LETTERS : RETURN WOMEN'S TENNIS TO A.V. COLLEGE.

This is an open letter to Antelope Valley College President Linda Spink.

In reference to the recent civil rights complaint of discrimination against female athletes at Antelope Valley College, let me recommend a review of the tennis program, which was part of our AVC athletics for many years until it was dropped amid much controversy in 1994.

Several advantages would contribute to the return of tennis at AVC:

1. The eight-court tennis complex is intact and ready for immediate use.

2. For practice and specialized teaching skills, there is an extensive area of wall space just outside the courts.

3. Hundreds of tennis players from eight public high schools in the Antelope Valley and Kern County areas, in addition to the Santa Clarita and other Southern California areas with private institutions, would be available for student-athlete enrollment.

4. The tennis complex would be maintained at present minimum costs as used for the physical education program.

5. Equipment costs for tennis would be minimal - basically only tennis balls and AVC polo shirts and blouses for the athletes. Players generally will provide their own rackets.

6. Coaching could be provided at minimal cost by creating one or two full-time positions for competitive teams at the varsity and junior-varsity levels.

For an effective tennis program, it is imperative that the intercollegiate coach be a strong player and teacher to execute and demonstrate the necessary strokes and skills of the game.

Also, a coach with a major in physical education should be highly recommended, in which he has learned to analyze body movements and mechanics and thereby could improve the players' skills.

Let us remember that tennis not only develops good health and character but has much longer carry-over value after graduation than most other sports, especially ``team sports.''

That atmosphere in which the game of tennis is conducted tends to develop the most cherished societal traits of sportsmanship and behavior that are an integral part of tennis and the individual athlete.

For our immediate and long-term future in providing the best attributes for AVC and the Antelope Valley, let us bring back the women's tennis program and give the women athletes the equality they so richly deserve.

- Jerry Vick

Palmdale

Plane-making being run into the ground

I started working on airplanes almost 20 years ago. I was proud of what I did, and I love the feeling of seeing something that I helped build fly.

For myself and the Antelope Valley, that era is over. Why? A good argument can be made against the government or the military-industrial complex itself being responsible. I believe it's been mismanaged away.

In 1979, for every one of us who pounded rivets (physically built a plane), there were three more people who worked in a support function, be it management, clerical, engineering, parts control, etc.

In 1998 that figure has reached between 12 and 16 people (depending on the company) for every one mechanic, yet we take longer to accomplish less.

For instance, in the 1980s I worked in a program that built 100 planes in six years, but now I'm in a program that has taken well over 10 years to build 20 aircraft.

How could that be? In the 1970s and early 1980s, the three people who supported the one mechanic did just that: They supported him. But as most learned, the faster the mechanics build the airplane, the sooner we're all out of a job.

If you picture a football game where you have 11 on offense and 154 on defense, you might get an idea of what aerospace is like now and why I believe it's over.

When a company cares more about its policies and procedures than it does about its people or its products, it is destined for failure.

- Ken Booth

Lancaster

Family's suffering ignored by courts

When on a rainy and chilly November afternoon three years ago a Los Angeles County employee looked straight into my eyes and defiantly admitted, ``The law does not work for you; doesn't your case speak for itself?'' I did not expect that despite the atrocities my family had suffered, the outcome of our case had already been decided. The courts will not protect our rights if we act in pro per.

Two years passed, and one evening I was watching the History Channel documentary ``The Kovno Ghetto.'' My body convulsed in pain while tears rolled on my face, as I could compare the atrocities suffered by my family in the United States over the last four years with those of the Lithuanian Jews during World War II.

Like them, my family was denied the right to bear children, as I had been repeatedly ``qualified'' for termination of the unborn instead of receiving medical care to treat my toxic pregnancy. Like them, we were denied the right to profit from our work and have savings. Like them, we experienced starvation, homelessness and unbearable humiliation.

While justice for my family is delayed and denied, millions of Americans enjoy and benefit from our hard work and sacrifices, as two of my husband's inventions have been illegally copied and are being sold nationwide. Are these the true Christian values the United States espouses here and abroad? The lesson I have learned so far from Christianity is the way our excruciating pain, as Christians, is perceived by the American courts. It is ignored, unredressed and untold.

- Constance Antonov

Lancaster