w w w w w w w w w w mw mw w mw 14 TeMihga iy- Weneda,- ovebe 1,S00 Weneda, oemer14207 -Te icianDaly" ABOUT CAMPUS Taking fakes bigstringof Pennsylvania ones that weren't even the right colors - they Inside the world of the said 'genuine' or 'authentic' on seals just stomped on there," Bell said. campus bar bouncer Bell, a burly, barrel-chested man who works at the grittiest base- The University's geographical ment bar in town, said 75 percent of demographic fluctuates drastically the 8 Ball's patrons are every few months. regulars. The issue of In September, there was a high counterfeit or borrowed proportion of students who hailed identification comes up from New York. Now, everyone is most when minors try to from Pennsylvania, said Rob Bell, get into an 18-and-over a doorman and bartender for the show at the Blind Pig as 8 Ball Saloon, the bar in the base- 21 years old, he said. ment of the Blind Pig. Two winters ago, akid At the entrances of Scorekeepers, presented Bell his fake The Brown Jug and Conor O'Neills, New York ID, which Bell doormen like Bell are in the best bent to test its authen- position to perceive trends and ticity-it immediately developments in Ann Arbor's under- snapped in half. The ground false identification circuit. minor's friend then gave Bell said every couple months a Bell his New York ID, new style of fake ID springs up and which also broke into replaces the former most ubiqui- two pieces upon testing. tous make. "For a while, we had a "They seemed defeated," Bell said. "I said, 'Is this the same one your friend just gave me?' and T M E OR I G I N A L the guy was like, 'Yeah.' The minors then tried their real f f 3 l ID's, but Bell said that the concert- goers, after waiting for two hours 512 E.William )(734) 663-3379 WEEKDAY HAPPY HOUR S n MONIAYFIDAYI 001 in freezing weather to get into a sold-out show, only had one shot to get through the door. "This is a place where you really don't try a fake ID out," Bell said. "People for the most part don't think they can pull a fake ID and the 8 Ball Saloon and most other local bars, it's the bar's policy to return the cards to their owners. Sanders said the worst fake in circulation right now is a Massa- chusetts one that is styled after the state's old driver's license. He said he also catches a lot of Texas imitations. Hint to fake ID man- ufacturers: On the back of a real Texas driver's license, the "i" in "directive" isn't dotted. Because of the commonness of their fakes, a lot of Boston and Dallas "locals" have been spend- ing their Thursday nights pouting at home after being turned away at the doors of Scorekeep- ers. "It always goes in three stages," Sanders said."'Are you kiddingme? It's real', 'This has never happened before' and then acceptance." Vincent Badalamenti, manager of The Arena, said it's not uncom- mon for minors to throw a scream- ing tantrum when their IDs are confiscated. The two biggest tip-offs that an ID isn't legitimate, Badalamenti said, is when it's expired and when the photo suggests the owner must have recently had some plastic sur- gery work done. But borrowed IDs from states like Arizona, which doesn't make its IDs expire as often as other states, are the most diffi- cult to evaluate. Badalamenti said minors will often offer him money to buy back their fakes. Sanders said Score- keepers patrons will often hand him a twenty with their shoddy New York ID. But trying to grease the wheels with Andrew Jackson only serves to expose a minor's lack of confidence in a fake that might have made it through oth- erwise. Of course, actingconfident won't fool a doorman who has taken your fake. Bell, from the 8 Ball Saloon, said that when he told a girl she could call the police if she wanted to get her phony Canadian identifi- cation back, she actually did - and See NEXT PAGE get away with it." In other bars in town, though, students quickly learn to flash their fakes. Scorekeepers doorman Max Sanders said he might encounter 75 to 100 fake IDs a night, but unlike would do is I wouldn't add these teams,' "Martin said. Martin's fiscal responsibility made him the logical choice for Bol- linger back in 2000, but the same trait would make it harder for other aspiring club teams. M ichigan's lineup of 25 men's and women's varsity teams doesn't seem like a lot compared to the 37 teams currently at Ohio State University or the 30 sports support- ed by Stanford University's athletic department. But don't think Martin hasn't heard all that before. His concerns lie in the here and now, he said, not in what other schools are doing. "What concerns me is, in order of priority: how our student athletes do in the classroom, how they do in the community - are they good representatives of our institution and don't embarrass us with their . behavior? - do we win and do we pay our bills?" he said. "I want us to be the best academically, ethically, athletically and financially." To become a varsity team, clubs start by making a formal request with the a planning committee of the University's Advisory Board on Intercollegiate Athletics, which reviews formal requests by club sports in their pursuit of varsity sta- tus. The committee consists of two faculty members, one alum, one student and the athletic director or someone he or she designates. All members are chosen on a case- by-case basis upon the filing of a proposal. The findings of the com- mittee are then reported back to the advisory board. The committee focuses mostly on four categories when making its decision: student-athlete welfare, quality of competition at the confer- ence and national level, viability of a new sport and financial consider- ations. The quality of competition clause surrounds the viability of the sport within the Big Ten or an equivalent athletic conference. There must be a league with championships for the proposed varsity team to join. In terms of viability of a new sport, the committee focuses on the participation in the sport on the high school, regional, confer- ence and national levels. The status of the club team and the sport as an emerging NCAA activity are also taken into consideration. Last, and most important, are the financial considerations. The costs of coaches, trainers, facilities, sup- port services, equipment, recruiting and travel are all factors the com- mittee must be able to address. "I would love to have more varsity sports," Martin said. "It's not a mat- V PRICE APPETIZERS ter of wantingto have new teams or not. It's a matter of if you can afford them or not." Michigan Men's Soccer Coach Steve Burns knows too much about the hoops a club team must jump through to become a varsity member of the Athletic Depart- ment. As a student, Burns played for the club soccer team from 1984-1988 and returned as a coach in 1992. As coach, he proposed soccer to be elevated to varsity status several times. And each time his request was rejected, there were three pre- vailing reasons given - finances, facilities and gender equity. To overcome these hurdles, Burns, with the help of some ambi- tious graduate students, created a 36-page proposal, which attempted to alleviate any concerns the Board on Intercollegiate Athletics had. But Burns did not emphasize factors like money and facilities because there was no chance soc- cer could be a revenue-producing sport once it reached varsity status. Instead, the report zeroed in on the explosion in interest in soccer with- in the state. "Real strong players continued to leave our state and go to Duke, Virginia, Stanford, Indiana, and we tried to push that issue of at a state school shouldn't we do a better job of representing, within our own athletic department, what's really happening out there in the trench- es," Burns said. Having worked in the devel- opment office of the athletic department before he became coach of the lacrosse team, Paul under- stands the obstacles his team must overcome. And in regards to stu- dent-welfare, quality of competition and viability, he has all the answers. Paul is quick to point out that lacrosse has been the fastest grow- ing sportboth nationally and region- ally for the past 10 years. He thinks the sport is in the process of ridding' itself of the elitist, private school distinction it had in the past, as pub- lic middle school and high school programs become more prevalent. And in today's world of college sports, where low graduation rates have become a topic of much dis- cussion, both men's and women's lacrosse are tops in graduation rates among NCAA sports. If lacrosse were to become a var- sity sport at Michigan in the future, Paul thinks it would likely join the Great West Lacrosse League, where Ohio State and Notre Dame have Division-I squads. None of it matters, though, with- out the necessary money. Paul claims it would take between $20- 30 million to fully endow the men's lacrosse team as a varsity sport. If the Athletic Department isn't will- ing to put up that money, it's up to the team's supporters to fundraise. But Paul knows he won't be able to collect that kind of cash. "We're not going to come up with 30 million dollars and just pay for the team," Paul said. "No team here has anywhere close to that. But before we put a formal proposal together, we will have more on the table than most, if not all, the var- sity teams have now in endowment money." The endowment money is one hill to climb, but it's the mountains of hidden costs that trouble Mar- tin. The addition of men's lacrosse, without the subsequent inclusion of an equivalent women's sport, would who come here to know their coach can go out and recruit the best stu- dent-athlete in the country." But even the way the system is set up now, the expense of recruit- ing presents another significant obstacle for the' lacrosse team's effort. While the sport is growing at an exponential rate in the state of Michigan, many of the top lacrosse recruits reside on the East Coast. AcAccording to Inside Lacrosse mag- azine's ratings of the top incoming freshmen in Division-I lacrosse, just one of the top 100 came from the state of Michigan. Even at the club varsity level, the University must rely on out-of-state players to remain successful. I n whatever capacity, Paul is here I to stay. He's been coaching at the University for 11 years, but only recently began accepting a salary to do so. His life is dedicated to his ZACHARY MEISNER/Dalyplayers - and his mission of one day coaching a Division-I lacrosse pro- cause the Athletic Department to no gram in Ann Arbor. longer be Title IX compliant. The The Athletic Department knows Athletic Department must consider it - which is one of the keys to Paul's the financial ramifications of sup- propelling lacrosse into varsitysta- porting two new teams. tus. "Gender equity, a lot of people "There has to be a certain resil- use gender equity as a scapegoat, iency; there has tobe someone there and they shouldn't because it really as a constant force," Burns said. isn't," Burns said. "It all really boils "And in lacrosse's case, that's John down to finances. Can you afford, Paul." in your philosophy as an athletic Paul understands the focus of the department and your programming Athletic Department is on facilities of which sports you have, to add right now, and forhis part, he agrees more sports?" that many of the venues on campus One of the guiding principles for are long outdated. He's realistic that Martin is his belief that all varsity lacrosse becoming a varsity sport is programs that the department sup- not going to happen overnight. Ide- ports have the maximum amount ally, he'd like it to happen in the next of resources the NCAA allows. He four years. wants to give all teams the great- Paul is still waiting to raise more est possibility of success in their money to help ease the Athletic respective sport. Department's financial burden, That means giving coaches free although he says there are already reign concerning recruiting outside several high-ranking, wealthy CEO- the state of Michigan. The differ- types ready to.support a Michigan ence between an out-of-state and in- varsity lacrosse program. state scholarship is nearly $20,000, There are procedures in place according to Martin. to deal with a sport becoming var- "At other schools they tier sports," sity, and until Paul and Michigan Martin said. "They'll take football, lacrosse supporters submit some- basketball and an equal amount of thing concrete, the responsibility women's sports and say, 'Here's an lies outside the realm of the Athletic unlimited budget for recruiting. Department The rest of you, here's your dollar "The way the sport continues to amount and that may buy you four grow, and all of the selling points in-state scholarships or two out-of- that we have for it, it's going to hap- state.' We don't do that." pen," Paul said. "So rather than Not that he hasn't considered it. reacting when it does happen, let's "We could,ifwe were goingto add do a little planning now. Then let sports, perhaps say, 'OK, in order to us take care of making this a logical add these new sports, we're going add for them. They don't have to fig- to cut back on the scholarships, and ure that out. Let us figure it out and abandon our long standing policy then sell them on it." of telling the coaches to recruit the A lot has happened to Michigan best student-athletes,' " he said. lacrosse since Paul and his team- "Well, we're not going to do that. We mates lugged a barrel of beer onto treat all coaches the same - all pro- the field. Clearly, though, there's grams the same. We want recruits still work to be done. 'ma $10