FanSpeak 9/5/04

Not enough NMCC

WHY IS your New Madrid County Central sports coverage so limited? You skip over NMCC to provide coverage on Malden. Over the last decade, NMCC has been arguably the most dominant high school football program in Southeast Missouri.

The shoe fits

I KNOW some people got a laugh from Dave Barry's column on Aug. 28 about the Dolphins running the same old play. His funny comments sound like the same things spectators say about our football team when they do the same old plays over and over, but the coaches always rationalize it and heap praise where it doesn't belong.

Shame on Southeast

ONCE AGAIN in the Southeast Missourian sports section, we read about three football players and one basketball player who may not be able to play, even though they were given scholarships because we don't know if they're eligible or not. The same thing happens every year and almost always it's because of some of kind of eligibility question that should have been answered. My son played college sports and before they even talked to him and offered him any money and signed anything, that college made sure he'd gone through the NCAA clearinghouse and everything was fine. Why isn't SEMO doing this? That's the athlete's responsibility to prove that he's eligible. Something's wrong here, and I think the problem is in our athletic department. It always seems to be the same two teams -- football and basketball. Let's hold some accountability from these coaches and the people recruiting them, and let's hold some accountability from Don Kaverman, who oversees these people.