Coach’s decision to resign not based on
season’s losses
In response to “New coach, new attitude” (Sports,
Jan. 21), it was news to me that I had resigned because of “a
tumultuous season and getting smashed 72-3 by Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo was too much to bear.”
I inherited a rugby team with a terrible reputation, no coach
and the hard work and commitment of a few great players. I
volunteered my time for over two years at about 40-50 hours a week
to change the team’s reputation and skill level and make sure
UCLA was not going to be dumped by the SoCal Rugby Union.
Imagine coaching 45 to 60 guys by yourself with no help,
support, money or fields half of the time.
I invested countless dollars into the club, purchasing
equipment, water bottles, medical kits and training supplies to
help make us an organized club.
Why? Because I love the sport and I love the UCLA athletes who
represented the school on the field. The trials and tribulations
that the team went through those years were heartbreaking and
rewarding, and I am proud to have been attached to them. Their hard
work, dedication, pride and youthfulness made it a pleasure to
spend my time to better their club.
My decision to leave had nothing to do with losing. In fact, our
record was improving under my tutelage ““ we entered and won
tournaments and games where UCLA had once been laughed off the
field. I am proud of them.
At some point during my tenure, an alumni group came on board,
decided it was their team and attempted to make decisions in their
best interest without any consideration of the members of the
club.
Money was allocated in odd fashions, political agendas were met
and, in the long run, someone had to speak for the athletes.
I did. I resigned to show the individuals that their decisions
do not make the team. The team makes the team.
Do I believe in UCLA RFC? Yes. Do I believe Scott Stewart will
help them? Yes. Do I believe that they have the foundation for
success? No. But they do have heart, guts, pride and integrity.
I was there Saturday rooting on my guys. Yes, they are my guys,
and I am sure each and every one that I coached will say the same
thing.
Jake Pike Former UCLA rugby coach
Protest’s roots should be covered
In Thursday’s edition of the Daily Bruin, a front-page
story was dedicated to the protest in Westwood of President
Bush’s inauguration (“Inauguration stirs
emotions,” News, Jan. 20). This protest was, according to the
article, to be headed by the ANSWER Coalition, which is described
as “a nationwide anti-war organization.”
Certainly part of ANSWER’s platform includes being
anti-war, but what is not mentioned in the article is that
International ANSWER, the group under which the U.S. branch
operates, is a front group for the communist Workers World Party, a
neo-Stalinist group. This will come as little shock to those who
heard the same thing when ANSWER was organizing the anti-war
protests of years past in San Francisco and New York City.
Yet it bears mentioning. During past protests, the late Michael
Kelly, who was then editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly, wrote
in the Washington Post, “The left marches with those who
would maintain in power the leading oppressors of humanity in the
world.”
This should surely give us pause. And yet, unfortunately, it
likely won’t ““ at least partly because the Daily Bruin
stated that ANSWER is simply “a nationwide anti-war
organization.” This is putting a polite front on an
organization that would, if it could, see a return to Stalinism.
That groups like ANSWER are organizing protesters, that they are
accepted by protesters and that their true values are not printed
in daily newspapers signifies, in my eyes, a lack of accurate
reporting. Were there to be a demonstration for, say, states’
rights that was organized by the KKK, surely we would not merely
say it is a nationwide state-rights organization.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with protests themselves
““ the right to peaceably assemble, (or even just to complain
loudly, like the protesters) is indeed a sacred right. March and
protest all you want. But don’t march under ANSWER’s
banner.
Charles Modica, Jr. Fourth-year, political
science