, All hail the jam
Only one real message hidden inside School is Cool Jam
Deep inside the School Is Cool Jar)
was one real message; followed by
Li 7 ’Red and a Rope Warrior
April 10,2000. It’s 10:00 a.m.
Time to Jam.
***
1 The Ninth Annual School is Cool
Jam, a gathering for thousands of mid
dle school children at the Bob
Devaney Sports Center, is billed as the
“nation’s largest pep rally for educa
tion.” Among the highly educational
presentations were a jump roper,
reminders of corporate sponsorship
and the advertisement of next year’s
School is Cool Jam, which was run
ning on the Husker Vision screens
before the ninth Jam had even begun.
It was coordinated by the Lincoln
Public Schools Department of Special
Education, Golden Key National
Honor Society and UNL
Athletic/Academic Center. A pinch of
academia. A big dash of Husker
sports.
**#
“These are the some of the finest
role models in die state of the
Nebraska!” *
The billing comes courtesy of Jam
Larry Punteney, host of the “Frank
Solich Show.” About five times during
the event, Punteney makes sure to tell
12,500 middle-schoolers that
Nebraska football will, in fact, win its
sixth national title next year.
Guaranteed.
***
Now for the role models.
First up is Nebraska Soccer Coach
John Walker, who relates die story of
his 1999 Comhusker team, and how it
came so, so close to die College Cup,
but lost to Notre Dame. So, you know,
they didn’t make it
But, Walker vows, NU will make it
next year. And the team already is
working toward that goal, with off-sea
son conditioning and a fme game
against defending national champion
North Carolina.
“We dominated,” Walker said. So,
you know, persevere.
Captured on the HuskerVision
boards are a couple $f kids going crazy
with their official School is Cool Jam
hankies. Everybody wants to be a star.
***
Sharolta Nonen played soccer for
Nebraska, and she’s here to talk about
adversity. Last year she lost her broth
er, her mother and her grandmother in
the course of three weeks.
And she had to decide to either
play World Cup soccer or mourn with
her family; she chose to play in the
World Cup because that^ what she had
to do and that’s what her family would
have wanted.
To recap: Nonen had three family
members die in less than a month, and
she still found the strength to play in
the World Cup.
***
Eddie Brown, the lone non
Athletic Department representative to
speak at length during die Jam, talks
about his achievements at UNL and
how to get involved with the
Teammates program, which mentors
young high school students as long as
they, in Brown’s words, “don’t experi
ment with alcohol or drugs or, like,
have a baby before they get married.”
He then sings an excellent rendi
tion of the spiritual “Eyes on the
Sparrow.” But this girl, about age 11,
faces away from him while sitting
down on die floor, and talks to the
friend directly behind her. She has
long hair, but a silver butterfly clip
holds it up in a ponytail. She shoots me
a look. I give her a nod.
She rolls her eyes dramatically. At
me or Brown, I don’t know. Either
way, she’s my heroine of the week.
***
Former Husker football player
Brian Shaw graduated with a 4.0 grade
point average. That is an achievement
Not in my wildest dreams could I do
this.
“So a lot of you guys have achieve
ment tests coming up?” Shaw asks the
crowd.
“No!” most of the students scream.
“OK, well, some of you do,” Shaw
says.
Shaw tells the students that apti
tude tests in middle school will deter
mine their future. You know, the
California Achievement Test.
They’d better do well on it, he says,
because it could mean a great deal in
the future. So prepare for them, he
says, like you would a game. Get a
good night’s sleep. Eat well. Study.
Because it’s very important
The CAT. Meow.
***
Eric Crouch is the star speaker. He
talks about character. Have character.
Be a good person. But do not be a
character, a bad person.
“You know, you hear people say,
‘Hey, that guy’s a character,”’ Crouch
says. “You don’t want to be that per
99
son.
Could a character have character?
Or are they mutually exclusive?
Where’s the woodchuck who could
chuck wood?
***
The “Rope Warrior,” David Fisher,
jumps rope for a living. He gets in a
giant bubble while Li’F Red and some
volunteer twirl the jump rope around
him.
*♦*
Some people may think the kids
got Nonen’s message. But they didn’t
Not when they’re awash with visions
of Li’F Red gettin’jiggy and dreams of
Crouch are floating through their
heads.
Nonen’s speech was about the
catchphrase “adversity.” But her expe
rience was more unflinching tragedy.
It’s wrong to condense death into one
word because it fits nicely in coachs
peak.
Nonen did her experience justice.
Her speech was the only one worth
driving five hours from Ainsworth to
hear. But the ceremony buried the
message by putting her first and sur
rounding her with mindless entertain
ment. Next time, they should invite
Holocaust survivors and havp them
talk right before LiT Red stands on hii
head, or maybe victims of racism
Anything to hit the message home.
***
There’s a teacher waiting to take
her children out into the Devaney con
course, where they will then file into
school buses. I have to ask, even
though I know the answer Did the stu
dents like the show?
“Oh they loved it,” she says.
“I’ll bet they enjoyed this more
than they did a whole week of school,’
Isay.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” she says.
Nor would I. And if a teacher says
that, what does that say about educa
tion? At the very least, athletes hold
the ability to motivate, while teachers’
words apparently fall on deaf ears.
So maybe the Ninth Annual
School is Cool Jam was just as it
should have been: a precursor to the
blowout 10th anniversary of the event
featuring the High Impact squad and,
some people who can spin a bunch of
basketballs on their bodies.
April 9,2001; 10:00 a.m.
Can’t hardly wait \
Samuel McKewon is a junior political science major and a Daily Nebraskan senior editor.
Multicultural madness
_Then I was told the trick side to this shindig ...in order to leave I had to sing
I did something out of my nor
mal, dreary routine a few days ago.
What was this exciting pew adven
ture? For an hour I hung out at a
Karoake Vietnamese Cafe shindig. I
had picked up a flier from a fellow
student during class and the
prospect of seeing authentic
Vietnamese dress enticed me to stay
away from my dorm and go to the
Culture Center.
As I entered the converted
church, the sound of loud music
engulfed me. Students were shout
ing at each other during the karaoke,
and everyone was smiling congen
ially. I wore Key overalls with black
boots and sunglasses, a complete
contrast to the white shirts, slacks
and Vietnamese dresses prevalent at .
the scene.
After getting a sugar-laden pas
try and a scrumptious meat roll, I sat
down at a far table and watched the
bikini-clad women on the television.
I was delighted. I looked around
the room and basked in die karaoke
madness. But then I was told the
catch: In order to leave, I had to sing
a song.
A nice young woman named
Jasmine brought over the karoake
disks. I ended up looking down the
lists of songs for something I knew.
Anything I knew. “Like A Virgin”
was the only thing I recognized until
seeing “Hotel California,” which
saved me from total degradation.
Yeah, I could have walked out
that door without singing anything,
but that would be quitting. I’ve
never done karaoke before, and I
wasn’t too thrilled to try. However,
Jasmine and her friends promised
not to laugh too hard.
Thank God no more than fifteen
people would witness my terrible
performance. My eyes locked onto
that screen, and I sang the words I
knew by heart. The microphone
squawked and I could feel my digni
ty lying on the floor. Then, someone
was singing backup for me. I was
astounded. I saw that two or three
people had microphones behind me
and were doing the chorus. They all
smiled.
The song ended and everyone
congratulated me. One guy asked if
I was in a band. Jasmine told me I
was good. Oh, the wonderful, gra
cious liars. I sat down and drank
some of that weird iced coffee.
Then Jasmine asked if I wanted
to sing a duet, in Vietnamese. I
know some Espanol, some Deustch
and a spattering of Latin.
Vietnamese was never on my “to
know” list.
My first thought Was, “Haven’t I
been humiliated enough?”
Apparently not. So I sang with
Jasmine and slaughtered all the
words, even when I sang softly
enough to be unintelligible. There
was one line in the entire song
where I hit it just right, even to my
ears. I had no clue what I was
singing, but everyone was smiling,
bebopping along and talking really
loudly. It was great
I also talked with Jasmine a bit. I
learned that the Vietnamese Who
immigrated out of country still call
the capital Saigon instead of the
communist name, Ho Chi Minh. I
learned that the duet songs being
played were as big as ‘N Sync back
in Vietnam. I learned that those tasty
pastries were called bahn. I learned
that it didn’t matter to everyone that
I couldn’t sing, slaughtered their
language and drank my iced coffee
too fast. It was fine with me just \
being there. \
I won’t claim to have had an
epiphany about multicultural aware7
ness, but I enjoyed being there
among the smiling faces. I enjoyed
my iced coffee, and while the atmos
phere was loud and I couldn’t under
stand a whole lot, I didn’t need to. I
watched other people sing.
hrom my
experience, I
knew that this
was something
the university
couldn’t shove
down my throat
in its drive to be
more “diverse”
and racially
sound. Singing
with the people
at the center
was some
thing that
occurred on
its own,
thanks to the
good folks at
the Asian
Student
Alliance.
You can
not force peo
ple to make
connections,
and you can
not forge new r
relationships /
with a fistftil of
dollars.
Multicultural
experiences
happen because
both sides want
them to. There is
a reward in
socializing with
someone not like
yourself or some
one from a differ
ent background. I
is getting out of
the grind and see
ing something
new. That is the
incentive for
this kind of
experience.
As 1 left, I
turned around and
waved goodbye to every
one. The next karaoke was on,
and people were singing again. I
don’t plan on visiting a karaoke bar
anytime soon, but I would
n’t mind dropping by the
Cultural Center for
another one of these
shindigs.
Silas DeBoer is an English Major and a Daily Nebraskan Columnist
■ / "
%
