Officials Should Have Been Spiked

Whose decision was it to hire those provincial country bumpkins from the Southeastern Conference to masquerade as Rose Bowl officials for 3 1/2 hours on New Year’s Day?

It was analogous to hiring a $5-an-hour courier to deliver a $5-million Renoir to the Getty Museum in a pickup truck.

It doesn’t matter whether Ryan Leaf’s last pass would have been broken up, intercepted, completed, fell to the ground untouched, the snap from center fumbled or the quarterback sacked.

Football fans across America were cheated of that one special, thrilling moment that we long to witness all season, regardless of allegiances, because of the ineptitude of the officials.

TOM WITMAN

Redondo Beach