Hazzard Did His Job, and Writer Covering UCLA’s Team Did His

I think a brief comment is in order concerning a statement by UCLA basketball Coach Walt Hazzard as reported recently in The Times: “We have a paper in our town that doesn’t give us much support.”

As a coach, Hazzard had done an excellent job this season with a less than overwhelming squad. As a representative of a fine educational institution, however, his public comments about the media have been considerably less commendable than his coaching record. Someone should explain to him that the proper function of a good newspaper is not to give support to the Bruin basketball program, but to give its readers timely, accurate and informative news reporting.

UCLA fans should hope that Hazzard’s chip-on-the-shoulder attitude toward the media will decrease as his coaching success increases.

E. K. ROWAN

Long Beach

Methinks we waste a lot of ink castigating the likes of Mark Heisler, but we seem to forget he makes a livelihood degrading athletics at UCLA. To many of us, it surely does not make sense, but for one reason or another The Times seems to employ sportswriters who spend more time ridiculing efforts at the local institutions to promote academics and good athletic teams.

We suffered through the John Hall era, and now we find we are confronted with another period of unsavory reporting by someone who spends more time tearing down with subversive reviews or opinions in order to impress the public or the publishers.

BERNARD L. LEVY

Pacific Palisades

Your well-intended advertising slogan, “A special kind of journalism--every day in The Times” couldn’t be more accurate, for I find the biased, slanted, anti-UCLA, anti-Walt Hazzard attacks by Mark Heisler to be notches below the belt, certainly a “special kind of journalism” not worthy of being printed in The Times.

Isn’t it about time that UCLA sports and their coaches got the support of your staff? It’s a sad commentary, but I always thought the “hometown” paper was supposed to support their local teams, not tear them down. Let’s get back to basic journalism, not opinions.

Long after Heisler has left your paper and gone off to Pocatello (or wherever biased newspaper reporters have to exile themselves), Walt Hazzard will still be coaching championship teams for UCLA.

BOB WEISS

Granada Hills

The one disappointment in UCLA’s march to the NIT championship: Mark Heisler got an expense-paid trip to New York.

LARRY BISHOP

Huntington Beach

UCLA Lacked Something; It Seems It Was Hazzard

Three big cheers for Coach Hazzard!

I have been a Bruin fan since I was a kid. I watched all the greats come and go, but the last couple of years it seems that the UCLA teams lacked something--I think it was unity.

Coach Hazzard brought back that unity to Westwood, and I feel personally he’s done a hell of a job. Back in December, I watched with my hands over my face, but I kept hoping some good would come of this and, boy, did it ever! UCLA now has a leader.

MARK A. MARTINEZ

Los Angeles

OK, the UCLA Bruins were not selected for the NCAA Final 64, despite their late-season success. Their choice to go to the NIT, which they declined last year, was a wise one.

Although the Associated Press chose the Michigan coach as its coach of the year, I think the honor should have gone to Walt Hazzard, who inherited an almost impossible early-season road schedule, later brought together a disoriented, low-morale team and won the NIT.

ERNIE GOODMAN

Los Angeles

You’ve got to be kidding! Walt Hazzard just pulled a con job and a lot of people fell for it. UCLA, which used to claim the conference championship was always its No. 1 goal, wants people to remember the NIT to cover up another season of their being ignored by the NCAA.

Last year, when the NCAA did not invite UCLA to be one of its tournament teams, UCLA turned up its nose at the NIT. This year, when the NCAA expanded its “select” group to 64, UCLA (16-12) was thrilled about joining the most mediocre NIT field in history.

Hazzard wanted to show New York “the real Bruins” in his return from disgrace, but previous host St. John’s was busy in Lexington, so he was saved from another embarrassing defeat. I’m glad the NIT banner will be hung in Pauley Pavilion because it will be a constant reminder of the season in which UCLA lost twice to conference co-champion USC.

DAN A. NORBY

North Hollywood

Now if Walt Hazzard can recruit a 7-foot center and a fine 6-10 forward, we will have a heck of a time keeping him out of the White House in 1988.

STEPHAN F. NORDLINGER

Los Angeles

No Accolades, Please, for Peter Ueberroth

Please, no accolades for Peter Ueberroth. Bowie Kuhn suspended Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle for what he felt was in the best interests of the game, while Ueberroth, in his self-serving style, reinstated Mays and Mantle for what he felt were the best interests of Peter Ueberroth.

HERM WEINER

Los Angeles

Bowie Kuhn was 100% correct when he banned Mantle and Mays from baseball for their association with gambling elements. No matter that they weren’t “directly involved” in the gambling itself. The very fact that Mantle and Mays were receiving large sums of money originally stained by gamblers’ fingers cast a very unsavory pallor over organized baseball. It is unfortunate that Ueberroth is blind to Kuhn’s incisive wisdom.

Bowie Kuhn had guts. Peter Ueberroth is a wimp.

LANNY R. MIDDINGS

San Ramon

Do the Rams Really Need an Aging Quarterback?

Thank you, Georgia Frontiere, for providing the female fans of the Los Angeles Rams a never-ending stream of good-looking, older quarterbacks. I must admit it’s a lot easier to watch the team lose when there is a hunk at the helm.

MARLENE GILBERT

Santa Monica

Georgia Frontiere did it again. She’s bringing in another aging quarterback in the Namath, Pastorini, Jones tradition. What the Rams need, and have needed, are a good defensive line, and some decent linebackers that will stop people at the start of a play and not have the already banged-up defensive backs doing their work.

ROBERT MENDOZA

San Fernando

Georgetown May Have Gone Over the Line

There’s a fine line between aggressive, intimidating play and excessive bullying on the basketball court. A line John Thompson’s Georgetown teams should pay better attention to.

For years, sports fans and opposing players have endured Georgetown’s peculiar mixture of collegiate basketball and professional wrestling. Georgetown lost a national championship to an undermanned bunch of overachievers.

STEVE WEISENBERG

Woodland Hills

Thank you, Villanova, for the thrill of a decade.

CHARLIE BENZ

Santa Ana

I have only recently watched basketball during the finals. I gather it is a game of fouls and timeouts. How exciting! To a snail or a half-asleep possum. Wake me when it’s over.

B. W. MELCHIOR

Los Angeles

After all the writeups on the NCAA’s finest final game, I would like to know who the officials were who worked their way to the final game. They took a game that was potentially explosive and turned it into one of the best officiated games I have ever seen.

BERNIE BOYLE

Los Angeles

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