One hundred ten years ofedtorialfreedom
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NEWS: 76-DAILY
CLASSIFIED: 76440557
www michigandaily. coin
Tuesday
March 13, 2001
e .-z 't C 9 f - 0
KeportS
Miartin to fire coach
today, sources say
S
By Raphael Goodstein
Daily Sports Editor
The Associated Press and ESPN reported
*t nightthat Michigan basketball coach
Brian Ellerbe will be dismissed today,
although Athletic Director Bill Martin told
The Michigan Daily the decision "will be
made as soon as possible" and that he "didn't
have any idea where the reports are coming
from."
ESPN said
lawyers for the Uni-
versity and Ellerbe
were negotiating a
yout last night on.
W coach's contract.
Some players
were more open to
the idea of a new
coach then others.
Star forward LaVell
Blanchard often said
Inside:
Students react to
news that Ellerbe is
out.
Reasons to feel
sorry for Ellerbe and
why to be glad he's.
gone.
Page 11.
that he expected more
Robert Sellers, a black member of Michi-
gan's Board in Control of Intercollegiate Ath-
letics has asked for Ellerbe to receive one
more year.
"I think at this point for Brian Ellerbe (to
be fired) would be unfair," Sellers said. I
think it would be sending the wrong mes-
sage."
Robinson doesn't think the NAACP should
get involved but would like to see his coach
get one more year to win.
"I don't think he got a fair shake," Robin-
son said. "He was never able to develop a
team and none of that was his fault. Add
Jamal Crawford and Kevin Gaines to this
team and we would have a really good team."
Crawford starred for Michigan last year
before the NCAA suspended Crawford for
violating its amateurism rule, while Gaines
was kicked off the team at the start of this
season for "repeatedly violating team rules,"
as Ellerbe said.
Freshman center Josh Moore said the team
had not been contacted and that the players
have not set up a meeting yet.
"He's the guy that brought me here,"
Moore said. "I can't say for sure that I'm
going to stay. I can't say for sure that I'm
going to leave.
"Saying that you're going to change the
system on me after a year is like saying I'm
going to have my freshman year all over
again."
Michigan is 62-60 under Ellerbe and 37-51
over the last three seasons. The Wolverines,
who were 10-18 overall and 4-12, lost 82-80
to Penn State in the first round of the Big Ten
Tournament Thursday.
from his experience at Michigan.
But last night freshmen Bernard Robinson
expressed support for his coach.
*"I'm disappointed," Robinson said. "I wish
was still here. He's the reason I'm here."
The University will have to pay Ellerbe
close to $450,000 for the remaining three
years of his contract; it will not have to pay
him for income lost from camps, Nike, televi-
sion.or other endorsement deals.
Recently, the president of the Detroit chap-
ter of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People as well as
other minority leaders questioned whether or
t he was treated fairly.
MSAetecons
winter2001
Part three of a six-part series
about campaign platforms
2pay aimls
to inCrease
fun i9n
elections
I annon Pettypiece
Daily Staff Reporter
DAVID KATZ/Daily
Reports last night Indicate that Athletic Director Bill Martin plans to announce today that he Is firing basketball coach Brian Ellerbe, who has amassed
a 62-60 record in four years.
After the loss, Ellerbe said "I fully expect
to coach this basketball team next year.
Ellerbe continued, "I think the University
has been fair. ... We haven't excelled the way
we'd have liked to the last four years. But
we've also been under some difficult situa-
tions."
Ellerbe was originally hired as an assistant
by his predecessor, Steve Fisher, for his abili-
ty to recruit the East Coast.
Before coming to Michigan, Ellerbe was
an assistant coach at Virginia and the head
coach at Loyola, Md., where he was 34-47.
This season was Michigan's worst since the
1981-82 campaign and this three-year stretch
has been the program's worst since the mid-
'60s.
Candidates to replace Ellerbe include Rick
Pitino, Seton Hall's Tommy Amaker, Ken-
tucky's Tubby Smith and Oklahoma's Kelvin
Sampson.
It has been reported that officials from the
Athletic Department have contacted Pitino
and Amaker.
lands up, baby hands up
charges
By Jacquelyn Nixon
Daily Staff Reporter
Michigan hockey team officials said yesterday they are
conducting an internal investigation of a violent incident
involving several players at the Sigma
Chi fraternity house last weekend.
A hockey player, whom witnesses
identified as senior right wing Josh
Langfeld, and several of his friends
were asked to leave the fraternity
house early Sunday morning after
Langfeld was seen harassing female
guests.s .
The Friends Rebelling Against
Tyranny Party is in its second year
of promoting fun in the Michigan
Student Assembly by, what mem-
bers say, is putting the party back
into MSA parties.
"We took a look around campus
d things weren't fun enough....
Working for the Gargoyle I can pro-
mote fun, but in MSA I can enforce
fun," said co-founder and FRAT
Party presidential candidate, LSA
senior Galaxor Nebulon, whose real
name is Ryan Hughes.
The main issues on the FRAT
Party's campaigning platform
involve making University life less
stressful and more humorous.
"The only thing that stops fun is
mework and tests and papers.
Instead of papers and tests, classes
could distribute grades based on a
game of rock-scissors-paper. That
way people could have more fun,"
said Nebulon.
Another campaign issue support-
ed by FRAT party members is the
abolition of grades.
"Grades put pressure on people.
stead, fruit could be given out
and school might be fun," said Neb-
ulon.
Currently the FRAT Party has
one member on the assembly, Mike
Wilson, who said he has been dis-
couraged by his MSA experience.
"It ws really shockina how nettv
JOYCE LEE/Daily
A Venezuelan dance troupe does a demonstration of the Boleros at the School of Dance yesterday.
I.
After a brief struggle, the group
was ejected from the house at 548 S.
K olb to P P State St. and returned about five ld
minutes later, witnesses said. The group reportedl3
broke windows in the house and then initiated a figh
0"""See FIGHT, Page I
anti-gay hate cime leslatn Se
I pe ech gveni
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ht
7p
a
By Hanna LoPatin
Daily Staff Reporter
"We protect all sorts of people under the law, in n enory of
and yet there's really no protection for the gay
Rep. Chris Kolb hopes that the third time's
the charm. Kolb, the first openly gay state leg-
islator in Michigan, plans to be part of the third
consecutive effort to integrate sexual orienta-
tion into the definition of hate crimes when he
and three other representatives introduce a
series of bills today.
The package, which enjoys bipartisan sup-
port, aims to protect people from violence, job
insecurity and discrimination based on their
sexual orientation.
The bills have been introduced in some form
during both of the past two sessions. In one case
it passed the state House but not the Senate.
Kolb (D-Ann Arbor) said although he hopes
his status as a gay man will help in some ways
to get the legislation passed, he will rely heavi-
lv on the sunnort of his neers on both sides of
community."
- State Rep. Gilda Jacobs
Minority floor leader
role."
Minority Floor Leader Gilda Jacobs (D-
Huntington Woods), another sponsor of the
bill, said this legislation stems from a problem
in human rights issues - not necessarily gay
rights.
"We protect all sorts of people under the
law, and yet there's really no protection for the
gay community," she said. "Just because some-
body is gay doesn't mean they should live life
less peacefully."
Another of the bills' soonsors. Rep. Pat
tation, the person convicted of the crime cur-
rently is not subject to any additional penalties.
"If in fact somebody did the same thing
because of somebody's religion or because of
their race it would be considered a hate crime;
Godchaux said.
Sean Kosofsky, director of policy and victim
services at the Triangle Foundation, a
statewide advocacy group for gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender persons, said Michi-
gan used to be a leader in protecting people
based on their sexual orientation. Now, with 24
slain student
By Ted Borden
Daily Staff Reporter
In a speech that visibly moved those who attended, Bar-
bara J. Hart, a leading national spokesperson on dating and
domestic violence, sought last night to
"let people know that we can intervene
to stop the violence," she said.
Hart was the first speaker in what will
become an annual series of domestic
violence lectures in memory of Tamara
Williams, an LSA senior who was
stabbed to death by her boyfriend on