Motorcycle helmets vital
To the editor,
After reading Tuesday's article about a fellow motorcyclist being killed on campus, it made me realize the wake up call other motorcyclists need. So many motorcyclists on campus, like the late James Haley, are squids (motorcycle riders who ride without helmets because they are so good an accident would never happen to them). Do these people realize they are called accidents because no one plans for them happen? I guess not. Even on short rides on campus, you can be in an accident and killed. Monday's accident shows this. Without a helmet on, your head is a 0 on a scale of 1 to 10. But even with a K-Mart special helmet, your head is now a 9.
After California recently passed thier helmet laws, requiring all motorcyclist to wear a DOT approved helmet, they have already seen a 45 percent decline in motorcycle fatalities. That is hard evidence that helmets work. Some people claim helmets limit their vision. Well, unless you have eyes in the back of your head, you are wrong. Not to mention the effects on you face and ears. Your hearing goes away very quickly, and your face develops stretch marks from not wearing a helmet. Or when you are in traffic, and the car in front of you throws a rock up and hits your nose and breaks it. But if you wear a helmet, you can avoid all of this. Then there's the classic argument that not wearing a helmet is cool. Well, it shows how much of an idiot you are and that you don't take the sport of motorcycling very seriously, but doesn't make you look cool.
I have never once, and never will, ride without my trusty Mick Doohan Arai helmet on my head. This goes for my passenger as well. And if you ask me, wearing a helmet makes you look a lot cooler than without one.
Jake Simoneaux
Finance Junior
WNBA not inferior
To the editor,
To this point I have been content to let the name-calling about the WNBA speak for itself. Now I feel it is time to talk about something substantive, the validity of the WNBA. First, in the NBA game, everyone can dunk, big deal. The arts of shooting, defense, passing and rebounding are lost on all but a few specialists. The men in the NBA are tall, so they can dunk, big deal. In the WNBA the women are shorter and most cannot dunk. However, they play the game of basketball as it was meant to be played, with tenacious defense, deft passing and shooting, and real plays that involve all five players on the court and not just two big bruisers banging butts. Second, fans love the WNBA. They are selling out in markets where the men cannot. Third, there are leagues all around the world for people of various levels. Nobody is claiming that the WNBA champions should play the NBA champions, nor the NCAA champions or the German champions. I saw a second division men's game in Germany this year and I promise you, our women are better. Fourth, I watched a pick-up game at the rec the other evening and the team that held the court while I was there had two women on the team. They didn't just stand around and let the men win, they stole the ball, pump-fake and drove to the hole, and hit jumpers from all over the floor. The only thing that was equal was their height compared to the men they were playing. Fifth, you never hear the NBA men dissing the women players, they know better. Not in some politically-correct sense, they know quality basketball when they see it, as do such observers as Jerry West, Phil Jackson, and John Wooden. Ask Olsen or Pastner what they think of women players.
I've played, coached, and refereed basketball at many different levels. I've played crappy male AND female players, and I've played great male and female players. I saw Sheryl Swoopes' NCAA champion team almost beat the men's team at the same school, they lost by three points. Men are bigger and more explosive, they are also more egotistical and have ruined the NBA game by turning it into a single-dimensional game of highlight-seeking crybabies. Women have more endurance and they play the game as a team with more all-around skills than the men. If you don't want to see it, don't watch it. But stop whining because the fat, lazy, overpaid batboys aren't on the highlight reel.
Mark Konty
Sociology Grad Student
Writer needs a lesson
To the editor,
You Nazi, pinko, low life, macho, woman hater! Don't you know that a woman gave birth to you and that you have two gorgeous, highly intelligent sisters. So your brother plays a better game of b-ball than they do, that doesn't make the WNBA losers!
Beth Martin
Sports editor Chris Martin's mother
