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NC State University News Clips for December 10, 2003

Compiled by North Carolina State University’s News Services, a part of the Public Affairs Office. Listed below are the current news clips. Click on the headline of interest to be taken to the full text. Click on “Return to Headline List” at the bottom of each clip or use the scrollbar to be taken back to this location.

IN-STATE CLIPS

'Golden Years' coach dies
Norman Sloan, the fiery coach who recruited David Thompson, Tommy Burleson and Monte Towe to N.C. State University and guided the Wolfpack in 1974 to its first NCAA basketball championship, died Tuesday at age 77 at Duke Hospital.

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'Golden Years' coach dies

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer
By Chip Alexander, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

RALEIGH -- Norman Sloan, the fiery coach who recruited David Thompson, Tommy Burleson and Monte Towe to N.C. State University and guided the Wolfpack in 1974 to its first NCAA basketball championship, died Tuesday at age 77 at Duke Hospital.

Family members said the cause of death was pulmonary fibrosis.

"We've lost one of the great warriors," said Towe, now head coach at the University of New Orleans.

Sloan might be remembered almost as much for his flashy plaid jackets and on-the-court eruptions as for his Wolfpack team that ended UCLA's domination of the college game. He was both a blunt taskmaster who drove a few players away and an empathetic mentor who earned the unwavering loyalty of most.

Thompson, arguably the best basketball player in Atlantic Coast Conference history, was overcome by emotion Tuesday, calling Sloan a "father figure."

"Coach Sloan meant so much to me and everyone at N.C. State," said Thompson, a three-time All-America and a national player of the year. "He's like a father to all of us on the '74 championship team."

Sloan, often called "Stormin' Norman" for his courtside volatility, played at NCSU under legendary coach Everett Case and then led the program from 1966 to 1980. His 1974 team -- featuring the 7-foot-4 Burleson, the high-flying Thompson and Towe's fiery leadership at guard -- won 30 games, lost one and was among the best in college history, ending UCLA's seven-year reign as NCAA champion.

"Coach Sloan was the perfect coach for our team," Burleson said Tuesday. "He didn't overcoach or undercoach. He was like the jockey riding Secretariat. He didn't try to hold us back but knew how to get us across the finish line first.

"He was a good man, a Christian man. It was a privilege playing for him. He was the kind of coach you would follow anywhere. If he said, 'Run through that wall,' we would have found a way."

The Wolfpack won three ACC championships under Sloan -- in 1970, 1973 and 1974. The Pack finished 27-0 in 1972-73 but was ineligible for postseason competition because of violations involving Thompson's recruitment.

State defeated Maryland in the ACC title games in 1973 and 1974. The latter, which the Pack won 103-100, is considered by many the greatest college game ever.

"Norman and I competed hard against each other, but he was always one of my favorite guys," former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell said. "He was a tough guy. He was my kind of coach, my kind of man."

Sloan was blunt and outspoken -- with everyone. If he didn't like something written about him or his team, he said so. If he thought one of his players deserved to be all-conference, he said so.

"He was honest to a fault," Burleson said.

In a 1991 interview, Sloan admitted that he gave players money -- against NCAA rules -- for family emergencies and other needs.

"In recruiting, you tell a family their son will be coming to a bigger family," Sloan said. "You tell them, 'I'll take care of your son.' That doesn't mean you give him spending money every week, but if the kid has a problem, I was going to help him."

Some of Sloan's Wolfpack players chafed under his demanding style. Some left the program.

"But Norm loved his players; he really did," said former NCSU basketball coach Les Robinson, now athletics director at The Citadel. "He demanded discipline. He could be tough, no doubt. But he loved his players."

Long before such coaches as Maryland's Gary Williams and Texas Tech's Bobby Knight earned reputations for being intense, almost maniacal during games, there was Sloan.

During the national anthem, his hands would noticeably twitch at his sides. During games, he would bark and bellow, sometimes standing and angrily spinning in front of the bench, his plaid coattail swinging behind him.

For years, Sloan said he disliked the nickname "Stormin' Norman." The only reason people called him that, he would say, was because it rhymed.

Later he said, "I got that tag around my neck a long time ago and never got rid of it. But I deserved it."

Sloan had coached, and won, at Presbyterian, The Citadel and Florida before coming back to NCSU in 1966 when Press Maravich left to take the coaching job at Louisiana State University. Sloan had been named coach of the year in both the Southern and Southeastern conferences.

His first Wolfpack team went 7-19 after Eddie Biedenbach, a star guard, was lost for the season because of an injury. But State was 16-10 in 1967-68, reaching the ACC Tournament final, and won the ACC title two years later.

The Pack upset highly ranked South Carolina, coached by Frank McGuire, in the 1970 ACC championship game. The team included Al Heartley and Ed Leftwich, the first African-American varsity players at NCSU.

Later that year, Sloan signed Burleson, the big kid from Newland. In 1971, Thompson was signed. Also in that class were Towe, a 5-7 guard from Indiana, and burly forward Tim Stoddard.

The Pack then had the talent to contend with North Carolina, then coached by Dean Smith and the ACC's most dominant program. It could contend nationally with the likes of UCLA.

"What a great coach Norm Sloan was," Smith said Tuesday. "Believe me, they were our main rivals when he was at N.C. State. His teams played extremely hard.

"He was such a competitor. He passed that on to his players. They played hard, but they played smart, too."

Some Wolfpack fans still refer to the early 1970s as the "Golden Years" -- Sloan winning big in basketball and Lou Holtz in football. Sloan and Holtz won ACC titles in 1973, and the Pack put up the 1974 basketball banner in Reynolds Coliseum the next year.

"I learned a great deal from Norm Sloan," Holtz said Tuesday. "He was a tremendous competitor and was a champion at coaching and motivating the superstar athlete like David Thompson and Tommy Burleson."

During a 1974 NCAA East Regional game at Reynolds, Thompson fell head-first to the court and was thought to be gravely injured. Sloan and the players were shaken, but Thompson returned to the arena before the end of the game, his head bandaged.

The next week, State knocked off UCLA in the semifinals, then Marquette in the title game.

The Pack had other good teams under Sloan but never reached the same heights. In 1980, after taking NCSU to the NCAA Tournament, Sloan left over a salary disagreement and returned to the University of Florida.

He and his successor, the late Jim Valvano, crossed paths in 1987 when Sloan's Gators defeated the Wolfpack 82-70 in the NCAA Tournament.

Sloan won an SEC title at Florida in 1989 but was pressured to resign the next year. Gators star Vernon Maxwell later admitted to using cocaine and taking cash from coaches, and Florida was put on NCAA probation.

Sloan retired to North Carolina. He and his wife, Joan, who often sang the national anthem before Wolfpack home games at Reynolds, spent time both in Newland and Raleigh.

Sloan attended a recent ceremony at the RBC Center honoring former Wolfpack guards Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe. He carried a portable oxygen unit as he walked on the court. His condition, pulmonary fibrosis, causes lung function to deteriorate.

Long after he stopped coaching, Sloan talked about what it had meant to him.

"I love it, and I miss it," Sloan said in the 1991 interview. "I miss the action, miss the games. But we had our run, and 99 percent of it was great."

Staff writer Chip Alexander can be reached at 829-8945 or chipa@newsobserver.com.
Staff writers A.J. Carr and Dane Huffman contributed to this report.

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Remembering Sloan

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

"I remember him as a tough, tough coach -- a competitor, a winner. He won a national championship. He really loved this university."
-- NCSU football coach Chuck Amato, a football assistant for the Pack in the 1970s

"Norm Sloan was a man who contributed greatly to college basketball and the ACC. As a result of his efforts, many coaches and players have reaped many rewards. I am saddened by his loss and hope that his family is doing well under difficult times."
-- Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski

"Coach Sloan was tough. He was a no-nonsense coach. He was very serious about winning games. He helped mold me to become the coach that I am today."
-- N.C. Central coach Phil Spence, who played for Sloan at NCSU from 1973-76

"It was some combination: Joan Sloan singing the national anthem on the court at Reynolds Coliseum before the game and Norm Sloan winning on the court during the game."
-- Frank Weedon, associate athletics director at NCSU

"Norm Sloan was the basketball equivalent in his day of Chuck Amato. Norm Sloan sold the school and the program to players all over the country. He won recruiting battles against Dean Smith to sign Tommy Burleson and David Thompson and won a national championship with them."
-- Bob Gibbons, recruiting analyst

"Coach Sloan has really been slighted when it comes to the best coaches in the ACC. After I left, he did a great job at N.C. State. When they talk about the great coaches in the ACC, he's right up there."
-- former Wolfpack All-America David Thompson

"He's been a factor with Everett Case as a player and the years he coached at N.C. State. He's a bright man and was a great leader, and that showed with his teams."
-- former North Carolina coach Dean Smith

"He was fiery, competitive and combative -- that was the coaching side. But there was so much more to the man that people don't know about."
-- UNC-Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach, who played and coached for Sloan at NCSU

"I played against him in high school in Indiana and played with him at N.C. State. We were both competitive and had our differences, but we'd always hug each other after them. He was like family."
-- former NCSU All-America Dick Dickey, who was the best man in Sloan's wedding

"As a player and a coach at N.C. State, Norm was a pioneer for the development of ACC basketball. He played a pivotal role in the history and tradition of this league."
-- ACC commissioner John Swofford

"N.C. State had great players and coaches before he came, but he took it to a level it had never been before."
-- New Orleans coach Monte Towe, who played for Sloan and later was an NCSU assistant under him

"With Norm, what you saw was what you got. If he felt strongly about something, he'd say it. And then he'd try to convince you he was right. He was competitive in everything."
-- former NCSU player Lou Pucillo, a longtime Wolfpack Club member

"He was my older brother and my idol. It was tough playing for him. At that time, he was young and hot-headed. I was hot-headed and hard-headed."
-- Chuck Sloan, who played for his brother at Presbyterian in the 1950s

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Former NCSU Coach Norm Sloan Dies

Dec. 9, 2003
WRAL-TV
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 wral.com

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina State University has confirmed that former N.C. State basketball coach Norm Sloan died Tuesday.

Sloan died Tuesday morning at Duke Hospital at age 77. His daughter, Leslie Nicholls, said Sloan died of pulmonary fibrosis of the lungs.

Sloan, an Indiana native, began coaching at N.C. State in 1966. His 1973 team, led by David Thompson, finished 27-0 but could not compete for the national championship because it was on NCAA probation.

The next season, the Wolfpack went 30-1 and beat Marquette for the 1974 NCAA championship.

In 14 seasons at N.C. State, Sloan became one of only six men to win three Atlantic Coast Conference championships.

"We have lost a great warrior," said University of New Orleans coach Monte Towe, a former player and assistant coach for Sloan. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't apply something that I learned from Coach Sloan in a positive way to my personal life and my teaching of basketball.

"He has touched a lot of great people in a great way, and he will be missed."

The visitation will be held Thursday, Dec. 11, at Brown-Wynne Funeral Home on St. Mary's Street from 7 p.m.- 9 p.m. The funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 12, at Edenton Street Methodist Church in Raleigh.

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A colorful winner

Dec. 10, 2003
The News & Observer
By Chip Alexander, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

It may have been the defining moment in Norm Sloan's coaching life.

N.C. State was playing UCLA in the 1974 NCAA Tournament semifinals in Greensboro. The Bruins, coached by legendary John Wooden, and led by All-America center Bill Walton, were ahead seven points in a second overtime.

During a timeout, Sloan crouched in front of his players, looked them in the eyes. Instead of fire, instead of tension, they saw calm, reassuring confidence, former Wolfpack center Tom Burleson recalled Tuesday.

"Coach Sloan simply told us we were too good to go down without a fight. He said we were too good to lose, to UCLA or anybody else.

"I can still hear him now -- 'You're too good.' "

The Pack rallied and won 80-77. The "Wizard of Westwood," as Wooden was called, had been outcoached and the "Walton Gang" outplayed and beaten. Two nights later, State was still "too good," defeating Marquette 76-64 to win the school's first NCAA championship.

In 1974, Sloan, who died Tuesday at age 77, was at the zenith of his career. It began at tiny Presbyterian College in 1952, included a stop at The Citadel and ended in 1990 with his second stint at the University of Florida. His overall record was 627-395.

"I always thought Norman was an underrated coach," former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell said Tuesday. "He never had McDonald's All-Americas, but he knew how to coach and get the most out of his players. They always competed hard."

In 1974, Driesell's Terps could have been the team facing UCLA in March. Maryland was among the nation's four or five best teams that season but couldn't beat the Wolfpack when it counted most.

In the ACC Tournament final, on the same Greensboro Coliseum court where the Final Four would be played, Burleson and David Thompson paced the Pack to a 103-100 victory over the Terps. Both teams were unyielding, almost as if they were playing for the national title that March night, but it was State that advanced to the NCAA Tournament.

"That was a great team and won the national championship, but if you think about it, only David went on to play a lot and star in the pros," Driesell said.

"Norman got the most out of that team. Norman was a great coach, but he was always, you know, overshadowed a little by Dean."

That was Dean Smith, the North Carolina coach when Sloan was at NCSU. If Sloan had a foil, it was Smith. The two exchanged many an icy stare during games.

Sloan lost his first 10 games and 14 of the first 15 against Smith's Heels. But with Burleson and Thompson, the Pack won nine in a row against UNC.

"Sure, we didn't always get along when we were rivals," Smith said Tuesday in a statement. "He was always one of the great coaches we competed against. I mean that. His teams played as hard as they could possibly play."

Monte Towe was the floor leader for the Pack on the '74 champions, only 5 feet 7 but a mirror of Sloan's intensity on the court. Later, after Sloan left NCSU for Florida, he would be an assistant on Sloan's staff.

"He always had his teams prepared well, especially mentally," said Towe, now head coach at the University of New Orleans. "If we were playing UCLA, he had us ready to play. If we were playing Appalachian State, he had us ready to play.

"He was very cool in tight situations. Oh, he was fiery and emotional, and I thrived off that stuff. But he could be very cool with the pressure on. He was a great strategist."

In the 1968 ACC Tournament, the Pack used a stall to upset sixth-ranked Duke 12-10. Two years later, State again ran time off the clock and outlasted sixth-ranked South Carolina 42-39 in double overtime for the ACC title.

"He's remembered as a taskmaster, but he also was a very good X-and-O coach," said Frank Weedon, a longtime associate athletics director at NCSU. "He knew the game. He learned it under a great tutor."

Sloan came to N.C. State in the late 1940s to play basketball for Everett Case. He was one of the "Hoosier Hotshots" Case imported from Indiana, and Case's fast-paced brand of game soon packed Reynolds Coliseum.

"Norm was a good player, a scrappy player," said Dick Dickey, one of Case's first All-Americas at State. "Boy, was he competitive. You saw that as a player and later as a coach."

And in recruiting. Sloan worked hard to entice Burleson and Thompson to sign with NCSU.

"He was a charmer," Burleson said. "He could charm the parents, make everybody feel good about N.C. State."

Burleson, a lean 7-foot-4 center from Newland, entered NCSU in the fall of 1970. Soon, he said, reality hit -- and hard.

"Coach Sloan sat the freshmen down and gave us the speech," he said. "He said the steak dinners and shrimp cocktails were over and the recruiting phase had passed. No more fluff.

"He said N.C. State had given us a scholarship and would pay for our education, and now was the time to start paying back. He said we had work to do -- on the court, in the classroom and in being good role models in the community.

"He emphasized it like a drill sergeant. ... It was time to go to work."

At every coaching stop, Sloan was successful.

Sloan is in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. He's in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. But he's not in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame with such ACC coaches as Smith and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.

"He should be," Burleson said. "He was the coach of the year in every conference he was in, won conference championships everywhere he went and the national championship. To me, he meets all the benchmarks of a Hall of Famer."

NCSU coach Herb Sendek said he would remember Sloan more as "a regular guy, a friend." Sloan attended many of the Pack's home games and always made himself available to Sendek -- coach to coach, man to man.

"The thing that stands out is that despite his successes and his stature, he was always careful not to be imposing," Sendek said Tuesday. "I tried to encourage him and say, 'Coach, please stop by any time. I want to listen to you, I want you to be a part of our program and for you to know the reason we're here today is because of your efforts.'

"We had some good heart-to-heart talks. He'd relate things in his own way [and] was careful not to impose too much."

In coaching, Sendek said, it's not always about wins and losses.

"I don't think it matters how many people remember you or if they can quote you win percentage," he said. " ... What really matters is the help you give people you come in contact with.

"Up until his last day, he was doing that with me. I'm sure he was other people in his life."

That was the way it was with Sloan and Towe.

"He helped me in life and touched me in so many ways," Towe said. "He was a great coach but a better man. To me, that's a real Hall of Famer."

Staff writer Chip Alexander can be reached at 829-8945.

Staff writer Ned Barnett contributed to this story.

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North Carolina State University Engineering Students Show Off Projects

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer; CNNMoney (NY,NY)
By Jonathan B. Cox, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Dec. 10--RALEIGH, N.C.--In the student center at N.C. State University last week, a robot raced to extinguish a fire.

Students chatted through headsets connected by lasers. And visitors applied for passports by scanning their fingerprints digitally.

The gadgets all sprang to life from the fertile minds of students in the university's department of electrical and computer engineering. Each semester, seniors are required to complete design projects, getting a final shot of real-world experience before they trade in bookbags for briefcases.

"I'm always amazed," said Bart Greene, director of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Design Center at N.C. State. "They started out with a one- or two-paragraph description of a project and at the end of 12 weeks, they come up with something as sophisticated as they have."

The students are given a limited budget and other guidelines, such as required battery life, that they must meet. The ideas come from industry, professors and students.

Keith Hill, a senior from Raleigh, worked on the team that designed the fire-fighting robot, one of 36 projects on display last week to showcase the students' work. The idea came from the Trinity Firefighting Competition in Ohio, where children and adults compete in various categories to build the best firebot.

Hill and his team collectively invested about 600 hours during the semester to design the device.

In a demonstration, infrared sensors searched for walls in a tabletop maze, and UV sensors sought heat. Using a remote-controlled tank as a base, the robot found a burning candle and extinguished it.

"It's an extreme learning curve," said Hill, who said the experience was invaluable. "When you have a long-term project, you run into real-life problems."

That's the goal. Greene said the engineering industry prefers to hire those with experience working on projects. They learn more quickly and understand the complexities of designing products.

They also learn to deal with other techies. "Under pressure, there's tension," said Matthew Lee, 24, from Chapel Hill. "Lots of good tension."

His group designed the laser-communication system. With it, users can communicate across 100 meters (about 110 yards), with their voices transmitted by a thin red line.

A professor had assigned the project three times before, but Lee and his colleagues were the first to make it work. The contraption could have military uses or be implemented in manufacturing plants where machines can interfere with wireless devices.

The students don't have to worry about the final applications, only prove a concept works.

However, some students are contemplating bigger ambitions. One group showed designs for a "graduated computer." Students could buy it when they first enter school and upgrade throughout the stages of their education.

Another group expanded on an idea by a local entrepreneur, A.J. Attar, to create a digital passport. It links a person's fingerprint to a database that could be maintained by the government. When the person enters or exits the country, a finger would be scanned, letting officials keep track of visitors. Attar is considering seeking more funding for the project.

Although Lee isn't as optimistic for his laser communication device, he would be happy to exploit his experience.

"If you know about anybody looking for something like this, I'm looking for a job," he said.

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Pillar of the Pack upheld program's greatness

Dec. 10, 2003
The News & Observer
By Ned Barnett, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

RALEIGH--Before he died in 1966, Everett Case, N.C. State's legendary basketball coach, asked to be buried in a cemetery on U.S. 70 so he could wave to "the boys" when their bus passed on the way to a game.

But one spring day in 1974, the bus returning from Greensboro didn't just go by. It pulled into the cemetery and parked near his grave. Off stepped N.C. State's newly crowned national champions.

Norm Sloan ordered that detour. He played for Case and returned to coach his alma mater to its greatest heights. It was a telling gesture by a man who revered the Wolfpack's past even as he made its history. On Tuesday, at age 77, he passed into it.

In the ranks of N.C. State's three greatest basketball coaches -- Case, Sloan and Jim Valvano -- Sloan is the crucial link. Without Sloan bringing home State's first national championship, the tradition Case created would seem much less significant. Without Sloan's recruiting of Dereck Whittenburg, Sidney Lowe and Thurl Bailey, Valvano would not have realized the Wolfpack's magical run to the 1983 national title.

"He is certainly one of the pillars in our rich tradition," said State's current basketball coach, Herb Sendek. "A lot of the heritage we enjoy today as we represent N.C. State can directly be traced to his efforts and the successes he had."

Yet, for all of Sloan's importance and accomplishments, the man who favored loud blazers too often went overlooked and under-appreciated. In part, that's why he left the school he loved for a coaching job at Florida. He was irritated that State wouldn't match Florida's offer.

Sloan had a told-you-so moment when his Florida team knocked State out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 1987. But it wasn't a moment Sloan enjoyed. Frank Weedon, an associate athletics director who has been at State for 43 years, said Sloan would get mad but couldn't stay mad.

When Sloan felt affection, he was just the opposite. The feeling endured as long as he lived. He loved his wife, Joan, for 55 years of marriage. He loved N.C. State. And he loved to win.

And when it came to that last passion, he really showed it. As a player, Weedon recalled Tuesday, Sloan became restless playing behind Vic Bubas, who would become a great coach himself at Duke. Sloan went to Case and said he should be playing ahead of Bubas.

"But Norman, we're winning," Case answered.

"Yes, but with me in there, we would be winning by more," Sloan said.

As it turned out, Sloan found a way to win big from the bench. He became a coach. In addition to being the national coach of the year in 1974, he was the coach of the year in three different conferences: the Southern Conference while at The Citadel, the Southeastern while at Florida and the ACC -- three times -- at State.

Sloan won on the court because he prevailed in the living rooms of high school prospects. His recruiting prowess brought State perhaps college basketball's greatest player, David Thompson, and one of its most gifted big men, Tommy Burleson.

Sloan used those two and pint-size point guard Monte Towe to crack UCLA's relentless grip on the national title. Sloan also guided them to victory in what many consider the greatest basketball game ever played, State's 103-100 overtime defeat of Maryland and Len Elmore in the 1974 ACC Tournament final, at the time a prerequisite for advancing to the NCAA playoffs.

Sloan didn't just enjoy winning. He enjoyed winning by a lot, sometimes clobbering weak teams. The 1972-73 team opened its season with wins against four obscure, non-conference opponents by scores of 130-53, 110-40, 144-100 and 125-88.

Sports Illustrated said State's early schedule was so packed with "dogs" that it ought to be sponsored by Ken-L-Ration. Sloan responded by awarding the best player of each game a can of Ken-L-Ration dog food.

Like Case, Sloan came out of Indiana and brought a similar taste for basketball as theater. But when Thompson played for him, basketball's most theatrical act -- the dunk -- was not allowed. At the end of Thompson's final game, Sloan gave him permission to break the rule. The high-flying Thompson finished his career in Reynolds Coliseum with a thunderous dunk that triggered a huge roar from the crowd.

In a quiet cemetery or a sold-out arena, Sloan always honored Wolfpack history. Now the coach overshadowed by Case and Valvano and outshone by his stars comes to the fore in the minds of those who remember or have learned of his great moments in the game. He leaves to an ovation of gratitude and respect, alone in the spotlight he was so willing to share.

Columnist Ned Barnett can be reached at 829-4555.

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Thinking about math

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer
By TODD SILBERMAN, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

During an hour's math lesson Tuesday, 16 second-graders at Raleigh's Fuller Elementary School barely put pencil to paper. When they do, it's just to jot down a few words.

They don't write a single digit. No addition. No subtraction.

Instead, teacher Nancy Woodward leads them through a lesson intended to deepen the students' understanding of mathematics in ways their parents probably didn't learn.

She asks them to think of lots of different ways to make nine. They keep coming up with so many number combinations that after five minutes she tells them it's time to move on.

From there, they make a puzzle of turning an empty chart on an easel into a chart showing the sequence of numbers from one to 100. Then the students work on another gamelike exercise, building squares of 100 tiny interlocking cubes based on the roll of two dice.

Finally, she leaves the students with a problem: How many cubes would there be if all 16 of them finished their squares, each with 100 pieces? Tell her later, she says, teasing them with a challenge.

Woodward wants more than correct answers from her students. She wants them to think and know how to solve problems.

That may sound like an old-fashioned idea, but it has become the mantra among educators calling for a new kind of mathematics instruction. Its advocates say it has more to do with fundamental understanding than with rote memorization and computation.

"I tell parents that the bottom line is, when it comes to year-end assessments, I ask, 'Has your child learned?' " Woodward said. " 'You'll see that your child has the concepts plus a much better understanding of the number system.' "

Beginning next fall, all Wake elementary and middle schools will be encouraged to adopt a common approach to teaching math based on a nontraditional model that stresses real-life context, hands-on learning and group work. The school system soon will choose instructional materials for the next five years that all schools are being encouraged to use, a departure from recent years when schools, even grade levels, selected their own textbooks.

"This is our opportunity to step up to the plate nationally," said Lee Ann Segalla, Wake's senior director of elementary school programs. "Research shows this is the way that students learn mathematics best."

Ballentine Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina is in its second year trying out one of the programs being considered for systemwide use.

"We're really looking at being mathematic thinkers rather than just doing computation -- knowing how to figure things out in different ways," said Marge Ronco, principal at Ballentine.

Elsewhere, similar reform-minded math programs have raised alarm among parents and educators who fear schools will ignore teaching basic skills in favor of "fuzzy math" that emphasizes hands-on discovery but leaves students poorly prepared.

Most recently, parents in New York City objected this fall to schools' adopting the Everyday Mathematics program, one of three under consideration for Wake elementary schools. The other two are Investigations in Number, Data and Space, and Trail Blazers.

All three represent a departure from more traditional approaches that rely on hardbound textbooks and teacher-directed lessons. The programs are based on a set of standards approved in 1989 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and developed with support from the National Science Foundation.

After four years in Durham schools, the Investigations program has proved popular among teachers without sparking concern from parents. Durham educators say the program has helped boost student test scores. Since 1998-99, the percentage of students in third, fourth and fifth grades with passing scores on state math tests has increased by at least 15 percentage points, with passing rates in fourth and fifth grades now at more than 90 percent.

"Our results speak for what we've done," said Everly Broadway, math coordinator for Durham schools. "Kids have a depth of mathematic understanding, and they can still recite their multiplication tables."

Broadway said the school system was careful to develop a balanced program that combined the new lessons with traditional approaches. Also, she said, teachers were provided ample training in what was unfamiliar for many, a step she said was critical.

Kira Martin, who teaches math and language arts to gifted students at Forest View Elementary School in Durham, said the approach puts math in real- terms and helps students better understand math concepts.

"When I went through school, I did well in math, but I just memorized procedures," Martin said. "This helps students gain an understanding, not just what your teachers tell you to do. This makes sense to the kids why we do what we do."

John Heffernan, a third-grade teacher at Forest View, said the program is an effective blend of discovery and conventional exercises.

"It's important to strike a balance between practice and inquiry investigations that helps students define their own meaning of things like multiplication, division and measurement," he said.

New approaches also are aimed at making math accessible and understandable to more students, said Lee V. Stiff, a professor of mathematics education at N.C. State University and past president of National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

"For more people to do it well, we have to teach it differently," Stiff said. "Everyone knows that United States youth could do better in mathematics.

"It's an issue of equity. We believe that not only will we get more kids to be successful, we won't harm those who have always been successful."

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Sloan colored ACC history

Dec. 10, 2003
The Charlotte Observer
By Ron Green, Jr., staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Charlotte Observer.

David Thompson, a man of almost indescribable talent, offered a simple eulogy for Norman Sloan, his friend and former N.C. State basketball coach, who died Tuesday.

"When they talk about the greatest coaches in ACC history, his name should be right there with Dean Smith and Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski)," said Thompson, a two-time national player of the year under Sloan. "He didn't get the credit he deserves."

Sloan, who lived in Raleigh and Newland, died of pulmonary fibrosis at Duke Hospital. He was 77.

The case could be made that Sloan coached the ACC's greatest player (Thompson), perhaps its greatest team (N.C. State's 1974 national champions) and won the league's most important game (the Wolfpack's overtime victory against seven-time defending NCAA champion UCLA in the 1974 national semifinals).

While 627 career victories at Presbyterian, The Citadel, Florida and N.C. State, coach of the year honors in three conferences and one national championship haven't earned Sloan a spot in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, he was a legendary figure in the game, particularly in the ACC.

In 14 seasons at N.C. State, Sloan's fiery intensity, garish sport coats and .677 winning percentage helped define ACC basketball. He was ferocious on the sideline, earning the nickname "Stormin' Norman," while remaking the Wolfpack into a national power as it had been in the Everett Case days in the 1950s.

"He was always one of the great coaches we competed against. I mean that," former North Carolina coach Dean Smith said.

Sloan played football and basketball at N.C. State in the late 1940s. He began his coaching career at Presbyterian then The Citadel before spending six years as coach at Florida, where he posted five straight winning seasons before returning to his alma mater in 1966.

At N.C. State, Sloan compiled a 266-127 record, highlighted by a two-year run in which his teams went 57-1, winning the 1974 national championship. Built around Thompson, center Tom Burleson and point guard Monte Towe, N.C. State went 27-0 in 1972-73 but was not allowed to participate in the NCAA tournament because of probation related to recruiting violations.

The following season, the Wolfpack avenged an early-season loss to top-ranked UCLA by rallying from seven points down in overtime to dethrone coach John Wooden's Bruins, who were led by Bill Walton.

"I remember being in the huddle during overtime when we were seven points behind," Burleson said. Sloan "said we had come too far to lay down now. Fight to the end. Don't give up. `We may be down,' he said, `but don't give up. Make something good happen.' "

Sloan stalked the sideline like a commander, bellowing at officials and his players.

With Thompson and his talented teammates, Sloan made all the right moves, winning consecutive ACC championships, including the classic triple-overtime ACC tournament final against Maryland in 1974.

"He said he wanted to be like the jockey on Secretariat," Burleson said. "He didn't want to make any mistakes as a coach and he didn't."

While Sloan had his battles with Lefty Driesell at Maryland and others in the league, it was his stormy relationship with Smith that colored his ACC career.

Sloan left N.C. State after the 1980 season to return to Florida, later citing Smith as a reason.

"If you're in a beauty contest, you want to win," Sloan said at the time. "But when the same contestant always wins, it's time to find a new contest."

In nine seasons at Florida, Sloan re-energized the program, taking the Gators to three NCAA tournaments after going more than 70 years without an appearance. He was fired after the 1988-89 season with the Florida program on probation. -- DEPUTY SPORTS EDITOR HARRY PICKETT CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ARTICLE.

Norman Sloan

Born: June 25, 1926 in Indianapolis.Education: N.C. State (1951)

Record: 627-395, 37 seasons at four colleges

Notes: His 627 victories rank 26th all-time in NCAA Division I. ... Was ACC Coach of the Year three times. ... Won three ACC championships.

TIMELINE

May 7, 1966: Sloan, who played basketball and football for N.C. State, returns as its 39-year-old men's basketball coach.

March 7, 1970: Leads N.C. State to sixth ACC title with 42-39 double-overtime win against third-ranked South Carolina.

April 1970: Sloan signs 7-foot-4 Newland native Tom Burleson.

Nov. 27, 1972: Sophomore David Thompson of Shelby makes Wolfpack debut with 33 points, 13 rebounds in 130-53 rout of Appalachian State.

March 10, 1973: N.C. State beats Maryland 76-74 to complete season 27-0, but is unable to participate in postseason because of NCAA sanctions related to Thompson's recruitment.

March 23, 1974: N.C. State avenges early-season loss to UCLA, beating the Bruins 80-77 in double-overtime in the NCAA semifinal in Greensboro.

March 25, 1974: Wolfpack wins first NCAA title by beating Al McGuire's Marquette team 76-64.

Feb. 24, 1980: Sloan confirms he will leave N.C. State after the season to coach Florida again.

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`Stormin' was good fit for Norman

Dec. 10, 2003
The Charlotte Observer
By Ron Green Sr., staff writer
© Copyright 2003

They called him Stormin' Norman, and for good reason.

He had a sneer that could burn the stripes right off a referee's back. He had a chin that stayed jutted like the prow of a battleship when there was a game to be played or a sportswriter to be lectured or a perceived slight of his N.C. State Wolfpack. He said what he thought and said it through clenched teeth. He had a fire in him that kept the ACC pot boiling for the 14 years he stalked the sidelines of Reynolds Coliseum.

In its 50 years of existence, a handful of coaches have made ACC basketball what it is, and Norman Sloan was one of them. He stoked the flames of rivalry that forged the most entertaining period in ACC history, a period in which it became the most powerful, entertaining and successful league in the country.

He died Tuesday at the age of 77. The storm had subsided long before. The battles had turned to warm memories.

Even he and Dean Smith, the bitterest of rivals, had put it all behind them and talked about golf and family and the things men of age talk about. Smith's North Carolina Tar Heels had beaten him in 11 of their first 12 clashes, but Sloan had turned the tables and won nine in a row. They were the perfect adversaries, so different in their personal styles, so different in their coaching methods, but so close in the quality of their teams.

When he learned Sloan had died, Smith said, "What a great coach Norm Sloan was. Believe me, they were our main rivals when he was at N.C. State. His teams played extremely hard. Sure, we didn't always get along when we were rivals. But I was out at Black Mountain playing golf a couple of years back and Norm came over and we had a good talk. We've done that twice.

"He was one of the great coaches we competed against. I mean that."

David Thompson, the star of Sloan's 1974 NCAA championship team, said he felt his coach had not gotten the credit he deserved, and he's probably right. Sloan left N.C. State in 1980 after 14 seasons there. That is not enough time to build a record to challenge the likes of Smith and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.

But while he was there, Sloan won 266 games and lost 127 against teams coached by the likes of Smith, John Wooden, Al McGuire, Vic Bubas and Lefty Driesell, against teams with players like Bill Walton, Larry Miller, Charlie Scott, John Roche, Len Elmore, John Lucas, Tom McMillen, Mitch Kupchak, Phil Ford, Walter Davis, Bobby Jones, Mike Gminski, Rod Griffin, Albert King, Tree Rollins.

His 1973 and 1974 teams lost one game over two seasons, that to perennial national champion UCLA. That loss, early in the 1973-74 season, was avenged in the NCAA semifinals. Led by Thompson, Tommy Burleson and Monte Towe, the Wolfpack won in double overtime to end the Bruins' long reign. That was ACC basketball's finest moment.

Sloan's career record at Presbyterian, The Citadel, N.C. State and Florida was 627-395. That's the record of a great coach, but it's not for the wins and losses that those of us who saw him storming the sidelines in his trademark plaid sports coat will remember him.

His greatest contribution to ACC basketball was his passion. He played the hero and the villain, depending upon your colors, and nobody has done that better. Lefty Driesell was close, but he was more mischievous than malicious. Gary Williams is close, but he looks more comical than threatening. No, nobody has been as good at stormin' as Norman.

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Former NCSU provost leaving for post in Ohio

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer
By BARBARA BARRETT, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

RALEIGH -- Stuart Cooper, the former N.C. State University provost who quit in protest in January after his boss fired two of his top lieutenants, is now leaving his faculty job at the university.

Cooper, 62, will start a new job Jan. 1 as head of the chemical engineering department in Ohio State University's College of Engineering. He is an expert in polymer science and biomaterials.

In early January, NCSU Chancellor Marye Anne Fox ordered Cooper to fire two vice provosts, saying they were not doing enough to move the university forward. When Cooper refused, Fox fired them herself.

Cooper resigned in protest the next day, falling back to a tenured position in NCSU's department of chemical engineering.

After the uproar, the faculty senate voted to censure Fox and passed a formal resolution commending Cooper for his actions.

Cooper said that he would rather forget about the conflict and focus on his next job.

"I don't feel any great regrets," he said. "I would have liked to accomplish more here, ... but that was not to be. Now I'm moving on."

Cooper did not teach at NCSU this semester, but he had planned to teach a course on polymers in the spring. He will leave behind a postdoctoral student and a lab of equipment.

Cooper said he'll miss the faculty at NCSU, but he's excited by what's going on at Ohio State's department.

"I didn't have to leave. I had a very nice situation in chemical engineering [at NCSU]," he said.

Fox hired Cooper in summer 2001 from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was vice president and chief academic officer. He served 17 months as NCSU's chief academic officer.

Cooper earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from Princeton University in 1967 and his bachelor's in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963.

Cooper earned $225,000 at NCSU. Ohio State declined to release his salary.

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Under the Dome: Ex-Dem explains switch

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer
By LYNN BONNER, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

In an e-mail to constituents about his party switch, Democrat-turned-Republican Tony Moore, a state senator from Pitt County, laid out the three reasons for his decision.

First, there's that new legislative districts map. Moore was put in the same district with veteran Democrat John Kerr of Goldsboro. Moore's e-mail doesn't mention that in so many words, but says the Democratic Party treated him and his constituents unfairly.

Second, there's the state Senate's promotion of a cancer center for UNC-Chapel Hill over a cardiovascular center for East Carolina University. Both were being tossed around during this year. Only the cancer center made it to a Senate vote.

Senate Democrats, however, get steamed at Moore's suggestion that they short-changed ECU's heart center. Senate leader Marc Basnight, a Manteo Democrat, says he wanted to include the heart center, but building both would require a cigarette tax increase -- something the House wasn't going to approve. Moore said he would probably support a temporary tax increase on cigarettes and alcohol to get the centers built.

In the end, neither health center advanced. Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, said support for the cardiovascular center has nothing to do with party affiliation.

"This is just someone who is trying to justify an action by appealing to local prejudice as much as he can," Rand said.

The third reason for his party switch, Moore said, is ECU taking a back seat to UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University in general. Moore said that all comes down to sports. Legislators should promote more games between ECU and Triangle teams, he said.

"They'll play smaller schools, but not East Carolina sometimes," he said.

Rand said that's already happening because he, Basnight and the late Sen. Ed Warren pushed for it. "Tell him we already worked on that," he said.

A contender in 10th

State Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Cherryville Republican, officially announced Tuesday that he will seek the 10th Congressional District seat next year.

McHenry will likely be part of a crowded Republican field to replace Cass Ballenger, who announced last week he would retire next year after 18 years representing the Western North Carolina district.

McHenry, 28, a former aide to U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, said he would continue Ballenger's support of small business as part of his effort to bring jobs to the district, wracked by textile and furniture layoffs.

Honoring his father

Luther Hodges Jr.'s effort to bring more recognition to his father, the late former Gov. Luther Hodges, is bearing fruit. Next month, the state Board of Transportation is set to name a section of highway for Hodges, who helped launch Research Triangle Park.

The Research Triangle Foundation has asked the board to name four miles of Interstate 540 that will run between N.C. 55 and N.C. 54 for Hodges, who was governor from 1954 to 1961.

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It's tartar-control, whitening, sensitive, minty chaos

Dec. 10, 2003
News & Observer
By MARK MINTON, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Toothpaste used to be dull. Now it plays songs, comes in scratch-'n'-sniff boxes, and stores floss in the cap. It's gone beyond tartar control to "dual-action whitening" and "sensitivity protection." One rejuvenating toothpaste, targeting women, is supposed to make users feel younger.

In the past two years, the $1.5 billion toothpaste industry has been squeezing out innovative products and variations on old themes, in an effort to generate new sales in a market that already includes nearly everyone with teeth.

Advances such as whitening toothpastes have proved popular. But the expanding jumble of offerings in the dental-care aisle also can confound. Not everyone wants to confront a complex decision when buying toothpaste.

Still, the days of regular or mint are long gone.

Today, there is toothpaste for women. There is toothpaste for children. Colgate introduced a Looney Tunes tube this year that begins to play "Yankee Doodle" when the lid is opened and keeps at it for 70 seconds to keep the child brushing.

Aquafresh has toothpaste with dental floss in the cap to remind brushers to floss. (The floss is supposed to last as long as the paste, but the cap comes off just in case the paste runs out first).

Crest's latest variety is Crest Whitening Expressions, which comes in three new flavors, including "citrus breeze." The company introduced them after taste tests showed that Hispanics, among others, preferred the alternatives to mint or cinnamon, said Molly Prior, who covers the toothpaste industry for Drug Store News.

Crest is selling Whitening Expressions in a scratch 'n' sniff box so consumers can test how their breath will smell with the new flavors. Crest expects it to top its current best seller, Crest Whitening Plus Scope.

The variety is enough to make a dentist dizzy.

"We can hardly even keep up with it, it changes so much," said Jennifer Adair, a dental hygienist for Dr. Timothy Sims, a dentist in Garner.

There wasn't always such froth in the toothpaste aisles.

Fluoride made a splash in the 1960s. But toothpaste traditionally has been slow to change.

Colgate introduced the first roll-up toothpaste tube in 1896, and it wasn't until 1976 that the company patented a flip top to replace the screw-off caps that fell into sinks and clogged the drains.

Crest was also slow about innovating. After introducing Crest Cavity with Stannous Fluoride (it contains tin) in 1955, a decade passed before the company added mint.

"Then we hit a lull," said Beth Marshal, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble's Crest brand.

But the pace of innovation has quickened in recent years.

Colgate, whose Total is the top-selling toothpaste, according to the Chicago research firm Information Resources, now makes 49 kinds of toothpaste. In October, it announced Colgate Simply White Whitening Toothpaste. Colgate said the new paste not only removes surface stains, as ordinary whitening toothpastes do, but also removes embedded stains.

Crest has 21 kinds, in 24 flavors. Last year, it launched Crest Rejuvenating Effect, supposed to make users feel younger.

Are consumers paying attention to all the variation -- or are they shell-shocked?

Zach Johnson, 18, of Raleigh said he does seek out a specific kind: Crest with whitening and baking soda. The N.C. State University student said he wants his teeth to look a little whiter.

But fellow student David Strater, 20, is attuned only to the basics:

"Colgate, man," Strater said.

Which of its 49 varieties?

"Buy one, get one free."

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Researchers Manipulate Tiny, Floating Droplets on a Chip

Dec. 9, 2003
Newswise
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003

In an innovative study, researchers at North Carolina State University have designed a way to control the movement of microscopic droplets of liquid freely floating across centimeter-sized chips packed with electrodes. The discovery allows the performance of new types of chemical experiments on the microscale.

The breakthrough came as the researchers – Dr. Orlin D. Velev, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and two NC State doctoral students, Brian Prevo and Ketan Bhatt – learned how to circumvent friction by suspending the droplets of water inside a fluorinated oil, and then using electrical voltages to allow the liquid to hover over the electrical circuits of the chip. Switching the chip’s electrodes on and off – either manually or with the aid of a computer – lets researchers move the droplets across the oil surface to any location on the chip.

The chip also allows researchers to conduct experiments with mixed droplets, as liquids can be moved along different paths and then merged or encapsulated in oil or polymer droplets.

The discovery has wide-ranging scientific implications. Besides analyses and characterizations of chemical samples, the chip can serve as a tiny factory, Velev says, allowing researchers to mix droplets to test chemical reactions, for example, or add specific amounts of toxin to a cell to see how long it takes the cell to die. Velev is also eager to synthesize new particle materials or crystals inside liquids.

The research was published in the Dec. 4 edition of Nature.

“Moving droplets of liquid on solid surfaces as other researchers have done before us has a number of limitations,” Velev said. Other research in moving droplets on solid surfaces was stunted by friction if particles or solids were moved along the channels or solid surface of a chip. “But the freely suspended droplets on this microfluidic chip never touch solid walls and thus can act as reactors for materials synthesis or precipitation,” he said.

Velev’s interest in microfluidic chips stems from his lab’s work on growing self-assembling microwires by moving gold nanoparticles with alternating current in water, and his earlier work on using floating droplets as assembly sites for complex particles.

“Experiments and bioassays, or determinations of the presence or concentration of biological molecules, that we presently do with test tubes and beakers can now be done on the microscale. This device enlarges the scope and capabilities in the field of microfluidics, which is just a few years old,” Velev said.

The chip – which was simple and inexpensive to make, Velev says, and is reusable – has received a provisional patent, with application in place for a full patent.

The research is funded by Velev’s National Science Foundation Career Award and by an ARO-Stir grant.


Note to editors: The first paragraph of the paper follows.

“On-chip Manipulation of Free Droplets”
Authors: Dr. Orlin D. Velev, Brian T. Prevo and Ketan H. Bhatt, NC State University
Published: Dec. 4, 2003, in Nature

First Paragraph: ‘Lab-on-a-chip’ systems resemble factories with permanently rigged pipes, but their prefabricated microchannels could have problems in delivering materials such as suspended particles, biological cells or proteins, which may adhere to the walls and clog the channels. More flexible microfluidic systems allow liquids to be transported as droplets on a solid surface, but these suffer from similar drawbacks where the droplets are in contact with solid walls. Here we describe a liquid – liquid microfluidic system for manipulating freely suspended microlitre- and nanolitre-sized droplets of water or hydrocarbon, which float on a denser, perfluorinated oil and are driven by an alternating or constant electric field applied by arrays of electrodes below the oil. These microfluidic chips could be used as a versatile tool in microscale transport and mixing and in chemical and materials synthesis.

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SURFACE FREES THE OLD, BIND THE NEW

December 8, 2003
Chemical and Engineering News
By MAUREEN ROUHI
 © Copyright 2003

In what they call an important advance, University of Chicago chemists have prepared a surface that performs two functions: It releases a bound ligand when an electrical potential is applied and then immobilizes a new ligand in place of the old one. The researchers—Woon-Seok Yeo, Muhammad N. Yousaf, and Milan Mrksich—believe that this dynamic surface could be used to study ligand-receptor interactions between cells and the extracellular protein matrix to which cells are attached.

The dynamic properties are evident from the adhesion of cells to a peptide that is part of the ligand. When ligands are attached to the surface, cells stick. When the ligands are disconnected, cells are released.

“We’re trying to create substrates that can be used to model the dynamic changes in extracellular matrix ligands that cells are seeing all the time,” Mrksich says. “That has just been impossible to do because methods that allow immobilized ligands to be switched on and off in the presence of cells have been lacking.

“Our electroactive substrates make a significant advance in this direction. With surfaces that selectively turn ligands on and off, it will now be possible to carry out experiments to determine how cellular activities respond to a change in immobilized ligands.”

Vincent M. Rotello, a chemistry professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says the work pushes further “the interfacing of electronics and cellular processes”; that is, “the two-way communication between the in vivo and the in silico worlds.”

The work also may have broader impact: According to Christopher Gorman, an associate chemistry professor at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, it “should get people thinking not only about how to influence cells but also about how chemically controlled dynamic surfaces could be used in other arenas, such as controlled growth of materials.”

The team uses electrochemistry to release a ligand from the surface and to later replace it. The original ligand is linked to the surface through an O-silyl hydroquinone. Also attached to the silicon atom is the peptide to which cells bind naturally. An applied potential oxidizes the hydroquinone to benzoquinone, the Si–O bond breaks, and the peptides—with the bound cells—are released. In addition, the electrochemical changes set up the chemistry for installing a new ligand.

The benzoquinone, still on the surface, can easily undergo a Diels-Alder reaction. A ligand consisting of the cell-adhesive peptide tethered to cyclopentadiene can be selectively immobilized through a cycloaddition between benzoquinone and cyclopentadiene. When the ligand is installed, cells bind to the peptide. But if the benzoquinone is electrochemically converted to the hydroquinone, no reaction occurs and no cells adhere to the surface [J. Am. Chem. Soc., 125, 14994 (2003)].

“What’s next,” Mrksich says, “is to apply the dynamic substrates to specific signaling pathways in cell biology.” Also still to be achieved is a system that can repeatedly bind and release ligands. The problem is not easy, he adds, and his group has been evaluating different chemistries for such a system.

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Video game players get their say

Dec. 9, 2003
Tech News World; International Herald Tribune; Science and Technology Network
By Michel Marriott, staff report
 © Copyright 2003

Imagine buying the latest Lord of the Rings DVD and discovering that the cameras, lights, special effects and editing tools used in its making had been included at no extra charge. Or finding your favorite CD's crammed with virtual recording studios, along with implicit encouragement from the producer to remix the music, record your own material and post it all on the Internet.

It might seem far-fetched except to computer game developers. For years, players have found ways to hack into the digital DNA, the primary computer code that operates some of their favorite games, and alter its rules. Consequently, weapons can be made more lethal, explosions flashier and more thunderous. And game characters can acquire godlike invulnerability or have their steely-eyed glares swapped for the hapless glaze of, say, a Homer Simpson.

In recent years, players dedicated to modifying store-bought computer games have morphed into an underground movement mod makers, as they often call themselves. Now they are showing signs of breaking into the mainstream as game developers are increasingly willing to give away the very software tools they use to construct the games, including them on the disc with the game itself.

As a result, working alone or in teams, the mod makers are spending hundreds of hours tweaking or completely redrawing popular games to be played on their own terms. The payoff is fun and bragging rights, and just maybe a career in the multibillion-dollar electronic game industry.

Those various motivations drew hundreds of mod makers to a game company's weekend seminar at North Carolina State University on the finer points of animation and building virtual worlds, allowing them to compare notes on poly modeling and the intricacies of static mesh.

I've been wanting to make video games ever since I was 9 years old, said Dan Jones, 23, who drove 17 hours from Siloam Springs, Arkansas, to be at the seminar. He said that when his grade-school classmates were doodling comic-book heroes, he was sketching side- scrolling video-game environments inspired by Nintendo's Mario Brothers.

Jones, a recent graduate of John Brown University in Siloam Springs, where he majored in digital media, is working with two friends to build a medieval third-person action game. His path as a mod maker, Jones said during a lunch break, was inevitable: There are a lot of creative people who have grown up playing video games and stuff. You kind of want to make what you already know.

Another mod maker, Maegan Walling, 26, added, People are taking the tools that someone else made and using them as sort of a paintbrush to define their own canvas. Walling joined friends and classmates from Full Sail Real World Education, a multimedia training center in Winter Park, Florida, for a road trip to Raleigh. They are really, really expressing their own creativity and defining the ideal environment for their own game play, she said. I would go as far to say that it is an art.

Whether mods are art is debatable. But a group of major computer- game makers agree that mods are good for the industry. For one thing, they create a rich secondary market for aging games being bought for raw materials. And some designers say that game makers can inspire loyalty, and sales, by creating games that remain fresh by lending themselves to modification or even serving as the basis for entirely different games.

One company in particular, Epic Games the co-producer of Unreal Tournament, the best-selling first-person-shooter franchise that is a favorite among mod makers is flinging open its doors to modifications and complete game makeovers called conversions.

And some mod makers, like Blake Politeski, are making names for themselves with downloadable hit mods like his Infection, a horror and survival game that was built out of Unreal but evokes both the creepiness of the long-running video-game series Resident Evil and Orson Welles's War of the Worlds radio play.

Another mod that has thousands of people frantically mouse- clicking is Red Orchestra, a lavishly rendered game that places players at the Russian front of World War II. Using Unreal's core 3- D graphics program, which is called a game engine, the 50 or so mod makers have meticulously replaced Unreal's futuristic combat elements of particle-beam rifles and space stations with period- perfect rifles and the bombed-out towns of the 1940's.

The ultimate goal of Red Orchestra is to create something unique to the average gamer and, at the same time, something visually delightful and fun, said Jeremy Blum, a 16-year-old from North Castle, New York, who is part of the mod's self-assembled development team.

Web sites like GameSpy's Fileplanet (www.fileplanet.com) and Planet Unreal (www.planetunreal.com) include mod news, message boards and free downloads of homemade games like Infection and Red Orchestra.

Epic was hardly the first game developer to share its digital toolbox with consumers. Id Software of Mesquite, Texas, a pioneer of 3-D game graphics and design, included software to remake or create wholly new environments in which the game could be played in its breakthrough Doom and Quake games of the early 1990's. And Neverwinter Nights, by the Canadian-based BioWare, was initially successful, some players recall, because of the digital tools that it included for reworking the game.

Epic's mod-making tools come on the Unreal Tournament 2003 game disc. But company executives say they plan to go much further when they release the much-awaited 2004 version of the futuristic combat game in February. Mark Rein, Epic's vice president, said that not only would a special-edition version of the new game include the popular Unreal Editor tool package but that an additional DVD would contain hours of step-by-step video instruction on making mods.

To further encourage gamers to do more than simply play games, Epic is co-sponsor of a contest for mod makers in which winners will receive as much as $1 million in cash and prizes, as well as a lucrative licensing agreement to use the Unreal game engine. This would permit winners to actually sell their game mods commercially. Rein said the makers of such high-profile games as Half-Life and Splinter Cell paid as much as $400,000 for the license

Cliff Bleszinski, the 28-year-old lead designer for Epic, said he looked at mod makers as a rich and renewable resource for future computer-game making. When he joined Epic 11 years ago, he was a struggling amateur game maker. Now, part of his job is to search the Web for what he considers great mods that the company can purchase to use in future games. He is also on the lookout, he said, for new talent.

This is one of the very few entertainment mediums in which you see this kind of organic process happen, said Bleszinski, whose highlighted, tousled blond hair gives him a skater-boy aura. I think this industry is really kind of grounded a lot closer to its fans, to its roots, than a lot other businesses.

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Cloning Could Lead to Fewer Birth Defects

Dec. 9, 2003
Betterhumans.com (Canada); BBC Radio, London Independent, Belfast Irish News, The Guardian (London), Birmingham Post and Mail, Edinburgh Scotsman, Toronto Globe and Mail, Liverpool Daily Post, Sydney Daily Telegraph, Glasgow Herald, Calgary Sun, Yorkshire Post, CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.), Melbourne Herald-Sun, Canberra Times, News of the World
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003

Genetic knowledge gleaned from cloned animals could lead to the prevention of human birth defects, say researchers who have successfully cloned pigs.

Researcher Jorge Piedrahita and colleagues at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh say that their work could lead to new insights into such conditions such as intrauterine growth retardation.

"The cloning work we did here with pigs showed us that certain genes were dis-regulated or damaged and it showed us that some of those genes—so called imprinted genes—could be important to fetal development, says Piedrahita. "We looked to see if some of the affected genes were imprinted in humans."

A pair of genes

The researchers found two new imprinted genes that have never been reported before. They also tested the top 42 genes affected by imprinting in pigs and discovered that all of them are also expressed in human placentas.

"What all of this is telling us is that the mechanisms that are dis-regulating genes in the pigs can be translated to what is happening in humans," says Piedrahita.

To determine if the two genes are involved in intrauterine growth retardation, the research team will compare normal placenta material to genetic material associated with the condition.

"We're looking for clinical markers," says Piedrahita. "We're going to study these candidate genes very carefully, with the hope that we can identify clinical markers that the doctors can actually use to predict which patients are susceptible to having a baby with IUGR."

Growth retardation

Intrauterine growth retardation is a birth defect characterized by low birth weight and affects between five and eight percent of all human births in the US.

Babies who suffer from the condition are at an increased risk for hypoglycemia, hypothermia, coronary heart disease and diabetes.

"If you happen to know that the woman is susceptible to IUGR, you could intervene early in gestation to try and increase the nutritional level of that fetus," says Piedrahita.

"The problem is that IUGR is usually diagnosed later in the pregnancy, and by then your options are limited, so this would allow the patient to know her child is at risk and allow the doctor to intervene very early in the pregnancy—before IUGR would normally be diagnosed," he says.

Piedrahita and colleagues are expecting another litter of cloned pigs soon from which they aim to gain more genetic information.

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For Good Or Bad, Norm Was ... Well, Norm

Dec. 9, 2003
Tampa Tribune
By JOE HENDERSON
© Copyright 2003

It generally is good policy to speak no ill of the dead, so we'll have to choose our words carefully. You'll understand why. Norm Sloan died Tuesday, and if we left out his dark side as we say goodbye, we'd be hundreds of words shy of filling the space allotted for this column.

That's not very nice. But a lot of the time, neither was Norm.

He coached 627 winning basketball games, including 150 at the University of Florida, and it's possible he didn't cheat in all of them. He was cantankerous, combative, crude and - through the judgment of the NCAA - a crook.

He may not be subletting Hugh Culverhouse's place on eternity road, but chances are he was handed a brochure.

His defenders will say he introduced the Gators to big-time basketball, and that's certainly true. What's even better is, they eventually recovered.

Florida went to the NCAA Tournament three times during Stormin' Norman's tempestuous nine-year reign. But the price tag was national disgrace.

There were cash payments to players from coaches, thugs masquerading as scholar-athletes (see Maxwell, Vernon), drugs, you name it. Sloan got fired, the Gators got probation, and they had to bring in Don DeVoe in a desperate attempt to clean it up.

It didn't lead to many wins, but DeVoe left his mark with an all- time quote: ``I'm a no-nonsense coach in a nonsense program.''

Norm's program.


Had Some Friends

To be fair, a lot of people were saying nice things Tuesday - none nicer than Monte Towe, who played for Sloan at N.C. State, was his top assistant in Gainesville and now coaches at New Orleans.

"He has touched a lot of great people in a great way, and he will be missed,'' Towe said. "We love him, and we love his family."

Others, mostly in North Carolina, used words like "icon'' and "legend'' that surely do describe one portion of his being. We can only wish Sloan had gone public with those traits more often.

We could be charitable and use the euphemism "old school'' to describe Norm. You'd nod and understand saying it that way is more polite than pointing out how he used to cuss and humiliate most anyone he didn't like.

Even if you wanted to like him, it became too much work.


Coach Behaving Badly

Cable TV was in its infancy when Sloan returned to Gainesville to bring the Gators into the big time. One night, a TV crew stuck a microphone into Sloan's huddle during a timeout.

Big mistake. The announcers spent the next several minutes apologizing to viewers for the torrent of gutter profanity that Sloan directed at his players. Well, that was Norm.

People put up with it because Sloan won, but when it came out how much he was cheating and what lousy citizens some of his players were, even winning couldn't save him.

We are a forgiving people. Just look at Charley Pell, who was darn near beloved by the time he died, even though he arguably was a bigger cheater than Norm. But people liked Pell, and he at least admitted he had done wrong and tried to make amends.

You can only hope Sloan made his peace after leaving Gainesville. You can only hope he understood there's more to life than basketball, and that anyone not "for'' you is not necessarily "against'' you. You hope the storm inside him blew itself out before it was too late.

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Ex-N.C. State coach Sloan dies at 77

Dec. 9, 2003
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By staff report
 © Copyright 2003 Associated Press

Norm Sloan, who coached North Carolina State to the 1974 NCAA basketball title and led Florida during some of its best and worst times, died Tuesday at 77.

HE DIED OF PULMONARY fibrosis at Duke Hospital, daughter Leslie Nicholls said. Sloan was living in Raleigh.

Sloan’s 627 victories rank him 26th on the career list of Division I coaches. He went 266-127 at N.C. State over 14 seasons.

“Coach Sloan was an icon of N.C. State basketball,” athletic director Lee Fowler said. “And so much of our great tradition is a result of his contributions.”

Sloan’s 1974 title team was led by David Thompson, Tom Burleson and Monte Towe.

“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t apply something that I learned from coach Sloan in a positive way to my personal life and my teaching of basketball,” said Towe, now a coach at New Orleans.

In 1973, Thompson helped the Wolfpack to a 27-0 record, but they weren’t able to play in the NCAA tournament because of probation related to his recruitment.

Former North Carolina coach Dean Smith said Sloan “was always one of the great coaches we competed against. I mean that. His teams played as hard as they could possibly play.”

Sloan was “a bright man and was a great leader and that showed with his teams,” Smith said.

Sloan left the Wolfpack in 1980 for his second a second stint at Florida, where he led the Gators on their first true basketball renaissance.

He went 150-131 over nine seasons and took Florida to the NCAA tournament three times after the program had gone more than 70 years without ever making it.

“Coach Sloan made some outstanding contributions to the basketball program at Florida,” Gators athletic director Jeremy Foley said.

But the era was marked by scandal. The team’s star, Vernon Maxwell, later admitted to using cocaine before one tournament game and taking cash payments from coaches.

That, plus other problems, landed Florida on probation and signaled the end for Sloan, who was fired after the 1988-89 season. His replacement, Don DeVoe, famously labeled himself “a no-nonsense guy in a nonsense program.” DeVoe lasted nine months at Florida.

Sloan’s first run with the Gators went from 1960-66. He was the first full-time basketball coach at Florida, a school that, until then, looked for its basketball coaches from its roster of assistants from the football staff, or by picking a volunteer from the physical education faculty.

“He basically took it from like an intramural program and built the grass roots,” Florida historian Norm Carlson said. “He left. Then he came back, and built it up again.”

Sloan went 85-63 in his first run at Florida, then left for North Carolina State. Including stints at Presbyterian and Citadel, Sloan had a career record of 627-395 over 37 seasons.

“Norm was a pioneer for the development of ACC basketball,” Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford said. “He played a pivotal role in the history and tradition of this league.”

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SME Partners with the Industrial Extension Services of North Carolina State University and South Carolina's MEP to Host New Manufacturing Conference at SOUTH-TEC 2004

Dec. 5, 2003
SME-Society of Manufacturing Engineers (Dearborn, MI)
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003

DEARBORN, Mich., December 5, 2003 - SME's SOUTH-TEC event in 2004 will be the forum for an exciting new conference sponsored by the Industrial Extension Services of North Carolina State University and the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership. SOUTH-TEC, the South's largest manufacturing event will take place March 2-4 at the Charlotte Convention Center, Charlotte, N.C., and will have some 200 exhibiting companies displaying the latest manufacturing technologies.

To complement the technologies on the show floor, the Industrial Extension Services (IES) of North Carolina State University will lead conference sessions that focus on Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. The South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) will host a six-hour Supply Chain simulation session. Together, the event offers regional manufacturers solutions for increasing productivity, lowering overhead expenses, improving quality, and maintaining a competitive advantage.

Enhancing the SOUTH-TEC Charlotte 2004 event is the co-located Job Shop Show, sponsored by Job Shop Shows, Inc. Exhibitors include some 175 custom parts and assemblies manufacturers. Together with SOUTH-TEC, both shows expect to have close to 400 exhibitors with an expected attendance of approximately 7,000 manufacturing professionals.

For more information on SOUTH-TEC 2004 and the new conference sessions, or to register for the event, contact the SME Resource Center at (800) 733-4763, or visit www.sme.org/southtec

North Carolina State University Industrial Extension Service, the first of its kind in the U.S., was established in 1955 to help North Carolina industries grow and prosper. Almost 50 years later, their mission is still the same. They provide information about the ways that we can help your company stay abreast of the latest technologies and best practices from both engineering and business management perspectives. Ultimately, they aim to help increase efficiency, productivity, quality, and, as a result, profits.

The South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership, headquartered in Columbia, S.C., is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on helping manufacturers throughout the state by solving business and supply chain process problems. As an affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) and partially funded by the State of South Carolina, the SCMEP offers business and technology assessments, engineering expertise and lean manufacturing solutions to South Carolina manufacturers in search of a single solution for supply chain synchronization and internal optimization processes.

Both the IES and SCMEP will be available for free lean consultations on all three days of the show.

ABOUT SME:

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers is the 's leading professional society supporting manufacturing education. Through its member programs, publications, expositions and professional development resources, SME promotes an increased awareness of manufacturing engineering and helps keep manufacturing professionals up to date on leading trends and technologies. Headquartered in Michigan, SME influences more than half a million manufacturing engineers and executives annually. The Society has members in 70 countries and is supported by a network of hundreds of chapters

Editors Note:

The Society of Manufacturing Engineer's background information, press registration forms and news releases can be accessed from the SME home page at www.sme.org/pressroom

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UNM gets $600,000 nanotech grant

Dec. 9, 2003
New Mexico Business Weekly
By Dennis Domrzalski, staff reporter
 © Copyright 2003

The University of New Mexico has been awarded a $600,000 a year, five-year grant to stimulate research in nanotechnology.

The grant is part of a $14 million-a-year package that the National Science Foundation has given to UNM and 11 other universities for nanotechnology research.

UNM will use the money to run its Center for High Technology Materials and make it available for nanotechnology researchers in the private and academic sectors, says UNM spokeswoman Karen Wentworth.

"The money helps us cover the overhead to run the facility. The team of colleges will do all the research on nanotechnology that the civilian side of government does," Wentworth said.

UNM joined the other universities in May in applying for the grant. The other schools that will get money from the $14 million grant are Harvard, Cornell, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Washington, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Texas at Austin, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Pennsylvania State University and Howard University.

Nanotechnology allows researchers to change and manipulate materials at the molecular level. It is used heavily in the fiber optics and telecommunications industries, particularly in switching systems.

Wentworth says the grant will allow UNM to be part of New Mexico's Initiative for nanotechnology in a big way. The university has partnered with Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory in an effort to make the state the nanotechnology center of the nation.

The U.S. Department of Energy is building a $400 million nanotechnology center at Sandia.

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LETTER: Happy hogs

Dec. 10, 2003
The Independent - London
By Dennis H Treacy
© Copyright 2003

Sir: Claims that our farms in the US have been an environmental catastrophe are not true ("US pig farmer raises almighty stink with invasion of Poland's countryside", 18 November). The majority of our hog farms in North Carolina are located in the Black River basin, the river that the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has declared to be one of the healthiest rivers in the state. Recent studies have confirmed that the expansion of hog farms in North Carolina during the 1980s and 1990s had little if any more impact on the watersheds than the other farming operations that have existed for decades.

It is true that over six years ago, Smithfield Foods paid a $12.6m fine to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The fine was a result of mistakes at our processing plants (not our hog farms) in Smithfield, Virginia. We were exceeding the nitrogen and phosphorous limits in the treated wastewater that we were allowed to discharge into the Pagan River. However, in 1996, Smithfield Foods spent $2m to connect these plants to the regional municipal wastewater system.

Since that time, Smithfield Foods has established itself as a leader in our industry on environmental protection, stewardship and research. We have committed $15m to study and develop environmentally superior, economically feasible alternatives to the lagoon and sprayfield system of hog waste management. We are bringing such policies and practices to our operations in Poland.

The average size of a Polish farm is 15 hectares. While modern machinery is seen on the former state farms in the north, horse- drawn carts and ploughs can be fo