine players who are multi- dimensional and deserving of high praise. The following players aren't "gods," but they are much more worthy of being placed on a pedestal than Carter. These players-like Car- ter-are winners on the field. But equally im- portant, they are examples of winners off the field. Tailback Lawrence Ricks. On the field, he was Michigan's leading ground gainer, rushing for 1,300 yards on 243 carries. His play has ear- ned him All-Big Ten honors. Off the field, he is a successful student majoring in engineering with an emphasis on computer science. "I- came here to play football and get an education," he said before the season began. "I won't sacrifice my education for football." . Offensive guard Stefan Humphries. On the field, he also played well enough to earn a spot on the All-Big Ten team. Off the field, he, too, is an excellent student. In high school, Hum- phries was his class's valedictorian. He curren- tly carries a 3.94 grade point average as an in- terdisciplinary medical engineering major and was recently named to the district all- academic first team by the College Sports In- formation Directors of America. * Linebacker Robert Thompson. A Wolverine captain in each of the last two seasons, Thom- pson earned All-Big Ten honors along with Car- ter, Humphries, and Ricks. He currently holds a 3.21 grade point average in medicine, and joined Humphries on the district all-academic first team. * Tight end Craig Dunaway. Dunaway was the Wolverines' starting tight end all year. He was just named to the district's all-academic honorable mention list. For his scintillating play on the gridiron, Carter most certainly deserves theumoniker, "Saturday's hero." But Ricks, Humphries, Thompson, and Dunaway, among others, per- form heroic deeds seven days a week. It is unfortunate, but Carter is one- dimensional. To be sure, he is not a god. What he is is human; an exceptionally gifted athlete with his share of flaws. Let's just leave it at that. Carter: Talented, but human Ohio State, Carter's worst colors came out again. Reporters surrounded the flanker and rattled off a number of questions. Each question was met with dead silence. All the while, Carter maintained an icy stare at the locker in front of him. He did not even have the diplomacy to say he did not care to speak; that Pollack is a Daily sports editor. ------- --- ditee by tatUir f ig Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCIII, No. 73 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board 'E' for effort UPON COMING home from his trip to Latin America, President Reagan announced that he'd had a real educational experience. "I learned a lot," the president said. ". . . I didn't go down there with any plan for the Americas, or anything. I went down to find out from them and (learn) their views. You'd be sur- prised. They're all individual coun- tries." Hmmm. Sounds like quite a lesson- for a tenth grade civics class. It seems, in fact, that instead of learning something new, the president simply took a refresher course in the same old hard-line dogma he's been spouting since he took office. Take, for example, his final flourish of the trip. After visiting Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt, Reagan announced that Montt has been getting a "bum rap" and "is totally dedicated to democracy." Montt's dedication, though, must be. a very personal matter; it certainly hasn't been manifested in any public action. Since he came to power in a military coup last March, Montt has suspended all political activity and severely curtailed civil liberties. Rumors abound-backed up by ac- cusations from Amnesty Inter- national-that Montt's government has been responsible for large-scale massacres of civilians in anti-guerrilla campaigns. When asked to comment on reports that the Guatemalan army is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy-destroying villages suspec- ted of harboring rebels-Montt replied, "We have no scorched-earth policy. We have a policy of scorched Com- munists." So much for the bum rap. Now Montt, that freedom-loving spirit, has promised to hold elections and revive political parties as soon as he gets a chance-at least by next March, to be specific. And Reagan, after his thought- provoking jaunt, is convinced that Montt is moving to restore democratic rule. For good measure, he announced he is thinking of restoring the military aid denied Guatemala for its alleged human rights violations. That's an awful lot for one president to learn, or for one nation to swallow. On this trip, Reagan deserves nothing more than an "E" for effort. Wasserman ANA You fOL-K INWTfIE VIEWING AUDENCE GET TO YO/ E ( T THE STORIES YOE ST 1-WELY( GAMSV~W§AO UtT IT HEPR N i o HEv ' U~~NITED STRAS r7 "1 TELUN& -TAL;SOF S$cOW OUTRfA6E ARNI 1 7 -'1 I VQ $E 'i2EWE Sh~f, W AJ WE-4~ 4 z ET EXTRR POINTS 'R TRUE ? I.. i __ ICI r . '/ A S . St lt i As auto sales and housing star- ts rise, and, especially, as early Christmas shopping seems brisk, Reagan officials are optimistic that the long-awaited consumer- led recovery may have come. But big city mayors are worried about something else-a rapidly increasing flow of homeless people into their cities. They hope that they are just tran- sients between jobs, available to be absorbed into a recovery economy. UNFORTUNATELY, signs from other countries in similar straits indicate these "new poor" are going to be a permanent part of our urban landscape. They can be seen by the thousands in most of Europe's major cities. While administration officials still believe that new economic growth will cut down the number of our new poor, the signs are multiplying that even if economic growth resumes, it will be with permanently high unem- ployment. Throughout the nation, major businesses are cutting their work forces, hoping to keep produc- tivity high by substituting machines for workers. And in Christmas for the, new poor' By Franz Schurmann and find their own economic ways. The others who can't will then be helped through some ultimate streamlined safety net. The rub may be that the new poor fit in nowhere, neither in an economy that no longer needs their individual skills, nor in ur- ban labor markets where their isolation makes them unattrac- tive job candidates. IN THE CHRISTMAS season of hope, what hope is there for these new poor aside from the will-o- the-wisp of a recovered economy, or some grandiose national proposal for "rein- dustrialization"? Slender as it is, a ray of hope comes from the growing numbers of community kitchens and hospitality houses that open their doors to them. iReligious in- stitutions, as they have done for hundreds of years, are again taking the lead in administering to the poor. What they and others in the struggle against the new misery need is for city governments to open up vacant buildings for living and sleeping space, and for the federal government to provide money and surplus food. THE NEW POOR are going to have to be fitted into new or old social fabrics and economic lat- from middle-class backgrounds. Unlike the 1960s, when the "flower children" by and large still could return to their parents' home, many now have no friends or relatives or urban community with whom they can bed down un- til some opportunity comes by. That gives them the ultimate anonymity of no address and no telephone number. Besides all their problems, the new poor have to battle against an ingrained antipathy among all too many Americans. against poverty. The ancestors of most Am nrn-.' wm hrPt oP £cfnon tunate but natural condition of life. But we might consider that in France, for example, a distin- ction has always been made bet- ween the poor and the miserable. The poor, as the French see it, are people who survive, even if barely. "Les Miserables" are those who cannot even survive, like the tortured loner in Victor Hugo's great novel. MANY OF THE new poor worked hard as individuals to get into the workforce. They qualified, got jobs, and thought they were moving on up the career ladder of achievement. .. i