Letters to the editor
Posted on September 27, 2007

Party fowl on CCU, not Duke Dog

These past few weeks The Breeze has run slanderous statements about the JMU faithful calling into question our character. The article “Mascots Duke it Out” unfairly blamed the incident at Saturday’s game on the Duke Dog who was assaulted by the CCU rooster after some standard mascot high jinks. However, the Duke Dog’s one-fingered salute to the camera while inebriated was completely inappropriate. So I ask The Breeze to at least get its facts straight so the blame can be spread evenly and not heaped all on our beloved Duke Dog.

The opinion piece “Boo on Dukes fan for poor sportsmanship” was completely ludicrous. Sports are not about hugging it out and being nice. Fans are expected to be loud and obnoxious. Every athlete knows they will be booed and heckled while playing away from home. If they are genuinely affected by a random fan shouting generic obscenities at them they have a more serious problem to deal with than that fan, a self esteem problem.

Insulting the other teams isn’t anything personal, it’s just part of sports. Every campus across the nation heckles the opposing team.  Have we defamed JMU by doing so? No. In fact we have added to JMU’s reputation through our rowdiness and passion. Opponents hate coming to play here, and that reflects on how passionate the fans are. So my fellow Dukes fans, stay passionate in supporting our beloved Dukes and making JMU the most feared place to play in the CAA.  

Erik Landers
junior, history

They need more support than just red shirts

I was happy with Patrick Callahan’s article that once again brought to light the somewhat forgotten war in Iraq. I was, however, extremely disappointed with freshman Sarah Miller’s letter to the editor. Not only is my boyfriend also in the military but he is currently deployed to Iraq. As a military girlfriend I hoped Miller would have a better insight and advice for the JMU community. Her best advice, however, was to wear a red shirt every Friday.

I believe in nothing but fully supporting our troops, but will our troops all over the world ever see any of those red shirts worn on Fridays? Will the president or Congress see those shirts that are to be worn to support the troops with hopes that the war will end soon? I think not. Instead of just wearing some random red shirt on a Friday why don’t we instead take a minute to write our representatives in Congress? Why don’t we go shopping for care package items that can be sent to the troops that personally tells them that you support them? Go ahead and wear your red shirt, but is that really the best we can do?

Lindsay Harris
sophomore, marketing