| | Published April 10th, 2013
| Letters to the Editor
| | | |
Editor:
Open Apology from the NCAA
We NCAA officials are surprised to learn that St. Mary's College (SMC) alumni disapproved with our ranking of their team in March Madness. After careful review, we determined that your team's RPI Ranking was not on par with other teams. Although we recognize that Gonzaga was ranked #1 in their region, the NCAA Committee determined that the West Coast Conference lacked depth. Lacked depth, you ask? Yes. SMC 's Gaels did defeat conference champions Harvard, Pacific and Creighton, two of which advanced to round 3. Big deal!
The NCAA scheduled St. Mary's [seeded 11] to participate in a play-in while we let CAL [seeded 12] into the playoffs with no extra games [despite CAL's losses to Harvard and Creighton]. This seems logical to us because Cal has a bigger arena, more alumni and can draw a better television audience. We cannot forget the bottom line.
You must understand, after all, that NCAA officials seldomly watched St. Mary's play this year as our normal bedtime on the East Coast precedes your 8:00 p.m. start times. Perhaps you should play Big East, ACC and Atlantic 12 teams to get prime time coverage and play someone we know.
You SMC Alumni also faulted the 9:40 p.m. EDT game time [SMC vs. Middle Tennessee State] and the non-existent primetime coverage. You must understand that people from back East don't know you and don't want to stay up for these games. Knowing this, the NCAA jumped through every hoop to expand the audience for the late-night games. Tru TV even aired the SMC game before 'Marsha Clark and Chris Darden: the Real Story'. What more do you want?
We apologize for the short notice on your first play-in game. We NCAA officials sympathized with your lack of recovery time and hoped your hunger pangs, while playing in Dayton [during your West Coast dinner time], would cancel out your jet lag.
Finally, you mentioned the 2:45 p.m. EDT start time in Dayton on Round-2. Once again, bottom line! We had to squeeze you in before the Katie and Ellen Degeneres Shows to maximize our television audience. Look at it this way: The average of the two unfavorable start times equals primetime. What more do you want?
In conclusion, some may say that the NCAA is biased against St. Mary's because of the sanctions. Not true! After all, we made Miami a number 2 in the East!
Congratulations Gaels on another great year!
Glenn Cass (SMC Alumni)
Lafayette
Editor:
Missing from Amy Worth's State of the City address is a commitment to preserving Orinda's environment (news article, Lamorinda Weekly, March 27).
In her March 20 address given at the Orinda County Club, Ms. Worth mentioned, according to the Weekly, that Orinda officials have focused on public safety, planning, public works, and parks and recreation.
In the article, Ms. Worth, added another term: "partnerships." The partnerships are to be between the city and various county, state and federal agencies.
Partnerships: that's the problem. These partnerships involve such unelected California governmental bodies as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). Curiously, Ms. Worth is chairperson of the MTC, an organization that wants to spend $180 million on a new headquarters in San Francisco and $5.6 million for a ceremony to mark, in September, the opening of a new segment of the Bay Bridge.
But there's more. MTC and ABAG, according to a 2012 draft document, want Orinda to install, between 2014 and 2022, 226 units of new housing in Orinda. Of these 226 units, 84 are to be for "very low income" people and 47 for "low income" people.
Personally, I do not object to low-income people living in Orinda. However, I do object to non-Orinda, unelected bodies (like MTC and ABAG) telling Orinda how to run itself.
I do object to any plan to construct any buildings in Orinda that are over 35 feet in height.
Orinda has a precious environment. No outside governmental organizations should have the power to wreck Orinda's open spaces, trees, and natural beauty.
Richard S. Colman
Orinda
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | print story
Before you print this article, please remember that it will remain in our archive for you to visit anytime.
download pdf
(use the pdf document for best printing results!) | | | Comments | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA