Sad but true.  Athletes have to pay more than 60% of their trip’s expenses to Rhodes and they are asked to go represent AUB there.
   The only consolation that the players might here is the following: “Smile, you are representing AUB.”
   When I was covering the women’s soccer team game against the Lebanese University, I heard one of the players saying: “Look, I kept on nagging until I made Ghaleb [Halimeh] give me a pair of socks.  He said that they did not buy enough socks anyway.”
   Wow, this is amazing: players begging for socks.  On another part of the campus, this same lady and her friends were sponsoring a cake sale so that they would be able to reduce the Rhodes expenses.  Students were welcome either to buy a piece of cake or to sweeten the ladies’ pot with any kind of contribution.
   As I walked passed the women’s soccer cake stand, I couldn’t but imagine these girls begging for money.  After all, they wanted to represent AUB abroad.
   Last Tuesday, some athletes sponsored a sit-in demonstration in front of  Marquand House -- the meeting place for the University Student Faculty Committee -- to urge them to help with the expenses of the Rhodes trip.
   Nagging, begging, protesting, that’s what an athlete’s life is all about.  This situation is, to my knowledge, peculiar to AUB.  In no other American university do students have to beg as much to represent their university.
   Certainly support does not mean only money.  Look at the policy of this publication, Outlook does not pay athletes, it tries to talk about them, to promote their image, and to follow up on their news.  Perhaps every student should adopt his/her own policy in which he/she will support their athletes a bit.
   Athletes do not need charity, they need appreciation.  If the University does not start to learn how to appreciate its athletes, then it is most probable that we will have the Department of Athletics following in the footsteps of the Office of Student Affairs at large and thus disappearing.