P E O P L E

May graduate Doug Markott didn't have to wait long for his fifteen minutes of fame. The varsity baseball standout was featured in the pages of Sports Illustrated this spring. Not in a pictorial about Division III baseball, nor in the periodical's "Faces in the Crowd" department, but in a two-page advertisement for Champion Sporting Goods.

Last fall a Champion sales representative approached Eagle baseball coach Kevin Howard looking for athletes "who had worked hard and who hadn't had things given to them." The rep said she was interested in finding someone with amateur status but without NCAA eligibility.

"Right away I thought of Doug," Coach Howard said. Markott, who lost one year of eligibility when he transferred to Emory from Kennesaw State College, played ball his junior year at Emory but sat out his senior year.

Markott holds a string of records and awards for his performance on the diamond. Selected as an All-American in 1993, he was voted Most Outstanding Offensive player at Emory in 1994, the same year he was chosen Most Valuable Player in the University Athletic Association.

Markott's fame is by no means limited to the readers of SI. The Champion ad also appeared in Rolling Stone this past spring and is scheduled for use in GQ, Spin, and Slam magazines later this year.--A.B.

Charles Howard Candler Professor of Renaissance Literature Frank Manley has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) writing fellowship. The director of Emory's Creative Writing Program, Manley is a renowned playwright, poet, and short story writer whose work, Two Masters: A Play in Two Parts, was the co-winner of the Great American New Play Contest at the Actor's Theatre in Louisville in 1985. Manley, who is also serving as Theater Emory's resident playwright, will debut his new play, Married Life, on campus as part of Theater Emory's 1995-96 season. Geoff Becker, a visiting assistant professor in the Creative Writing Program, was also awarded an NEA writing fellowship.
"We call [our children] names: `at risk,' `on the edge,' `volatile,' `dysfunctional.' I would challenge those who are quick to name these names; neither Mary nor Joseph nor Jesus were middle class. . . . I would remind them that Mary was an unwed mother engaged to an unemployed carpenter. Neither had the right to vote, living under occupation. The political leaders afforded them no house; the office of the bureaucratic innkeeper said, `Get out, you got here late. You don't have a pedigree or the money. You are not married, and Joseph does not have a job.' And so they had the baby outdoors in the stable in the manger at night in the wintertime. Jesus was an at-risk baby who could have died from complications under poverty and occupation."
--Rev. Jesse Jackson, speaking at Emory
at the inaugural lecture for CULTURES:
The Center for Urban Learning/Teaching and
Urban Research in Education and Schools
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