Maybe the Writer Needs Drug Test Too

I don’t know which was worse--the decision to run Bill Plaschke’s column on DeShaun Foster [“Drug Test,” Oct. 13] at all or the decision to write it. I am sad for Plaschke when he writes, “There is no gray area in my family.” I just hope he remembers writing that the day he discovers this world is not black and white, it is mostly gray.

HENRY MENDOZA

Playa del Rey

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It’s not that I disagree with all of Bill Plaschke’s take on Bob Toledo’s handling of the DeShaun Foster incident. Perhaps Toledo had room to be more strict. But to put Bob Toledo’s name in the same thought with Tom Osborne is so absurd that it removes all credibility from the rest of Plaschke’s column. Lawrence Phillips grabbed his girlfriend by the hair and dragged her down two flights of stairs, yet was reinstated by Osborne in time for the national championship game. Foster was never even taken into custody. He was mailed his violation.

Plaschke owes Bob Toledo an apology for even thinking of the two coaches in the same thought.

TONY SIRACUSA

Pasadena

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If Mr. Plaschke thinks a militaristic, black-and-white approach still works with today’s relatively sophisticated youth, he needs to understand that the best way to raise healthy, functional children is through honest education and good modeling, not fear and hypocrisy.

So while sportswriters, coaches, businessmen and parents get buzzed at happy hour, and as pro athletes bathe each other in champagne on national TV after a big victory, let’s string up another young athlete for all the world to see. Let’s scar this young man for the rest of his life because he possessed a plant grown naturally in the earth and used responsibly for thousands of years throughout the world. Let’s continue to let the younger generation know that they can’t rely on their elders for evolved thought, help in understanding issues important to them in today’s complex world, or the truth.

DeShaun, no matter what anybody tells you, you’re not a criminal and you’re not a bad person.

PAUL WAGER

Long Beach