Readers Get In Their Digs About School’s Image, Teen Parents

I had planned on writing about unscrupulous coaches and the evils of parental pressure today. Then I decided it was time for a change.

Time to let you, the readers, do my work for me.

Dear Ms. Ludovise:

I am an educational consultant who has spent the last two decades visiting day and boarding schools for a diversified population of students. I am writing in reaction to your article (Pacific Shores Basketball Team Gets Dunked By Funky Jammers, Jan. 15). I don’t know if it was meant to be amusing or informative.

Pacific Shores is a small school, as you reported. Your remarks, while possibly tongue in cheek, placed the Pacific Shores students in a defensive position. When you referred to them as “dinky” or suggested that they lacked “community respect,” you were subjecting them to self-doubt and possibly reinforcing negative responses from the community.

I urge you as a reporter to visit Pacific Shores and get the story you so sorely missed.

PAULA G. FELDMAN

Corona del Mar

Self-doubt? Reinforcing negative responses? Geez, Paula. Simply meant it to be a cute little story on a cute little team. As for the “dinky” part, what would you call a school that can fit its entire student body in the back seat of a Yugo? But thanks for writing.

Dear Barbie:

I am writing this letter in regard to the article printed in Sunday’s paper about Dave Anderson and Leslie Mascarenas and their baby girl, Kayla (“Rules of the Game Change With Daughter’s Arrival,” April 5).

After reading the article, I tried to comprehend the purpose of this article. Was it to glorify the fact that two baseball sweethearts had a baby out of wedlock, or was it to inform the public of the growing epidemic of teen-age pregnancy? The more I thought about it, the more irritated I became.

What was the purpose? You interviewed two teen-age students who both seemed to be destined for a positive future, and yet now have had to alter their plans due to an unplanned pregnancy.

There was no evidence of moral persuasion preventing teen-age pregnancy, or premarital sex. It was not at all informative of the incredible responsibility of raising children, least of all being teen-age parents.

REBECCA HICKEN

1987 Pacifica graduate

Let me tell you, Rebecca. You had plenty of company on this one. Read on.

I have reread your article on “Leslie and Dave” more times than I have ever read an article, and each time I read it, I am more appalled than I have ever been that anyone would print as many pictures and give as much space to a subject like this.

In times like this when morals have sunk so low--AIDS is on the rampage, living together is a way of life--you would condone “kids” still in high school “playing around with sex” becoming parents.

This is a pretty bad “role model” to give high schoolers--telling them it is great to become parents while you are in high school, and then when you get out just live together. They said we may get married . . . or just live together.

Just imagine how many young people will “take your advice” and follow your story. In the not too distant future thanks to you we will have beepers going on right and left in the classrooms letting boys know their girlfriend is on her way to the hospital to deliver their child. Homework must consist of making formula, changing diapers and all the other duties of parents.

All I can say is “thanks a lot” for giving our young people a “green light” on behavior such as experienced by Leslie and Dave. Making celebrities of them sure is not what our young people of today should be taught.

GRACE WEAVER

Irvine

What can I say, Grace. You caught me. There I was, trying to persuade every single high school athlete in Orange County to run out, have sex, and start a family . . .

Sorry. In no way was I trying to glorify teen-age pregnancy or encourage high schoolers to have s-e-x. The point was to simply present a slice of reality. If it prompted debate, all the better.

Besides, if I wanted to moralize, I’d sermonize on Sunday morning TV. They say the money’s pretty good.

Mark Thornton, head basketball coach at Capistrano Valley High, was characterized as an immature coach who has no tact or class (There Will Be No Hiding From Mater Dei, Jan. 5).

Though this may be an accurate impression that one may have received at a particular basketball game, it does not accurately portray him as a coach or as an individual. To the contrary, he is a man of tremendous leadership and integrity.

His behavior in the Mater Dei game stems from much more than just a recent CIF ruling to allow Mater Dei into the South Coast League. It is built from a list of incidents that go back 10 years.

Rather than express your flippant opinion on the obvious frustrations exhibited by a public school coach, you may wish to spend equal time investigatively reporting on the recruiting violations or other incidents that have caused their frustrations. Now that would be worth reading!

DONALD M. SEDGWICK

Rancho Santa Margarita

You know, Donald, the last time I followed up on someone’s story suggestion, I wound up writing about two kids with a baby. Recruiting violations? OK, but you get to answer all the hate mail on that one. Write again soon.