Orioles' Wieters relishing quiet leadership role

Tasked with turning around the once-proud franchise with two months left in the 2010 season, Showalter pulled the team's franchise player aside and suggested it was time to "take the gloves off" and take control a little bit.

Heralded as a savior from the second he was taken in the first round of the 2007 amateur draft, Wieters knew if the Orioles were going to compete for the playoffs, he needed to set the tone. All he's done in his three-plus seasons in the majors is become the stoic cornerstone for one of baseball's most promising teams.

Perhaps the most notable aspect to Showalter is Wieters' manner. The catcher doesn't make it personal. And he doesn't tell the pitcher one thing and the coaches another.

"He doesn't say something to (bench coach) John (Russell) or I that he's not going to say to the player," Showalter said. "It's very seldom. He picks his spots. It's not like he's going to talk to us and not talk to them. Sometimes he talks to them before he talks to us."

Wieters handles Baltimore's pitching the staff the way he'd want to be handled himself. Though he's been pegged for stardom for years, he never acted like anything more than one of the gang.

Pitcher Brian Matusz came up through the minors with Wieters, and hardly notices a change between the guy hanging out at the edge of the clubhouse now and the fresh-faced kid he met in the Arizona Fall League in 2008.

"I thought right away 'this guy is a big league catcher,'" Matusz said. "He's so smart back there behind the plate and knowledgeable of the game. He's always learning, picking up new things."

Even coming off a season in which he won his first Gold Glove, Wieters is intent on improving. Asked by Showalter what he'd like to work on during spring training, Wieters rattled off a handful of items on his 'to-do' list.

Thousands of Michigan residents have collected Pell Grants without attending classes in the past year, costing Michigan's colleges millions of dollars that have to be paid back to the federal government.

At Henry Ford Community College, $4.1 million -- about 10% of the money the college received in Pell Grants -- needs to be paid back to the U.S. Department of Education this year, a move that will likely contribute to a tuition increase at the Dearborn school.

The problem isn't limited to Michigan, and it isn't new, but experts say it's getting worse.

No one knows exactly how much these Pell scammers are costing taxpayers because central record-keeping is spotty at best and often out of date. Mark Kantrowitz,The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics. publisher of FinAid.org and a leading expert on financial aid issues, estimates that 3.6% of all Pell Grant recipients across the nation are collecting the money fraudulently.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. That means an estimated $1.2 billion in taxpayer money was lost last school year alone, when the federal government gave out $33.5 billion in Pell Grants.

Although colleges and universities can go after these scammers, called Pell jumpers or Pell runners, it's an uphill battle to recover the money. The U.S. Department of Education is expected to address the issue this year, experts said, which could mean more measures that help slow down fraud but could delay payments, potentially hurting those who depend on the grants.

Pell Grants, which max out at $5,500 per year, are available to low- and mid-income residents and can be used for tuition and other costs, including rent, groceries and transportation. If a student receives a Pell Grant and disappears with the money, the college or university is on the hook to repay both the tuition costs and the rest of the money given to the student.

The fraud is particularly pronounced at community colleges because of their lower tuition rates. A student can sign up for a full load of classes for as little as $700 per semester at some Michigan community colleges and then pocket the leftovers from the $2,750 maximum grant.

"You'll only hear about this at low-cost schools,Site describes services including Plastic Mould." said Karen McCarthy,We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day. a policy analyst for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.Like most of you, I'd seen the broken buy mosaic decorated pieces. "If the costs are high, the students won't get any of their money back."

The grants, created in 1965, are the building blocks of financial aid packages for students attending schools from the University of Michigan to the Kalamazoo Beauty Academy.

Financial aid officers at community colleges across the state say that without the grants, hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents would be unable to attend college.

"It's a real tight balance between not interfering with access to higher education, but making sure it's used appropriately," said Roger Miller, the financial aid director at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.