Remember the Titans is a gripping movie about an integrated football team, the Titans.  This past week, Nichols had the honor of welcoming to campus Herman Boone, the real-life coach of the Titans football team and now a motivational speaker. I was excited to hear from Coach Boone because I have watched the movie so many times. Honestly, I could probably recite the whole movie by memory. Any time it comes on TV, I always watch it even if it was on the night before.

In 1971, the superintendent of the high school asked Boone to coach the football team, over the current Coach Yoast, who was white. However, Coach Boone was not just coaching; he was bringing people together, two races that have been brought up to not like each other. This was a challenge, but a challenge he wanted to take.

Boone started off the night by talking about all of the racial issues that were happening during that time. Boone did this to help us realize how difficult it was to bring all of the male athletes together as one. He worked on respect because he believed that was the greatest thing for a team. Boone discussed how at the first team meeting, many white kids told him they did not want to play for him because he was black, and many black kids told him they did not want to play because they did not want to be on the same team as the white players. However, Boone said, “Once they learned to respect one another for their differences, they really became the team I believed they could be.”

Boone gave us some insight about his coaching skills and about the movie. My favorite part of the movie was when he took the athletes to Gettysburg College for football camp. This is when the guys began to realize their differences and embrace them. One scene from the movie showed Boone waking them up at 3 am for a run to the location of the Battle of Gettysburg. However during his talk, he told us that did not actually happen; instead of running at 3 am, he took them on buses at 9 pm. This was a little disappointing for me because during this part the boys were really starting to become closer. They would not let one of their teammates fall behind.

On the bus back from football camp, Coach Boone said, “I saw a black man dancing to country western music and that is when I knew I had a football team.”

To make the night even better we got free green t-shirts which said, “Remember the Bison” (a good one for Nichols). At the end of the speech Coach Boone signed autographs. The line was long and I could not wait, but that goes to show how truly inspirational he was and how much students enjoyed his presentation.

Author and speaker, Wes Moore came to Nichols on November 19^th to talk about his book, The Other Wes Moore. I enjoyed going to this event because he talked about his life, the other Wes Moore’s life, and writing the book. The bookis about two boys who have the same name and lived blocks away from each other in Baltimore, Maryland. They both took different paths to end up where they are today. The speaker Wes Moore went to college and then went into the military, the other Wes Moore lived a life of crime and is now serving a life sentence.

The most interesting part of his speech for me was when he tried to come up with a book title. He listed six titles and told his publishers they could pick one of the six. The publishers had a different idea; they wanted to name the book The Other Wes Moore. At first Moore had his doubts because he was not sure if he wanted his name on the cover of the book. For example, he made a comment about how one does not see J.K. Rowling naming her book The Other J.K. Rowling. He also mentioned how the book was not about him and how he did not want people to think it was all about him. So having the book title as The Other Wes Moore, may give off the impression that it is. He wanted everyone to know that the book is primarily about “the other”. Wes also talked about how everything on the inside of the book is what the author wants to get out into the world. Everything on the outside the book is what the publisher wants the readers to see. With that comment he said how he had no idea who the little boy on the front cover of his book was.

A student asked Wes, what motivated him to write a book. I was glad someone asked this question because I wondered this myself. He said one time when he was listening to a celebrity speak he heard the guy say, “I just want to say thank you to all of my haters.” Then he said, “Haters do not motivate me, that just sounds dumb.” He began by talking about how his family and readers motivate him. Also, talking about his book makes him want to keep writing because he sees all of the people listening to him.

To this day, Wes Moore the author, still visits Wes in jail. He does it mainly because they have the same name. When he first heard about the prisoner, Wes Moore and his story, he visited him in jail, not knowing that he was going to write a book about him. So even though the book is written, he still enjoys talking to Wes and answering any weird questions he may have like, “What did you have for dinner yesterday?” even though he already asked it before. He does those things because the other Wes Moore is in jail for life.

His speech was very powerful. I was interested the whole entire time he talked. Not once did I wish I was somewhere else.

Believe it or not, Nichols College is haunted. Right before Halloween, Ghost Hunter Chris Fleming came to campus and confirmed it. The event freaked me out.

In the first part, Chris gave a presentation about his life as a ghost hunter and his experiences in this spooky profession. Later, he had all of us (there were about 50 people at the event in Fels) put our names on a piece of paper and put the names in a bucket. These were the people whom Chris would choose to take on the ghost hunt. Now, I’m not too keen on ghost hunting. But my roommate is and really wanted to go on the hunt. We put our names in. I told her if my name got picked and hers didn’t, that she could take my place. Both of us were called so off I went.

We started off the hunt at Fels because Chris believed there was definitely something paranormal there, and lo and behold, he was right! There apparently is a lot of paranormal activity in Fels.

As my friends and I stood outside of Fels, we all looked at each other as we felt like something was behind us. We asked Chris to consult his ‘spirit box’ and check if someone was behind us. Right away an answer came out of the spirit box, “yes.” I freaked out. We then asked the spirit box what my friend was wearing on her head and it said “white hat.” My friend then asked if the spirit’s name was Charlie, and he answered with yes.

As it turns out, Charlie is my friend’s ghost. It follows her around. Crazy, I know, but true. She played the Ouija board game one night and Charlie never left her. Apparently, Charlie is also always in our room, thus ensuring I will never sleep again.

We moved on to Academy Hall where Chris found three ghosts. He contacted the spirits through the box. The man ghost would not allow the others to talk to us. He kept telling us to “get out” and he even swore at us a couple times. At this point, I really wanted to leave, but we stayed on.

When we finally left we took a group picture with Chris Fleming. A little later when everyone got back from the ghost hunt people told me that I missed it. I wasn’t too sure I wanted to know but I asked, “Missed what?”

Apparently when they were all walking past Conrad they looked at the top floor and all the lights turned on. Some of my friends say they saw a woman’s face. Later that night, I went to N&J’s ; when I came back the lights were still on. So I pointed at the building to a friend and as soon as I pointed all of the lights turned off.

Honestly, this whole ghost-hunting idea completely freaks me out and I am still not entirely sure why I went. Now I am officially done with ghost hunting and will never do it again.