Voice of the Fan

Sporting News, The, Jan 31, 2000

Choice voice `Does offseason day care for Randy Moss count against the salary cap? His squirt bottle incident shows no matter what receiving records he sets, he'll never be in the same class as Jerry Rice and Steve Largent.'

--Brad Cloud Brownwood, Texas

Decade's best?

I find it difficult to comprehend how you can consider Florida State the team of the '90s, (TSN, January 17). I guess that one extra win (109 for Florida State vs. 108 for Nebraska) outweighs the additional national championship Nebraska has won.

Let's consider Florida State's two national championships. One was against Nebraska by two points in Florida State's home state. The other was against a good, but not great, Virginia Tech team. Nebraska beat Miami on its home field, beat Florida (we all remember the score of that game) and beat Tennessee, the team that Florida State lost to the following year.

Bobby Bowden is a great coach and has a great program, but that was a big sigh of relief out of Tallahassee when Colorado came back in the second haft against Nebraska, which assured Virginia Tech a spot in the Sugar Bowl.

Gary King Johnston, R.I.

Memories

Bravo, Dave Kindred, for taking the time to recognize Charles Schulz, who has brought so much joy into the lives of many while teaching people life lessons (TSN, January 10). It was great to see Kindred tie sports into the pop culture icon of the "Peanuts" comic strip.

If only some of today's high-priced, crybaby athletes would take a little time to read a few "Peanuts" comic strips, maybe they could learn it is not about the money but, as Charlie Brown would say, the joy of the game.

Paul Habstritt St. Cloud, Minn.

Good riddance

Jeff Duncan's article on Louisiana State coach Nick Saban (TSN, January 3) was a bit too glowing for my part For starters, Saban was little more than a .500 coach at Michigan State before this season, and for many Spartan fans, such as myself, '99 was his make-or-break year. His teams prior to this year were typically underachievers and never seemed prepared properly for a bowl game. As for Saban being an "ace recruiter," it's typically assistants and a recruiting coordinator that makes teams good. By the way, Amp Campbell was a George Perles recruit, not Saban's.

Personally, I'm not disappointed to see him go. Saban couldn't deal with the fact that he may never have been the college football king of the state.

Arnold Weinfeld Lansing, Mich.

Big mistake

The NFL ruled last week that Bill Belichick can't work for any other team without prior consent of the Jets, but Dan Pompei already had weighed in on the issue (TSN, January 17) when he said Belichick simply is not head-coaching material. That thought was echoed by many readers, including Daniel Kuret of Tempe, Ariz.

"Every sentence of Pompei's article on Bill Belichick was right on target," writes Kuret. "As an employee of the Browns from 1990-95, I saw firsthand the destruction Belichick caused to the organization. I was 16 at the time, basically a coach's assistant during the summer, and during my school year I worked on the weekends. The guy was the most mean-spirited person I've ever come across, in the five seasons he worked for the organization, not once did I see him thank, greet, ask how somebody was, etc. A couple people would be walking down hallways, like Pompei wrote, and Belichick would just keep his head down and keep walking. Looking back, everyone thought he was just being a jerk, but that's how he really is every day. It is a wonder teams would be willing to give him any kind of control, let alone full control."

Kevin Montminy of Portland, Maine, called Pompei's column "the best column in two years since I started reading his work. Thanks for clarifying to people there is no great mystery to this dark, introverted human. He was born to be a coordinator. To be a head coach in the NFL is so much more than schemes, only he does not realize it. His boss (Bill Parcells) was a success because of how he dealt with people, the same reasons I also believe Belichick will fail again."