Monday, May 21. 2012 Monday, May 21, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Lions tight end talks college football Michigan connection By LIZ NAGLE in baseball - I kind of just did it be the administrator that he was, Daily Sports Writer because I love playingbaseball. But and I'm just proud of him and real I neverreallygave it ahundred per- happy for him. After being traded by the Den- cent in college, so it was always on TMD: Being from Michigan, ver Broncos in 2010, tight end Tony the back burner. It was something when you came back to play for Scheffler returned home to Michi- I enjoyed and I loved the change of Detroit, was this ultimately what gan. pace it brought and different guys you wanted? Over the years, Scheffler has on the team. It was a lot of fun and TS: Yeah, it just kind of worked developed local ties to the com- kept me out of trouble in college - I out really awesome. It was a whirl- munities in and around Detroit had to stay focused. wind when I got traded and I got through family, friends and work. TMD: At Chelsea High School, rumor that it might be here and On Saturday, Scheffler was one was your (baseball) coach Wayne it was just really cool. Both sides of the thousand in attendance, Welton? of my family are from down-river supporting C.S. Mott Children's TS: One of the best men I've ever area, so just coming back and being Hospital during the Griese/ been around on and off the field able to play in front of my fam- Hutchinson/Woodson Champions of play. He's a great, great man - ily every weekend and just being for Children's Hearts weekend. there's not really words to describe back in the state. I have so many While perusing the silent auc- him. He's a guy that expected a ties here, and it's awesome to be tion items, Scheffler talked to the lot out of us in high school, and he back, playing for the Lions and I Michigan Daily about his ties to his did a fantastic job of raising young get to do stuff like this on a regular home state and the future of the men at Chelsea. There's just not a basis. And I'm still meeting guys Lions' upcoming season. lot I can put into words to say - he like George Blaha, Ray Lane and The Michigan Daily: At West- knows how much I appreciate him. Mark Champion ... guys that I grew ern Michigan, you were playing And he's had a lot to do with where up listening to on the radio and both football and baseball - what I'm at today. I'm really happy for watching on TV in the sporting ultimately led you to choose a him. I know he's super excited to world. Now, I'm kind of rubbing career in football? be here with (men's baseball coach elbows with them in and around Tony Scheffler: I was on a Rich Maloney). I'm sure it's one of the state is pretty cool. football scholarship, so I had to do his dreams come true. I know that TMD: Coming back to the Lions everything with the football team. he's passed on opportunities like organization, what do the new So I was always a little bit behind this before to stay at Chelsea and draft picks bring to the table? TS: It's fun - it's always fun. This is going on in my seventh year, USUE Eso I probably have pretty good feel for what goes on and helping guys out. It's cool to see, every year, a new wave of guys come in. Espe- cially now with the new (Collective Bargaining Agreement), our ros- 8 7 2 5 ter's expanded and we've got a lot more undrafted rookies, so there's 9 3 5 a lot of guys out there. It's juts fun to be a leader out there and help the 1 7 2young guys out. And it's definitely fun to watch them swim a little bit the first couple days. 4 2 6 7 TMD: There's still some con- cern on the Lions' running game - 9what do you see there? TS: I think if (Mikel Leshoure's) injury comes along and, obviously, 7 1 (Jahvid Best) is a great running back and I think we have plenty of 9 6 1 5 weapons in the backfield as long as we stay healthy. And with our 1 7 offense, we've got so many weap- ons that we're able to make up for deficiencies when we get injuries. 5 3 4 It's something that all flows pretty well, and we're excited. We love ' who we have in the backfield and, hopefully, we can just stay healthy back there. SOF TBALL Wagner dominates, sets freshman wins record By COLLEEN THOMAS tied Taylor with the most wins Daily Sports Editor as a freshman with 31. Wagner again went the distance in the LOUISVILLE, Kent. - And circle, giving up three hits and you thought Jordan Taylor was one earned run, and put Michigan dominant. in a good position for a trip to the Last year, Taylor set the Michi- NCAA Super Regional. gan softball program record Then she went for win number for wins and career strikeouts 32. Against the Cardinals on Sun- and was named to the NFCA day for a trip to the Super Region- All-American second team. As al on the line, Wagner recorded a freshman, she set the rookie another dominating performance record for most wins (31) and in the circle, completing her third earned Big Ten Freshman of the game in three days, shutting out Year honors. And now, Taylor is a Louisville while giving up six member of the US softball nation- hits. al team. After Saturday's game, Michi- But the Wolverines may just gan coach Carol Hutchins was have found a candidate to replace unsure whether or not she'd start the former star. Wagner in Sunday's matchup, but Enter Haylie Wagner, the said she would check with Wag- freshman ace for the Michigan ner to see if Wagner would be softball team. available for the third game of the weekend. The freshman lefty had already pitched 15 innings against two great offensive teams, and "I'n going to Hutchins didn't want to risk over- use of the arm. play my one- But that's not unusual for Wag- . ner. pitch softball ... "In high school I was the only pitcher and I pitched basically right now. every game," Wagner said after the May 12 win against Purdue. "But coming here it's just been great, (and) if I have to pitch, I Wagner, also named Big Ten pitch." Freshman (and Pitcher) of the So after Sunday's win, Wagner Year this season, ended the Big wasn't concerned about the tired- Ten season as the top pitcher in ness of her arm. the conference in ERA and wins, "(It) feels great," she said. "I and looked to lead the Wolverines could throw for another game to a Regional victory. right now. It feels fantastic, (and) She led them to three. I'm going to take care of it as the The Orange, Calif. Native days go on." started in the circle in Michigan's Michigan plays Alabama in Regional opener against Ken- Tuscaloosa this weekend in the tucky on Friday afternoon and NCAA Super Regional with a trip put up stellar numbers. Despite to Oklahoma City for the Women's surrendering the lead in the top College World Series on the line. of the seventh - the Wolverines The Crimson Tide are the No. 2 would come back and hit a walk- team in the country and have one off double to win the game - of the nation's most potent offens- Wagner gave up just one earned es. The Wolverines need to shut run and recorded four strike- down Alabama's offense tosecure outs in seven innings en route to a 10th berth to the WCWS. her 30th win of the season. And And as for extendingher record things just got better from there. to33 wins? Wagner started again on Sat- "If it happens, it happens," urday against No. 9 Louisville, Wagner said. "I'm going to play who she struggled against in the my one-pitch softball and that's March 10 matchup when she was my mindset right now." tagged with the loss. But this So look for Wagner to start in time, she recorded the win and the circle. Again. "NOTABL E QUOTA BLE I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States or not. But I do know this, in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an Ameri- can." - Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) speaking to supporters on May 17, as reported by the Huffington Post. He later apologized. "Tree Town"fun Monday, May 21, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com In rover oasis 15 When I came to Michigan three years ago, I was a very different per- son. It only took one springterm for me to figure out why this was. It wasn't entirely due to the books, the problem sets or the lectures. My education has been as much MICHAEL Ann Arbor SMALLEGAN as it has been coursework. Our school consistently ranks among the top learning institutions of the world, and you might agree that this is in large part due to the town in which we live. We're at a school that is deeply integrated with its sur- rounding city. Contrast this with Michigan State, our neighbor on the banks of the Red Cedar. This facet provides an opportunity, but not one that comes in the form of a class. We have to actively seek it, and I don'tthink enough of us do. The real problem here is that there is no syllabus for exploring Ann Arbor. So, to whet your appe- tite while LSA drafts a course in it, here's my outline: In the first place, Place. This is going to take some footwork and involves leaving the comfortable confines of residence hallsand South University bars. Ann Arbor boasts 157 city parks, not including Nichols Arboretum, where there's a line of 10,000 daffodils in bloom right now. Hunt Park overlooks the entire city. There will be a quiz on the sunset from that vantage. Any rigorous class should draw from established material, and so our itinerary will mostly be set by a pamphlet from 1859 called "Pleasant Walks and Drives About Ann Arbor." I recently walked the path of Drive A, which includes a "genuine mountain road ... like ... in Switzerland," and found myself transported in time. The road described is now blocked off to cars, which makes it easier to imagine a horse and carriage overtaking me on the switchbacks. Get your money's worth and live it up in Ann Arbor. The route brings you close to North Campus where the Bentley Historical Library, which digitized that pamphlet, holds 3-D stereo photographs from the 186Os, just in case you thought 3-D technol- ogy was new. This library closes the first part of the course, from which we have gained context for what follows. Next up is Weirdness, in the best way possible. Ann Arbor has a unique voice, and because of that, it has been heard on the national stage many times.A character that is self-evidently representative of this is Homeless Dave, also known as Dave Askins, who is the editor of the Ann Arbor Chronicle and who interviews people on a teeter totter. We'll move rapidly through Food, in which required eating will be at Mark's Carts. Then we'll close with Events, for which your cheat sheet will be the Ann Arbor Events Calendar. This course needs no exam. You're embedded in your location and are shapedby it no matter what. This course happens whether or not you have a syllabus. The only vari- able is how much you grow from your surroundings. If you treat your education as if it only comes from lectures and library sessions, you're getting ripped off. Go get your money's worth and live it up while you're still in Tree Town. Michael Smallegan can be reached at smallmic@umich.edu. Despite the fact that Face- book has evolved tremendously over the past eight years, its primary goal of connect- ing people has never changed. This social net- working site is a mechanism of communi- MICHAEL cation among SPAETH a staggeringly diverse array of people. Wheth- er rich or poor, young or old, cre- ative or analytical,, introverted or extroverted, the Facebook com- munity knows no boundaries. Introverts gain a unique ben- efit from Facebook. When it's used wisely, Facebook can be an extremely valuable tool to assist introverts as they try to navigate challenging social environments. By using Facebook, introverts can have frequent or lengthy conversa- tions with people without suffer- ing the social anxiety of speaking with someone face-to-face or even over the telephone. While Face- book can't completely replace face-to-face relationships, it can help introverts begin the process of slowly forming meaningful personal relationships with other people, step by step. Among other characteris- tics, Susan Cain's book, "Quiet," describes most introverts as people who prefer less stimula- tion, think longer before they act and think on a deeper level than their peers. With the exception of the video chat feature, Facebook is conducive to these character- istics. Unlike the immediacy of social interaction and the stress that comes with it, introverts can spend as much time as they want carefully crafting a wall post or inbox message. Once those inter- actions are comfortable, intro- verts can then use the chat feature to communicate in real time with TE another person while still having time to think deeply about their responses and avoid the social anxiety of being in another per- son's presence. The experience of communi- cating via bodies of text is also conducive to an introvert's pref- erence for reduced stimulation in his or her environment. While the Facebook website is certainly stimulating, common character- istics of social interaction such as another person's body language, vocal tone or presence at a party, are likely to be more engaging than sitting alone with a laptop in a quiet house. With a compara- tively low level of stimulation, introverts can demonstrate their true, favorable personalities to new acquaintances on Facebook, a feat that might not have occurred in person due to the introvert's shyness or social anxiety. Opinions ofwriters andscholars conflict about Facebook's effects on social interactions. In January, Clay Shirky, a journalism profes- sor at New York University, told The New York Times that "Digital media is an amplifier. It tends to make extroverts more extroverted and introverts more introverted." It's reasonable that once the devel- opment of a personal relationship on Facebook reaches the point at which face-to-face interaction is the next natural step, introverts are likely to become more intro- verted if they only use Facebook for communication. I'm skeptical, however, that Facebook makes introverts more introverted in all situations, since there have been multiple cases in which Shirky's statement isn't true. In fact, some Internet users experience an opposite phenom- enon. They're actually extroverts when they interact with other people online. Wael Ghonim, the creator of a Facebook page that helped to spawn the uprising in Egypt last year, describes him- self as a "real-life introvert yet an Internet extrovert" in his memoir called "Revolution 2.0." Facebook is a valuable tool for introverts. Of course, Facebook shouldn't completely replace personal inter- actions. As Jenna Wortham, a reporter for The New York Times, has noted, "In many instances, Facebook and Twitter make us more curious to meet and chat with the people we've encoun- tered online. Knowing them on the Web isn't enough." Once per- sonal relationships on Facebook become strong, attempts at deep and meaningful communication via Facebook begin to seem artifi- cial. One University of California, Los Angeles study conducted by Prof. Albert Mehrabian found that 55 percent of human communica- tion is body language and 38 per- cent is voice, while only 7 percent consists of the spoken words. If I ever want someone to comfort me during times of struggle, I don't want to read two lines of a reas- suring comment on my status. Instead, I want somebody to sit next to me, look me in the eye and say that everything is going to be fine. Introverts need to eventually make the transition to face-to-face interactions with people if their personal relationships are going to be meaningful and long-lasting. Facebook conversations are a valu- able first step towards meaning- ful social relationships with new people. Yet, these relationships eventually must extend beyond the confines of the computer screen. Michael Spaeth can be reached at micspa@umich.edu. JOIN THE MICHIGAN DAILY'S EDITORIAL BOARD Interested in campus, state and national affairs? Enjoy writing and debate? Participate in a weekly meeting to dicuss the Daily's editorials. E-mail adrirobe@umich.edu for more information.