Letters to sports: Lending a helping hand during a tough time

March 19, 2021 3:29 PM PT

Regarding Bill Plaschke’s column about Josh Morales who, at 17, sick himself and alone, maintained his household and nursed his parents through a nightmare of COVID-19, while maintaining a 3.7 GPA and holding on to his high school football dreams:

I challenge the multi-millionaires and billionaires who doubled their money in the stock market during the Pandemic Year, I challenge the elite entertainers and athletes with their heavy gold chains and Bentleys and $100-million contracts who their first thanks for success goes to God — I challenge you to take a pile of your chump change and put this amazing kid through college.

Jo Ellen Johnson
Los Angeles

Bill Plaschke’s article “He Was ‘The Air That We Breathed” was heartwarming and deeply moving.

I was a lineman on Loyola High’s football teams during the late 1950s. All we had to worry about back then was passing the tough Jesuit exams, keeping out of trouble, and running daily wind sprints in downtown L.A. in the days before mandated smog restrictions.

I am extremely proud of Josh Morales during the pandemic and the “Man for Others” he became by saving the lives of his parents and family. I hope he plays great football this year for our Loyola Cubs and advances to a good college. Whatever happens, I have a strong feeling he will become truly successful in the game of life.

Jim Maechling
Redondo Beach

AD has fan club

My grandson Ryan and a friend may have been the only UCLA rooters at Thursday’s game against Michigan State. Ryan posted on Twitter, a plea for one free ticket to the game. UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond saw the post and contacted Ryan. He said that he would give Ryan two free tickets so that he could take a friend, but that Ryan and his friend had to cheer as loudly and long as they could. Ryan promised that they would cheer until they were “red in the face and gasping for air.”

That confirms my feeling that not only will Martin Jarmond be a great AD, but that he is a kind and classy gentleman. UCLA is lucky to have him.

Michael Gesas
Beverly Hills

Westwood, whoa!

The L.A. Times sports section should be renamed the Westwood Times. There are two college basketball teams in L.A. One of them has beaten the other four times in a row, but we see stories about that team from Westwood every day and nothing about the team that runs L.A. and has beaten them four straight!

Larry Frisina
Altadena

Safe at home?

Conspicuously absent from the announcement about the Dodgers and Angels allowing a limited number of fans to attend games is the staggering lack of detail as to how these teams plan to keep fans safe other than spacing out the seating in the stands.

How and who will enforce the mask requirements? What will be done to enforce social distancing at the concession stands, let alone the restrooms, and how often will the latter be cleaned? What will prevent mass crowding in the steps, stairs, and tunnels within the stadium?

Until and unless these questions are answered with some specificity, assuming that there are plans at all to deal with these challenges, both teams run the very real risk of igniting super spreader events.

Bill Waxman
Simi Valley

A moving writer
With every article he writes, is Dylan Hernández, Mr. Doom and Gloom? Friday’s article essentially said that the Dodgers’ Kenley Jansen is done as the closer. Other articles always seem to have a dark cloud hanging over them.
Mr. Hernández, why don’t you move to Houston? Down there they have the Texans’ Deshaun Watson wanting to get traded and now accusations from women against him. You had the James Harden saga, where he essentially quit on the his Rockets teammates before getting traded. Then there’s the Astros’ cheating scandal. Houston, we have a problem, and Dylan you would fit right in down there.

Chris Sorce

Fountain Valley

Hear them roar

I applaud Lara Filgas, who raised a concern about the lack of LA Times Sports coverage of women’s athletics. I also would like to voice my concern about the limited space devoted to the coverage of college sports, other than USC and UCLA. Given the number of UC, CSU and private colleges in southern California, it would benefit Times readers to have greater access to more in depth reporting of athletic events, scores and human interest stories at these schools.

The Times does excellent work in covering high school athletics, the same should be done for college sports.

Mark Mallinger
Malibu

I was thrilled to see that the Times is going to provide expanded coverage of high school sports. The paper’s prior reduction of coverage of this group a few years ago left a large void. Eric Sondheimer is clearly the dean of the prep scene and the more we get to read his articles the better for those of us who love high school sports.

Mark Kaiserman
Santa Monica

Quick pitches

Chick Hearn would have been stunned to see a road team like the Indiana Pacers wear “yellow-gold” uniforms against the Lakers in Los Angeles. Lakers brass, let’s have a modicum of respect for tradition.

Ken Feldman
Tarzana

Twenty-five years ago I spent a lot of time playing Where’s Waldo with my granddaughters. Now I spend a lot of time playing Where’s the Sports section in the L.A. Times.

Jerry Broomfield
Lancaster

The NFL’s landmark new media rights agreement will provide ESPN with its first-ever broadcast of the Super Bowl in 2026. The pregame show starts tomorrow.

Steve Ross
Beverly Hills

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