Sports Shorts

Athlete Of the Week

Laura Feeney, a junior from Stattsburg, N.Y., continued her dominance both outdoors and in, winning the 3000m run at last Friday’s Case Western Reserve University Invitational, in the process setting an Oberlin indoor record. Feeney’s 10:42.12 time powered the women’s team to a second-place finish out of six teams at the Invitational.

Feeney, who also earned first-team All-NCAC honors for her fall cross-country efforts, is looking to continue both her and the team’s success at the Oberlin Invitational this evening at the John Heisman Field House at 6 p.m.

Last year’s indoor track team finished third in the NCAC and featured three All-NCAC runners, and Feeney is hoping to help lead the team to even greater heights as the indoor season draws to a close.

Marquee Event

Oberlin Invitational
Indoor Track & Field
Today, 6 p.m.
John Heisman Field House

Some people spent their Winter Terms sprinting, vomiting, icing and passing out from exhaustion – and that was all before 10 a.m. All while you “read War and Peace” sitting on the beach on Grand Turk Island, never getting up before three in the afternoon. So the least you can do is to come out and watch your fellow dedicated Obies defend their home track against foreign incursions. Happy Hour at the Feve is so last semester – come see some hot track action instead.

In the Locker Room with. . .

First-year track runner Teresa Collins proves herself to be as strong and unperturbed in a crowded Dascomb dining booth as she is on the sports field, even while our “in the locker room” interview transforms into a fascinating dialogue on gender identity politics.

You seem to be quite the athlete. Being that you’re a first-year, was this a surprise to your coach and teammates?

TC: Recently, I was talking to some friends about legs and body build and someone said to me, “Teresa, you have huge legs!” Since then I’ve told my teammates I’m not doing leg workouts anymore. My huge legs are the key to my success.

Do you find college competition easier or harder than you expected?

TC: Right now, it’s easier. Like, I’m in Division III right now, which is basically the equivalent of what my high school was, where the emphasis is put on brains over muscle. I have friends in Division I schools who tell me how everyone runs so fast they can barely keep up.

You’re from Georgia, right? Has Ohio weather been a challenge for you?

TC: Yes, but it doesn’t affect me athletically.

Okay, this is a question I get a lot because I’m from New Orleans. What makes a person from the South choose to come to Oberlin?

Before she can answer this question, fourth-year John Zajac, one of the many people sitting in our crowded booth, begins to bring attention to a book of photographs of female-to-male transsexuals.

He points to one of the photographs and says—

JZ: Doesn’t he look really good?

Teresa seems interested.

TC: Wait, so that’s a woman?

JZ: He was born a female but had sex reassignment surgery. Doesn’t he look great?

TC: Yeah, he does.

I force the conversation back to the interview and ask Teresa the question again, perhaps more pointedly.

Why come to Oberlin?

TC: The fact that I know I’ll be able to study. In Atlanta, I know where all the clubs are. So there would be the temptation to party. Studying here is easier than it would be there.

Was the Oberlin student body what you anticipated? Have you liked most of the people you’ve met?

TC: Yes. Everyone but some of the voice majors. Certain people will act like you’re not there, and I’ll be thinking, “I’m a black person, and this hallway we’re walking down has white walls. You have to see me.”

Who is your greatest inspiration?

TC: My Auntie Marion. She’s just a strong-willed woman who sets goals and achieves them. Nothing holds her back. She can do anything.

Just as I thought I had safely killed all the fun, sophomore Bacilio Mendez and senior Claire Miller interrupt us again with a sudden proclamation that most gay men have long dreamed of being black women. There are three gay men at the table, two of them people of color, and all three agree this is true. After some time on this topic, I try and maneuver back to the interview.

Of Michael Jackson and George W. Bush, which would you rather be stranded with on a deserted island?

TC: Michael Jackson, because at least he’s entertaining. He could sing to me, but I wouldn’t want to look at him.

He does look a bit like a dead alien now, doesn’t he?

TC: Yeah.

Zajac still has his photo-book on transsexuals, and now he starts to show and explain the mechanics of surgically reassigned genitalia.
Teresa looks a bit put off, but takes it in stride.

TC: That doesn’t look right.

Everyone else at the table looks at her, wondering if her comments will turn to the offensive or politically incorrect. But she continues with—

TC: Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It just doesn’t look right.

Trying to finish up my interrogation, I throw in a final irrelevant question—

If God exists and you had one question to ask your creator, what would it be?

TC: Do I make you laugh?

An interesting point to end on, Teresa, though ultimately I can’t tell whether our Dascomb lunch has merely been something to laugh about or something downright risqué.