University of Virginia Library

Letters: Oppose Athletes In Dorm

Ever since the football players
decided to live in the dorms next
year, I have been pondering the
question and trying to collect my
thoughts on the subject. Let me
state from the start that I am very
definitely against it.

I would like to look at the
problem from two angles. First
consider the players themselves. By
being cored to live and at together,
they will be starved of an
education in a communicative
sense. That is, the ream of their
University life will be limited to
classes and football. Their contact
with other people will be for the
most part eliminated, at least during
the season. True, it probably
would not hurt the team to "cat,
sleep, and live football," but do w
want a super team that badly?

When you hear the word Alabama,
what do you think of? Football.
Kentucky? Basketball. When
you think of the University of Virginia,
what do you associate it
with? I hope it is the Honor
System, gentlemanly dress, and a
place where you spend at least
four undergraduate years which
you will probably remember as
the best years of your life.

This is the second angle from
which I would like to consider the
problem; that of the suggested
program's effect on the University.

The atmosphere here is to
wonderful to sacrifice any of it
at the expense of building a great
athletic team in the manner which
is now being tried. By having
athletic teams live together in the
dorms, we are, as has been
pointed out by many, gambling
with our greatest of honor systems,
and we are creating an atmosphere
of impersonality between the teams
and the rest of the student body.

There are some other points that
I would like to make. First of all,
I want to see good teams here,
probably more than most students.
But I certainly don't think these
drastic moves, which might well
change the atmosphere of the University
far toward the worse are
necessary, or worth any risks involved.
If you look at the trend
that the football and basketball
teams have been following over the
last ten years, you will see that they
have been on a steady incline.

Another point is that many if
not most of the football players
live with other football players
right now without being compelled
to do so. They are happy in a
position now which nearly assimilates
the condition of forcing ten
to live here, and ten there.

To summarize: Forcing the football
players to live in the dorms
will only hurt them as individuals
(though their resulting naivete? Will
prevent them from knowing this
until they have to get out in the
world, get a job, and communicate
with other people), endanger the
atmosphere of the University and
probably help the team little, if at
all.

St. George T. Lee, Jr.

College 4

Mr. Lee is a former sports editor of
The Cavalier Daily.-Ed.