Recruiting hoax highlights problem

I’ve been consumed by the story of Kevin Hart, the Fernley High School football player who made up his entire recruitment. The attention this young man has garnered from this story is unfortunate.

What is more unfortunate, however, is what this “signing day” has become. When did a young man deciding to go to college become worthy of a news conference? I played high school athletics, I chose to go to college, but I don’t recall alerting the local media when I chose to continue my education.

The ESPNs and Rivals.coms of the world have turned this into a circus and a ridiculous event. Taking time from school work and the classroom for a kid who’s announcing that he is going to college is a sad commentary on where our society has taken college athletics.

Some of these “student athletes” are barely mature enough to speak in front of media.

I love sports. I love watching. I believe, however, that as a society we have got to take a step back and re-evaluate where we are headed if this continues. It’s a sad state of affairs in college athletics and academics. It really is.

PAUL SANSONE

LAS VEGAS

His right

To the editor:

I’m not sure what to say about the gross lack of perspective on the part of letter writers Jaime Huston and R. Maige regarding a student’s right not to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. As a former teacher, I have had a number of students who chose not to stand for the pledge. They are always quiet, and it’s never a problem.

The last school I taught at in Georgia did not even do the pledge. As a teacher, especially in Las Vegas from what I hear, the focus really should be on teaching at this point. When I read about how poor the school system is here, it makes you wonder why in the world you’re worried if a child stands for the pledge. Perhaps you should worry about whether or not he can spell all the words contained in the pledge instead.

This is part of the biggest problem with larger education systems: Everyone seems concerned with red tape and “procedure” and the outcome is kids who can’t pass standardized tests and have to be given a 50 for doing nothing. How about we worry about whether Devon Smith can do algebra and write a comprehensive essay rather than if he wishes to stand up for the pledge?

Honestly, who cares? He’s not there to learn the pledge, he’s there to learn core subjects so that he can go to college or get a job when he’s done with school.

Mr. Huston’s comment that “bending over for this boy only teaches him that his young instincts have more authority than the citizen majority” scares the hell out of me. Sounds a bit communist, doesn’t it? Very Stalinesque. Young people are not cattle, here to be herded and prodded into doing what you want them to do. If that’s how one teaches, then it would be no wonder if you got no results.

A quote used to hang in my classroom which said, “The purpose of education is to fill an empty mind with an open one.” Good teachers teach kids to think for themselves and form their own, educated opinions, not to be mindless sheep herding from one classroom to the next and being filled with what to think and when to think it.

While Devon obviously had no business leaving school without permission after the incident, it’s his right as an American not to stand for the pledge. That’s the beauty of being an American, like it or not. We have the right to free speech, and yes, that applies even when that speech offends someone. It’s still is a right, and God bless America for it.

Melinda Jagger

HENDERSON

Pathetic attempt

To the editor:

Your Feb. 6 editorial, “The Bush budget,” ends by calling the Democrats the “party of Big Government.” Say what? Sorry guys, but denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

For the first six years of the Bush administration and its Republican Congress, absolutely no pork-laden legislation was stopped by Mr. Bush’s veto pen (not that he actually had one). He will go into history as the utmost pork-enabling president of all time, period. His first six years will for all time define “Big Government.”

Your pathetic attempt to deflect this reality is simply transparent.

BOB COFFMAN

LAS VEGAS

Show time

To the editor:

When I was in a big musical show on Broadway, we always had a Wednesday and a Saturday matinee performance. Sometimes, on long weekends, we would add a Sunday one, too.

I cannot understand why, in a city such as Las Vegas, which is replete with senior citizens who seldom venture out of their homes after dark, at least one of the many local shows has not followed in the Broadway tradition by having at least one matinee show a week, maybe on Wednesday, for the benefit of us old fogeys.

I bet they would be pleasantly surprised by the good turnout of just us retired senior citizens.

I hope that one or more of the producers of all these local theatrical presentations reads this letter and implements my suggestion for at least a try-out period, starting with “Spamalot,” which I would love to see, but not after dark.

CORINNE BAER

LAS VEGAS