The Prospector

By Brian Ishisaka, Staff writer

What a start to the season for the Sacramento Kings!  The Kings originally started the 2014-2015 season with a 5-2 record, something that hasn’t been done since the 2001-2002 season.  However, with a recent losses to teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder, Memphis Grizzlies, and New Orleans Pelicans, their record now stands at 11-10, which is still very good compared to some of the top teams in the NBA.

So what is the difference from this season’s start compared to previous years? Some may say that it is rookie Nik Stauskas’ play, but he hasn’t quite made his mark yet.  The main difference is the team’s DEFENSE AND TEAM CHEMISTRY.

Two of the King’s stars, Demarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay, seem to be playing the game with ease after winning a gold medal with Team USA this past summer.  Demarcus is proving to the league why he is in the talks of being the best big man in the league.  Additionally, Ben McLemore, who is now in his sophomore season, is shining as a player in the starting five.  Ben has tremendously improved his defense and his shot will come back in due time. Not only are Ben, Rudy, and Demarcus the talk of the town right now, but the King’s new point guard, Darren Collison is the catalyst to the King’s success.  Collison was acquired in free agency and he formerly played for the Los Angeles Clippers.  The former Clipper made key plays during their playoff run last year and knows the ins and outs of the game, since he was able to learn from one of the top guards in the NBA, that in Chris Paul.  Not to mention, Bleacher Report, ranked Collison number four on the top fourteen most underrated players on the NBA.  His speed, ball handling, and court vision, complements this team perfectly.

A big factor in the Kings early success is the new ownership too.  The owners have

brought a new pride to the city of Sacramento.  Their enthusiasm and charisma are bringing a spirit of greatness to this team.  Also, by changing the jerseys and the court layout in the arena, this ball club is looking better than ever.

All these changes have definitely not gone to waste as well.  Since their outstanding start to the season, the Kings have obtained more national televised games and have been recognized more by sports analysts too.  The Sacramento Kings are definitely a team to keep an eye on this season.

By Emily Griesenbeck, Staff writer

Relaxed. That’s how I would describe Alt-j’s new album, This is all Yours. It’s like going from 100 to 0.  Alt-j’s first album, An Awesome Wave, was just that– an awesome wave of instruments and vocals, all thrown down at once, like a wave crashing against the sand. It was everything from weird noises and chaotic instrumental backgrounds (Fitzpleasure, specifically) to fifty-three seconds of soft, cooing voices (Interlude 3, anyone?).

This is all Yours brings a different element to the table. Their second album is like An Awesome Wave, but after their neighbors asked them to turn the music down. It’s calmer and doesn’t have as many explosions of sound thrown into generally relaxing songs. As I listened to it, all I could think about was things in slow motion because, overall, the album is a lot slower and smoother than their first album. It did, however, include much of the indecipherable English that so frequently appeared in their first album. Much of This is all Yours was easily identifiable with the style of Alt-j, but many of their songs were also songs that you would assume a yoga instructor would play during final relaxation.

Although I felt that this was a more mature and toned down version of the Alt-j that I know, I liked it. As I lay in my bed, headphones in, listening to the album, I felt as if I were falling, slowly, so incredibly slowly, through the air for an infinite distance. Not to mention their sixteen minute song, Leaving Nara–that went by pretty slowly.

By Abby Douglas, Staff writer

On Tuesday, November 11, the African country of Morocco was expelled from the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. The Africa Cup is the continent’s largest and most competitive soccer tournament. It is a biennial championship between 16 teams from many African countries scheduled to take place from January 17 to February 8, 2015.

Morocco was originally scheduled to be the host of the 2015 Africa Cup, but it attempted to postpone the tournament by six months or a year in order to decrease the threat of the Ebola virus to the Cup’s thousands of participants and attendees. This attempted postponement resulted the Confederation of African Football’s expulsion of Morocco both from the position of host country and the privilege of sending a team to represent the country in the Africa Cup.

Morocco was expelled from the tournament due to the Confederation of African Football’s accusation that Moroccan officials were being “alarmist” in attempting to push the Cup back to a later date. According to the New York Times, a postponement of the championship could potentially be financially crippling to the regional soccer governing body.

Currently, the Ebola virus has not reached Morocco, though it is relatively close to the countries of West Africa where the virus has reached catastrophically epidemic levels. The countries of Western Sahara and Mauritania lie between Morocco and Senegal, Mali, and Guinea, three countries either very recently declared Ebola-free, at high risk of Ebola, or currently facing an Ebola outbreak.

Even so, Moroccan soccer officials remain worried about the possibility of Ebola spreading to their country through the Africa Cup. They firmly refused to host the tournament championships at the scheduled time in January 2015.

The West African countries with the largest outbreaks of Ebola are Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. These countries have participated in the Africa Cup in previous years, but no teams from any of these countries have qualified to compete in 2015. Liberia’s soccer team has already been eliminated in preliminary rounds. Sierra Leone is still in the running, but their team is less likely to qualify because it is in last-place in its group. Guinea, however, has a team tied for third in its group that has the chance to qualify later this month.

In the months since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, these countries have faced issues surrounding their soccer teams playing in other places. Sierra Leone in particular experienced brutal discrimination against their soccer team when they played in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as in Cameroon. While Sierra Leone’s team was on the field, a chant of “Ebola, Ebola” started. They were also placed in an empty hotel while playing in Cameroon as well as forced to undergo checks for the Ebola virus twice a day, even though the players had not been in Sierra Leone for about three months.

No country has stepped up enthusiastically to take Morocco’s place, though Angola, Nigeria, and Gabon are possibilities. The Confederation of African Football will have to either find a new host country, postpone the tournament, or cancel it altogether. African soccer players, officials, and fans await their decision, which is expected to come soon.

By Kimaya Cole, Staff writer

On Monday, October 20th, our girl’s volleyball team battled against Kennedy in an intense game defining who would be one step closer to becoming the metro league champions. Kennedy came out strong the first set and beat our lions 25 to 17. With the help of Legion cheering our girls on and the hatred against Kennedy growing, CKM came back the second set to win. Rallying back and forth, having to go over the 25 point set limit, our lions pushed through to win 28 to 26. Trying to stay in the game, Kennedy came back to win the third set 26 to 24. CKM had to win the 4th set or the win would go to JFK, so our lions turned up the heat and won 25 to 18. Starting the last set off strong with a lead of 4-0, our CKM Lions just came up short on the last few hits. With a sad, unfortunate loss for our girls, the JFK Cougars left the Lion’s den with a 16 to 14 victory.

Even though we didn’t come through with a win, it was a very intense, exciting rivalry game. Key players that stood out were Nia Evans, ‘16, and Kelsey Wong, ‘16. These juniors made a great duo. With Kelsey’s perfect sets and Nia’s stellar spikes and blocks, JFK struggled to keep up. But overall, if anyone saw our girl’s volleyball team competing, they would agree that our team is stacked with strong, hard-working players.

November 3rd, our girls got the chance to go up against the Sac high Dragons to tie Kennedy for metro league champions, but unfortunately, they lost by 2 in the very last set. However, they still got the chance to be in playoffs, ending in 3rd place.

On November 10th, the girls got the chance to move on in playoffs, playing the competitive Pitman High School. Sadly, our lady lions lost all three games and Pitman ended up winning the Division 1 playoffs. Despite their loss, what a great season our McClatchy girl’s volleyball team had!

By Kimaya Cole, Staff writer

As Mr. Lambert always says, “Remember, it’s a great day to be a lion,”…. unless it’s 98 degrees outside and you’re on the verge of having a heat stroke. This comes from the dress code rule that’s gone WAY too far. Has the school administration crossed the line with the new dress code “sweep?” Is it really necessary to dress code students (mainly girls) for exposing too much shoulder or lower thigh? Does faculty really need to take a student from class, and interrupt lecture, to make them change?

On the announcements, Mr. Lambert always says we need to learn how to express our style in a “school” appropriate way, but it’s more than wanting to represent ourselves and our style. We wear certain clothes depending on the weather and wanting to be comfortable in class. When it’s hot outside, the first thing students are going to think about wearing are shorts and a tank top, NOT jeans that will suffocate our body, or long sleeves that will make it hard to focus in class because we’re too worried about the sweat stains we’re acquiring under our pits. They can try to scare students into conforming to the dress code, but the reality is the majority of students will still break the rules. And I’m sure students don’t wake up every morning with the main goal to try and attract the opposite sex by exposing their shoulders and thighs. The administration is trying to over-sexualize the appearance of students by claiming it is distracting. However, what’s distracting is conducting unnecessary “sweeps,” disrupting students and keeping them out of class.

The dress code has become so harsh that the idea of uniforms is starting to sound more appealing. But why should it even have to come to that point? McClatchy High School is a public school, not a private school, and it shouldn’t be treated like one.

Besides the fact that uniforms would be way too expensive for our school’s budget, they are uncomfortable with their cheap fabric. “Inappropriate” clothing is said to be the reason why students aren’t paying attention, but uniforms aren’t going to change that. Not only are uniforms expensive for the school, but some parents may not be able to buy uniforms for their child. Also, uniforms may violate certain students’ religion or beliefs. What will happen then? Will that child be forced to go to a different school? And last but not least, uniforms suppress individual expression and creativity. Uniforms don’t allow students to represent themselves and be unique.

Montana Vince (‘16), exclaimed, “Uniforms are expensive and would be ugly. I don’t want to be conformed to dress like everyone else. I want to be able to show my creativity through my clothes.”

McClatchy’s administration needs to loosen up and realize that there are a wide variety of clothes that are considered “in style,” but uniforms will never be a fan favorite.

By Kimaya Cole, Staff writer

What fun is spirit week when the majority of the school has no spirit? Yes, dressing up and going all out is “so middle school,” but we need something to give us a break from all of our studies. I’m not saying everyone needs to be decked out everyday, but it isn’t that hard to put on a tie dye shirt or wear red, white, and blue.

Part of the reason is that most of our spirit days are repetitive. Students get tired of dressing up for the same thing every year. The names might be a little twisted, but the overall concept is the same. For example, America Day, Mix & Match Day, and Athlete Day seem to be a few of the  favorites. Instead of ASB having the only say in choosing the school’s spirit days, the whole school should be involved. Maybe we could have a school poll and let us students choose the top five spirit days, or add suggestions of our own. This will give more students the satisfaction of dressing up if they know they were a part of the decision process.

Another problem is that students don’t have anything to motivate them to dress up or to look forward to afterwards. It sucks that students need bribery to do something as simple as showing school spirit, but that’s the way it is. Multiple people have suggested that we make spirit week a class competition. Each class would compete against one another, obtaining a point for every person that shows spirit. At the end of spirit week, the points would be tallied up, and whichever class wins would be announced and recognized at the rally. Since everyone loves a little competition, this would be the perfect motivator to get students more involved in spirit days. Also, students love getting rewarded with candy in the morning. Who doesn’t love candy, right? There should be different types or sizes of candy handed out determined by how much spirit you have. These fun little activities and bribes might be the key to having a more spirited school.

Last, but not least, multiple students don’t dress up because they fear that they will be too dressed up and made fun of. More than once, I’ve heard people in the halls say, “Well I wasn’t sure if anyone else was going to dress up so I didn’t want to be the only one..” But you will only be the odd one out if you show no spirit. I think a lot of students think that they will look weird or crazy, but 1) they shouldn’t care what people think about them and 2) if everyone else in the school is decked out in wild outfits, there’s no reason to be judging anyone else.

Spirit days are a great way to let loose and show school spirit. What makes it fun is seeing your peers’ creativity and what they ch

oose to wear for each day. When there are a lot of people not dressed up, it brings down the mood. There are a few things that could possibly be changed to increase the amount of students who participate, but overall, showing your school spirit shouldn’t be something to dread.