Mirror - Vol. 23, No. 19 - April 02, 1998

              FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
Volume 23 Number 19 The Image of Fairfield
Athletics Budget Battle
Heats Up
Michael Keegan
Staff Writer
The competition be-tween
Fairfield's athletic teams
and those at other schools is not
the only competition in the uni-versity.
Several Fairfield
coaches say that they have per-formed
well and deserve to be
given more funding and footing
with men's and women's basket-ball.
As it currently stands,
the budget of Fairfield
University's athletic teams is di-vided
into a three tier system with
men's and women's basketball
receiving the most funding, As-sistant
Director of Athletics Joe
Powers said.
Powers declined to state
the exact amount of money that
is budgeted for each sport.
At Fairfield, the Tier I
sports are men's and women's
basketball. Basketball receives
the maximum funding that the
NCAA allows for Division I-A
teams," Powers said. The NCAA
allows for 15 full scholarships
covering tuition and room and
board for both the men's and
women's teams.
"We would not be
nearly as successful as we have
been if we were not fully
funded," Women's Basketball
Head Coach Dianne Nolan said.
"Basketball is just one
of those sports that every school
has and concentrates on. I can't
think of a single team in our con-ference,
or anywhere, that
doesn't receive the maximum
funding allowed," Nolan added.
Basketball is one of the
most popular college sports and
has some of the highest atten-dance
figures, according to most
data. The goal of funding for
these sports is to make the teams
competitive on a national level.
The Tier II sports are
men's and women's soccer.
The Tier II budget aims to
make the teams competitive
on a regional level. The bud-get
for Tier II teams is less
than Tier I teams but it does
allow for recruiting, scholar-ships,
and operating expenses.
"Obviously, the
scholarship money we have
allows us to bring in better
athletes," Women's Soccer
Head Coach Maria Piechoki
said.
The funds allotted to
these sports allow athletes in-terested
in Fairfield to visit the
school and also allows
coaches to grant scholarships
to athletes that cannot afford
a school like Fairfield.
These funds have
made possible the recruiting
of p+ayers from Oregon,
Canada, and New Zealand for
Continued on pg. 4
Hunger Cleanup is GRRRrreat
Kristen Sullivan
A & E Editor
The 1998 Great Hunger
Cleanup, a one day workathon to
benefit the nearby community
and arise money for the needy,
raised $5000 and garnered 500 to
600 volunteers.
The Cleanup, now in its
tenth year, sent students, faculty
and volunteers into the commu-nity
to do service deeds, while
raising money for local and na-tional
charities.
Students volunteered at
various worksites including,
Bread and Roses, Connecticut
Hospice, Norwalk Hospital and
Operation Hope.
"The entire football
team went to Washington Park in
Bridgeport. They worked with
the kids in the neighborhood and
now they're working on getting
the kids to come to campus next
semester and go to some of their
games,"senior co-chair, Laura
Taylor said.
Students involved in the
Cleanup painted walls, erected
fences, and cleaned grounds and
houses. Plans are already being
made for next year's Cleanup.
Any students interested in plan-ning
the Cleanup can contact
Carolyn Rusiackias in Cam-pus
Ministry.
Members of the Hunger Cleanup Executive Board
pose with Ken Flatto last Saturday. Flatto pro-claimed
the day Hunger Cleanup Day in Fairfield.
photo: Kristen Sullivan
Cormier
calls it
quits
Cormier resigned after serving
seven years as coach.
Rick Thomson
Sports Editor Emeritus
Five losing seasons in
seven years usually does not
bode well for the head coach of
a NCAA Division I basketball.
On March 20th, Fairfield Uni-versity
men's basketball head
coach Paul Cormier learned
that he is no exception.
Citing the need to re-place
Cormier following a dis-appointing
12-15 season,
Fairfield Athletic Director Eu-gene
Doris announced
Cormier's resignation two
weeks ago. Doris also an-nounced
that the former
Fairfield coach, who still has
two years remaining on his
contract, will accept a position
as associate director of athlet-ics
at Fairfield University.
The decision comes a
little over a year after
Cormier's Stags stunned the
college basketball world by
winning the MAAC tourna-ment
as the 8th seed, and then
pulling off a near-upset of top-ranked
North Carolina in the
opening round of the NCAA
tournament.
Other than last year's
late-season heroics, Fairfield's
only impressive regular season
under Cormier came two years
ago, when the Stags finished
20-10 and lost to Providence
College in the first round of the
National Invitational Tourna-ment.
"Neither Cormier nor
I was satisfied with the results,
Continued on pg. 15
Thursday, April 2, 1998
Inside this
week
LL Cool J tix
announced
Find out the details on
p. 3
Tune into
WVOF
Find out who's listening
to Fairfield's own radio
station, see p. 5
Is life in the
U.S.A.
all that?
An exchange student's
perspective, see p. 7
A &S Dean
addresses core
Grossman
addresses article
on core requirements,
see p. 8
Unfair labor
at Fairfield?
CUCM details a bill
of rights for all Univer-sity
employees, see p. 9
Check out
The
Newton Boys
McConaughey's latest
movie reviewed, see p. 11
Who is
that cool
cafe chick?
She scans you in
every day, she's Ann!
see p. 12
Sports is
covered in
Tarr
Brad Tarr makes his
Sports editorial debut,
see p. 16