The student section at UA games is the worst ever

Seriously, I’ve been going to games since 1974, and the Zona Zoo is the saddest group of fans I’ve ever seen.

The team busts ass all year long, and students leave at halftime on a perfect fall afternoon. Shame. I know a lot of you guys are from out of state, and didn’t grow up as ‘Cats, but come on, support the guys who represent your university.

And to the team: Please don’t judge us all because the Zona Zoo sucks. There are still thousands of real fans who support you!

John Kluver

Stoops should be an award-winning coach

Concerning the recent CatPoll asking whether Coach Stoops should be honored with the college football Coach of the Year award, beats me. I’d have to know what the criteria are to discern that. But I will insist this: coach Stoops is a great coach who has done wonders for this program. When I first came to UA in fall 2001, the football program was pathetic. Most the players were so lifeless and demoralized by then-Coach John Mackovic’s negativity that games weren’t even any fun to watch — unless one was pulling for the opponent — as evidenced by the far-less-than-half-full stadium after halftime. Sure, there were some few bright spots of talent — e.g., linebacker Lance Briggs and halfback Charles Farmer — but a couple individual talents hardly make a football team.

Now, I will be honest — I was initially not pleased when Stoops was hired as coach. You see, prior to my arrival at UA, I was a graduate student at Washington State University, where I had the pleasure of watching several great teams make Rose Bowl appearances, including in 1997 against University of Michigan in a national championship game and in 2003 against Oklahoma (although I may have been at UA by then, several of my former students were players on the 2003 Cougar squad and so my allegiance remained). With an injured quarterback, WSU lost to Oklahoma 34-14. And on the coaching staff of the Sooners that year were none other than Mike and Mark Stoops. So, admittedly, I was slightly bitter concerning Stoops’ hiring here. Yet, one could instantly see the transformation of the Wildcats under coach Stoops’ tutelage — the team then may still have been smaller and slower than the average Pac-10 team, but it played with determination and passion not seen prior in this century. Each year he’s been here, Stoops has brought in excellent recruits — each recruiting class faster, bigger and rated higher than the previous’ years — which has led the ‘Cats to a bowl win last year and now a top 20 ranking this year, with surely another bowl appearance in the near future. Whether or not he deserves recognition as college football coach of the year, Coach Stoops definitely deserves notice as a great coach we Wildcat fans and the football players are fortunate to have on our team.

Greg Grewell

Graduate Student

Mailbag

After reading his recent column, (“”The war on Rush,”” October 23) I felt sorry, in a way, for Daniel Greenberg. You see, I grew up in a time of Bill Buckley and “”Firing Line,”” when “”conservative thought”” was not an oxymoron. He grew up in an era where the antipathies between reality-based community and popular right-wing media seemed irreconcilable, save for David Brooks. He and other young conservatives would do well to heed some lessons in the effort to join us.

The first lesson is the one of false equivalency, and there is a recent object lesson. When Rachel Maddow was informed that there was a misattributed quote to Limbaugh, she apologized for the error. When Limbaugh discovered he was essentially Punk’d when he read what he thought was Obama’s anti-American thesis, he did not, under the guise that “”he knows Obama thinks it.”” There is no left-wing equivalent to Fox News on today. Try as he might, Mr. Greenberg cannot find a similar left-wing equivalent at MSNBC or any other network.

The second lesson is don’t make an argument easily disproven by a fourth-grader, like the notion that FOX and talk-radio balance out the “”Communist News Network””, among others. You mean the CNN of Lou Dobbs, and abduction porn harridan Nancy Grace? The CNN that recently employed Glenn Beck? This would be the same CNN that features or has featured in the past, Robert Novak, neocon William Bennett, National Review’s Kate O’Beirne, National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, The Weekly Standard’s David Brooks and Tucker Carlson. For years, it was impossible to find liberals on “”This Week.”” New York Times, you say? Would that be the same New York Times that includes William Kristol, David Brooks, A.M. Rosenthal, the late William Safire, and not the least, Iraq War cheerleader Judith Miller, who for years re-published the fear porn belched by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney? Limbaugh has no power you say? How is it then that no less than THREE elected politicians, including a current member of Congress (John Gingrey) and the RNC Chairman have gone on the air to kiss the ring and seek absolution after transgressing against the throne? Maybe Mr. Greenberg wasn’t aware of these matters, having possibly taken to heart Limbaugh’s admonition that his listeners “”not read the paper or watch the news. I will watch them and tell you how to think.”” See, this is so easy it’s not even sport.

The third lesson is to support your argument with fact. So, when I say Fox makes stuff up, I point to Hannity accusing the president of calling insurance execs “”bad people,”” when the President said the opposite just minutes earlier. Study after study has shown that 1) which president you vote for does not correlate to how softly you treat one side or another and 2) journalists are mostly centrist in their political orientation. (David Croteau, Virginia Commonwealth University is a great such study). I can illustrate this with the disparate treatment received by Obama over Jeremiah Wright v. McCain seeking the endorsement of John Hagee.

So the task before you is thus. Either reclaim your party from the idiot wing, or become further marginalized. Frankly, I miss the days of intellectually jousting with David Wilson and John McLaughlin. But someone who accuses Rachael Ray of promoting terrorist chic by wearing a kaffeyeh (Michelle Malkin) or a clinical schizophrenic who jokes about poisoning the speaker of the house (Glenn Beck) are self-evident fools not to be taken seriously. The question for Mr. Greenberg, and other young conservatives is, do you take these lessons to heart, or continue to be snickered at?

Daniel, do the right thing.

Tyrone Henry