Bruins’ Win, Story Don’t Impress Him

By heading up your coverage of the UCLA-Washington State game with Coach Bob Toledo’s supposed “challenge” to the Bruin defense--which then, so we were told, gave a stellar performance--The Times has once again subjected us to the contrived personalization of sports at the expense of quality coverage of the games themselves.

Toledo’s challenge--deferring if UCLA won the coin toss, thus in essence electing to receive to start the second half--is pedestrian strategy in college football. Moreover, to report that this strategy led to a compelling performance by the UCLA defense is just plain inaccurate. Holding Washington State--a team that averaged only 23 points a game in its previous efforts against mighty Illinois, Boise State, Idaho and Cal--to 17 points and 314 yards of total offense was hardly impressive.

Might I suggest that you confine your entertainment stories to the Calendar section of the newspaper?

BART ROBERTSON

Torrance

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Regarding Bill Dwyre’s report on the Notre Dame-Stanford game: What would your reaction be, Bill, if the Stanford band did a halftime segment on the lynching of blacks if they were playing Grambling? What if the band featured Martin Luther King Jr. in a disrespectful segment? What would your reaction be if the band did a segment on the Holocaust in a disrespectful manner? If the black community or the Jewish community objected, would you accuse them of lacking a sense of humor? I think not. Why then can you attack the Irish community and the Catholic community when they object to a disrespectful portrayal of their history and a disrespectful portrayal of their religious leader? You owe an apology to both the Irish and the Catholic communities.

STEVE REPASKY

Cerritos

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I checked my calendar today and it read Oct. 1, 1998, but Chris Dufresne is still whining about Michigan splitting last year’s national title with Nebraska.

GREG GRUBBS

Los Angeles