WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Collegian Week In Review: March 21st, 2023

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

This week on the Collegian Week in Review, hosts Maddy Welsh and Lauren Scott discuss this issue's top headlines. Then, they talk to Caroline Kurt on why swearing is occasionally ok. Finally, they will be talking to Carly Moran about the recent achievements of the Hillsdale Chargers shotgun and action shooting teams.

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to the Collegian Weekend Review. Here are your hosts, Maddie Welsh and Lauren Scott. Welcome back to the Collegian Weekend Review, where we give you an inside look into Michigan's oldest college newspaper. We're your host, Maddie Welsh. And Lauren Scott. And today we'll be talking to Caroline Kurt about her opinion piece on why swearing is sometimes okay.

And then we'll be talking to Carly Moran about the show. shotgun team and the action shooting team and what they've been up to lately. But first, Lauren and I are going to discuss some of the top headlines and stories in the Collegion this week. Our top story of the week is about two former Charger basketball players who are currently participating in March Madness. So I will read here from Alex Dymel, assistant sports editor of the Collegian. He wrote Patrick Cartier and Jack Golky were freshman basketball players at Hills College in the fall of 2017. Now they're competing on college basketball's

biggest stage, the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. Cartier helped the Colorado State University Rams advanced to the first round of the tournament, scoring 12 points on Tuesday night in a first four victory over the Virginia Cavaliers. And then it goes on to

talk about what they're up to. So basically these two gentlemen played basketball at Hillsdale and then entered the transfer portal and are now at Division I schools participating in March Madden. Pretty cool. Great to see where our chargers can go, right? Oh yeah. So proud of those chargers. Lauren's a huge basketball fan. Actually, I played basketball. I don't know why I said it like that. I played basketball six through 12th grade. I was actually team captain my senior year. I don't keep up with anything basketball

related now. Another one of our top stories here is about the mock trial team. I'll read hear from Zachary Chen, a collegial reporter. He said Hillsdale College Mock Trial Team A is headed to the National Championship next month. The team will compete in the American Mock Trial Association National Tournament in Chicago. Team A, which placed second at nationals last year, won first place in the opening round championship series tournament last weekend with a score of 6.5 ballots, the highest a Hillsdale team has ever won at this competition. Also on the front page here, a story very near and dear to our hearts is about some recent awards that Hillsdale College journalism students won, both from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and the Michigan Press

Association. Lauren, tell me more about this. Well, I am extremely proud of the radio station. It was this past week, we went to Lansing for the Mab Awards, and we had quite a few nominations. don't have the number of the top of my head. But I know for a fact, we got six first place winners. And so because we got so many first place winners and then also we had a lot of second and third place winners, but it's mostly because we got so many first place winners. That made us a station of the year, which means out of all of the college radio stations in Michigan, we got first place. And so it was obviously a very exciting moment for us to be there and to accept the award because we're competing against colleges that are a lot bigger than us. Michigan State University had quite a few nominations.

And that was the only one that I was a little bit concerned they may beat us. But there were a lot of categories where they had nominations from Hillsdale and Michigan State. And at the award ceremony, it seemed like just about every time we were competing against them, we would get first place. And so it just was a moment where I was just very proud to be part of the radio team. I felt very grateful for the guidance that we have from Mr. Bertram, the general manager at WRFH. And so I'm just really excited for what's ahead for the radio station. And I think that everyone who's involved should just be very proud because it is a great accomplishment to get station of the year.

This was our second consecutive year winning it. We won it in 2023. And our third time overall, because we also won it back in 2019. Yeah, I'm just looking here. Radio Free Hillsdale won 13 awards, including Station of the Year, and then you were right, six first place, four second place, and two third place. On top of the MAB awards, we also had a lot of awards from the Michigan Press Association for the Collegian. So the Collegian won three first place awards, three second place awards, two third place awards, and three honorable mentions in the Better Newspaper Contest, the results of which,

were announced March 14th. Funny enough that you're talking about this story, Maddie, didn't you win first place for one of the categories? Yeah, it was for a front page design. Maybe. Well, good job. Thank you. What was the design like? Um, the design. So that design, um, it was from, I think, April 13th. So it was one of the last issues I did that semester. Um, I was the news editor that semester. And that includes designing the front page. So that front page. So that front page, I think what made it good and worthy of an award was that it was full of really good, interesting content. So there were a couple of photos on that page taken by our photographer at the time. One of them actually won first place in one of the photo categories.

And then there was another one that he took. And then there were just a few very interesting stories. For example, there was a story about Ron DeSantis visiting campus and giving him. a talk. That was great to have covered. It was interesting because it was actually really difficult to get press clearance for. So it was a great thing that we had that story. Another story on that page was about the former head men's basketball coach, John Tharp. That very day that we were producing that paper, he announced that he was stepping down from his role as head coach of the basketball team to become the athletic director. We found that

information out at like 3 p.m. on Wednesday, which is the day that we put the newspaper together. And the associate editor at the time, Christian Peck Dimmit, who graduated last year, threw a story together in just a couple of hours. It was a great story, well reported. He had great quotes from Tharp and from other people. And it was just super timely, interesting news that we got to have on the front page. So, yeah, I think that was what was on it. That's what made it interesting. was the great hard work of other people on the collegian team. Another interesting piece of news that we have this week is about the baseball team playing its first game in the brand new stadium on campus.

That's pretty exciting. I know they've been working on the stadium for a while, and the players have really been looking forward to actually get to play in there, and so I'm really excited for them. Hopefully they win a lot of games in there. Yeah, I heard that apparently at this game, which was just this past weekend. It did snow, which is a testament to just the nature of Michigan.

So just a fun fact for you. Do you know if they won their first game? Yes, Lauren, they did win. The social media manager Cassandra DeRees wrote, the baseball team beat Finley University on March 17th, after losing the three previous games in its opening GMAX series. The team played in its home stadium for the first time. Hooray. That has to be a good omen, I would assume.

Well, that's enough from us. And now to Caroline. Radio Free Hillsdale's The Collegian Weekend Review continues. This is Lauren, and I'm here with Caroline Kurt, an assistant editor at the Collegian. This week, she wrote an opinion piece titled, Swearing, Jesus Gets It. So, Caroline, tell me a little bit about this article, why you decided to write it, and why you think that Jesus gets swearing. Loaded question there, Lauren. It is. I'm sorry.

You can answer whatever you want. Totally. So this piece was originally, I wrote it for a class. I'm taking with Mr. Miller right now, advanced writing, which is stupendous. And the week previously, we have weekly writing assignments. And my classmate, Christina, wrote a piece on why she thinks people shouldn't swear. And I was like, oh, okay, like good piece. really respect her. I don't agree with her opinion in this. I'm going to write something.

And I just ended up having a ton of fun writing this. So I pitched it to Claire. Like, do you want this in the opinions section? We can do a pro-con, have them side by side. And she was like, yeah, sure. So we both edited our pieces. And there they are. So yeah, it was really a ton of fun and fun to like know on a personal level the person I'm writing an opinion against. She's just awesome. And I think having read each other's works are like pieces made each other. Pieces better. So the second part of your question.

So the title was kind of intentionally provocative. But the point I'm making in the piece is, that I think there are circumstances in which we as Christians can swear and it's totally fine. I think there are a lot of ways swearing and like foul language can be abused, but there are other times when, yeah, like if you say stub your toe and you're like not around your like little sister or something, like go for it. In the article you talked about some ways that swearing is not only, neutral but perhaps beneficial so can you go into some of those reasons yeah um i found this really cool

study um done just a couple years ago by i think the keel university school of psychology that found um with participants that like plunged their hand in a bucket of ice water the ones who were allowed to swear um had like measurably increased pain tolerance and could endure the icy water for longer. And so that is to say that if you're someone who like feels okay with swearing, like, there are certain hard scenarios, whether you are doing like a hard, like, sport, or you just like hurt yourself. Or you're connecting with your like grandpa who was in the Navy and still swears like a

sailor, something like that where it can just help us get through life. and connect with people, or even, like, I argue in the article, too, that there are things, like, for instance, I would argue, like, full term abortion that, like, deserve, like, very strong vulgar language, well, very strong language because it is such a vulgar, like, atrocity. You also talked about in the article how there are many well-known and respected authors that know how to curse in a classy way, if you will. So can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah.

Well, I would venture to say that Mr. Miller is among those. But I agree. Like, man, Dante, like, Hemingway, Harper Lee, John Steinbeck, there are so many authors, Shakespeare, throughout history that have been able to incorporate curse words or like strong language in their writing judiciously and it really adds power to their writing without overwhelming it. I cited in that article for instance John Steinbeck's book, East of Eden that's just really good

at incorporating swear words naturally and it enhances the book. It doesn't distract from the beauty of the language. So in many ways you argue in favor of swearing. But is there a way that people can take it too far to where it's just not acceptable? Oh, absolutely. And that's kind of what I start out the article saying. You know, I think taking the Lord's name in vain, using slurs, cursing someone out. There are a lot of ways to misuse swear words or even use them so frequently that

you, you know, your speech is limited. I use this like hot sauce analogy where I say like swearing is like hot sauce. If you use it too much, you kind of look stupid and it masks the substance of your speech, but it's great and a little goes a long way. So not to get too controversial, but I will bring up a sentence from your opponent article. She said, you are the farthest away from Jesus when you curse. That's not cool. What would you have to say to that argument? With all respect, I disagree. I think, again, circumstances are so important. I think it's really important to take a very nuanced

look at the world and look at our intention behind our language. If I'm like, I don't know, like doing some strenuous physical activity that's helping me grow deeply in moral virtue. And I'm like not around like, I don't know, a child or something. And I like swear a little bit. I don't think that's, I think I'm close to Jesus in that moment actually because if I'm like offering up that strenuous physical activity for him or. and I would counter, like, swearing just like that's not, it's too simplistic if you're saying, like, that's the only way to abuse your language. Like, there are a lot of ways we can, like, denigrate human beings while not dropping a single curse word.

All right, Caroline, well, thank you so much. This is a very interesting article of yours, and I enjoyed hearing more about it. Totally. Thank you so much for having me on. You're listening to the Collegian Week in Review. This is Maddie, and I'm here with Carly Moran, an assistant news editor for the Collegian. And this week she wrote about people who shoot guns in many different contexts. And that means the shotgun team as well as the action shooting team.

So Carly, why don't you start out and tell me what the shotgun team did recently? Yeah, Hillsdale has a lot of people that shoot guns in many contexts. And I get to write about that for the Collegian, which is a pretty fun. experience. So first off with shotgun, it's especially a big deal. We had multiple people, I believe, eight go down to Tucson, Arizona this past week. And they, so last week. And last week, they went down to Tucson, Arizona. And there were eight of them competing, both for ski and trap in the Olympic trials. So they competed throughout the week and ended up, it ended up that four of them, while they

didn't make it on the Paris 2024 team, like most of us know what the Olympics to be, there were the four that did make it on the junior Olympics team. So they will be able to compete in Peru, I believe in Italy as well. So still very much a big deal and gives them the opportunity to hopefully go to the Olympics again one day. And same goes for the other four. You know, when I interviewed them, they all said that they're really going to try for 2028. They all have very high hopes and they were all very close to making it on the team. So big deal for Hillsdale.

Who are the four that made it on the junior Olympic team? So the people that made it on the junior national team is freshman, Dava Downs for Trap. And then junior Jordan Sapp for Skiet as well as freshman Madeline Corbin and junior Josh Corbin. So that's four different chargers that all made it onto the junior national team. And I would say all four of them have a pretty high chance of one day when they're just a little bit older going to the Olympics, which is incredible, to say the least. So, I mean, these are people that were competing against the U.S. Army team as well at the trials. And some did better than the Army team.

What is next for the shotgun team? So the shotgun team this week is finishing up their season in San Antonio at the Nationals. We're going to know pretty soon how they're doing. Last year, they placed fifth overall as a team. So the way that's calculated for a team score is you take. take together all of the different points, essentially all clays hit. One point equals one clay that's been shot of every individual, skeet and trap, five stand, all those different things, and you put them together.

So usually that score is somewhere around like 2,500 points. Usually each person has something out of 250 about. What are the dates of that competition? The shotgun ACUI-S-E-T-P Nationals run from this Monday, the 18th, and they will finish on Saturday, March 23rd. So we will know pretty soon how they did. Tell me about your other story then. Yeah, so not only did the shotgun team do super well this week, but the action shooting team just finished up their national. as well. So that was that was very successful for them. They went down to Talladega, Alabama,

and they placed first in the optics category, which is when you have a red dot site, so not iron sites, not a scope or anything like that, just the red dot on your target, which allows them to shoot a lot faster. It's a pretty fun category I've been told. And then they placed second and third with their two separate squads for both center fire and for the 1911 category. All three of these being pistols. So they lost just by a little bit to Texas A&M's military team. So once again, pretty impressive. Texas A&M is considered their rival, they told me. And they said, for it to be a rivalry, we do have to lose to them sometimes. But we did beat them in optics. So It's so incredible. I mean, their team made second and third for center fire as well as for 1911, and they got first in the nation for optics.

Is there anything else we should know about this competition? Any standout performers, anything like that? Well, one of the craziest things about the action shooting competition was that their head coach actually was not able to make it to Talladega because of a family emergency, Adam Berloo. So a lot of the older members of the team, a lot of them who are actually military vets in their mid to late 20s, they helped drive, they helped get snacks, they helped with a lot of the administrative work this past week, and really encouraging the team in his absence. So as well as Michael Sweeney, the assistant head coach. So really, I think it speaks a lot about the team as well, that not only did they do. incredibly well as it is, but that they were able to do so well in addition to not even having their coach there. Well, thanks so much for sharing, Carly. Of course. It's always a pleasure. You have been listening to the Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

I'm Lauren Scott. And I'm Maddie Walsh. You can find the Collegian online at Hillsdale Collegian.com. You can also find previous episodes of the Collegian Weekend Review online at CWI. trinister.fm. Once again, you've been listening to the Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.