Review's editorial was misleading

To the Editor:

The tone and content expressed in the Review's commentary, "Should Athletes Have it Their Way," is misleading in its response to the efforts taken by the Oberlin baseball team to get a different coach. Though at times the Review contributes insightful critique in describing the sometimes whiny demeanor of Oberlin students, this issue concerning the baseball team does not merit this response.

According to some members of the baseball team, their coach is worse than ineffective. Practices are totally unconstructive and a waste of time. The coach does not prepare them at all, whether in practice or in the moments before the players take the field for games. Players feel that the attitude of their coach is such that they cannot communicate with him in order to change practices to be worthwhile. In response, they have spent hours since last semester organizing themselves in order to try and change their situation by rationally presenting their case to the different necessary members of the administration. The team is not "pouting," they are trying to affect change because otherwise there is no reason for them to play.

The views in the editorial also misrepresent the character of Oberlin students/athletes in general. I am concerned that the Review correlates paying $28,000 a year with an apparent lack of ability in Oberlin students to make decisions about what is right and wrong. Paying a huge price tag for school does not necessarily mean that Obies can't speak legitimately about situations which need to change. I think we need to be careful: of late, much of Oberlin's activism is not taken seriously, casually shrugged off as being "someone else complaining about something or other."

This issue regarding the baseball team isn't about players who need "to toughen up," like Division I and II athletes, to whom the Review refers in its commentary. It's about people who want to play a game and can't, given their circumstances. At the Division I and II level, it is probable that no coach would have lasted as long (especially with a 5-51 record) as Oberlin's baseball coach, unless significant changes were made in the way he ran his program. The baseball team is stepping up to take action that would have already been taken by athletic administrators at Division I and II schools.

Yeopeople should not be generalized as pouty problem athletes. The student-athletes in Oberlin's Division III program are distinguishable from Division I and II students in that, though we don't have the incentives of scholarships, we choose to play anyway. We add yet one more thing to our busy schedules and play, though programs can be weak and teams have little recent history of victory. Why do we do this? For the love of playing a sport. This can make us be the BEST kind of athlete for a coach to have.

If the baseball team's coach totally obscures the point of playing, the players should be taken seriously for sticking by what they believe in order to change their situation. They deserve respect for making practical use of their expensive liberal-arts education, intended to teach students to gain perspective on a situation, to determine their positions on issues right and wrong, and to learn to communicate about it in order to affect needed change.

-Amy Kremen, College senior

Editorial provides poor prejudiced summation

To the Editor:

"Oberlin students pout a lot"? Kids, I've had enough.

Should I expect more than a poor, prejudiced summation of a wholly inaccurate article from the Review's editorial staff?

1. " ... it would help if Oberlin athletics and the baseball team in general, toughened up a bit." This stretches the limits of imagination. The Review - attacking fellow students for lack of "toughness"? Bizarre! Does the editorial staff feel particularly tough sitting in their basement taking pot shots at unsuspecting student groups? Does the editorial staff feel particularly qualified to question the "toughness" of a team that survived two years of extreme incompetency, a 5-51 record, twelve hour bus trips, sprained knees and missed classes - simply because they loved baseball? Does the editorial staff feel qualified to attack students for lack of toughness because its own toughness is so readily apparent? Is the Review's toughness demonstrated in the really really articulate and enlightening editorials it churns out at four o'clock Thursday mornings?

2. " ... the loose energy of the Oberlin athletes who complain and sign petitions to oust coaches could be better used in their respective sports." The above passage, dear reader, represents the pinnacle of pretense in a student-run publication. Incomparably asinine! How the hell would any Review staff member know anything about sports at Oberlin? The Review's coverage of baseball last year was among some of the poorest I've ever seen in print - but this wasn't an isolated phenomena. In fact, the quality of the Review's coverage rarely rises above the level of my high school newspaper. But let me explain.

In high school, the reporters covering sporting events had a basic knowledge of the sport they were covering. I cannot say the same for the Review's staff, whose writers consistently demonstrate a disdain for the sport's most basic terminology. At my high school, the reporters tried to describe what had occurred in the game. Sports writers at the Review feel uneasy with even this requirement, for often they do not even attend the game they are to cover. The reporters at my high school could be counted on to accurately relay the crucial facts of the game - the score, for instance. Luckily for the Review, its writers are free from even that nagging requirement: who really cares about runs, hits and goals anyway - go ahead, make 'em up baby! Lastly, when I talked to a reporter after a high school game, they made a concerted effort to write down what I said. For some unidentifiable reason, the sports writers for the Review don't feel up to this task. The player's words go into the great meat grinder that is the sports writer's journalistic technique and emerge all ground up and mangled. The sports writer takes particular glee in placing the athlete's name - usually misspelled- right next to the mutated quote.

It is difficult to watch one's sacrifices and accomplishments dismissed so easily. If you, the reader, don't care about my soccer and baseball coverage, I understand. But remember: right now, it's the misrepresentation and mockery of the activity I care deeply about, tomorrow it'll be your activity.

How to finish? What if I finished by doing the Review staff a disservice comparable to the one they did every student athlete on this campus - especially the baseball team - in their editorial on Nov. 7. I would hate to attack a group of students that seems to be working hard, might be understaffed and could possibly deserve a little respect for their efforts - but I'll go ahead and do so precisely because that is the kind of activity in which the Review is engaged on a weekly basis.

Oberlin journalists are moronic a lot.

-Brendan Cody, College senior

Review's poor editorial was based on pure speculative assumptions

To the Editor:

I am writing concerning last week's article and editorial about the baseball team's efforts to remove Todd Mooney from his position as Head Baseball Coach. Despite some inaccuracies, I feel that the article was for the most part well balanced. The editorial (which I will address later in this letter), on the other hand, I found to be based on speculative assumptions which have very little to do with the reality of the issue.

The first inaccuracy in the article is in the first sentence, which reads, "The baseball team has signed a petition stating that they will not play for him (Head Baseball Coach Todd Mooney) this Spring." In reality, the document we presented mentions nothing about whether we are going to play or not this Spring. The second inaccuracy is regarding what Dean Koppes said to the three of us who talked with him. I was misquoted as saying, "(Dean Koppes) said he would do something about it (regarding our problems with Coach Mooney)." In reality, Dean Koppes said that he would look into it, but he couldn't promise us anything. This is very different from "he would do something."

My feeling of frustration due to the fact that I was misrepresented last week brought to mind how the Review has a history of misquoting people. I think that its staff needs to take the implications of a misquote a little more seriously. The Review often provides the first and only impression that Oberlin students get of a given issue. If this impression is created by inaccurate information, it will not only misinform people, but it may also distort their opinions about certain issues and people.

The baseball article's misrepresentation of me made me a little bit frustrated. My reaction to the editorial, however, was one of complete dismay. It proceeded to accuse players of being "pouters," and said that we should put more energy into playing and less into complaining. It compared us to Division I and II athletes saying that unlike us, they "eat and digest whatever the coach prepares."

First of all, I, as a baseball player, have "eaten and digested" what asshole baseball coaches have prepared for me since I was six years old. I play the game because I love it. I take pride in not letting egotistical militaristic coaches get the satisfaction of seeing me squirm under their authoritarian rule. You can go ask Coach Mooney or anyone else I have ever worked or played under, if they have ever considered me a complainer or a "pouter." I'm sure the same goes for most of the other guys who signed our document. We created this document not because of the psychological trauma incurred upon us by Mooney, but rather because of his incompetency as a baseball coach. It is true that his condescending attitude and offensive disposition contribute to his ineffectiveness on the baseball field, but if he were a good, or even mediocre coach, I would feel no need to take action.

Perhaps Division I and II athletes don't usually do this sort of thing (as was noted in the commentary), but one major contributing factor to this is that coaches at those schools aren't usually hired if they display less baseball knowledge than their players. Athletics is a priority at most Division I and II schools, and they are much less likely to hire incompetent coaches due to politics and lack of finances. The editorial is right in stating that the lack of athletic scholarships provided by our school may give athletes here a little more say in what is going on than athletes in division I and II schools who's education is being paid for because of their athletic ability. Does the commentary imply then, that despite the fact we have an inadequate coach, we are supposed to suck it up and ignore a bad situation that we might be able to change? Furthermore, there is an ideal candidate for head coach in the athletic department who is continually being passed up by the athletic department for Oberlin's position. Should we just ignore this as well?

What I find most disconcerting about the editor's commentary is that it was written without a true understanding of the situation. I do agree with many of the things said about Oberlin and its athletics in the commentary. I think, however, that it was entirely inappropriate to use this baseball issue as a vehicle to arrive at some of the general conclusions presented. I would like to see people in the future not make such accusatory inferences about a subject that they don't fully understand. The editorial inaccurately bases its argument on the assumption that our main concerns are "Mooney has no people skills, prioritizes football over baseball, and has no respect for his players." rather than that Coach Mooney plain and simply displays an inadequate knowledge of baseball.

-Carson Keeble, College senior

Mooney lacks basic baseball knowledge and acts like a jerk

To the Editor:

Why did an editor with the Review write an editorial last week about something that s/he knows nothing about? The baseball article had many fine points in it, but not one of them are really relevant to the situation at hand. It is true that coaches at Oberlin face a challenge when stepping "into programs that have no recent history of winning."

Dealing with Oberlin's "history of student nonconformity and unconditional questioning" is probably a pain in the rear. It is also true that just because a coach cannot "get a workable grasp of these realities" does not mean they are flat out bad coaches. The whole Division I and II team comparison also sheds an accurate light on the situation. If the baseball players at Oberlin were getting their education free from athletic scholarships, I doubt they would be organizing for change.

But that is not the case, and it doesn't carry over to this school and these players. It seems all the more understandable that they would want to have a coach that can do his job well, since they are his employers of sorts.

If it is true that coaches here are underpaid and overworked, that is a bad state of affairs. But, once again, it not particularly relevant to the whole baseball team thing, because they are not trying to pay him less or get him to work more hours. Nor have they had issues with him that are related to economic inequality.

Two of the motivations for protest given in the first paragraph of the editorial are not even ones cited by the baseball players in their petition. It may be true that Coach Mooney "prioritizes football over baseball" and "has no people skills"; but last I heard, the main reasons given by the players are that he lacks basic baseball knowledge and on top of that he acts like a jerk.

-Elizabeth Churchill, College junior