Letters to the Editor (Editorial Policies)
Posted on February 12, 2007

‘Home-court advantage’ must return to CAA

Student attendance at CAA basketball games is at an all-time high. The energy and atmosphere students bring to the arena is what makes college basketball unique and each campus strives to make the fan experience fun, exciting and repetitive. We all appreciate the support you give your fellow students representing your institution.

Our fan base truly is a cross-section of the communities in which we live. Young families with children, students, young adults, senior citizens and business leaders contributing to the university all attend and enjoy college basketball. While we celebrate this great atmosphere in our arenas, we must also honestly confront the “dark side” exhibited by some fans that tarnish the experience for others in attendance. Crude behavior, obscene language and threatening confrontations simply have no place in our game. The problem is further exacerbated when the language is transmitted over radio and television broadcasts to national audiences.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit on press row at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium surrounded by the legendary “Cameron Crazies.” What struck me was that throughout the game, there was not a single instance of profanity or mean-spirited heckling directed at our team, our fans or the officials. The arena was fun, electric and entertaining, which clearly demonstrates that an intense home-court advantage can be created without resorting to behavior that in another situation would be shameful. I was truly amazed by the student leaders who choreographed the entire student section with such creativity and flair. It was such a refreshing change from the hostility of so many arenas.

As the season concludes with preparations for March Madness, let’s raise the bar on our behavior and language by recreating our home-court advantage in a manner that brings a measure of respect and dignity to our institutions and ourselves. Cheer, dance and scream your hearts out in support of your team without profanity and crude behavior. Many are watching and forming opinions about us — so let’s conduct ourselves with class and pride.

Thomas E. Yeager, commissioner, Colonial Athletic Association

Energy alternatives must include wildlife protection

For far too long our country has been dependent on foreign oil sources. President Bush’s proposed budget for 2008 finally takes heed of the growing need for alternative fuels. In the president’s budget is drop-in-the-bucket funding for a Coal Research Initiative, a Solar America Initiative, a Biofuels Initiative and a Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. Without an aggressive pursuit of alternative energy options, our country will continue to exist in the quagmire of foreign oil dependency. Our country must stop giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies, especially when “big oil” profits are at a record high. Rather, our government should focus on promoting the growth of the alternative energy industry. By acquiring new energy solutions, our country can gain energy security and break our dangerous addiction to foreign oil.

However, just because alternative energy breakthroughs are in the near future does not mean we need to sacrifice our nation’s most valuable resource: wilderness. By allowing oil drilling in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, our country would merely be sidestepping the issue and finding short-term solutions to the energy problem. The focus must be on clean, efficient energy without sacrificing the environment. A forward-looking energy policy would allow these wild lands to be protected once and for all. By accomplishing clean energy goals, proponents on both sides of the issue would be satisfied; cleaner, more efficient, domestic energy on one hand, and wildlife protection on the other. We must stop the pandering to “big oil” and redirect our focus to alternative energy.

Mark Minick, junior English and communications major

Drinking against deception

As two graduating seniors, we’d like to thank the JMU Graduate Duke Club for hosting an event this last Saturday to introduce seniors to this wonderful organization and all it does. This event, a gathering of seniors as well as other Student Duke Club members, was a unique opportunity to express our love for JMU and learn how to support it in the future.

As Dukes we pride ourselves on the integrity, honesty and sense of duty that the JMU spirit so embodies. It is with this spirit in mind, that we take exception to the deceitful advertising organized by the JMU Graduate Duke Club. This advertisement clearly stated, “Free Food and Open Bar.” There was free food; it was quite good. There was alcohol; it was mediocre. However, our concerns do not lie with the quality of the alcohol but rather the apportioned quantity.

Gathered seniors, arriving under the pretense of an “Open Bar,” were particularly surprised to find that it was neither open, nor a bar. While we appreciate the allotted two free drinks, we were particularly dismayed with this “Bait and Switch” tactic.

We hope that in the future, in keeping with the JMU spirit that this organization so dutifully embodies, that they will refrain from utilizing the deceitful advertising that they so opportunistically employed.

Jacob Forstater and Andrew Gore, senior physics major/philosophy and economics major