Today on WREK the News we discussed the election results, and the world of college football after GT's upset over Miami this weekend.
Local News
Georgia Tech celebrated their traditional week of Homecoming Nov. 4th-8th with multiple competitions and events for students to participate in. The Student Center Programs Council, the org in charge of the lion share of Homecoming, released the theme “The Legend of Homecoming” early October before opening up org registration
Our volleyball jackets spent the weekend in California where they terrorized UC Berkeley’s bears and then unfortunately fell to the evergreen Stanford trees with both games ending in 3 sets. Despite the loss to ranked #6 Stanford, GT volleyball was able to move up a rank to #15 in the AVCA polls.
Once again Georgia Tech takes a much needed dub on Homecoming. Coming off two straight losses, the jackets made an enthusiastic statement against the #4 ranked Miami Hurricants, winning 28-23. Miami came into the game undefeated but that was only because they hadn’t faced the jackets yet. Offensively, Georgia Tech was led by our savior, Haynes King after having missed the last two games with an upper body injury. Haynes was obviously still facing this injury on Saturday, gaining all of his yards through runs and short passes. When it came time to throw the ball, Georgia Tech relied on true freshman Aaron Philo who was extremely clutch with big third down throws. Philo, excitingly also recorded his first career passing touchdown this weekend with a tough 15 yd touchdown pass to WR Chase Lane. Although they were facing the #1 qb in the nation and heisman favorite scam ward, the GT Defense held strong ending the game with a massive strip sack for a fumble recovered by the jackets. This was Georgia Tech’s first top 5 win since 2009 and is Coach Brent Key’s highest ranked win so far.
Hard News
Last Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 Presidential election over Vice President Kamala Harris with 3.26 million individual votes and 86 electoral college votes. This is the first time in 20 years that a Republican has won the popular vote. The last time being when George W. Bush was up for re-election in 2004 against John F. Kerry. In the Senate, the GOP flipped 3 seats, effectively turning that chamber of Congress red, while the US House is still currently being actively tracked. There are 16 seats in the house that are yet to be decided, but currently the Republican Party is in the lead. In the wake of all of these shifts, and the presidential election where a lot of people were hopeful that Trump would not be re-elected, and some people predicted a Kamala win, we are here to ask: What now?
Up to 20% of college student-athletes may suffer from depression and research suggests that Division I college student-athletes have higher levels of stress and other behavioral health issues, including substance abuse, than their nonathlete counterparts. There are multiple avenues for GT’s student athletes to receive support. They can reach out to Dr. Kayla Balcom (Georgia Tech athletics’ full-time psychologist) directly, through their athletic trainers, through their coaches. They can stop by Balcom’s office. Students are encouraged to confide in their athletic trainers. All of GT’s athletic trainers understand our system and that it’s purely confidential. They’re just passing the information along to the full-time psychologist.
Given the rise of sports betting in the U.S., betting related harassment has risen to unprecedented levels as well. Harassment related to sports betting can cause serious harm to student-athlete mental health and well-being. For example, Just 12 days after North Carolina legalized sports betting, including player prop bets on college competitions, North Carolina men's basketball student-athlete Armando Bacot publicly reported receiving betting-related abuse via private social media direct messages after his performance. Not only is sports betting bad for athletes but it is also negatively impacting bettors, shocking. Academics have found that households in states where gambling was legalized saw significantly reduced savings, as well as lower investments in assets like stocks that are generally considered more financially sound.