Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor:

Your Dec. 2 edition incor­rectly stated that the football team this year was the first Waitsburg team to have an undefeated season. In re­sponse,

please let me tell you about the undefeated 1967 Waitsburg Cardinals.

We not only had a per­fect 9-0 record, but we were dominant. In eight of the nine games, the first-string de­fense

shut out the opponent. The only game in which an opponent scored on the first-string defense was a 40-12 victory over DeSales.

Our offense was not as good as our defense, but our offense was good. The first-string offense rarely played in the fourth quarter because coach Dick Kinart was mer­ciful about not running up the score. We were ahead of Colfax 27-0 before the subs allowed two touchdowns to make the final score 27-14. We were ahead of Dayton 46-0 before the subs allowed a touchdown to make the final score 46-7. According to the information in my an­nual, we scored a total of 216 points for the entire season, and the opponents scored a total of 39. Although Waitsburg was a Class B school, six of the nine victories that season were over Class A teams. Unfortunately, there was no state tournament for football then. I think that a team that dominated six Class A oppo­nents would have had an ex­cellent chance of winning the Class B state championship. That team had two great high school football play­ers- Robert Maib and Jim Leid. Both of them received scholarships to play college football.

In addition to those two great players, we also had many other excellent players. I was privileged to be on that team. I wish that I had all of the statistics. Some of the numbers were very impres­sive.

Dear Editor: I recently wrote an essay, printed in The Burg, which suggested a modification to the institution of high school team sports. Now, due to last week's ill-advised letter in the Times written by my sister, I need to revisit the subject.

At the time, I appreciated Mr. Matthee's tolerant and thoughtful preemptive rebut­tal, but he could have said a bit more. First, it will never happen. We should not worry that anything will threaten the in­stitution of high school foot­ball. Changes to long stand­ing institutions like football, the filibuster, Christmas or slavery, if they ever happen, take a very, very long time.

Secondly, there is no one in this valley who should not take pride in the remarkable accomplishments of W-P's football and soccer teams.

Sports teams, unlike aca­demics, give us a way to judge a community's suc­cess.

Since this success is a historical best, there is every reason to celebrate it to the hilt.

It's called cultural tribal­ism, and it's a big thing, a natural thing, to our species, as big as territory and reli­gion. It's "our group against them," and it's been around since our Cro Magnon days.

We can suffer deep per­sonal and collective agony with a loss, and great exulta­tion in victory. We go to war with the same motivation, the same enthusiasm that propels us to cheer at football games. Who is to say that the World Cup and the Olympics don't make us less anxious to fight each other in ways that have more deadly results? Therein lies the problem with my sister's letter. The discussion of an idea should have little or nothing to do with the person making the argument, or what he has done. Whether made by Einstein or Ayatollah, an argument depends on its evidence. "What can be as­serted

without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence," wrote Christo­pher Hitchens. My essay on team sports, like any thesis, was written to be considered rationally, coldly and impassionately. Scientifically,if possible.

Who, for instance, can begrudge the thousands of young people who can afford a college educa­tion

only because they were good athletes in high school?

Can any of us drive by Washington Park on a sum­mer evening, with its mul­tiple fields filled with teams of children and adults en­joying

the soccer season, and not feel that something is right with the world? That's the way it should be," we tell ourselves, and add, "I should be out there getting some exercise."

And there's the rub. Quarterback Zach Bartlow, as the Times' publisher has suggested, is obviously a gifted athlete, who can, and does, easily master other sports. He represents the varsity. The varsity receives the benefit of con­summate training by dedi­cated coaches, skilled in their fields, at considerable public cost in time, money and energy.

In football, the cost/ben­efit is questionable. Very few of us play as adults, and even if we did, we could enjoy the sport without the school system's intensive interscholastic program. And, we American adults do have a growing obesity problem.

The varsity is already taken care of. Can we do more to further the potential of the others? In thinking about the question, I hope we can do it rationally, without the cheering and the echoes of victories past. I think we would be better off doing the same with war, but that is an institution that has been around a lot longer than high school sports, and ultimately is much more difficultto think about.