In response to Liz Hagan's letter (Your Turn, Nov.23) regarding your article, White Wash (Nov.16), this woman seems to have some issues between apples and oranges.
Let me get this straight, Liz. You compare the hiring of minority coaches in the SEC to kids' abilities to play ball?
The SEC has been around for 70 years, more than 300 head-coaching jobs in football, and you mean to tell me that there is not a "good ol' boy" network?
This somehow does not seem unbalanced? On top of that, there are fewer than a dozen black head coaches in all of Division I-A football out of about 117 schools?
That seems normal to you?
Where do you see that someone is trying to "choke white coaches out of the game"?
I am a die-hard, born and raised Ohio State fan. The same Ohio State that won the national championship last season. In case you missed that game, OSU had nine starters in that game who were white and many of the second-teamers who saw significant playing time were white.
As a black man, I don't see those guys as white Buckeyes or black Buckeyes. They represent my school to the best of their abilities.
I don't think that white players are being "choked" out of football. If the person is qualified, he should get the job, whether that's playing the game or coaching it.
-- Alan M. Smith Jr., St. Petersburg
C'mon, let us play ball
Just like to vent my frustrations at the rules of Raymond James Stadium parking lot. They say this rule has been in effect since 1976, but I've never seen it enforced. So, to ruin the spirit of tailgating, as we were before the USF-UAB game, we got a courtesy warning for throwing a football. Anybody can drink in the parking lot. Anybody can crank his car stereo up, but throw a football, even where there's no cars parked in a open field, and it's a citation.
-- Ken Enlow, New Port Richey
What were refs watching?
It is hard to imagine how Florida State fans could take satisfaction from the result of the Gator game. I have seen many poorly refereed games, especially as a Bucs fan, but never a game that was so totally taken out of the hands of one team and placed in those of the other. If college ball had replay challenges, the Gators could have used five or six without sacrificing any timeouts, but only if the refs had been suffering from poor vision instead of extreme bias. A suggestion: use referees from a conference not affiliated with either team. A peewee league crew could have done a better job than the ACC refs.
-- Mike Jordan, via e-mail
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