Show mon The Herald Journal Logan Utah are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of 1 TVgN conclusions authoritative ’ selection' )urM Sunday October 26 1997 (1S7S-1SS- Page 10 Our view Good sportsmanship starts with coaching W ho's the best football play- er? Barry Sanders? Troy Aikman? Steve Young? Mow about in basketball? Michael Jordan? Karl Malone? Grant Hill? Baseball? Mark McGwire? Ken Griffey Jr? Greg Maddux? What do they have in common besides athletic prowess? They're all good sports With such excellent role models for young athletes to pattern themselves after a trend that continues at the high school level in our state is particularly disturbing According to Utah High School Activities Board there have been SI ejections from high school football games this season anil II of those have been coaches How can these badly behaving adults rationalize their actions? Do they tell their players “Well the ref made a bad call"? Of course refs make bad calls They’re just regular guys doing their best for pocket change But they don't intentionally make bad calls and by the end of the season all teams will have had about the same number of bad calls made against them But some coaches always claim their team is being singled out not only by referees but by league officials the media the groundskeepers and the gods of snow rain and sleet In a perverse way this siege mentality can help them win “Everybody's against us” is the message they give their players “and the only way anyone will respect us is if we win against all odds" And if they don’t win the postgame lecture goes they have let down their teammates their fans their families and their coach Not only are they berated and humiliated they feel as if they deserve it All coaches like to think their players will win if they would only play up to their potential But there are some things the players can't control: injuries the weather the calls the refs make And there are other things the players can control: how hard they practice how well they condition themselves how much they concentrate The good sports have the serenity to accept the things they cannot change the courage to change the things they can and the wisdom to know the difference Your viow Hunters deserve tolerance too To the editor: I am a citizen of Cache Valley who not only does not hunt I don't even eat red meal Yet I was concerned about the plea to hunters in the Oct 17 Herald Journal requesting that they refrain from displaying their fresh kill on the hoods of their cars This is evidently offensive to the nonhunting public I'm wondering if there will he a similar plea in December leveled at Christians who carry Christmas trees home on the hoods of their cars mempossibly offending bers of our community My point is we live in a diverse American society that exhibits a wide range of family values and it is important that we team to view this as an asset As long as people are behaving within the limits of the law we need to be tolerant and accepting of differences If someone wishes to raise a concern about hunting that addresses a common value safety for example then that would he a different matter However if the concern is merely for offending those who do not value and participate in the ' activity then I think tolerance and acceptance arc in order Martha Dcvcr Smithficld Sorry neighbor my vote goes to Anderson To the editor: I would like to take this occasion to write an open letter to the community and address the thorny issues of who to vote for the Logan City Council or perhaps more importantly what kind of person to vote for Steve Thompson is a neighbor of mine though we hardly know each other He is a very warm and friendly guy He was a student body officer while in college Look at his performance as a city councilman and you can see one thing very clearly — he wants to please people Russ Anderson and I have done business In fact he was the Realtor who sold Di Anne and I our first home when we moved to Logan to start the Cache Citizen in 1978 We put several thousand dollars in his pocket with that purchase Two weeks later he again was at our door to challenge an action of ours he did not like He did not care about anything but pursuing the facts and making sure that no one (not even his newest dientsfriends) got an unfair advantage Russ Anderson is kind of like Hairy 'Human in his people skills and when he's doing his due diligence and 'asking the tough questions you are living the “Give 'em hell Harry" experience He obviously cares more about principles than trying to please everyone A politician that tries to please everyone ends up spending a lot of taxpayer money and pleasing a precious few So as I ask myself who would do a better job on Logan City Council the question keeps coming down to this one — Do I want a fiscal watchdog or a friendly little hand-lickin- g lap-do- g guarding the city's finances? I will be voting for Russell Anderson for City Council sorry neighbor Qucnt Cas person Logan What a contrast in teen-agetoday By Ted Pease I magine my surprise: For the past three years I have been working next true-blAmerican door to a bona-fid- e hero although I didn't find that out until last week Don’t get me wrong Scott Chisholm is a nice guy and all but only now does it turn out that he also made US history Chisholm’s office is next to mine on the third floor of the Animal Science Building at Utah Stale University where he teaches writing and media management He is also ue the only person ever fired from a US university for burning the American flag in a classroom That intriguing episode occurred 30 years ago this was week Chisholm now a junior faculty member at Indiana State University in Terre Haute He is back there this weekend a guest of the Indiana chapter of the American Association of University Professors to commemorate the events of 1967 when he put the torch to a paper flag to illustrate a point in his ethics class It was deep in the anti-wyean of the Vietnam era Chisholm was minding his own business with no intention of making history Indiana State a school otherwise renowned only for having produced basketball star Larry Bird was not in the forefront of the anti-wmovement but the question of as a form of protest came up in Chisholm's class Chisholm was trying to illustrate the difference between the symbolic and the concrete he says In class Professor Chisholm and his students examined a news photo of the burning of a US flag in front of an American embassy somewhere overseas a protest against US actions in Vietnam He was trying to help his students make the distinction between a symbolic act of protest and the physical destruction of the cloth of which the flag was made Those were heady times as Chisholm and many of us recall The United Slates was heavily invested in fighting the war in Vietnam and many around the world ar ar rs rs attempting to preserve the historic Wellsville Tabernacle with new plastering painting and various other projects had been trying to locate some volunteer service to assist in the cleaning up of the building We had been unable to get this help We finally turned to the Logan Service Organization a group of teens from Logan who have been giving one night a week after school in volunteer service to those in need Their service is given wherever it is needed Last Thursday evening the following young men and women came to Wellsville to assist the Foundation in cleaning the Tabernacle: the moral and practical distinctions between symbolic statements and concrete acts Then someone dared him to burn the little paper flag He said he would as long as it was clearly understood that he was burning paper not the principles for which the flag stood You cannot destroy ideas such as liberty he said and demonstrated his constitutional freedom of expression by lighting up the paper flag That was 30 years ago Professor Chisholm was fired from Indiana State University and never returned to Terre Haute until this weekend even though he ultimately won his court appeal Later conservative groups kept tabs on him torpedoing at Inst one teaching job he was offered in Arkansas As far as we lessor university teaching job for burning an American flag in a classroom Today the passions of Vietnam have cooled but the confusion over the lesson Scott Chisholm was trying to teach persists The US Congress led by conservatives in both the House and Senate who should know better now seek to cripple our constitutional freedoms both symbolic and concrete by outlawing as dan- gerously criminal the kind of act Professor Chisholm performed in his Indiana State classroom in 1967 In August the nation's largest group of journalism professors the Association 11 VlOM? )) "l The Opinion page is Manded to acquaint madars wh a vanity of viewpoints on nwHars Of pUKMC nfipOninOI IfiO pfDVKM IflPnDIfl M too community with atonm lor tosjrvtowa Personal columns cartoons and Mors tom readers redact toe opinions of toeir wrilsis and creators EdSortals under the hoadtogX)ur View represent toe views of toe Herald Journal Mboarri Members of toe odHoiial board: BRUCE SMTHpuMshsr CHARLES MoCOLLUMAnanatfng edSor MIKE WENNERGRENfcbyedNor CINDY YURTHkalurss edSor wirve re to rv re - r r- J that resolution which specifically addresses the question of ed confusion between concrete actions and expressions of individual belief but I wish I had “However offensive an act of personal expression may be to some unless such acts endanger others legislating limits on free expression poses a much greater danger to society and its Constitutional guarantees” the resolution states It also points out as Professor! Chishom tried to 30 years ago tins week that “such acts of free individtiaf1 expression pose no clear and present danger to society” and that “limiting the ersonal freedoms guaranteed by the S Constitution may pose a danger to the rights of citizens in a free and democratic society” The last time I wrote about this topic over 4th of July weekend a local veteran of two wars attacked me as a coward “You can spout all your Liberal Academic crap you want" this reader wrote in an message “but it doesn't change the fact that the flag is a sacred symbol of what this country stands for the many men and women that had the courage to give their lives and blood for that flag bought the exact freedom you so spout and you don't even have a clue what it's all about you have no idea what freedom means!" “Keep your Commie thoughts to yourself and crawl back into the hole you came from” he concluded I heard Scott Chisholm's story just a few days ago as he prepared to return to Terre Haute Ind for ceremonies marking his 1967 firing And I am struck again bv the irony of this debate in which “patriots” turn rabid in their wrong-heade- d hatted of other people like Scott Chisholm who understand the difference between the flag itself and what it reprewell-meani- well-meani- sents Tod Pease (tpeasaOccusuedu) la head of the Department of Communication at Utah Stato University His column appears on the Opinion page ovary other Sunday last-minu- Herald Journal ff flag-burni- The deadline for submission of letters to the editor on local election issues is Thursday OcL 30 at S pm No letters will run in the newspaper after Sunday Nov 2 The Herald Journal attempts to print all letters to the editor irrespective of the te views expressed by the writers However campaign letters making unsubstantiated charges or accusations against candidates will be withheld from publication due to the limited time available for fair response or rebuttal Fredrickson Nick Watts Katy Thompson Cassie Bush and Stacy Anderson We were very pleased with the way they proceeded As soon as they entered the building they grabbed mops brooms ftlallard Fillmoro S for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication unanimously passed a resolution opposing the congressional effort to amend the Constitution’s First I Amendment to outlaw didn’t know about Scott Chisholm’s distinction in this area when I Election letters deadline Thursday Alicia See YOUR VIEW oo Page — and on college campuses even in Terre Haute Ind — were deeply divided about both the symbolic and concrete meaning of that conflict At the next class meeting Professor Chisholm arrived to find a small paper American flag on a toothpick propped in a wooden spool sitting on his desk There was a book of matches next to it “1 was stupid" Chisholm a native Canadian now recalls “I was set up" Apparently the local chapter of the John Birch Society then a potent group especially in Heartland America had gotten word of Professor Chisholm's discussion of Birchen were in the classroom that day and the press had been alerted Chisholm says he came into class dropped his books on the desk and locked at the flag He then repeated his lecture from the previous meeting about flag-burni- flag-burni- To the editor What a contrast in teen-agetoday Some causing trouble with the law and others giving volunteer service to benefit their community The Wellsville Foundation which is Jim Grewe Patrick Grewe An unsung hero in our midst IKK The Herald Journal wstoomss Mors to toe erttor Potonialy Ibalous or offensive Mars w not be pubSshsd however and toe sdbor reserves too right to odKal Mars to conform to too lengto and style requirements of toe Letters should be: Typewritten and rtor Ms spaced w No more toan 480 words In langto to Addressed and indude dayflmo phono number tor purposes of verWcaion Signed by toe autoor IndMduato are Mod to one puMshad any 3May period Address lottareto hMsrthnowexom Quest are stoo welcome and are run at toe orator's (SscrsSon |