Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, October 7, 1997

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Football player is suspended

UW and the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union announced last night that a Warrior football player had been suspended for violation of the CIAU's rules regarding the use of banned substances -- steroids.

Co-captain Shawn Dyson, a final-year science student who is a defensive back on the Warrior team, participated in an "unannounced doping control session" on September 16, last night's announcement said. "The analysis recorded the presence of nandrolone (veterinary steroid), a prohibited substance."

Judy McCrae, UW's director of athletics, issued this statement:

The University of Waterloo and the Warrior football program are extremely disappointed that one of the players has tested positively. Despite annual, mandatory educational seminars, Shawn chose to be involved with steroids. We stand unequivocally opposed to athletes using banned substances to gain potential performance edges. First and foremost, we worry about the health of the player. Secondly, the Department, its coaches, and its athletes will stand behind the doping policy.

Dyson is immediately suspended from the team and further CIAU participation. He's one of three players across Canada to be suspended "for a period of no less than four years"; the others are from Saint Mary's and the University of Ottawa. The CIAU says it has done 2,246 drug tests on athletes since 1990, getting a total of 17 positive results before these latest three.

Now, as long as we're talking about football, let me quote from a letter I received yesterday:

As an alumnus in far-away Toronto, I read the Daily Bulletin with great interest and enjoy it quite a bit. However I must protest this item today:
And a few other notes: The football Warriors defeated Western's Mustangs 20-13 on Saturday, making them 3-2 for the season.
"A few other notes?" Defeating Western, in London, in front of a full house of 10,000 people, on Western's homecoming weekend, which is a game that the Mustangs never lose, deserves a slightly better title than "A few other notes." How about "The greatest event in the history of the University of Waterloo"?

How about it, indeed.

Rolling home, rolling home

The topic of inline skates -- "rollerblades" to some folks -- came up at a September 17 meeting of UW's joint health and safety committee, the minutes reveal. Mario Bellabarba, president of the Federation of Students,

commented that he has received a number of comments from students concerning the campus ban on inline skates. Students use them as their form of transportation to school. They felt that if bicycles are allowed on campus why not inline skates. He was wondering if the issue could be re-investigated since the policy was made years ago as inline skates have improved. The braking system now allows the skater to stop almost instantly. Committee members agreed that this should be reviewed, noting that they would still not be allowed in buildings. A sub-committee will be formed.

The events of the day

An interview skills workshop starts at 10:30 today in Math and Computer room 5058, sponsored by the co-op education and career services department. (And meanwhile, it's standing room only in the Needles Hall "pit" as students wait for interviews for their winter term co-op jobs.)

At Conrad Grebel College, from 11 to 2 today, "there will be an informal information/letter-writing session on the issue of Disney Corporation's exploitation of Haitian garment workers," Matthew Dick writes. "Feel free to come for 5 or 10 minutes to learn and write."

The pension and benefits committee meets at 1:30 p.m. in Needles Hall room 3004 to continue its work on "improvements" to the UW pension plan.

Artist Catherine Widgery, who is on campus this week with support from the fine arts department and the school of architecture, will speak on "Personal Work" at 1:30 today in East Campus Hall room 1219. Tomorrow evening at 7:30, she'll continue with "Public Work".

Kitchener author Jim Clemmer (Pathways to Performance) will speak in the Theatre of the Arts at 6 this evening -- "about leadership in today's time of change". The event is a fund-raiser for the United Way; tickets are $10.

"Feeding the Picky Preschooler" is the topic of a session tonight (7:00) at Paintin' Place day care in the Married Student Apartments. The talk, by dietitian Deb Saari, is the third in a series of six Paintin' Place events about parenting; the next one is October 14, the speaker being speech pathologist Peggy Helwig.

And . . . it's a big birthday today for my colleague Jim Fox of the UW news bureau.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, I see that the computer science department and Institute for Computer Research are presenting a seminar on "Creating a Sense of Presence in Virtual Learning Environments". The speaker is Tom Calvert of Simon Fraser University. Place and time: Davis Centre room 1304, 10:30 a.m.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY October 7, 1976: First-year English student Mary Pat Hannon is voted Miss Oktoberfest.

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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