Critic of San Diego Overlooked the City’s Countless Champions

How I love to read letters such as that of Bill Tapp (Viewpoint, Oct. 13). I enjoy seeing someone whose vision of of the world is reduced to simplification and stereotype. He call San Diego a “weak, soft, laid-back, silly sort” of city (feminine attributes in his mind?), and blames those unmasculine qualities for the city’s failure in producing winning teams.

How he came to this conclusion about a city of over a million people is beyond me. And what truly pushed me to write was the desire to let him know that our own UCSD (O.K., Division III, but is that a crime?) has produced many national champions in frequent years: a dominating women’s soccer team, outstanding men’s soccer and women’s volleyball. All these sports have amassed many national titles.

Then there are the Sockers and their long winning tradition. And last, but not least, there’s triathlon--in my eyes, the least “weak, soft, laid-back silly” sort of sport. Nearly all the world’s top triathletes train and live in San Diego. Cardiff’s own Mark Allen (who trains at UCSD) and San Diego’s Scott Tinley just placed first and second in the grueling Ironman triathlon in Kona, Hawaii.

Football, baseball and Division I collegiate sports are not the only measures of a city’s “demeanor.” Go out and take a look at the Morley Field bicycle velodrome, Bill, or the intense pickup basketball nearby, or the winning tradition of our unheralded collegiate sports and save your thinly veiled misogyny to yourself.

CESAR VALVERDE

San Diego