Speaking of UCLA Football ...

I have read the L.A. Times long enough to read a few letters this Saturday morning [Dec. 21] and laugh. Back then the letters said, “Terry who?”

Tom Sloss

Fountain Valley

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This week’s Las Vegas Bowl was well suited to its surrealistic host city: two pretender teams with barely a 50% win record, a failed trans-gender attempt by a kicker, a non-coach who spent the regular season imitating a helicopter on the sidelines to stir up sleepy attendees, a long-standing coach who was dismissed before the game, and a newly hired coach who didn’t even attend the game.

Ah, what was that final score now, anyway, and who cares? It’s great to be a Trojan.

Bob Finsten

Palm Springs

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Forget the obvious: that plenty of short-statured, lightweight males with a talent for kicking a football play regularly on Division I-A football teams, not to mention the NFL. Or that any number of these kickers have had an occasional PAT blocked, sometimes with the game on the line.

Instead, focus on the shame and disgrace -- not of Coach Rocky Long’s decision to use Katie Hnida in a bowl game, but of columnist Diane Pucin’s use [Dec. 26] of tired words like “won’t” and “can’t” to dismiss the dreams of countless would-be athletes.

Bonnie Sloane

Los Angeles