Don’t muzzle North’s ‘Woelf Pack’
The Wabash Valley Pizza Hut Classic is a special event. My father, a Indiana high school basketball stan-out in the 1950s, attended every day. I had a difficult time keeping him out of the student sections because these games reminded him of his glory days. The energy in the gym was palpable. Most of that energy came from the incredible efforts of the basketball players who were straining their skills and their hearts to the fullest. Yet, the fans, young and old, did their part.
I agree with Mike Lunsford (“Best cheer block: It’s tough to beat Terre Haute North’s for size and originality. ‘If you’re losing and you know it, clap your hands,’ was one of their favorites, but those from Marshall and Sullivan came very close.” (Jan. 4, Tribune-Star)
Just as the Terre Haute North basketball team won the games on the floor, North’s “Woelf Pack” student section won the cheering in the stands.
It was a shock to attend North’s most recent home game last Saturday night against Evansville North. Many students were in the Woelf Pack section, but there were no cheers. No pulsating chants of “I believe that we will win!” echoed around the walls. I asked some people who would know about this quietude, and I was told some people had “complained.”
I have no idea who complained, how they complained, what schools they represented or what their concerns might be. I just find it sad. There were bawdy things being said throughout the stands during the Pizza Hut Classic, and certainly not just in the student sections. Of course, when hundreds of students are yelling in unison, they are heard more clearly.
I just wish we could all rejoice for all those students, from every team and from every school, who attended the Pizza Hut Classic. I work at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute. The vast majority of those incarcerated men never participated in high school sports or student cheering sections. They were too busy with nefarious undertakings.
The Pizza Hut Classic students, however, came out during their Christmas break to support their schools. These are the young people who will also be engaged in our communities, will vote, will volunteer and will speak up to praise the good and challenge the evil. They should be commended!
— Scott Paul-Bonham
Terre Haute
The true legacy of coach Paterno
Without equivocation, Coach Joe Paterno was, and always will be, a national icon. Having been in both coaching and teaching ranks for 62 years, he directly impacted and instilled his positive work ethic and moral principle into the minds and lives of literally thousands of America's young men and women.
Indirectly, Coach's ethics extended to those whom he mentored, who themselves went on to influence others who took his principles to influence thousands of other students, athletes and coaches, who then influenced thousands more by their teachings based upon Coach's principles.
Once informed of the Sandusky shower affair by the uncorroborated allegation of an assistant coach, Mr. Paterno did the right thing. He followed the chain-of-command by reporting this charge to his university superiors. It was incumbent upon them — not him — to advise the necessary law enforcement authorites of this alleged incident.Coach was not negligent, culpable nor in any way criminal in the means and manner of his decision and action.
Yet, the media vilified the man for his course of action, notwithstanding the fact he was a cooperative witness before the grand jury charged with hearing and deciding upon the prosecutor's Sandusky criminal filing.
It must be remembered the media can egregiously act to attack and prosecute without merit those of its focus as founded by the examples of later-proven-innocent Duke lacrosse players and Georgia's Richard Jewell. In that context, Coach should have been treated with the respect due to a man of his stature and physical condition given the common knowledge he was suffering from lung cancer and of the excorciating effects of his cancer treatment.
To this I say, these pejorative media accounts of his decision to follow the chain-of-command concept indeed hurt the Coach viscerally to the extent his physical condition faltered more so from a heavy heart rather than from his cancer during the last 11 weeks of his life.
And, Coach, as you proceed into the Great Beyond to join and to be received by the myriad of legendary coaches who have preceded you, may you rest in eternal peace, a peace of which you so rightfully deserve.
— Earl Beal
Terre Haute
Bullet holes suggest dangerous gun use
So you think it’s cool to go out and shoot your guns into the air.
A couple of years ago I was doing some work outside when I noticed a hole in the top of my carport and in the top of my pop-up camper parked under it. After some digging around in the hole, I was able to retrieve what looked to be a 45-caliber slug from the hole in my camper.
As you can imagine I was quite upset. Now let’s fast forward to last night, when my son and I were getting into my vehicle that was parked under the carport when he noticed another hole not two feet from the original bullet hole in the roof of the carport. Now I am thinking there is no way that this could have happened again, but after looking around I found a hole in my boat cover just under the new hole in the carport. We lifted the cover and I found a small caliber rifle slug (approximately 7mm) lying on the deck of my boat.
This is all happening in the yard that my kids play in and this scares me. What if the “not so smart person” that is doing this does this some day when my kids are out playing and kills one of them?
If there are two holes I can see, how many holes are in my roof I can’t see? I am in no way an anti-gun person. I own a couple of guns myself, but I do believe in responsible gun ownership, and whoever is doing this is not a responsible person, and these people make those of us that are, look bad.
— Robert L. Adams
Terre Haute
Union coercion in right-to-work issue
Capitalism does not say that our government cannot intervene in the economy. What it does say is that government intervention creates special union and business favors and special union and business privileges that lead to political and economic conflicts of the non-privileged many against the politically privileged few.
On the domestic market and in Indiana, unions do not tolerate the competition of nonunionized workers and admit only a restricted number to union membership Those not admitted must go into less remunerative jobs or must remain unemployed. The unions are not interested in the fate of these people.
It is also historically documented and demonstrable fact that unions have acquired the privilege of violent action. Coercive actions and force are functions that should only be the right of the government. Today, the essence of the right-to-work ultimately questions whether or not any association of private citizens (a union) should be granted the privilege of resorting with impunity to violent action to meet union demands. Today one may also question if government legislators should be allowed the action of legislator walkouts when legislating does not go their way.
The problem is not the right to strike or wage demands, but the right by intimidation or violence to force other people to strike and other union demands, and the further right to prevent anybody from working in a shop or to be employed in which a union has called a strike. This is the essence of the right-to-work.
— Charles Bean
Terre Haute
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