Dear Editor:
I have to admit to being at a loss when it comes to Mr. Cope’s Sept. 6th reply to my letter. First, Mr. Cope accuses me of “not learning the truth” about why the football program was canceled and then went on to describe the reasoning for the decisions made in 2003. The problem with that is, besides the fact that I did know those reasons, they have nothing to do with the vote that took place in April of this year and so they were not mentioned in my previous letter. He then implies that I somehow stated that “Ball Hall kept there from being a rebirth of football at ETSU,” which is not even close to anything I said. I used Ball Hall as an example of a building in disrepair on campus. Some students voted “no” on football, because we felt there were bigger issues that needed to be addressed, such as building maintenance.
Mr. Cope also went on a tirade of how a football fee wouldn’t affect the funding of other things on campus. This shows that he failed to see the point in my letter.
The way I see it is, if the school wants to vote on whether or not it should take more money from students, then instead of funding football with that money they should use it to look out for the safety of the buildings students have to be in.
Since Mr. Cope misunderstood my letter, he felt it necessary to take some personal shots at me. I don’t know if he felt that he was getting some “payback” for the sarcasm I aimed at “Daniel’s” opinions or if it is the only way Mr. Cope can get his point across, but he says that he hopes that I “do not vote to elect the leaders of our country” because what he read in my letter “helps him realize why our political system is a joke.” He accuses me of “not doing my research” and of “not taking the time to look at the facts.” This is after Mr. Cope implied that my sarcasm was very “art school,” which is interesting since I am not an art student, and after Mr. Cope, in his rather supercilious way, lectured me about not speaking before I truly understand the truth of the matter. Perhaps instead of lobbing personal insults at me, Mr. Cope should have asked for a bit of clarification so that he would not be guilty of what he accuses others of doing.
In closing, I would simply like to add that I am a little puzzled at the fact that in his letter Mr. Cope asked that we all go online and look up the punch line to an “old tired joke” that makes light of mental illness and the Special Olympics when Mr. Cope’s status in the student listing shows him as being a psychology graduate student (PSYM). Although I suppose we all have the right to mock whatever we want in this country, there seems to be a line of appropriateness that was crossed somewhere in that.
– James Villanueva

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