Posts tagged change
Boulder flood A Lyons family make the switch in schools
Sep 17th
Sally Johnson, Cafe’ Manager at Barnes & Noble in Boulder, said her daughter, a
kindergardner student at Lyons Elementary, is one of several little children
moving to the old Longmont High School on Main Street due to the Lyons school’s
flood damage. Johnson said she found out about the school’s damage at 4am
on Thursday when she received an email from the school district.
Johnson’s first concern was for her daughter having to move to a
new school and not knowing other students since she has just been in school
one month. That anxiety was lessened when Johnson learned all the students
from her daughter’s class will be together.
Her daughter told her friends “My school is closed because a big huge tree
fell across the road.” “That’s all she knows,” Johnson said.
She has not told her daughter about the change of schools because she will “be asking me every five minutes
when school starts.” “I tell her she’s on break.”
The Lyons school children will be out of classes for a week.
Johnson said the school’s teacher sent an email offering to help in any way.
Johnson credits the Superintendent of the St Vrain Schools. “He did a good job being on top
of it.” She will tell her daughter the day before school starts.
Johnson said there is a meeting of all parents on Wednesday, September 18 when
other details will be made available.
Two former CU Buffs go head-to-head in pro soccer championship
Aug 29th
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The inaugural National Women’s Soccer League championship game will be a battle between two Buffaloes.
Former teammates on the University of Colorado soccer team, Amy Barczuk (2009-12) and Nikki Marshall (2006-09) will this time compete against each other as the Western New York Flash and Portland Thorns FC meet in the championship game at Sahlen’s Stadium on Saturday.
“We are very excited that Nikki and Amy will be representing Colorado soccer in the first NWSL final,” CU head coach Danny Sanchez said. “It is a tremendous accomplishment for both of them and their teams. I have no doubt that the league will continue to grow. We wish them both the best of luck!”
The Western New York Flash earned the NWSL Shield, winning the regular season with a 10-4-8 record. In last Saturday’s semifinals, the Flash met No. 4 seed Sky Blue FC. Behind two goals by Carli Lloyd, the Flash eased their way to the championship game.
Barczuk, who was selected by the Flash in the second round of the NWSL draft (14th overall), made her third professional start in the semifinal game. Though having what she described as an up and down season that saw her getting minutes in seven regular season games, Barczuk went into the playoff game ready to show her physicality.
“I came in because one of our starting midfielders was injured,” Barczuk said. “I played in the game before that against Boston, so our last three regular season games. Playing in that third game helped me get kind of settled in the midfield. Playing in the semifinal game, my coach kind of expected the same physical play out of me – winning everything in the middle and kind of just being that physical presence. If I get the opportunity to play in the championship game, I’m just going to bring that same attitude, and it definitely will help to have that semifinal game experience.”
Marshall has plenty of experience heading into this year’s championship game. She has four years of professional experience under her belt, including a WPSL Elite championship with the Flash in 2012. This season, Marshall has played in and started all of Portland’s games, just one of three Thorns to do so, has played 1,871 minutes, ranking third on the team, and contributed one assist during the regular season.
Thorns FC entered the semifinals as the No. 3 seed and fell behind FC Kansas City 2-0 in the first 25 minutes. Marshall says her team was really good on paper, though seemed to struggle putting everything together in the regular season. It wasn’t until the team’s most recent games that momentum began to swing in their way.
“We’ve had a turnaround,” Marshall said. “I think we’ve kind of realized that we should be a really good team, and we haven’t been performing. We had a couple of meetings before the game on Saturday and just kind of talked about the fact that we need to be more of a team and that we need to maybe be more positive and encouraging and love each other more and play with joy. I think that’s what we did on Saturday. We went out and said, ‘This is unacceptable,’ and then came out on top.”
Kansas City took the early lead behind goals by NWSL Rookie of the Year Erika Tymrak and Melissa Henderson. Tobin Heath helped get the Thorns on the board in the 33rd minute with her first ever goal with the squad. Though Portland had a 0-4-1 regular season record when trailing at halftime, the team’s change in attitude helped break that.
In the 65th minute, Marshall helped give Thorns FC the equalizer, sending a ball to the middle of the penalty box to Tiffany Weimer. With two minutes remaining in the first overtime, Allie Long put the game out of reach, clinching Portland’s ticket to the championship.
“That was just a really exciting game for us,” Marshall said. “We were losing 2-0 in the beginning of the game. We showed a lot of character, and like I said before, I think this is the first time our team, Portland Thorns, has come together and really done something special. So that’s been huge. Getting the assist was awesome. My teammates are incredible, so if I can cross the ball in there, they’re very world-class and can finish anything regardless of what kind of cross it is. That was really exciting. It’s just fun to be part of something like that, especially when we come back from 2-0. It was just awesome.”
Marshall said that that team mentality and positive attitude will be necessary in this Saturday’s final, especially against the Flash, who has won three consecutive championship titles.
“I think we have a solid game plan, and I think that’s probably why we’ve also been on a kind of winning streak, because we have adjusted and it’s the first time in the season that we have done so,” Marshall said. “I think that we have to be a first half and a second half team. We can’t just be a second half team, and we can’t just be a first half team, because that’s how we’ve been all season and that’s been killing us. I think just having that attacking mentality from the very beginning and also being solid defensively is going to be huge for us. It’s going to be a great game. I don’t think there’s a better championship match. We’re excited for it.”
Though having won the 2012 title with the Flash, Marshall says she feels no need for revenge on her former team. If anything, she feels she needs to play to the standards of Flash head coach Aaran Lines.
“I just want to go in there and perform my best because I know that Aaran believes in me,” Marshall said. “He’s given me so much and developed me so much last year as a player. I want to play up to his standards of what he thinks of me.”
Barczuk also feels the need to live up to the high expectations Lines’ has for all his players. In Barczuk’s defensive/midfield position, that means using her 5-10 height and physicality to change the field, winning every head ball and playing the ball simply.
“Coach Lines has developed a great winning culture,” Barczuk said. “He has always had great players play for him, but now it’s about the culture. This would be the fourth championship in, I think, six years at the professional or semi-pro level. That’s pretty impressive. To give him all the credit, he’s just really developed a winning culture here at Western New York.”
There’s also a culture of greatness throughout the league. Barczuk says she’s grown immensely as a player, getting to train with some of the best players in the world, including teammates and U.S. National Team “poster children” Abby Wambach and Carly Lloyd. Wambach and Lloyd will meet their Olympic gold medal teammate Alex Morgan in the championship, something Barczuk and Marshall both believe will help give the game national attention.
“When you have any big name players, it brings attention, especially with Alex Morgan and Abby Wambach playing against each other,” Marshall said. “That’s what makes this league so special as well. The competition is fierce, and there’s not a huge margin of difference between anyone on any of the teams. Everyone has great players, and that’s what makes this so much fun and fun to watch as well.”
The national stage also helps give a spotlight to the two Colorado standouts. Barczuk says that despite Colorado not yet being one of the biggest soccer schools, like North Carolina and Stanford, she and Marshall’s appearance in the title game proves that smaller soccer programs can produce top level professional level players.
Despite the competitive nature of their next meeting, Marshall and Barczuk are excited to play each other, both barely containing their affection for one another.
“I’m just really proud of her,” Marshall said of her former teammate. “It’s always fun to play against your friends. Off the field you’re friends and on the field, you’re still friends, but you’re competitive and you battle with each other. I think it makes it all the more fun. I’m just really excited for her getting this opportunity, and I’m just really proud of her. She’s done a really good job this year.”
While their strong friendship will remain unscathed, one of them will be victorious in Saturday’s championship. The teams’ two previous meetings have both been draws: their first a 1-1 tie in Portland on July 14, and their most recent, a 0-0 draw on August 10 in Rochester. Despite the previous finishes, Barczuk knows the championship will be a whole different game.
“Obviously we hope to one: win the game, and two: win the game in 90 minutes without going into overtime, with no PKs or anything like that,” Barczuk said. “You look back on the last two games, and yeah, they both were ties, but it’s the same two teams, and this the championship game. I think this is almost a completely new type of environment to play in. I think there will be lots of action on Saturday.”
The inaugural NWSL championship game will air on FOX Sports 2 and FOX Soccer on Saturday at 6 p.m. MT.
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Marlee Horn
Graduate Assistant SID
University of Colorado
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CU study: Conservation efforts might encourage some to hunt lions
Aug 26th
Further, some conservation initiatives including those designed to save lions from being hunted have either failed to work or in some cases appear to have incited Maasai to hunt more lions as a form of political protest, the researchers report.
Such nuances are important, because it’s harder to control the hunting of lions unless society knows precisely why lions are hunted, the researchers contend.
Many populations of Panthera leo—African lions—are falling, and the species is classified as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List.
Lion hunting is outlawed in Kenya and in Tanzania is limited to mostly tourists hunting with permits, unless the hunt is to eliminate a lion in defense of life or livestock. Still, lion hunting regularly occurs in both countries, usually without the hunters’ following the law.
“We saw an inaccurate representation of the exact reasons for why Maasai hunt lions, and we had a lot of ethnographic background to correct that,” said Mara J. Goldman, the assistant professor of geography at CU-Boulder who led the study.
Goldman collaborated with Joana Roque de Pinho, a postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Sociais e Politicas (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal), and Jennifer Perry, a CU-Boulder geography alumna now studying law at the university.
Goldman and her fellow researchers conducted 246 in-depth interviews of Tanzanian and Kenyan Maasai between 2004 and 2008. They found that Maasai hunt lions for multiple overlapping reasons, some relating to predation on livestock and some not.
In some cases, Maasai said they hunted lions to prevent the potential killing of livestock, especially by lions that had killed livestock before, rather than just as retaliation.
And while Maasai still celebrate successful lion hunts and the prowess of the warriors who hunt, that cultural tradition can be less of a motivation to hunt than political discontent.
In Kenya, for instance, conservation programs aim to curb Maasai lion hunting by financially compensating Maasai for livestock killed by lions. In Tanzania, suggestions have been made by some to start such ‘compensation’ programs, but the Maasai themselves explain why this strategy has limitations:
“We cannot agree (to compensation) because we do not have cattle to be killed every day,” an elder Maasai told the researchers. “If they pay money today, then tomorrow, they will pay every day because the lion will keep coming back to eat cattle until all the cattle are gone. And then what will we do with the money?”
These sentiments were expressed in a village bordering the Manyara Ranch, a Tanzanian conservation trust on which hunting is prohibited but over which Maasai from neighboring villages are meant to share governance. In the beginning, the elders kept the warriors from hunting lions, the researchers found.
But after Maasai representation in ranch governance was diminished, the Maasai felt disenfranchised. Lion hunting increased in frequency and severity and was no longer discouraged by elders, the researchers said.
“We have no reason to follow the rules,” one elder told the researchers.
Goldman researches human-environment relations with the Tanzanian and Kenyan Maasai, one of the most recognizable ethnic groups in Africa, known for their distinctive, colorful dress and social customs, and most recently for their lion-hunting practices.
Although the primary motivations for lion hunting differed somewhat between Tanzania and Kenya, the researchers emphasize that Maasai have multiple, overlapping reasons to hunt lions: to reaffirm the protective role of young warriors, to help select brave leaders among warrior groups, to allow individual warriors to gain prestige, to eliminate lions that prey on livestock and to prevent lions from becoming habituated to eating livestock and sometimes harming people.
The multiple reasons illustrate the limitations of explaining Maasai lion hunting “as either a cultural manhood ritual or a retaliatory act,” the researchers write.
“Participatory conservation interventions that respect Maasai knowledge and promote full engagement with management processes are likely to have far better success in persuading Maasai to change or moderate such behaviors themselves,” the research team states, adding that “lion conservation projects rarely address such complex politics.”
Goldman, also a faculty research associate at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science, is the first author on the study that was recently published online in the journal Oryx and is scheduled to appear in the journal’s October print edition. The study is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605312000907.
For more on this story, see Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine at http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine.
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