To the editor:
Thank you, Coach Hill!
Fresno ought to be thankful for what you’ve accomplished. You graduated your players at a rate higher than the student population at Fresno State. You behaved yourself with decorum and only the occasional deleted expletive. You converted many of us to your “anybody, anywhere, anytime” mantra. Granted, we may have gotten tired of your smash-mouth, downhill running game, mixed in with an efficient passing game. And from time to time you got a little snappy with the media, and with us. Sometimes you called out the fans, but I can forgive that. You believed in your players and you wanted us to love them like you did. And you won at a 58 percent clip, all the while ironically turning the Bulldog program into a job that young replacements will be drooling over. I only hope they do it with the integrity you did.
In many respects, Fresno doesn’t deserve any better. Fresno thinks it deserves somehow to have 10-2 every year. I, for one, am largely thankful for the 8-5, or 7-6 that we got. And I’m thankful that I had some of your players in my classes. Never ”” and I mean never ”” were they a problem. I loved your guys. I could name them, but you know who they are. They were growing into good men, frequently because you helped them to be that. They showed up, not just on the field, but to class, like they were supposed to. You gave them an “Academic Game Plan,” and most chose to follow it. Kudos to you, and to them.
As you know, Coach, you’re not perfect ”” but neither are we. Don’t listen to the small-minded “haters.” Get on with your life, and we’ll get on with ours, but make sure you know that many of us appreciate you exactly for who you are, and for what you delivered ”” not for who you’re not, or what you did not deliver. Fresno is better because of you.
Dr. John Farrell
Department of History
To the editor:
Fresno State is using $40,000 on a new fountain along with another increase in student tuition. Where is the student’s money going to?
Of course, the students always hear that it is going to their school to help them with their education, pay for the library that they are using, and the professors who are molding them to their futures. However, why do I see money being used on flamboyant buildings and unnecessary reconstruction when, in our classrooms, we have nonfunctioning equipment and are stuck with chalk boards in some rooms? Students pay their college expecting to get the best quality education, not to get the best looking school. Of course if we have money left over, then why not spend it to make ourselves look good? But right now, students are in debt and working nights and weekends to get a good education, which cannot be provided through needless luxuries such as a new fountain even though the current one still works, or new benches to replace the simply stable one. The students should represent the school, and the students aren’t made of money.
Nancy Yang