Letters: The finishing touches on USC-UCLA game

Rick Neuheisel, next time you play Monopoly with Pete Carroll and he offers to give you Baltic Avenue, take it.

John Mark

Newport Beach

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Great job, Rick, but if you really wanted to teach your players never to give up, what was your defensive strategy on the pass to Damian Williams?

Norman Jacobs

Encino

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From the way Pete Carroll ran up and down the sidelines, laughing and waving his arms in the air, one would have thought it must be Christmas morning and he had just discovered the BCS championship trophy under his tree, not that USC had just scored a meaningless touchdown.

Bob Jellison

Del Mar

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Who put USC in charge of determining when a game is over? UCLA has to call that timeout in hopes of getting the ball back via on downs or a turnover, then score, followed by an onside kick and another score. As a Bruins fan, I would have been disappointed had they just let the time run off the clock. If USC wants to throw the ball downfield at that point, it is certainly their right to do so. But for them to say that the timeout was a sign of disrespect is ridiculous. How pompous of them to think that they decide when the other team should quit playing.

Corky Johnston

Manhattan Beach

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I can’t figure why UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel would be upset. His timeout was successful. UCLA got the ball back on the following kickoff.

Vincent Zankich

Torrance

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Certainly it was clear with less than two minutes remaining, USC in possession and UCLA trailing by two touchdowns, that the Bruins were not going to win the game. But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was whether to go down fighting or curl up in a ball and take it. Bill Plaschke prefers the latter resolution. He called Rick Neuheisel a “brat” for failing to adopt that stance.

We all remember Jim Valvano, fatally stricken, looking straight into the camera and saying, “Never, ever give up.” Plaschke didn’t get that message, Coach Rick did.

Skip Nevell

Los Angeles

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So, Pete Carroll outdoes Jim Harbaugh and is shown to be both a hypocrite and a world-class jerk. Plaschke says it’s all UCLA’s fault and, in the process, is exposed as a USC sycophant. Nope, nothing newsworthy there.

John Lewis

Sierra Madre

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There are many incredible streaks in sports that we all know: DiMaggio’s hitting steak, Wooden’s NCAA basketball run, the Celtics’ NBA championships, even the hapless Nets’ start. All streaks pale, though, when compared with Bill Plaschke’s decades-long streak of situational blindness, punctuated by his (mis)take of Carroll’s classless play call. Too soon for a Hall of Shame induction for Bill?

Bruce Kahn

Claremont

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Hell just froze over! And, while I wasn’t up to see it, the sun must have come up in the west this morning. Just read T.J. Simers on the behavior of Pete Carroll and his players at the end of the game last Saturday. This is to apologize to T.J. for the three or four thousand negative things I’ve said about his writing over the last few years.

Paul Ascenzi

Pomona

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Watching Pete Carroll and Rick Neuheisel try to annoy each other on the sidelines is like watching Zac Efron and Taylor Lautner duke it out in a Supercuts parking lot.

Jeff Black

Beverly Hills

Oh, Tiger

Tiger Woods, once respected and revered, now just another guy who was caught with his pants down. He may continue to excite the golf world with his golf talent, but he will never be the same person who many of us looked up to as a person who was just a cut above the rest of us.

Tim Newhard

Irvine

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Tiger Woods is no Joe Blow. He is a major public figure who makes tremendous money advertising products and has been a role model for kids and clean living. I feel for the guy, but it is not OK to cheat, lie and mislead your wife, your family and the public. When you do these things, you bring shame upon yourself and those who love you. Tiger Woods needs to hold himself accountable and do his mea culpa by coming clean in public. It does matter.

Paul L. Hovsepian

Sierra Madre

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Just because Tiger is famous does not mean he owes you and me an explanation. He is an incredible athlete who values privacy, and he doesn’t need to reveal what happens behind closed doors because people are obsessed with his fame. Let it go and be human for once, at least during the holidays.

Alex Stuempfig

Santa Monica

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Being involved in a bizarre one-car accident, an alleged skirmish with his wife, recordings of voice mails going public and being skewered in mainstream media via gossip rags definitely isn’t the true calendar Grand Slam that Tiger had in mind.

Mark J. Featherstone

Windsor Hills

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The public has a short memory, but the wife has a long memory.

Jack Spiegelman

Los Angeles

They’re howlin’

How can any UCLA basketball fan accept the fact that we have just lost to Portland (no, not the Trail Blazers with Bill Walton) and to Long Beach State (no, not the one coached by Jerry Tarkanian). For Coach Howland to return to elite status, he needs to recruit more of the “one-and-done” players, and he won’t be able to do so if he continues this methodical, boring peach-basket style of play.

Dr. Richard Katz

Los Angeles

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As a 20-year season-ticket holder and alum of Long Beach State, it was great to see the hard play of the men’s basketball team last weekend in Anaheim. With a tough schedule of Duke, Kentucky, and Texas, it was nice for the team to have a cupcake on the schedule (UCLA). Go Beach!

Michael Shapiro

Torrance

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No offense to the UCLA football and basketball teams, but I saw them both play last weekend and no offense.

Richard Turner

Fontana

The real hot stove

Will the McCourts use arbitration in their divorce?

Howard Mationg

Gardena

Tipsy for tipoff

If Ron Artest drank during Bulls games because “they were losing so much,” then the Clippers should have an open bar in their locker room.

Patrick Cervantes

Eagle Rock

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