O'Connell's Irish Pub & Grille to Close First Location

Longtime Norman nightlife staple O'Connell's Irish Pub & Grille will be closing its Lindsey Street location in January next year, leaving the local business' Campus Corner O'Connell's its sole location.

According to owner Jeff Stewart, the popular bar and restaurant received notice at the beginning of December from OU, which owns the property known as "the Corner" of Jenkins and Lindsey streets. 

     

"[There were] several ideas that they were going to put here, I understand, and dormitories met the best use for the property," said Stewart, who has been renting the property from OU since it acquired the area in 2008 after the state Board of Regents' approval. OU also bought property behind O'Connell's off of Lindsey on Lincoln Avenue in summer 2009. 

This closing notice, which neighboring businesses like Subway, Pad Thai and Campus Market received as well, came after the Board approved the $75-million project this fall.  

     

"It's of my understanding that by mid-February they'll bulldoze all of it," Stewart said.

     

OU plans to construct new, mid-rise Sooner Center Student Housing facilities starting sometime next year that will include more than 380 beds, central dining, computer labs, study rooms and a Faculty-in-Residence apartment. Parking will include approximately 65 spots.

     

Minutes detailing the project design, which was to be presented to the board for approval this fall, hadn't been posted at the time this story was posted.

     

The project will be completed by fall 2013.

     

Norman residents and O'Connell's regulars Gordon Mercer, Greg McDougal, Robert Killian and OU alumna Cassie Carson have been coming together for five years to watch Monday Night Football games while drinking from beer taps at their table.

     

Mercer, who has been coming since 1970 to O'Connell's, said its atmosphere is what has kept bringing him back, and isn't happy to see his favorite Monday-night locale shut down. 

     

"I think it's wrong," he said. "[O'Connell's] has been here a long time, it's a place where kids can go and release some steam from all the work that's required from education." 

     

Mercer and his friends said they don't know where they will go for hang-outs instead. 

     

"We'll meet somewhere, we've been doing it for a long time," he said, joking as the others sitting next to him laughed too. "Probably at the top of the parking garage."

Runtime: 1:40

Video by: Alex Ewald and Chelsey Kraft

OU Offers Student-Athletes Tutoring

Brooke Campbell, Tutorial Coordinator of OU Athletic
Academic Services, poses by a display case located
near the student-athlete tutoring center.
PHOTO: Chelsey Kraft

            At the University of Oklahoma, student-athletes are provided with tutoring through Athletic Academic Services. While student-athletes are required to attend mandatory tutoring sessions, they also have the option of scheduling sessions when additional help is needed. Approximately 50 tutors are available to assist the student-athletes, and Brooke Campbell is responsible for the coordinating of these sessions.

            Campbell just completed her first year of her Master’s Degree in Adult and Higher Education with an emphasis in Intercollegiate Athletic Administration at OU and serves as the Tutorial Coordinator of OU Athletic Academic Services. She says that on a daily basis she schedules sessions between student-athletes and tutors as well as manages payroll for the tutors.

            According to the Fall 2010 Tutoring Manual, tutoring is offered in all subject areas, and student-athletes can visit any of the three learning center labs dedicated to mathematics, language and writing and study skills. Student-athletes are also given the option to work one on one with a tutor or in small groups with tutors to review course material.

            For Campbell, her current job is ideal in preparing her to reach her career goals.

“I want to make a difference in someone’s life. I see all the potential that student-athletes have and understand all of the stresses that they are facing now. I want to serve some role where I can be an influential person for even just one person - advise them, train them, educate them, mentor them,” Campbell says. “I have a great job and am meeting some very important people who can guide me to the sort of position I have just described.”

            To read more about tutoring and other academic services offered to student-athletes visit http://www.soonersports.com/acad-services/okla-academic-support.html. 

Brooke Campbell explains some of the tasks she performs as Tutorial Coordinator of OU Athletic Academic Services.

SoonerVision Provides Multimedia for OU Fans

Brandon Meier, Executive Director of
Video Production for SoonerVision, stands
in the department's studio.
PHOTO: Chelsey Kraft

            At University of Oklahoma football games, basketball games and other sporting events, SoonerVision maintains screens and scoreboards that provide information for fans in attendance.

            Brandon Meier, Executive Director of Video Production for SoonerVision, says the department provides an important service by showing out-of-town scores and keeping fans entertained during timeouts with videos. Meier says the department also creates commercial spots, makes the intro videos for Sooner teams, produces highlight tapes, streams events and creates recruiting videos, among other tasks.

SoonerVision was created in 1997 when the first big screen was put in at the football stadium, but Meier says a multimedia department was established at the university before then. In 1946, an OU film professor named Ned Hockman combined with the athletic department to start filming sports. OU also had the first college football coach’s show in history, which featured coach Bud Wilkinson.

Meier, who has worked for SoonerVision for four years, began working at a television station in high school and realized he enjoyed the production process that occurred behind the camera. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, he worked there for eight years then for the Houston Rockets for four years before coming to OU. He says his favorite part of his job is the instant impact received from fans after a video plays.

“If you are a television producer and you produce a show in primetime, you may have to wait until the next week to get the Nielsen Ratings to decide if they liked it,” Meier says. “When we play a video in front of 80,000 people in the football stadium, at the end of the video they will either get up on their feet and give you a loud applause or they won’t. That instant impact is one of those things that is really fun and unique about what we do.”

SoonerVision's control room
PHOTO: Chelsey Kraft

            See the SoonerVision scoreboard and videos Saturday during OU’s last home football game against Texas Tech or read more about SoonerVision at http://www.soonersports.com/school-bio/sooner-vision.html.

Brandon Meier explains some of the history of SoonerVision and multimedia at the
University of Oklahoma.

"60 Minutes" Photojournalist Shares Career Experiences

Recently, “60 Minutes” aired a report over the combat in Afghanistan. The man responsible for capturing the shots seen on the screen is “60 Minutes” photojournalist Ray Bribiesca. On Monday, Nov. 1, Bribiesca spoke to a group of students at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication on the campus of the University of Oklahoma.

"60 Minutes" photojournalist Ray
Bribiesca speaks with students of the
Gaylord College of Journalism and
Mass Communication about his
experiences throughout his career.

            When asked what was his thought process was filming the American soldiers in combat while turning his back to the Taliban, Bribiesca said he didn’t think; he just reacted to the situation. He compared the scenario to seeing a football player running down a football field a hundred yards for the winning touchdown in a national championship game. Then, the photojournalist has to react and capture the moment without thinking about anything else. At the same time, he addressed the possibility of danger in some situations.

“If something tragic happens to you, that is just part of the deal. It comes with the territory. All of a sudden you have the best shot in the world. He’s going with his hand here and he’s got the football over here and next thing you know somebody bumps you and you are on the ground. You get up and try to get another angle somewhere. That is just what you do,” Bribiesca said.

Bribiesca, who entered the Marine Corp as a combat cameraman at 17 years old, served in the Vietnam War. After returning from the war, he attended Oklahoma City University before taking a couple of courses at the University of Oklahoma. For over three decades, Bribiesca has had his job at CBS, where he said he has been assigned to a wide range of stories.

 “I have covered everything from presidential campaigns to Carter to President Obama. I have done every war. Every war. I have been wounded a couple of times. I have been taken hostage once. I have pretty much done it all, so to speak, and it has been great. It has been a great, great ride,” Bribiesca said.

            Currently, Bribiesca is beginning his final assignment for “60 Minutes” before he retires: a story on Yemen. Bribiesca said bad news is anticipated to come out of the country. He said that as people leave the capital city of Sana’a, there is a good chance that they will be killed or kidnapped. Bribiesca and “60 Minutes” correspondent Lara Logan are going to travel this dangerous route for their story.

Jenni Carlson: A Woman in the Sports Media World

             Coming from a sports-oriented family in which her dad played small college baseball before moving onto a coaching career and her mother’s father was also a baseball coach, Jenni Carlson was exposed to an array of sports from a young age. In high school, Jenni Carlson decided to experiment with marrying her love of sports with her newfound interest in journalism into a career. It worked.

Born in Clay Center, Kansas, a small town about 40 miles from Manhattan, Carlson earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism in May of 1997 from the University of Kansas. The day after graduation, she began her job as a high school sports columnist for the Kansas City Star. In August of 1999, she was hired by the Oklahoman and has worked there ever since as a sports columnist.

Jenni Carlson, sports columnist for the
Oklahoman, poses in the studio
located in the newspaper's building.
PHOTO: Chelsey Kraft

Carlson says that despite being a woman in a journalist field that is characteristically male-dominated, she has never felt any overwhelming negativity or sexism. She also says she has had constant support from the people she has needed on her side, such as her coworkers, bosses and sources. Also, she understands that her specific job as a columnist may receive negative attention, whether she is a man or a woman.

“As a columnist there are going to be people that disagree whether I am a woman, man, it doesn’t matter. Part of being a columnist is saying things and eliciting emotion that may not be comfortable. Some of the emotion may be very negative, very angry,” Carlson says.

Although Carlson’s background is as a writer, she has had to learn new skills that fit into the strides the Oklahoman has taken in order to fit into the new media shaped by recent advances in technology. Aside from her column, Carlson also writes a blog.  Once a week, she and other columnists and reporters chat with readers online, and they also appear in videos for the newspaper’s website, www.newsok.com. Facebook and Twitter are both also utilized by Carlson because the two can create some exposure of the Oklahoman to a generation that is computer-oriented. She also uses the social media outlets in an attempt to show her personality and try to build a connection with readers because she believes it is important to be more than just a flat, two-dimensional face in a newspaper.

Carlson says that despite the change going on, she and her colleagues are still focused on the basics of journalism.

“What we do is still rooted in what we have always done, which is build sources, break news, tell stories, entertain, inform, all those sorts of things that newspapers were always meant to do…Those are things that we are going to do whether it’s now or ten years ago or ten years from now or ten minutes from now,” Carlson says.

            For aspiring journalists, Carlson offers advice including to possess a willingness to work hard and to take any story that may come one’s way and make the most of it. Also, she suggests that journalism students do their best to become as well rounded as possible since multimedia is becoming predominant in the industry. She says writers now have to think about if there is a video element, multimedia element, web link or blog, among other aspects, that could become part of a story.

            “Thinking about those things has made me a better storyteller. It has made me think of things more visually…You tend to think a little more broadly than you used to if it was just words on a page,” Carlson said.

Jenni Carlson, sports columnist for the Oklahoman,
discusses what it is like to be a woman in the
male-dominated world of sports media as well as
gives advice to aspiring journalists.

Slideshow Exercise

CART Shuttles Provide Convenience for Sooner Fans

Selena Belvin, Safety and Security Officer and 
Route Supervisor for CART, stands by a bus 
parked at the garage area.
PHOTO: Chelsey Kraft

            During OU home football game days, traffic and limited parking locations around Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium may make parking difficult. Cleveland Area Rapid Transit (CART), which provides public transportation for the city of Norman and the University of Oklahoma, offers a solution to this dilemma.  

            Selena Belvin, Safety and Security Officer and Route Supervisor for CART, says for two dollars round-trip, fans can park in the Lloyd Noble Center parking lot and ride the CART shuttle to campus. A five dollar round-trip service is available for people who wish to park at the Westheimer Airport. A total of 16 buses operate on game days, and about 7000 people utilize the CART service when the Sooners play in Norman.

             The shuttles begin running three hours before kickoff during most home games. This Saturday will be an exception when the Sooners host the Iowa State Cyclones for homecoming. CART will run buses four hours before kickoff, which is set at 6 p.m., so that people can attend the homecoming parade. After the game is finished, the buses will run for up to an hour or until the lines no longer exist. CART does not run regularly scheduled bus routes during home football games due to traffic congestion and the general access closure of the South Oval, which serves as the transit hub for CART.

Belvin, who began working for CART as a route driver seven years ago, says the football shuttle has run since before she began working at the company. Now, as a route supervisor, she has a different role on game days than she originally did.

“My role on game days is to coordinate. What I do is that I make sure the drivers are where they need to be when they need to be there to be more efficient with transporting our passengers. I also answer any questions for our customers. I am actually out on scene during the whole time, except for when I go to my office to do some paperwork,” Belvin says.

After this Saturday’s game, CART will also operate for the final two home games of the season on Oct. 30 and Nov. 13.

Selena Belvin explains the process by which fans can ride the CART shuttles on OU home football game days.