Wednesday, November 4, 2020 — 7
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
YOUR WEEKLY
ARIES
If you can keep calm in the face of
provocation, Aries, his can be an
exceptional week for your career.
Teamwork shows you in a good
light, so don’t neglect your
colleagues. It’s not
always about going it
alone or being top dog.
AQUARIUS
GEMINI
Allow yourself to listen to your
inner instincts. Your intuition is
strong, and your mind is able to
recognize things that your
conscious may actively choose to
ignore. In doing so, you
will be able to choose
the path that is best for
you.
SAGITTARIUS
CAPRICORN
SCORPIO
CANCER
In this romantic week, communi-
cation between you and your
sweetheart is almost telepathic.
You can make an unbeatable
team now, Cancer, as your shared
goals and dreams are
coming to fruition. If
you’re single, look out
for someone who
shocks you.
TAURUS
Dip your toe into exciting waters
by being prepared to try
something new. From exotic travel
to adrenaline sports or intriguing
affairs, you’re willing to take a risk
now if something stirs
your soul. Beyond your
comfort zone, Taurus,
life takes off.
VIRGO
PICES
LIBRA
LEO
An easing of financial pressures
does a lot of good for your anxiety
and mental health, Leo. However,
it’s important now that you take
control of your own emotions.
Don’t leave yourself
vulnerable, mentally, to
fluctuating external
circumstances.
Read your weekly horoscopes from astrology.tv
Your superpower this week is your
creativity, Virgo. You have a
strong feel for lateral thinking and
innovative ideas, or creations will
get you noticed. Don’t feel that
you have to do things the
way they’ve always
been done. Dare to be
different.
Loving support from your family
means a great deal to you this
week and you’ll feel blessed by
those closest to you. If someone
confides in you, Libra, it’s vital that
you keep their confidence.
Don’t turn this into an
issue of trust.
Your words have a lot of power and
presence this week, and once the
Sun arrives in your own sign,
Scorpio, your magnetism and
charisma are off the scale. All of
this means that people are
taking notice of you – so
you’d better have
something meaningful
to say.
Recognition at work is long
overdue but welcome, nonethe-
less. This week, Sagittarius,
stretch your ambitions by looking
for new challenges. Not
necessarily a new job,
but new responsibili-
ties within your
existing role. You’re
more than capable.
You have the gift of the gab this
week, Capricorn, so you’re able to
put your opinions quite forcefully
without coming across as
insensitive or dogmatic. Turn this
to your advantage if you
want to get someone to
agree to a new idea.
Messages from your dreams
become easier to recall and
interpret this week. Spend some
time with a dream journal if you
can – there is a lot if insight here
which could change your
life, Aquarius. Don’t
dismiss what you can’t
quite understand.
This is a healing week for a close
relationship, Pisces, which will
benefit from as much fun and
laughter as possible. Socialize as a
couple if you can, because you’ll
love seeing each other in a new
light. Mix and mingle,
enjoy good company,
and shine.
WHISPER
“I've made my peace with
college, it is what it is.”
“Meat book.”
“in love with my best friend in
love love love but I have to let
it go.”
Ray Ajemian
Zack Blumberg
Brittany Bowman
Ajit Chilukuri
Emily Considine
Elizabeth Cook
Jess D’Agostino
Jenny Gurung
Cheryn Hong
Krystal Hur
Min Soo Kim
Zoe Phillips
Jack Roshco
Mary Rolfes
Gabrijela Skoko
Joel Weiner
Erin White
ERIN WHITE
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ELIZABETH LAWRENCE
Editor in Chief
BRITTANY BOWMAN AND
EMILY CONSIDINE
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
JESS D’AGOSTINO | COLUMN
Mixed emotions: balancing safety and sanity
T
he
Washtenaw
County
Health
Department’s
stay-in-place
order
announcement was met with a
mixture of emotions. Some were
hardly surprised, with the rising
COVID-19 cases and the nature of
the week ahead being both the first
Michigan football game day at home
and Halloween. However, even
without a stay-in-place order or a
global pandemic, this is a stressful
time of year. It is because of these
additional stressors, that the stay-
in-place order made me particularly
concerned for what it would mean
for the well-being and mindfulness
of those affected; now more than
ever, we must learn how to adapt
and celebrate in unorthodox ways.
Though it may seem vague at first, I
would argue that within ambiguity
lies the true message of this piece:
There is no need for specificity.
Celebration for me likely feels very
different from a celebration for you.
The increasingly intolerable stress
has been undeniably augmented
by the details of the stay-in-place
order. From the very beginning of
the school year, it was already clear
that college freshmen were missing
out on major parts of the college
experience my friends, peers and
I feel so lucky to have had. Beyond
the handlings and mishandlings
of the pandemic by the University
of Michigan administration, the
unique spirit of the Leaders and Best
has been missing since I returned to
campus.
Imagine adding midterms, the
obstacles of remote learning and
the constant fear that every time
you leave your room you have a
decent chance of exposing yourself
to COVID-19 on top of an already
lackluster foundation for the school
year. Now consider the turbulent
and emotionally draining political
climate; it all builds upon each other
and proves to be a fierce foe for even
the strongest or stablest of psyches.
As someone living in a one-
bedroom apartment, the stay-in-
place order immediately terrified
me. I had just submitted my last
midterm and looked to my calendar
for my weekly plans as a much-
needed
detox.
While
everyone
operates differently, it is proven that
having something to look forward
to — whether you write it down
somewhere or add it to your calendar
or whatnot — is an excellent way
to provide yourself with necessary
rewards and incentives, especially in
times of duress.
However,
the
stay-in-place
order essentially canceled all of my
plans, despite already being within
COVID-19 guidelines. It would
be ignorant for me to attempt to
discuss the pandemic’s effect on
the University without confronting
the irrefutably irresponsible actions
of some students on campus. The
case numbers do not lie and a stay-
in-place order, while frustrating
and
potentially
psychologically
harmful, is at least supported by both
qualitative and quantitative data.
So what do we do? It grows
tiresome to continue telling others
and ourselves to “look at the bright
side,” when all we want to do is sing
“Mr. Brightside.” I want game day
to be a sea of maize and blue; I want
110,000 people in a stadium. I want
the reverberation of a professor’s
voice in Angell Hall, the white
noise of a Blue Bus temporarily
overpowering the hustle and bustle
of students walking to class, even
the sticky floors of a frat basement
with the stench of cheap cleaning
supplies and the incomparable
sounds we took for granted in the
pre-COVID-19 world.
While this may read like a stream
of consciousness instead of a concrete
opinion, I think that is ultimately
the best I can do to show you how I
truly feel. It’s okay to feel uncertain
and not perfectly cohesive in your
perspective given the situation. I
feel my morality more than ever
before like the literal manifestations
of Freud’s id and superego perched
upon my shoulders. Despite having
already had COVID-19 and now
having antibodies, should I lock
myself away in my one-bedroom
apartment? How do we weigh the
benefits and burdens of a stay-in-
place order that in itself holds so
many confusing contradictions?
I
f there was any doubt
before
the
pandemic
that the term “student-
athlete”
was
oxymoronic,
there isn’t any longer. My
inbox in the week leading
up to the Michigan football
game
against
Minnesota
included
both
guidelines
from
the
University
of
Michigan about how to follow
the
Washtenaw
County
emergency order and emails
from the Michigan Athletic
Department reminding me
about game day. The email
on Oct. 20 from University
President
Mark
Schlissel
announcing the stay-in-place
order didn’t mention the term
“essential workers,” but the
exception
for
University’s
athletes (nearly all of whom
are
undergraduates)
made
it clear that is what the
University has deemed them.
The
term
“student-
athlete” was invented by the
National Collegiate Athletic
Association to avoid labor
laws. In 1955, a Fort Lewis
A&M football player named
Ray Dennison suffered a fatal
injury during a game. When
his widow filed for workers’
compensation
benefits
for
Dennison,
a
scholarship
athlete, then NCAA executive
director
Walter
Byers
concocted a legal strategy to
ensure college athletes would
not be seen as employees in
the eyes of the law. The term
“student-athlete” was born,
invoking amateurism as a
way to avoid both payment
and liability, and it stuck.
And Ray Dennison’s wife lost
her lawsuit.
In 1984, Byers came out
against the system that he
had helped create, accusing
the NCAA of exploiting the
athletes under the guise of
amateurism. He stated that
campus
athletic
programs
had adopted a “neoplantation
mentality” where “the coach
owns the athlete’s feet, the
college owns the athlete’s
body, and the athlete’s mind
is supposed to comprehend
a rule book that I challenge
(the
NCAA’s
chief
of
enforcement) Dave Berst … to
explain in rational terms to
you inside of eight hours.”
A
recent
NCAA
policy
change to allow athletes to
profit off of their name, image
and likeness is the first major
step toward acknowledging
that college athletes are not
exactly amateurs, but that
money would come from a
third party, not the NCAA.
Schlissel has tried to keep up
the pretense that the school’s
athletes are, in-fact, students
first. In May, he stated that
there would not be football
unless there were in-person
classes. He is just barely
able to keep that promise,
even as undergraduates are
under a stay-in-place order,
by allowing “all classes that
are substantially enhanced
by in-person instruction” to
continue in-person.
According
to
an
email
from University spokesman
Rick Fitzgerald, about 10%
of
undergraduate
classes
still have some in-person
components.
Given
on-campus
residents
can
return
home
and
receive
prorated room and board,
in-person
classwork
is
clearly not a major concern
for most.
Schlissel contends varsity
athletics pose little risk of
transmitting
COVID-19.
Daily testing certainly helps
mitigate
the
spread,
but
it’s worth noting that the
week of Oct. 17, the athletic
department
reported
26
cases. Not exactly nothing.
Yes, college athletes get
daily testing while regular
undergraduate
students
more or less had to prove to
University
Health
Service
that
someone
who
tested
positive coughed in their
mouth. To me, that’s not
the issue. Frontline workers
should get frequent testing;
they’re putting their bodies
on the line after all. The
issue is that we continue
to
pretend
that
college
athletes are just like regular
undergraduates,
just
in
better shape and with honed
athletic talents. They aren’t.
They are essential workers to
the University, as evidenced
by their exception to the
county health department’s
order.
But if we call them what
they are, the jig is up. It’s
one thing to admit that the
grocery store and its workers
are
essential.
It’s
quite
another to say that a football
game, executed by unpaid
athletes
who
earn
their
schools millions in exchange
for a degree worth much
less, is an essential service
in the midst of a global
health crisis. It certainly
would make tailgating, even
from home, less appealing
if we reframed the game as
watching essential workers
risk debilitating, even life-
threatening
illness
(in
addition to the risk of injury
they take every game) for the
purpose
of
entertainment
and the University’s bottom
line.
Some 36 years after Byers
called for an end to the
system he created, major
news outlets largely continue
to keep up the charade that
college athletes are students
first. The Daily Tar Heel, the
University of North Carolina
at
Chapel
Hill’s
student
newspaper,
finally
had
enough this year, announcing
that they would no longer
refer to college athletes as
“student-athletes.”
They
will use “college athletes”
or
simply
“athletes”
or
“students,” depending on the
situation. These days, allow
me
to
suggest
“essential
workers.” Is a change in
terminology a solution to
the blatant exploitation of
college athletes for profit?
No. But saying the quiet part
out loud is a start.
Call them what they are: “Student-athletes”
are essential workers
JESSIE MITCHELL | COLUMN
ANNA GETZINGER | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT GETZINGA@UMICH.EDU
Jess D’Agostino can be reached at
jessdag@umich.edu.
Jessie Mitchell can be reached at
jessiemi@umich.edu.
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