Hiring freeze

Are Athletic Director Dan Guerrero and Chancellor Gene Block crazy? Even considering hiring Rick Neuheisel as UCLA football coach is ludicrous and will just prolong the agony of a beleaguered program. Every team Neuheisel has joined has fallen onto hard times.

From Colorado to Washington and now with the Ravens, who just gave a winless Dolphins team their first victory, and with “you know who” as offensive coordinator.

Isn’t it time to put the “B” back in front of “RUINS” and find a true team leader instead of a heartbreaker?

Steve Richards

Huntington Beach

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UCLA was celebrated for being progressive in its hiring of an African American coach. One of Karl Dorrell’s successes being that he is viewed as having “cleaned up” the problems of the football program.

Now, we find UCLA interviewing Rick Neuheisel, a white coach with more baggage than LAX.

The Bruins are about to put themselves in the same place they were about five years ago. You call that progressive? I call it a fraud.

Damon Ramos

Santa Monica

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T.J. Simers fails to build a convincing case against the consideration of Rick Neuheisel as UCLA’s next football coach. Neuheisel won his case in court against the NCAA and Washington for wrongful termination. He had been dismissed for participating in an NCAA basketball pool. Who hasn’t played one of those pools?

The recruiting violations committed during his tenure at the University of Colorado, according to The Times, were “considered secondary violations.” Given the nonsensical nature of many of the NCAA’s primary violations, one can only imagine the putative lack of significance of its “secondary violations.”

But given all that, is Neuheisel to be denied another chance to pursue his head coaching ambitions? He would be an excellent selection for the UCLA position, and nothing on his record should disqualify him from consideration.

Skip Nevell

Los Angeles

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Amusing to see T.J. Simers, who writes the most trite, fluffy, devoid-of-content sports column ever to make it to print, is calling Dan Guerrero a “lightweight” because UCLA’s coach search is taking longer than Simers thinks it should, and the top-name coaches aren’t interested in the job.

T.J., stick to what you do so well: going into locker rooms and lobbing insults, and telling us all about your fascinatingly wacky but lovable family.

Eric Scholnick

Long Beach

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What are they smoking over there at UCLA? The top two choices for a new football coach are Slick Rick Neuheisel, who is evidently an excellent oddsmaker, and Al Golden from Temple with a 5-19 record, who is considered because the new chancellor worked there.

It’s time to clean house. Let’s start with a new athletic director and a new chancellor.

Dave Pick

Solvang

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Is it deja vu or did I read an article last year at this time about UCLA with the same title: “Seniors motivated by chance to go out with a victory”?

Ralph Morones

La Canada