PUBLIC FORUM : READERS CONTINUE DEBATE OVER CSUN SPORTS CUTS.Re CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge President Blenda Wilson's decision to remove men's baseball from CSUN:As the mother of two former Little League players who played baseball here in the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. from the ages of 6 through 17, then played from 18 through 22 on a Division I baseball team at Loyola Marymount University Marymount University is a coeducational, four-year Catholic university whose main campus is located in Arlington, Virginia. History Marymount was founded in 1950 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM) as Marymount College, a two-year women's school. , I feel I am qualified to be in a quandary as to why Wilson would want to join the Big Sky Conference when it didn't have Division I baseball. My sons didn't attend CSUN because CSUN didn't have a Division I baseball program 12 years ago. My sons lived for baseball. Isn't that what the boyhood pastime of the San Fernando Valley is? It helped them grow nicely into adulthood. Not many boys fulfill their dreams by being able to play Division I baseball in college, but my sons did. But to think that now the largest college in the San Fernando Valley didn't even bother to join a proper conference to include baseball is just appalling. Shame on you, Blenda Wilson. - Carol M. Testa Encino Was that a tear I saw in Athletic Director Athletic director (commonly, "athletics director") is a position at many American colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, which oversees the work of the coaches and related staff involved in intercollegiate or interscholastic athletic Paul Bubb's eye when he announced the gutting of the Northridge athletic program? Really touching. A true champion of student welfare. That's not the face I saw when the athletic department and the football egomaniacs jammed Division I status down the throats of the student body over their clear rejection. Remember the vote? The students said: This is a learning institution. We're happy with small sports we can play. You want Division I? Go to Ohio State. - Roger Walton North Hills It is difficult to believe that Cal State Northridge would eliminate such a major sport as baseball. CSUN and the Valley community would be greatly benefited with the removal or resignation of Ronald Kopita, student affairs Student affairs staff are responsible for academic advising and support services delivery at colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. The chief student affairs officer at a college or university often reports directly to the chief executive of the institution. vice president and a less-than-mediocre administrator, and Blenda Wilson, the disappointing, wimpy Wimpy sloppily dressed comic strip character; always “forgets” to pay for hamburgers. [Comics: “Popeye” in Horn, 657–658] See : Irresponsibility president. - Marvin Gross Northridge Two years ago, the students voted themselves an added fee of $27 for use by the athletic department. Two years later - without prior warning and at a time when the student body was either in exams or off campus for the summer - the announcement of the dropping of the sports programs was made. From those facts, one can make certain deductions: When students, frequently hard-pressed for cash, are willing to tax themselves in that fashion, it speaks for the popularity and the powerful attraction of sports for their alma mater. It doesn't take much imagination to suspect that the timing was planned to emasculate e·mas·cu·late tr.v. e·mas·cu·lat·ed, e·mas·cu·lat·ing, e·mas·cu·lates 1. To castrate. 2. To deprive of strength or vigor; weaken. adj. Deprived of virility, strength, or vigor. student reaction. It should occasion no surprise, then, if there is some wondering whether this was part of someone's grand design. Why? Sports are a powerful attraction - and consequently a source of power on the campus. The administration is presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. the center of power. An administration, not particularly friendly to sports, may easily fear the sports tail is wagging of the administration dog. Remedy? Cut short the tail to ensure more power. The administration appears to be insensitive to the needs of the students and to the wishes of the community. - Lionel Dichter, M.D. Granada Hills ``CSUN drops the ball(s),'' ``CSUN razes hopes,'' ``Failure of leadership,'' ``These cuts make no sense'' (Daily News, June 12). My, my - the sacred cows have been touched. Where was all the crying when the other sex had no sports programs? Where was the crying when programs were discontinued and teachers couldn't be hired because of budget constraints? Where was the crying when too much money was poured into the football program, leaving other programs short-circuited? We all know how important sports are these days. Magazines and whole sections of TV and newspapers are dedicated to them. But our schools are supposed to be places of educational pursuits. I am a sports fan, too, but I think all the hoopla hoop·la n. Informal 1. a. Boisterous, jovial commotion or excitement. b. Extravagant publicity: The new sedan was introduced to the public with much hoopla. 2. here is exaggerated and our value system is skewed skewed curve of a usually unimodal distribution with one tail drawn out more than the other and the median will lie above or below the mean. skewed Epidemiology adjective Referring to an asymmetrical distribution of a population or of data horribly. - E. Jones Sylmar What an amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. thing: Cutting men's sports because women are given unbalanced opportunity at CSUN. If gender equity is so important, shouldn't the school be mandated to add enough men to equalize e·qual·ize v. e·qual·ized, e·qual·iz·ing, e·qual·iz·es v.tr. 1. To make equal: equalized the responsibilities of the staff members. 2. To make uniform. the population, and if that cannot be done by next year, shouldn't women students be dismissed from the university until their population is within 2 percent of the men's? See how stupid it sounds when reality sets in. - Mike Hannin Newbury Park As the first NCAA NCAA abbr. National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II varsity soccer coach at CSUN - 1979-1982 - I was simply appalled and very angry at the move to eliminate not only soccer, but also three other extremely popular and successful sports. When I was first hired, my task was to set the foundation for a long-lasting soccer program in a young four-year university in the San Fernando Valley. Eighteen years later, almost to the day I was hired, I am saddened to see what I am sure was a very concerted effort to get rid of the only four-year collegiate soccer program in the Valley. I feel sad for the student-athletes. I am angry over the actions of Paul Bubb, Blenda Wilson and Ronald Kopita, which thousands of soccer coaches, including me, see as a feeble attempt to maintain a very poor athletic program so that it can only be permitted to play football in the Big Sky Conference. Where are the university's priorities? Did Bubb, Wilson and Kopita do their math? Just how much does it cost to run a football program? How much does it cost to provide the equipment for one football player? If anything, CSUN is a soccer, baseball, swimming and volleyball university. A football power it ain't. - H. Ric Fonseca West Los Angeles
I am not a sports fan. I am neither a CSUN student nor CSU See DSU/CSU. 1. CSU - California State University. 2. CSU - Cleveland State University. 3. CSU - Channel Service Unit. alumnus ALUMNUS, civil law. A child which one has nursed; a foster child. Dig. 40, 2, 14. . What I am is a citizen who has viewed with disgust over the last days the example that Blenda Wilson has set for the community at large, which looks to leaders to learn how to act. Maybe Wilson should take a public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most class. Or have they been cut, too? - David Morris David Morris may refer to:
Glendale When the National Organization for Women and other feminist organizations demand equal money for such things as women's sports, they are demanding not equality, but superiority. The pragmatic fact of life is that men are women are different, both physically and psychologically. For example, more than 80 percent of men have the upper-body strength to be firefighters, while fewer than 10 percent of women have that strength. More than 70 percent of boys want to compete in sports. For girls the figure is 20 percent or less. At the college level two to three times the number required want to play men's baseball. The women's team has a hard time coming up with just nine. - George Noonan Sylmar The continued insensitivity of the out-of-towner officials at CSUN to the campus and off-campus communities demands that they step down and resign immediately. Their ill-conceived plan to drop the beloved Matador matador In bullfighting, the principal performer, who works the capes and attempts to dispatch the bull with a sword thrust between the shoulder blades. Most of the techniques used by modern matadors were established in the 1910s by Juan Belmonte (b. 1894–d. nickname was the first kick in the face of tradition in our brief history. The inexcusable appearance of David Duke David Ernest Duke is a former Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, a candidate in presidential primaries for both the Democratic and Republican parties, and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. at CSUN further alienated the faithful. Finally, the secret decision to destroy what little national recognition we now enjoy, and cynically blame it on the National Organization for Women, displays complete loss of leadership, integrity and moral will. - Neil Bethke Northridge CSUN should have a project to raise money or ask the community for help. There must be some way to make it right for the sports at CSUN. Students should not have to go elsewhere for sports when there is a good college close to their homes. - Edith Myers Mission Hills The decision was deceitful, stupid, ignorant and unbelievable. I question the wisdom of the move to the Big Sky Conference. I question the wisdom of these three individuals, none from Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , deciding what is best for a Southern California school. I question the sincerity of Blenda Wilson when she says she cares about men's athletics, and I question the integrity of Paul Bubb and Ronald Kopita when they say football and basketball will make CSUN nationally prominent. The administration has not supported these sports in the past, so why would one believe it will be different now? One question: If CSUN fails to attract enough women athletes, what will it give up next? I have three suggestions. - Sandy Cassidy Chatsworth The sports scene in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. is an unrecognized national tragedy. The people have gone completely bonkers on sports, to the point where rational thinking is no longer possible or even tolerated. There are numerous negatives associated with sports but almost no one dares to mention them, let alone suggest that they be considered and evaluated in making decisions regarding the use of public funds See Fund, 3. See also: Public for promoting sports activities. To begin, sports promote violence. The basic philosophy underlying sports is that to be successful, you must vanquish somebody. The whole idea is confrontation and combat. How many dollars do the proponents subtract from the estimated economic benefits of a proposed sports facility because of the violence factor? Answer: They refuse even to think about it. Sports divert kids' minds from their studies. Sports result in a huge number of injuries to kids and professionals, many of whom are disabled and end up on public assistance. Sporting events cause traffic jams and other problems that require expenditure of public funds for police work. Sports cause significant loss of time in industry where workers conduct gambling pools and spend time discussing the games, etc. There are many other bad effects of sports. It is criminal that governments forcibly forc·i·ble adj. 1. Effected against resistance through the use of force: The police used forcible restraint in order to subdue the assailant. 2. Characterized by force; powerful. extract taxes to subsidize activities which, if the complete truth were known, are actually detrimental to the people. - Jay Kilman Lancaster CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: the stadium fence are reminders of the Matadors' baseball triumphs. John McCoy/Daily News |
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