FanSpeak 3/30/03

Bring on the soccer

YOU SHOULD post soccer scores because people like me want to know, and they hardly ever show soccer on TV.

Reconsider the reward

DID YOU ever see a coach or teacher reward a student for bad behavior? I can't believe what a local coach did at a volleyball game. She rewarded two players that really showed out. A starter and a substitute stood up from the bench and cheered against their own team. Not once or twice, but several times. I wondered if they would still be on the team for last night's game. They were. The starter was still a starter, and the other one was the first one she subbed into the game. What does she think she's teaching these two girls and the other girls who are doing the right things? What about the girls who do not do the right thing but do not get in a game to play at all? What are sports for if it's not to teach sportsmanship and fair play?

We'd like to watch, too

I DON'T understand the reasoning behind whoever schedules the Southeast baseball Indians. The last two weekends when fans could come out and support them, there's no games. They don't play on the road, they don't play at home, they're off. Then they play their games during the middle of the week on Mondays and Tuesdays at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. when people who would like to show their support can't come because they have jobs. If you want fans to come out and support your team, you need to remember that community members and citizens could only come on the weekends and at night. How disappointing.

Be American:Win

TONING DOWN the emphasis on winning in sports in order to keep kids playing longer is anti-competitive, anti-capitalist and, therefore, anti-American.

Time for another change

I'M CALLING about the Southeast softball team. Yesterday, two of Southeast's past players now playing for SIU stung Southeast. Jenny Doehring went 4-for-7 with one home run. Renee Mueller pitched a two-hit, five-inning win. Coach Richmond's team for the last two to three years has been bad, to put it bluntly. She does not recruit locally. Southeast made changes in football in coach Billings and in basketball in coach Smith. It's time to make the change for Southeast softball so they can become a contender again.

LeBron headed for trouble

I HAVE a prediction to make about LeBron James, the basketball player who gets all the attention lately. I predict that within about the first five years of him becoming a professional player we will see his name in the headlines for breaking some kind of law. People on ESPN and all the sports shows and in the newspaper will all try to analyze what went wrong with this kid with such great promise. I can tell you now what went wrong. It's the system. It's a system in which athletes and coaches are held to a different standards. He's learned he can get away with it, and he'll continue to try. And one of these days there will be tragic consequences, or at least bad consequences, and everybody will sit and talk about where in the world did we go wrong. We didn't. The sports world did.

Buy a paper, David

DAVID WILSON needs to read his own paper a little closer. Over on one page on March 24 it clearly says that there are two baseball games today, that Central is traveling to CBC in St. Louis, and Jackson is playing Notre Dame. But in David's column, he says the first high school baseball game of the year will be Notre Dame at Jackson at 4 p.m. No comment at all about Central at CBC.

David chose to focus on the Notre Dame-Jackson game because it was the first game actually being played in our immediate area. Central's game was in St. Louis.

Hard to overcomeND

THANKS FOR the Illini coverage. Our "tournament intensity" wasn't there in either game, and it showed. Then again, Notre Dame couldn't miss in that first half. Eleven of 15 from 3-point range? Give me a break! Glad we didn't have to play MU again. Hard to think sports is important right now, but bring on Cardinals baseball -- and pray for our troops.

Sprinting forward

NOW THAT it's almost local racing season, Ihope you'll continue to cover sprint cars at the local tracks. Thanks.