When I walked into the classroom that morning, I was a little curious as to see what my teacher would say.After all, it wasn’t just any Thursday. It was Thursday, Nov. 13. While that date may not have any historical significance, it was a day that was supposed to be special in 2008. At 10 a.m. millions of

ShakeOut.org

Californians were supposed to participate in the the Great Southern California ShakeOut Drill, “the largest earthquake preparedness activity in U.S. history” according to shakeout.org. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) organized the statewide event that was created to practice earthquake safety for schools, institutions and businesses in California. Participants were told to act as though a magnitude 7.8 earthquake was occuring at 10 a.m. sharp and to drop, duck and cover themselves. Additionally, participants were expected to follow other drill instructions before heading outside. ShakeOut’s Web site provided some videos for participants to practice before the drill as well.

“The planned emergency drill [was] underpinned by the most comprehensive analysis ever of what a major Southern California earthquake would mean on the ground,” said Dr. Lucile Jones, chief scientist and organizer of USGS’s earthquake demonstration, according to usgs.gov. “We know this science will help state and local agencies develop comprehensive emergency-response plans that will help us avoid the worst impacts of a major quake.”

The drill was pushed into action with the help of a group of scientists that concluded a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault was due to hit Southern California within the next 30 years. While thay may be a long time span, organizers argued it is never to early to start preparing for safety.

Because broadcast and print news had devoted a significant amount of coverage to the event, I didn’t know what to expect when my writing class began that Thursday morning. Immediately when my professor came in, he had a smile on his face. He informed my class that we wouldn’t be participating in the drill, and he considered it quite silly for adults to even consider it. The more I thought about it, the more I tended to side with him. Ducking under my desk for no apparent reason did seem pretty foolish. I had been in earthquake drills and even made it through the major 1994 Northridge earthquake. I knew what to expect.

So fine, my class didn’t participate in the drill. I was sure other classes were involved. However, when my next class began, students and our professor began joking about the drill. “I mean come on,” my teacher said. “It wasn’t realistic for us to do anything.” As my Thursday continued, I spoke to more people about the drill. By the end of the day I was left with one glaring fact: No one I talked to had participated. In fact, until this very day I haven’t spoken to anyone who participated in the classroom. No one took the drill seriously.

Outside of USC, people working at companies and institutions shared the same feelings. Ryann Russell, manager of branded integration at Sony Pictures in Culver City, said her office did not participate in the drill, despite an article on the company’s internal home page about the event. “I feel it was unnecessary,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I didn’t understand how it would help me if and when there is a big earthquake in Southern California.”

Additionally, Bob Levey, a life insurance agent in the San Fernando Valley, also did not participate in the drill. While he said he wouldn’t call the drill “a joke,” he did say people probably didn’t participate because he sees it as “an exercise in futility. I mean if the house falls in, or our building collapses, what are we going to do? The drill can’t stop that.”

While the general adult population did not feel the need to drop and cover, many children in elementary schools did practice in the event. Our Lady of Grace in Encino held a school-wide drill at 10 a.m. that Thursday morning. But according to computer teacher Kristen Thorner, “It wasn’t differen’t from any other normal drills we do. We already hold fire drills, so it’s nothing new.”

While the drill may have gotten young people’s attention, was the flop really worth it for Californians? The state invested over money and time in setting up ShakeOut on Nov. 13, but organizers failed to realize a lot of adults would find it silly to pretend that an earthquake was occurring. After all, adults are not 5-year-old children. Playtime ended years ago.

Rather than having the state invest money and time into an earthquake drill for something that may or may not happen in the next 30 years, the government should be focusing more on bigger issues, like state and national economy. In February 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that California’s state budget deficit had reached $16 billion, an incredibly large amount to make up for any state. With the national and local economies in such a dire state, throwing money at the ShakeOut Drill seemed unnecessary, especially after the resulting adult participation rate.

Despite the low turnout, officials still see the drill as a success. “A lot did get done,” said Steve Goldfarb, a

Some members of the USC community participated in the ShakeOut Drill Nov. 13 on Cromwell Field. Christianna Kyriacou, Daily Trojan.

fire and emergency specialst at USC’s Fire Safety and Emergency Planning department. “A lot of people did do it, and we’ve done surveys to determine what they felt. It was worth it and we should do it more often. It’s definitely not a lost cause.”

And while no one inside USC classrooms I spoke to participated Nov. 13, close to 500 students and faculty participated in an event outside on Cromwell Field consisting of fake bloody victims scattered across the field for the Campus Emergency Response Team to find and help. According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, USC did a fine job in executing a drill that could help in the future.

“They planned a very good drill with a lot of different people involved,” said LAFD Capt. John Pecel. “Usually when you have a lot of people like that, it’s a challenge. The places we saw were very impressive.”

While officials viewed the Cromwell incident as a success, my classmates and I saw it as another foolish move by organizers. It was way over the top and even comical to see others doused in red and being saved from absolutely nothing. The event just wasn’t fit for an adult audience.

I’m all for the state and other experts trying to get together and find solutions to problems. But next time, I hope they devote time to the right issues, like the economy or education, and not a fake earthquake. Otherwise, maybe it would be time for them to stop and drop out of their jobs.

Off the top of my head, those are the five main interests that I have in my life at this moment that I could see myself actually writing about. If I had to narrow it down to one, it would be easy: baseball. I’ve been a die-hard Yankees’ fan since I was a kid, and after watching so much baseball throughout the years, I’ve become an expert in most things having to do with Major League Baseball.

Why does baseball attract me more than anything else? I don’t know for sure, but I do know my family had a lot of influence. They basically ingrained Yankee pinstripes into my head when I was born, and outside of that, little league was a great experience for me. All in all, more than any other sport, baseball has just held a special place for me, whether I was out on the field playing or at home with my family screaming at the Yankees on the television.

Even though I feel like I know a lot about the sport, there’s plenty out there I don’t know. While I know a lot about things pertaining to the game on the field, I’m only moderately aware of how a lot of things off the field work. For instance, I don’t have a solid grasp of how contract negotiations work and aspects having to do with the Players’ Union. I’m also not sure how waivers or other small aspects of the game work entirely. By reading more about these issues either on ESPN.com or through other web sites and sports magazines or newspapers, I feel like I could easily gain this knowledge. It’s just a matter of taking the time to research these topics. At the end of the day, it would make me a better writer and a more knowledgeable fan.

If I were to blog about Major League Baseball in general, I think I would have a hard time trying to get my blog to stand out from everybody elses. However, If I were to blog specifically about the Yankees, I think I could definitely make my viewpoints and issues in my blog better than others’. After watching nearly every single Yankees’ game for the last 9-10 years, I’ve become quite an expert on Yankee baseball. I would not only be able to cover the current issues of today, but I would also be able to compare these issues to ways the Yankees as an organization have handled these problems in the past. Also, I know Yankees players, coaches and prospects inside and out at this point, which allows me to provide in-depth analysis in covering the people who make the Yankees tick on and off the field. Additionally, I can write articulately and know plenty of baseball terminology for any Yankees’ fan to read and understand. Blogging about Yankees’ baseball would truly be an exciting experience for me where I could learn a lot about myself, improve my writing and help others learn all at the same time. I’d definitely consider myself a true expert.

But, the funny thing is, Hammer isn’t a Clippers’ fan. In fact, he’s a die-hard Lakers’ fan and has rooted against the Clippers as far back as he can remember. However, Hammer did draft Mobley in one of his

Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Roster

fantasy basketball leagues. “That’s why I play fantasy sports,” Hammer says. “because it makes me root for players I would normally not root for. It makes me interested in games I would normally not care about.”

In the end, Hammer won on both fronts as Mobley helped the student’s fantasy team, and the Lakers managed to pull out a big win riding a 22-0 run in the fourth quarter. While some may think it’s unusual for sports fans to root for players on opposing teams, Hammer and millions of other fantasy sports players often do just that. With the rise of the Internet in the 1990s, Ben Klayman writes fantasy sports  – a game where fans draft and manage real athletes on their own unreal teams and play against other teams in their league of the same makeup – became one of the most popular activities in the United States for sports enthusiasts. Fantasy sports was moderately popular in the 1980s but became a sensation when the Internet became a mass commodity in the late ’90s, and Web sites like Yahoo! and ESPN began promoting leagues. Although it began with football, fantasy sports now includes baseball, basketball, hockey, Nascar, fishing, soccer and golf leagues among others.

Currently, nearly 30 million Americans play fantasy sports, and annual revenue is in the range of $800 million to $1 billion, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association – a group of volunteers who speak for the industry. “We’ve seen about a 20 to 25 percent player increase in each of the last five years,” said FSTA president Jeff Thomas. “It’s incredible. It’s such a consistent growth rate. I’ve been in the industry for 15 years, and I’ve seen growth for every year.”

In 1995, FSTA did a research study and discovered the primary three reasons people played fantasy sports. The first one was love of the sport. The second was love of competition. And the third reason was pride. “I think when you combine those three elements, where you can do something along with the sports that you love and compete against your buddies for pride, that combination is very strong, and its evolved over time in many ways into many types of games, products and concepts,” Thomas said. Hammer also believes those three elements are key reason why many people, including himself, spend hours of their week online checking their fantasy teams. “The competitiveness and pride has a lot to do with [why people play],” he

ESPN Fantasy Football Home Page

said. “Obviously it feels good to beat your close buddies and say you know more about sports than they do.”

While Hammer participates in a custom league against his friends, Thomas explained the evolution of fantasy sports has brought forth many options for players to find and enjoy. “Fantasy sports isn’t just one thing anymore like it used to be,” he said. “There’s private leagues, custom leagues, public leagues. There’s also salary cap leagues, pick ‘em style leagues, contests and games of up to 50,000 people playing against each other.”

Fantasy sports has become so popular in the United States that even ESPN, which promotes itself as the worldwide leader in sports, has dedicated part of its Web site, magazine, commercials and segments of television and radio shows to the game. ESPN has hired experts such as John Clayton, Eric Karabell, Matthew Berry and John Hollinger to advise fans on which players to draft, who to play on a given day and how to manage their teams. Additionally, ESPN has even produced commercials promoting its online fantasy sports leagues. Because fantasy sports has become such a phenom in American society, insiders at ESPN felt the need to include it into their repertoire in order to satisfy fans needs.

“From a branding perspective for corporations like ESPN, you have consumers engaged in the fantasy sports world,” Thomas said. “People spend on average four to six hours per week playing fantasy sports. That’s a seriously engaged consumer, and companies are looking to capitalize on that.”

While many may believe fantasy sports is only played by males, a recent study by SportsBuff.com on the effect of fantasy sports participation and the market place shows woman currently make up about 20 to 25 percent of fantasy sports players. However, the main demographic the game appeals to remains males between the ages of 18 and 49.

The game’s strides over the past 20 years have been enormous, and no one can really predict where the future of the game will take players. However, Thomas provided his insight on where he believes the fantasy sports are headed. “As an industry matures, more niche products evolve to support the industry,” he said. “We will continue to see more mobile products and more games on mobile products like PDA’s, Google and iPhones. As technology improves, we’ll have more platforms to play fantasy on and more software to use to our advantage.” That would be good news for fans like Hammer, who long for “more visual drafts with web cams and headsets” and other innovative software.

Although fantasy sports has come a long way in the United States since its early beginnings in the ’80s, Thomas feels the game will continue to spread, but not only in America and Canada. Right now, studies estimate that about five million people play fantasy sports overseas. That’s something Thomas views an an untapped market. “Beyond North America, companies and brands overseas are starting to recognize the power of fantasy sports, and we’ll see a very good pick up of fantasy sports in Europe and Asia over the next five years,” he said.

Despite its rapid breakthrough within the past decade, fantasy sports, as Thomas explains, may have just scratched the surface, and there’s no telling where it will end up in the next 10, 15 or even 20 years.

Fantasy Sports Study 2007

It was fun and easy for me to do. Little did I know, our teacher loved it. He said I had a knack for reporting and writing, and he told me at that moment he wanted me to be the managing editor of our school paper for my senior year. Of course, I said yes. And since that time, I’ve been working to build on my initial skills in journalism to become a great writer.

As time has progressed, I’ve realized my passion lay in sports reporting. I’ve been a sports’ fantatic since  league and pee-wee football. My favorite sport to watch, talk about and report on is Major League Baseball, and that’s what I hope to be covering after I graduate from USC and begin working in the real world.

Five years from now is so far away. I’m not quite sure what I’ll want in five years or where I’ll be in my life. I’m pretty sure I’ll still want to be a reporter, and I’m almost positive I’ll still love the game of baseball, but will everything work out? With print journalism becoming a dying breed and the economy’s continuing recession, it’s a question that doesn’t have an answer yet.

Ideally, WHEN I GROW UP I would love to be covering a Major League Baseball team for a nationally recognized newspaper, such as the Los Angeles Times or New York Times, or writing for ESPN The Magazine or Sports Illustrated. Those are big goals, however, and I don’t know if five years from now I’d be in that ballpark. But, that’s why I say those would be my ideal places to work. If I’m working for a small Web site or community newspaper where I am happy and covering sports, I think that would be a great accomplishment. Ideally, my future, perfect goal would be to have my own column and convey my news and opinions to the sports world. Until then, I’ll keep working at improving my writing and reporting, and in five years I’ll see if it works out.

Julian Decludt steps into his car outside of his house in Northridge and sits down in the driver’s seat. Immediately, he reaches into his glove box and pulls out his Plantronics 320 Blue Tooth head set. He activates the blue tooth option on his cell phone, and, after snapping the head set around his right ear, he puts his key in the ignition and begins driving to California State University, Northridge.

Four years ago, Decludt was involved a cell-phone related car accident. While driving to his friend’s house, the 16-year-old driver got a phone call. He looked down to see who was calling him, and by the time he looked back up his Infiniti J30 was a few feet away from crashing into a giant SUV stopped directly in front of him. Decludt slammed on the breaks, but it was too late. His car crash at about 50 mph straight into the SUV, which flew about 40 feet down the street.

Hands-free head sets have become mandatory for drivers to wear while talking on their cell phones and driving in California. The law became effective July 1, 2008.

Everything next happened so fast. Decludt’s air bag burst and drilled him in the face. He panicked and tried to get out of his car, but the door wouldn’t open. He began smelling burnt rubber and felt like his car was going to explode.

“It was the scariest moment of my life,” Decludt said.

Quickly, he regained his composure. He put his car in park, turned off the ignition and realized his door was locked. He unlocked it and burst out of the car. He lay on the sidewalk panting, still in disbelief of the accident. After all, he had only been driving for a few months.

“I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I had heard about so many driving accidents because of cell phones, but I never thought it would happen to me,” he said.

Since the car accident, Decludt has been cautious about the use of his cell phone in his car. Up until early July, he would rarely speak on the phone in his car, and when he did, he made sure to double check his surroundings before looking down and bringing the phone to his ear.

In July, however, plans changed.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger passed California Senate Bill 1613 in 2006, which “prohibits a driver from using a wireless phone while operation a vehicle, unless the phone is specifically designed and configured to allows hands-free operation and is used in that matter.” The only exception to the law is if drivers are calling emergency service providers. The bill became effective July 1, 2008. Drivers hit with a first-time offense will be fined $20. All other offenses will result in a $50 fine.

While Scharzenegger looked at the law as a step in the right direction to minimize accidents in California, others feel the law really doesn’t make a big difference. The law has drawn mixed reviews from Californians.

“For my accident, I was literally looking down for two seconds before I smashed into the car in front of me,” Decludt said. “There’s no way having a hands-free head set on my ear is going to keep me from doing that.

“The distraction of the cell phone is the big problem here, not the fact that I’m holding it in my hand. (Schwarzenegger) missed the big picture,” he added.

Even some California Highway Patrol officers aren’t sold on the plan completely.

“The good thing about not holding the phone to your ear is you do actually have your one hand free to keep on the wheel, but it would seem that the conversation itself is a distraction,” said CHP Officer Heather Hoglund. “Also, [the distraction] depends on what kind of conversation [drivers are having]. If it’s a heated conversation with a spouse or business partner, it could be just as much or a worse distraction than using a hand-held device. Any distraction is not a good distraction, and hands-free [devices] are a good start as far as I’m concerned. They’re just not enough for full safety.”

If safety is the issue California is trying to address, critics believe the state is starting in the wrong places. An American Automobile Association (AAA) Foundation for Traffic Safety study conducted in 2001 concluded 25 percent of car accidents are related to distractions. Even more importantly, however, the study shows only 1.5 percent of those accidents were due to cell phone use.

Distractions that posed bigger problems than cell phone use include an outside object, person or event (29.4 percent), adjusting the radio, cassette or CD (11.4 percent), another occupant in the vehicle (10.9 percent), vehicle / climate controls (2.8 percent) and eating or drinking (1.7 percent).

Although cell phones were only the eighth most common distraction during car accidents, supporters argue the law is important because it improves reaction time in the event of an emergency by allowing both of the driver’s hands to be on the wheel. Also, supporters feel California is making the effort to improve road conditions for drivers.

“It may not fix all of our problems, but I like the law,” said Lorianne Chore, a mother of three who lives in San Pedro. “It makes the roads at least a little bit safer for me and my kids because people will be more focused on the road itself.”

Los Angeles Police Department officer Ana Markey also feels the law can be helpful for all drivers on the streets and freeways.

“I think the law is very effective. If you have something on your ear, it can be blocking your vision at some point, especially when you’re trying to turn and look over your shoulder,” she said. “The conversation can definitely be a problem, but this law is a huge step in the right direction.”

While Markey believes the law is working, her department couldn’t provide any statistics for any decline or rise in Southern California car accidents since July because the process to calculate data accurately can take up to six months.

The new California law aims at decreasing the car accident rate. However, the law does not take into account distracting conversations (Flikr.com).

“There’s a significant lag time in terms of me being comfortable with the numbers being accurate. I could probably have stats by the beginning of 2009. I don’t want to evaluate garbage data that might be completely inaccurate in six months,” she said.

In 2007, 1,453 cell-phone related car accidents occurred across California, according to statistics from CHP Media Relations. Eight accidents were fatal, and 86 were by drivers wearing hands-free devices. While the numbers indicate hands-free devices will decrease car accidents, the distraction of conversing remains the main focus of concern for safety experts.

“The actual conversation is a distraction,” said Fairley Mahlum, director for communications at the AAA Foundation. “We don’t want to give people a false sense of safety that talking hands free is safe.”

New York was the first state to implement a hands-free driving law in 2001. Since that time, Connecticut, Washington D.C., New Jersey, Utah, Washington and the Virgin Islands have adopted similar cell phone restrictions to improve driver safety.