Reader's Forum

The Charleston Gazette

1001 Virginia Street E.

Charleston, West Virginia 25301

April 9, 1996

Dear Editor:

Once again The Charleston Gazette reminds us that the priority for a university should be education, not athletics. Or at least so says the Editorial Section, such as the April 8th pitch that lucrative profits of the scheduled 1997 WVU vs. Marshall football game should go toward retiring academic debts such as library improvement bonds. Such a move "would make a powerful statement about what's important in higher education."

One could read down a few inches into the "Potpourri" piece to see a potshot hurled against the University of Florida snatching the departing Marshall basketball coach for $400,000 per annum. To quote The Gazette, "We doubt if any Nobel Prize-winning University physicist, economist, or historian ever got half that amount. This is higher education?"

So how does The Gazette prioritize education and athletics? After all, The Gazette could cut out its sports columns featuring major university athletics to place in the stead articles puffing accomplishments by "Nobel Prize-winning physicists, economists, and historians." Might it just be that The Gazette's subscribers and advertisers are similar to the Universities' alumni and fund-raisers? University sports might not do much to develop brains, but they sure sell a lot of newspapers, don't they?

Allen Johnson

Rt. 1, Box 119-B

Dunmore, West Virginia 24934

(304) 799-4137 home

(304) 799-6368 work