LETTERS: CHRIS LEE COMPETED WHILE OTHERS GRADUATED

To the editor:

Recently Steve Lee had a letter published in which he listed his son Chris' accomplishments as a candidate for Central High School's Lou Muegge Award, an honor which had been given to another young man. Subsequently, Mr. Lee was publicly rebuked for "sour grapes" and "a low blow" by the paper's sports editor.

Two things should be said, especially in light of later events, in Mr. Lee's behalf. First, in his letter extolling his son he graciously chose not to raise the specter of racial discrimination in the giving of the award. In this current day, that is admirable.

In addition, as his classmates at Central were preparing to line up for commencement at the Show Me Center, Chris was tramping out of a muddy stadium in Jefferson City where he had participated in the 400m relay race. The following day, he would participate in the triple-jump championship. He was in Jefferson City while his classmates were at graduation ceremonies because of scheduling blunder by Central's administration. The state track and field championships are held the same weekend every year. There was precious little excuse for the scheduling of graduation right in the middle of a two-day meet, which forced Chris to choose between attempting to become a state champion representing Central or to graduate with his classmates. Mr. Lee did not complain about this in his letter, even though he had raised this foreseeable conflict to the school administration last fall. Even with this early warning, no substantive steps were taken to change the graduation date. Such a change, months in advance, should have been rather simple. Neither did Mr. Lee receive so much as a formal apology for the scheduling error, which led to his son's being deprived of participating in one of life's milestone events. Such slights can provoke bitterness but apparently did not in Mr. Lee. He continued to show up at athletic events and to support his son's teams.

Perhaps, then, it would be charitable to withhold negative judgment of Mr. Lee's understandable pride in his son's accomplishments.

JIM FLETCHER

Cape Girardeau