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Respect Sparky Woods has Gamecocks heading in the right direction W V-/ USC crept into the Associated Press College Football Top 25 on little Cocks' feet Monday morning landing a spot at No. 24. It is a fitting testimony to the diligent work of the 70 or so members of the football team. Head coach Spaiky Woods, in his first season, had to learn names, understand personalities and clean up after a scandal-plagued program he inherited. He pledged to dedicate his season to getting the image of South Carolina athletics back up to national respectability. He's done that ? in the polls and in the public's eye. Woods has USC doing all the right things both on and off the field. That is something that no poll can measure, but every parent of any football player in the country will notice. Before Woods came to USC, some parents may have worried that sending their children to USC was a bad idea because the people there had no control and ran a "loose" ship. But Woods has set out and succeeded so far in spinning that image back to the positive. He checks up on his players, chats with them, knows their fami lies and makes it his business to know how well the players are doing in school. If the players mess up, he punishes them ? discreetly and fairly, but he punishes them nonetheless. If they falter, he gives them a chance to right their wrong. Some mistakes even he won't forgive, but he gives every player a fair chance. This is what a college head coach should be doing. A college head coach is an educator. He must prepare these boys for not just a career in football, but for life. He must convey to them that dedication to excellence requires hard work and good judgment on the field and off. He has them practicing hard and studying hard. And his system seems to be working. Any change, however, takes a while to become evident. He and the team worked through the transition time and got used to each other. He didn't rant and rave when they played badly. He coached. He listened to what they were saying. He is a players' coach. He cares. And those admirable qualities in a coach have rubbed off on the players off the field and in the classroom. These boys understand now that school is not a way to play football; football is a way to get through school. Woods has had successes off the field and on the field and has a Top-25 bid and a possible big bowl game bid in the future. But more importantly, he is taking USC into the Top 10 in respectability. | I Jv/HITE^SE j J I! MANAfiEHBtt } j | DEPT. TO MORIFSA i j m L__==Z!^!^ i 1 re?? n JHI rTurcwrLr t i I I 11 I fl ,y f J 11 I ;| <3/909 The Gamecock ^ " ' f 'i ' H ' f ''s^ ' Kg Editor in Chief Assistant Photography Editor WAYNE WASHINGTON JULIE BOUCHILLON Managing Editor Viewpoint Editor HAL MILLARD JEFF SHREWSBURY Copy Desk Chief Datebook Editor KATHY BLACKWELL JAN PHILLIPS Assistant Copy Desk Chief Coinics/Graphics Editor ROBYN THOMPSON ROB LANE News Editor Graduate Assistant KELLY C. THOMAS KRISTIN FRANCIS Assistant News Editors Gamecock Adviser D. R. HAYNES ERIK COLLINS JEFF WILSON Director of Student Media Carolina Life Editor ED BONZA ROBERT THOMAS Production Manager Assistant Carolina Life Editor LAURA S. DAY LYNN GIBSON Assistant Production Manager Sports Editor ray burgos CHRIS SILVESTRI Assistant Advertising Manager Assistant Sports Editor JEFFREY B. THOMPSON BRANT LONG Photography Editor TEDDY LEPP Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should be, at a maximum, 250 to inn uapiIc Una Thus writer ehnuld include full name, nrnfeeeinnal title if an emnlovee with IJSC or Columbia I resident, or year and major if a student. An address and phone number are required with all letters sent. Guest I editorials should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for style or possible libel. The I Gamecock will not withhold names under any circumstance. I |P|^W ^ Press only as iNauonai ivewspaper Week started Sunday. <***, You don't need to send us a card or any- ^ thing. It's going to be a quiet little week as far as this columnist is ?~ concerned. The S.C. Press As- ~ w/ sociation has kits avail- * able for newspapers who want to discuss mf the vital role the press plays in society. Stenhpn We're the protect*? ? icpncii of freedom, accoroi.-_ Guilfoyle to the advertisement 1????? for the $6.50 kit. We provide services to readers and advertisers. It's a pretty grandiose role that the press claims for itself. Some of it, a lot of it in fact, is ego. Half the people in newspapers now are people just using the press to try and make a name for themselves by covering some branch of government ? state, local or national ? before they enter it themselves, as two reporters from The State have done in the past year. The press has had its glory days ? none more glorious than when Bob Woodward and Letters to the e ^ s v s ./ u / ' ^ \^V , '.yb <; > ' +A I Hugo not only I^fpiS ,1 and thus ha thing going on n? ? 0 cerns over To the editor: *ou'ccs* A As Hugo spun across the Atlantic, he was the only topic on our .. . J; curious minds. Would he escalate . to 105 mph? 115? 135? The more lL . ... ,, .. near Athem the merrier. Would Hugo ravage . Charleston or would he disappoint M ? ff us by buzzing off in some less in- j. teresting direction? What a disaster j)oes? 94 Hugo turned out to be, too! A hur- Hoffa ] ricane is an opportunity of oppor- . ^ 20) tunities ? you should have seen * what I saw! This is like the fish T. story of a lifetime. For some, Hugo was a tragedy. . . For others ? an adventure, or per- y,.. haps a welcome change of pace. He certainly made big news. But . o r . , , , , ing a man for now, let s not debase ourselves u6f, ..... , Hoffa walk by making Hugo out to be more usc ^ Was'. L kn?w weie "" game. One? pceicu 10 rcaci 10 sucn evens su as the accurac, to avoid appearing insensitive, but ever it there's a lot going on in the world that 'the scc that we're forgetting, and I'm not the numbei talking international politics. Not subiec every broken heart is a child of s Ches lost property. the ghost o Dan Jensen ^ Gameo Physics senior w|jy should mean, Ch Hoffa helps USC win one """" To the editor: The other day I was in a little ryrinH drinking establishment that I pat- ^"Ull ronize occasionally. The bouncer there, Chester 'The Chew," came To the ed over to enjoy a cold Pabst with Being th< me. After a few belts Old Chester decided th began to spill his guts on the crime Rep. Mike of the century. There in the com- this campus fort of the saloon, I got the whole itation poli< story on what actually happened to groups fron Jimmy Hoffa. Chester comes by Brice Stadii the privileged information by way So, at tl of his cousin, Elmore, who lives sional Joun up north somewhere around Da- 4, I asked LiWeBidlhn'n. good as reade Carl Bernstein took a simple burglary and uncovered a criminal administration that threatened people, broke into people's offices to steal records, lied about other candidates, cheated to win an election they could have won by a landslide without even a miniscule of honest effort and illegally wiretapped people who opposed their policies and beliefs. But the press has stopped acting like the Fourth Estate, like a part of government. \\rn nikn TYg, W11U UOIIU LU U1& pUlQtlUa U1 Ji&gUUUI, J the watchdog of democracy, missed the HUD scandal and Iran-contra. 1 i We are sitting silent while a sitting president and most of the Congress are talking about limiting the freedom of expression with a constitu- j tional amendment What rights are we protecting when we don't j say that while flag burning is not nice, it is still i a form of expression? What rights are we protecting when we don't say anything about protecting the right of the Supreme Court to make ] that unpopular decision? What rights are we protecting when we don't oppose the intolerant i president and the politicaly gun-shy congress- ] men who are trying to subvert that Supreme Court decision? ] What rights are we protecting when we tele- ] ??? f ditosf VV- ^ ' ^% s < * >%. ' >** Os *******I i Y l irriw ViivYif i i I riiVi I T iimii iYi liiiiViYi"riVii m . Elmore works for a he was doing as a legis : just outside of town trustee member to encoi s an inside track on the state to appropriate more should satisfy any con- USC to help counteract ri the reliability of my of tuition, nyhow, Chester said His response: "Nothing lot killed in the way or Nothing at all? So muc lace most people be- optimism, ms that Jimmy was ta- At the beginning of th south to a little town ter, more than 20 clas: >, Ga. It was here that cancelled because the u iless creatures tortured could not afford to pay th o death by forcing him sors to teach them. As a "Hunker Down Hairy state student, my tuition times. Chester relates nearly $500 over this lost consciousness dur- (nearly $150 for in-state), th playing. Then as if increase is expected ag t enough, knowing that year and student aid will a diehard Gamecocks main the same, lonsters added insult to I realize that govemm< burying him at the not the sole solution to ; of Sanford Stadium. lacking funds, but as a \ reports of people see- and trustee member, Mike that looked much like the potential to help the ing up and down the His influential voice at les during the Georgia state and federal level co :an only speculate as to wonders if channeled c / of such reports. How- Unfortunately he chooses >ms a bit coincidental lent. I hope the rest of th >re was 24-20. Exactly will take more initiativ of times that Jimmy matter. :ted to that torturous So, what's my poi ter of course believes nothing, if Jimmy Hoffa helped Caro ocks on this one. But AD/PR so that surprise anyone? I ester would believe JVjiFS'S id? Allen Amason a ment graduate student un-Ameru not doing To the editor. 6 The other day, at the he f?? its acquaintance, I happened *1/1 ^ tetter they had recently re seems they had written litor: Mike Fair in order to pi z optimist that I am, I hard-line, anti-abortion ere must be more to His response implied tl Fair's involvement on choice" people are no tx i than changing the vis- Nazi genocidal maniacs. :y and restricting rock You know, America i ti playing at Williams- place. It was (and is) pop tm. people who had enough le Society of Profes- conviction to maintain th< lalists meeting cm Oct in the face of political o] Rep. Fair exactly what They were forced to giv( ;rs it serves rise so called presidential debates during the most vital of times, a national election, yet don't ask one challenging question, one question that requires a candidate to think instead of delivering a ptt reply written by whatever comedians on the party's payroll? What rights are we protecting when we let local government claim that ignorance of the Freedom of Information Act is an excuse for holding illegal executive sessions and for withholding information from the public on a regular basis? I am proud of the field that I have chosen to be a part or, but neither do 1 delude myselt and make it a perfect thing. I want to be a journalist ? for the rest of my life, I want to be a journalist. I want to write about sports and about government I want to sit in the slot on the night desk and pound away at the wire copy coming in for tomorrow's bulldog edition. But I don't want to delude myself. In the moments when all is right with our profession, we are the protectors of freedom. But only because we can get you, the public, the readers involved in. the protection of those freedoms. The role assigned to the press is not to make policy but to report on what the policy is and its real effects. i-'ijAS'" W;1-! ? v11;1; y " '11' I I >11 ?J??J lator and homes, in some cases homes that arage the had been in their families for genfunds to erations, some even gave up their sing costs families, friends, in fact, all they knew, just to be able to live the ." way they thought was RIGHT. :h for my Think of graduating from high school and then having to go diis semes- rectly to work somewhere in Outer ses were Mongolia. One gets a sense of how niversity they may have felt. The point is, le profes- they wanted to be in a place where n out-of- they could live their lives as they went up saw fit without FEAR OF PERSE summer LUI ION. This is some ot what A tuition being an American is all about; ;ain next therefore, any group of people that likely re- allows themselves to be herded in one direction while ,their convicjnt aid is tions lie in another have at that replenish moment, given up about 9/10ths of legislator their American heritage. 5 Fair has Now, I personally do not believe situation, in abortion. I do believe in having both the the freedom to choose. Mike Fair's >uld work letter states that the German gov:orrectly. ernment instituted the policy of to be si- "Lebensenwertz" which allowed e trustees them to choose who deserved e in this death and who didn't, and so implies that anyone choosing to have nt? Oh, an abortion has exactly the same mentality. 1 Degnan phomore Well, I see it differently. In my mind, the German government injric stituted a policy that the civilian, population had to live with ? o WHETHER THEY WANTED TO OR NOT. They had to watch "enemies of the state" wither away in concentration camDS. whether thev uneofan wanted to or not; hear people to see a screaming in ovens and gas chamceived. It bers, whether they wanted to or to Rep. not; and participate in a thousandrotest his and-one other wartime atrocities, platform, whether they wanted to or not; and lat "pro- here Mike Fair wants to decide Jtter than that people should live their sexual and reproductive lives his way, s a great whether they want to or not This ulated by seems downright un-American to guts and me. Is this "Onward Christian iir beliefs Nazi's" or what? Impression. Daniel A. Kline i up their English junior