Free speech Fridays

Save the Huskies, fire Neuheisel

In regard to the column about Rick Neuheisel ("Is Slick Rick worth the trouble?" April 16), I would go farther and call for firing Neuheisel now. While UW football fans are excited about their coach, Neuheisel's record at Colorado warrants strong concern.

When he took over the CU program, it was a perennial top-10 team and national powerhouse. The previous coach, Bill McCartney, left Neuheisel a healthy program. The first few seasons went OK, just like at UW; however, by season three or four, the CU program was in a downward spiral from which it has just now recovered. Neuheisel's recruiting failed the program, and once McCartney's talent had graduated, CU was in trouble. Fans in Colorado were shocked when the UW offered Neuheisel a job with a huge salary, but were happy to see him go. Neuheisel left CU after promising he would stay (similar to his insistence that he would not leave UW for Notre Dame). Neuheisel's word is worthless. UW should get rid of him before he inevitably abandons it for greener pastures once he has dragged down our team.

Neuheisel has enjoyed success at the UW; however, the majority of his wins here have been fourth-quarter comebacks led by clutch quarterbacks. The Huskies are not a legitimate national powerhouse because Neuheisel never has his team ready to play and it always has to come back. The best teams in the nation would salivate at the chance to run up huge margins of victory against weak teams like Berkeley, but Neuheisel's Huskies have barely squeaked by the Golden Bears the past two seasons. These fourth-quarter miracles cannot be counted on week in and week out; the UW needs a coach who will get his players ready to play 60 minutes. In the Miami debacle, the UW got way too far behind to make a miracle comeback. A top-10 team should never be embarrassed that way. You only have to look at the coach to see why it happened. Last season's 8-4 record is not up to the standards that Neuheisel set in his first seasons at the UW, and if history repeats itself, next year will be worse.

Tuesday's article brings up good points about Neuheisel 's scruples; his consistent disregard for NCAA rules puts the program at risk for sanctions. This risk alone is reason to be suspicious of Neuheisel as a coach, but the weight that his spotty coaching history adds really tips the scales against him. Neuheisel is not the godsend that fans here seem to think he is. I strongly encourage Barbara Hedges to fire Neuheisel after next season when the team's record falls again. Learn from Colorado's mistake and find a coach who will be a credit to our university.

Mark Leher, former resident of Colorado

junior, economics, philosophy

Lobbyist, heal thyself

Sumeer Singla's declaration that current UW student leaders "are holding onto antiquated ideas" by fighting local control of tuition ("Student leaders on wrong track," April 24) should be approached with great skepticism.

This is especially apparent considering how, in the same article, Singla extols the virtues of "standing by [one's] principles" while confessing his own past efforts lobbying against local control. Singla curiously fails to explain his principled rejection of his own former principles, and can only defend his dismissal of "the positions and stands of our current leaders" by declaring that "the world has changed more than we can ever imagine and we need to be ready to lead this new world."

Such embarrassingly empty rhetoric may well groom one for a prominent future position in our state government, but it does nothing to specifically explain why local control "is good policy," nor why those who continue to resist rising tuition and local control are misguided, as Singla apparently believes.

Having informed Daily readers of his six years of involvement in higher-education policy, surely Singla could have offered us a more substantial defense of his newfound faith in local control than what he presented in his guest article. Not to mention a more specific and detailed criticism of those student leaders who have publicly confronted the regents with their grievances regarding tuition policy during the past year.

Contrary to Singla's opinion, those leaders have in fact shown outstanding initiative both by consistently expressing their opposition to local control and by offering informed arguments to explain their stance. Among the consistent points of their collective message have been the following: the lack of public accountability that would result from granting local control, and the importance of keeping higher education affordable and accessible for all Washington state citizens.

That last point is crucial to consider in light of Singla's description of the student regent's mandate as doing "what is in the best interest of the entire UW community and the state."

While this description is technically accurate, Singla apparently does not believe that the goal of keeping tuition affordable for all citizens "is in the best interest of the entire UW community and the state," judging from his criticism of student leaders who are actively pursuing this goal.

If this is so, then I challenge Singla to explain, in convincingly technical detail, how and why he has come to arrive at this belief. Without such an explanation, I personally can only conclude his about-face on local control to be motivated more by political expediency than by policy expertise.

Jeff Stevens

graduate non-matriculated,

linguistics

Daily staff columnist

I should have done something about this

I read The Daily about three times a week now and sporadically over the last three years. Two themes recur excruciatingly often, everyday it feels like: tuition increases and campus diversity. I read the feature comparing the four student-regent finalists, one of whom is your opinion editor ("Regent finalists speak to senate," April 17). Their main issues were the two aforementioned themes.

College students don't care about that crap. College students want to get laid, get good drugs and to know where to buy cool stuff. Want cheaper tuition? Go to a community college. This is a University, spelled with a capital U, where grownups learn. I feel like I cheated when I think about the education I have received for only $3,800 a year! Anybody wanting diversity can spend some time with me. I have too much; my lawn needs mowing, I have a cool remote-controlled airplane that needs assembling, my books need reading, my motorcycle needs riding, etc. Where do these diversity-seekers find the time?

Adopt some issues that mean something. How about an e-mail address of person@uw.edu instead of person@u.washington.edu? Everybody, including myself, hates that long thing. I know the HUB underwent a beautification recently, but our campus doesn't have enough places to drink coffee, take a nap or study with friends. The coffee shop on the second floor of Architecture Hall is a terrific model. The bus stops behind the HUB on Stevens Way are woefully inadequate. On a rainy day, check out all the miserable people at 2:30 p.m. waiting for the bus in a mud patch in front of the Mechanical Engineering Building. I can deal with the builders of the new EE building whistling at my ladies, taking up seats at the HUB and even crapping in my toilets, but their conversion of More Hall's lawn into a bona fide trailer park is too much. Greater discouragement of automobile traffic through campus would make me a happier student too. About 70 percent of the vehicle traffic that I see are brand-new Honda Civics with "angry bee" exhausts driving in circles, doing who knows what.

This list is just an example of real problems with real solutions. I apologize for this, but these are just a FEW of the things I see everyday. I understand that in the spirit of a liberal education students feel the need to develop idealistic viewpoints regarding campus issues. Diversity and tuition aren't the hot-topic issues that The Daily makes them out to be; they are boring and trite. I wish that I became involved in the student political process in order to develop some cutting-edge solutions rather than watch these meaningless issues absorb the resources of the campus community.

Edward James Egan

senior, civil and environmental

engineering