Ranking Playstation games 2001 Raising the bar Papers aren’t due yet and tests aren’t Notre Dame’s addition of 64 new scholarships Wednesday creeping up either, so you might have time to in the next four years will usher in a new era in chill and play some video games. Irish athletics. JANUARY 31, Scene ♦ page 11 In Focus 2 0 0 1 / ^ \ T h e O bserver The Independent Newspaper Serving Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s VOL XXXIV NO. 77 HTTP://OBSERVER. ND.EDU Community gathers in prayer for cancer victims ♦ Hundreds fill Zahm ♦ Make-a-Wish visitor chapel to pray for Scott Delgadillo passes Conor Murphy away before transplant By JASON McFARLEY By TIM CASEY Assistant News Editor News Writer While soft tunes from an acoustic gui­ Scott Delgadillo, the 14-year-old San tar streamed through the Zahm Hall Diego native who spoke at the Purdue chapel Tuesday night, students’ thought­ pep rally, died at 9:10 Monday night in ful prayers and quiet sobbing provided a his home after a 12-month battle with fitting chorus for the occasion. acute lymphoblastic leukemia. "Miracle” may have been the operative A vigil mass will word for the night, but it is uncertain if be celebrated on one will come for Notre Dame junior Saturday at 11:30 Conor Murphy. Amid reflections and a.m. in California. grieving, several hundred students gath­ Also, a special ered for Mass in Zahm chapel Tuesday memorial mass will to offer prayers for Murphy. Murphy’s be said for health took a turn for the worst Tuesday Delgadillo at Notre when doctors discovered he was stricken Dame’s Basilica of with apparent fatal complications from the Sacred Heart Delgadillo leukemia. early next week. Murphy, who was diagnosed with “You’ve never met a more amazing, leukemia in March, recently developed personable young man,” said Alex pneumonia and his immune system is Montoya, a 1996 Notre Dame graduate “seriously compromised,” according to and the young alumni coordinator in former Zahm rector Father Jim Leise, San Diego. “You could tell he was a who has been in daily contact with the warm, caring guy but the thing that Murphy family. amazed me was he was the sharpest “It’s a very critical time and prayers would be appreciated by the family,” kid you could ever meet. He was Notre Leise said. Dame material all the way.” In a homily at Tuesday’s Mass, Zahm Delgadillo was scheduled to fly to Massachusetts on Dec. 26 to undergo a Hall rector Father Thomas Bednar JOB TURNER/ The Observer spoke to a packed chapel that filled the bone marrow transplant from his 16- At Murphy’s urging in March, more than 610 people joined the National year-old brother, Eric, at Boston pews and lined two walls of the chapel. Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) at a drive held at LaFortune. “We ask that Conor’s life be renewed, Children’s Hospital’s Dana Farber that by some miracle he may return to Cancer Institute. But his leukemia us,” Bednar said. “It’s good that we terized Murphy as religious and coura­ spirit of faith, knowing that life is a gift,” relapsed on Christmas Day and Scott weep and grieve today. We know that geous. Murphy demonstrated a strong Bednar said. “Let us trust in God’s wis­ was rushed to San Diego Children’s our sadness is a sign of our friendship will and a desire to be a person of faith, dom and God’s love for us.” Hospital. and faith.” he said. At points in the service, students were Delgadillo’s trip to Boston was can- Throughout the homily, Bednar charac­ “We have the feeling that maybe Conor’s life was too short, but we gather in a see CONOR/page 6 see SCOTT/page 6 Future officers seek to unite religion, role in military Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series looking at the discussion concerning the place of ROTC at a Catholic university. ♦ Balancing between both worlds, ROTC and Notre Dame By TIM LOGAN ethics and morality from the moment they step Senior Staff Writer on campus. From classroom discussions to dining hall chit When Pete Sweeney starts to talk about flying, chat to an organized retreat, students in ROTC his eyes light up. are frequently asked to think about the impor­ The junior has loved airplanes his whole life, tance of morality in military service, and to dis­ and when he found out he could get make a living cern if four years, or more, in the armed forces flying the fastest, most powerful jets in the world, is right for them. and pay for college doing it, he signed up for the “[The environment] doesn’t allow you to sit Reserve Officer Training Corps [ROTC]. back and accept everything,” said Chris Rupar, a Next year, he will graduate from Notre Dame sophomore Air Force cadet. “When you go into and go on to pilot training school, and at least a the service you have this in your mind, and how 10-year career in the Air Force, preparing for the faith plays a role.” day when he may have to fly a plane into combat. The ROTC curriculum focuses on leadership Sweeney is one of the nearly 400 students and ethics, not on how to build a bomb or fire a enrolled in Notre Dame’s ROTC program, and, like gun. The future officers are trained to lead other many of those students, he thinks about what it soldiers, and to make decisions that could have means to be a Catholic serving in the military. serious consequences. And while most ROTC KEVIN DALUM/The Observer While ROTC’s critics argue that the program has students get scholarships to pay for college, the Future officers, such as these ROTC members, are no place at a Catholic university, many of those program puts significant emphasis on making trained to lead other soldiers, and to make decisions involved with it say that the nature of this school, and ROTC, forces future officers to wrestle with see ROTC/ page 4 that could have serious consequences. page 2 The Observer ♦ INSIDE Wednesday, January 31, 2001 In s id e C o lu m n T h is W eek in S o u th B e n d Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday A boys world ♦ Event: Notre Dame ♦ Fundraising: St. Joseph ♦ Movie: “American ♦ Event: South Bend Women's Basketball, Tree Sale Program, the Psycho”, Snite Museum of Symphony Masterworks I wish I had half the imagination that my lit- tlest brother Timmy (who just turned eight) has. Providence vs Notre Dame, Soil and Conservation Art, 7:30 p.m. Concert Series, Morris If I did, I’d be lying on a beach in the Caribbean Joyce Center, 7 p.m. District office, all day. Performing Arts Center, 8 right now with Tom Cruise next to me and a margarita in my hand. ♦ Event: South Bend p.m. Monday night, I started to Rotary Club meeting, tell Timmy about my trip to D C. for the Notre Dame- Century Center, 12 p.m. Georgetown basketball game and about visiting our sister, who goes to George Washington. But I figured out pretty quickly that Timmy had much more OUTSIDE THE D om e Compiled from U-Wirereports interesting news. Kathleen Timmy, by far the most O’Brien entertaining, unpredictable kid of the five in our family, Prof: Ashcroft questioned sexuality interrupted me to say, "Did Associate you know I’m probably Sports Editor WASHINGTON Ashcroft, who has been tapped faster than anybody in A Georgetown University profes­ to head the Department of Justice sports history?” sor has alleged that Attorney as the nation’s chief law enforce­ I have no idea how that popped into his mind, General nominee John Ashcroft ment agent, and his aides have but I went along with the idea. I asked Timmy questioned the professor’s sexual denied he ever asked a question how he knew he was so fast, and he said, “I just preference during a 1985 job f about sexual preference to Offner. know.” interview. The allegations have “That question was never asked Duh, Kathleen. Why even ask such a silly added to the controversy sur­ of Paul Offner or anyone else,” question? rounding the appointment of one X-I e o r g e t o w n Carl Koupal, one of the directors He then added, “I’m even faster than John of the country’s most outspoken of Ashcroft’s gubernatorial transi­ El way.” conservatives to President George tion team, said in an interview I’m not sure what makes the Broncos quarter­ W. Bush’s Cabinet. director of Missouri Health with the Milwaukee Journal back the speediest guy ever, but if Timmy says Paul Offner, a research professor Services, Offner said he was asked Sentinel. so, it must be true. at the Georgetown Public Policy only two questions, one about his Offner, a Democrat, said he “Wow, Timmy! If you’re so fast, you’ll proba­ Institute, says that Ashcroft asked sexual preference and another decided to come forward with the bly win gold medals in track in the Olympics,” I him if he had “the same sexual about drug use. Offner said that he allegation after Ashcroft asserted in told him. preference as most men” during a also denied ever having used illegal confirmation hearings in front of “Probably like 2,500 medals, or maybe 1985 interview while Ashcroft was drugs.