Bad mouthing is pointless (This was a response
to Jim Guthrie’s column, “Upsets of top
teams not all due to Bruin prowess,” which ran Nov. 7) I
live up here in the San Francisco Bay Area where the 49ers
dominated the NFL for so long. But after every game, win big or win
bigger, the local fans would call in the local sports talk show and
bad mouth the 49ers. It was so unbelievable it was amusing. If the
49ers won by 24, they should have won by 36. If the defense shut
out the opponents, the punter shanked one in the first quarter that
only went for 45 yards. On and on they went. It was like the fans
were afraid to call a good team a good team. They couldn’t
stand to brag about success. Well, their bad mouthing came true.
The 49ers are now a terrible team. Everyone happy? Same story with
UCLA. UCLA beats two No. 3 teams in three weeks, and some people
are looking for a downside to the wins. Great. Look hard enough and
you can find misery and imperfection. Does feeling miserable make
you happy, or are you just going into the newspaper business, where
it is evidently important to dwell on the downside of life? Hey, I
was there for the Alabama and Michigan games this year. Those were
great games and they made me proud to be a Bruin. They ranked right
up there with 1998 Oregon State, 1988 Nebraska, and 1967 Tennessee.
See, that’s how the system works. After we beat them, they
are no longer undefeated. When the cake is eaten, it’s all
gone.
Duane Linstrom Gilroy, Calif. UCLA graduate, class of
1965
Sports editors should be careful
Mayar Zokaei wrote a extremely funny article about the men’s
basketball team last Thursday (“Lavin needs to
get all those young players straight or else,” Nov. 9).
However, he also took quite a few shots (I call them low blows) at
almost every team member. Now, the article itself was fine, I just
have a problem with its timing. I mean, you published it when the
team was on its first day of its trip to New York (which any sports
editor would have known). That’s weak ““ taking shots at
the team when they aren’t here to respond. I think the sports
editor should have been aware of something like that. A good editor
would have made sure that article was published when the team was
around to respond, instead of hiding it in an edition that the team
would never see. Come on. That said, I open the sports page first
everyday. You guys do a good job.
Bob Firpo Fourth year student
P.S. Bruins looked great this weekend in New York, every one one
of them, including Matt Barnes “and Noble,” Earl
“Elementary” Watson, and Ray “He Got Big
Calves” Young (Mr. Zokaei’s names).
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