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Monday, March 19, 2007
Ann Arbor, Michigan
www.michigandaily.com
Amaker axed
In four years of eligibility,
he never made tourney
Martin: He 'cleaned up'
Michigan basketball
Recruits ponder future at
Michigan. See lB
By DANIEL BROMWICH
Daily Sports Editor
Michigan men's basketball coach
Tommy Amaker was fired Satur-
day, ending a six-year tenure at the
University.
"Obviously it's not a joyous day
for us, for me on a personal level,
for my wife and I," Amaker said at
a press conference Saturday after-
noon. "I just want to make it very
clear, very plain, that I'm very
grateful for the opportunity to be
a part of this great school. To lead
it, to represent it at a time that we
all knew was a tenuous time and a -
tough time. I was very honored to
have a chance to be a part of that."
Amaker's dismissal came after
his team failed to make the NCAA
Tournament and bowed out in the
second round of the National Invi-
tational Tournament with an 87-66
loss to Florida State.
The Wolverines didn't compete
in the NCAA Tournament under
Amaker and made the NIT three
times, winning the championship
in 2004 and falling to South Caro-
lina in the title game last season.
Athletic Director Bill Martin
said the decision was the hardest of
his career at the University.
"I recruited Tommy from
Former Michigan men's basketball coach Tommy Amaker during a press conference on Saturday, shortly after being fired. The Wolverines failed to make the
earnent during all six years of Amaker's tenure, though they were ineligible for postseason play during two of those seasons.
MSA presidential candidates,
Seton Hall, brought him to Michi-
gan to work with our team at a very
low point in the history of Michi-
gan basketball. He did everything I
askedhimto,"Martinsaid."Hewas
great in working our way through
the major infractions case, the case
with the NCAA. He cleaned up the
basketball program and I'm forever
grateful for that. He's a class act, a
man of integrity."
Martin said he decided firing
Amaker was the best decision for
the University's basketball pro-
gram in the long run.
Though there had been rum-
blings about Amaker's future at
Michigan for most of the season,
both current and former players
were surprised to hear the news.
"You hear things," sophomore
Kendric Price said when asked
if he saw the firing coming. "We
didn't know it would happen like
this. This really shocked us - it just
came all of a sudden."
Amaker was hired to help the
program through a difficult period
during which Michigan basketball
faced NCAA sanctions. The team
was ineligible for postseason play
during his first two seasons.
The NCAA banned Michigan
fromparticipatingin the postseason
See AMAKER, Page 3A
MSA ELECTIONS
Candidate
involved
in website
attack
MAP candidate was
implicated in denial
of service attempt
By DANIEL TRUMP
Daily StaffReporter
A former LSA Student Govern-
ment representative who resigned
his post after being implicated in
an attack that shut down the web-
site of a rival party in last year's
Michigan Student Assembly elec-
tion is running for a seat in the
assembly in this week's election.
Larry Fogel, who was the MSA
election director in last year's elec-
tion, said LSA sophomore Tony
Vuljaj was one of two students
implicated in the initial investiga-
tion, which traced a denial-of-ser-
vice attack against rival Michigan
Progressive Party's website to Vul-
jaj's computer.
The attack was intended to
overload MPP's websitejustbefore
polls opened. Students are often
routed through party websites
before proceeding to the site on
which they can vote.
At the time, Vuljaj was serving
as an LSA-SG representative in the
now-defunct Students 4 Michigan
party. Then-S4M Chair Robbie
O'Brien resigned in the wake ofthe
scandal, claiming in a March 27,
2006 letter printed in The Michi-
gan Daily that the party member
who committed the attack did so
without the sanction of S4M.
Vuljaj, who is running this year
ontheMichiganActionPartyticket,
could not be reached for comment.
MAP's website lists Vuljaj as a
candidate from the Ross School
of Business. He is running against
Defend Affirmative Action Party
candidate Sarina Shah.
The Department of Public Safety
See CANDIDATE, Page 7A
DAAP: Maricruz Lopez
MAP: Zack Yost
BAMN co-chair wants a
more activist MSA
By JESSICA VOSGERCHIAN
Daily StaffReporter
Over the last year, LSA sophomore
Maricruz Lopez has ridden a bus to
Washington D.C. to protest two Supreme
Court lawsuits challenging voluntary
school integration. She has helped orga-
nize some of the loudest on-campus
demonstrations in favor of affirmative
action.
And now she hopes to win the presi-
dency of the Michigan Student Assembly.
Lopez faces Zach Yost, Michigan
Action Party candidate and the current
MSA student general counsel.
The Michigan Action Party is the lat-
est incarnation of a string of dominant
MSA parties that includes Students First
and Students 4 Michigan.
See LOPEZ, Page 3A
Student general counsel
says MSA should keep
eye on 'priorities'
By AMANDA MARKOWITZ
Daily StaffReporter
Engineering junior Zack Yost, the
Michigan Action Party's candidate
for president of the Michigan Student
Assembly, has a list of 43 goals he hopes
to accomplish if elected. He said he reads
through it two to three times a day.
Yost, a member of the Alpha Epsilon
Pi fraternity, has served as the student
general counsel of the MSA executive
board for the lastyear.
He speaks about his peers in MAP
and his goals for MSA with an intense
enthusiasm. He grew teary-eyed when
talking about MSA campaign season
Wednesday.
See YOST, Page 7A
On St. Patty's Day,
a sobering protest
a
Alt
Day, s
their
debau
Ear
hundr
the Di
versar
Iraq.
LSA
Marchers rally founder of the campus group
Anti-War Action, said the turnout
gainst Iraq War at the protest was high, but might
have been lower than last year's
rally because it happened to fall
By PAUL BLUMER on St. Patrick's Day.
Daily StaffReporter At about1 p.m., protesters slow-
-___ly began to fill the area in front of
hough it was St. Patrick's the Hatcher Graduate Library
tome people had more on carrying signs with slogans like
minds than green beer and "1/20/09: End of an Error," "No
chery on Saturday. Blood for Oil" and "Got WMDs?"
'ly in the afternoon, several Another sign,modeled after the
ed protesters assembled on NBA's logo and slogan, showed an
ag to mark the fourth anni- outline of a soldier with the cap-
y of the start of the war in tion "I hate this game."
A woman carrying a mega-
senior Alex Smith, the See PROTEST, Page 3A
Emily Marie Rodgers carries a giant white dove at the head ofan anti-war protest held Saturday. The protest marked the fourth
anniversary of the Iraq War.
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