The Cavalier daily :: Wednesday, March 20, 1968 :: University of Virginia Library

It will surprise you how fast the year passes. One
day you'll finally decide on a name for your column-one
you think is fairly original, but really isn't-and the
next day you'll be looking back over all those games won
and lost and all those late nights at the typewriter and
you'll be trying to figure out what to say in your final
column. As you know, this is the last time. The Fifth
Quarter will appear on these pages so I thought I would
offer you some thoughts on my year as sports editor,
hopefully offering some useful insights, giving you a few
tips I wish someone had given me.

Your year as sports editor will be a year in limbo.
There will be times when you will feel that the only
words you need in your vocabulary are "almost upset"
and "wait till next year." There will be times when
Virginia teams will play on a level with teams they have
no business playing with but, just as often, there will
be times when Virginia teams will lose to teams whose
whole season will be made by bringing back a victory
from Charlottesville. When things are going badly here,
you can expect more injuries to key players; when things
are going well, you will be tempted to wonder what's
wrong.

When a .500 season is an achievement of sorts, it
is most difficult to recognize that the general program
at University Hall is vastly improved. It is so easy to
lose sight of this improvement when you're caught in the
melancholy of last Saturday's defeat. When you think
things couldn't possibly get worse, spend a few minutes
leafing through University record books. Remember that
four years ago there was no University Hall and that
Memorial Gym looked about as dark and dingy as it
smelled.

Certainly do not be afraid to be critical, but make
sure your criticism is just. Remember that you are the
sole source of sports news for the University community;
remember that what you say most people will adopt as
their own opinions. Remember that you are spending
two or three hours a day, four days a week, glancing
over the work of men who have devoted their whole
lives to sports. Remember that no one here wants to, nor
likes to - lose. If you can first take some of these
things into consideration, then you will be prepared to
criticize.

But, above all, never lose respect for the University
athlete. Because he really deserves it. He is your fellow
student, the guy who sits next to you in class, the guy
who knocks himself dead all afternoon and then has to
study the same amount of work you have very night.
He will miss more classes because of away games and he
will somehow have to keep up. He will get few breaks
in the classroom and even fewer on the playing field and
in the University community In most sports, he will
compete against dumber athletes who don't have to give
a second thought to anything but athletics. In minor sports,
he will compete against scholarship athletes while he is
paying his own way. He will run up Observatory Hill in
the rain, or spend his vacations in Charlottesville. About
the only recognition he gets is on this page. He is the one
who really has to live with those defeats. And he keeps
on playing. You wonder why.

Virginia athletes will be honest and helpful in giving
you information if you keep their trust. But so will almost
everyone in University Hall. No matter how busy they may
be, the doors to their offices are inevitably open to you.
It is easy to sit up in the fifth floor of Newcomb Hall
and put down the athletic program, to make jokes about
the fact that Steve Sebo was associated with the New
York Titans. A little leg work, however, will greatly aid
in separating fact from rumor born of laziness. Contrary
to what you might be led to believe, things happen in
the athletic department do not happen that way because
they are pulled out of a hat. There is usually some logical
explanation-perhaps wrong, but usually logical-for why
this is so and that can't be.

Remember that money runs the athletic department and
that 95 per cent of that money comes from football. A
losing football season is the start of a vicious cycle: just
when you really need the money to get back on the
winning track, it isn't there. Understanding this, the difficulties
encountered in trying to improve an athletic
program can only be partially recognized.

When you write, you must walk a tightrope between
being a sports information mouthpiece and a real newspaper
columnist. You will be damned when you criticize
and damned when you don't. But never underestimate the
power of what you write. It will be read.