Press Dropped Ball

Now that the football referendum at UC San Diego has failed, I fully realize the power of literature in shaping people’s opinions. It is my feeling, as an athlete at this university, that negative journalism is responsible for the defeat of the program. Your article (“Football at UCSD? Vote Will Tell if Idea Scores Touchdown,” April 5)) and others like it created the image that football was just another unnecessary expense to students.

The majority of the students interviewed in the article were against the football program. This causes the students and the rest of the community to think that nobody really wanted a football team in the first place. You never interviewed people with a positive attitude toward the referendum. They could have explained the parts of it that would benefit the entire student body, such as home games and other sporting events becoming free of charge to students.

There is also the fact that UCSD is a rapidly expanding campus. A campus that is in the process of building a new football stadium in conjunction with the San Diego Chargers. A campus that will eventually enroll more students than San Diego State, but won’t have even a Division III football team.

I am just sorry to see that an athletic program that would be beneficial to the entire school was defeated because of bad press and a fee hike of $45 a year. There are a lot of people at this school who spend more than that every weekend on beer.

CHRIS KING

La Jolla