I have always been leery of having journalists state their opinions in the paper because I feel a newspaper should contain only facts or the opinions of trustworthy people. Bock’s column contained neither. I talked to several people about the column and all were blown away that it was published. The university administration, specifically President Lambert, decided several years ago to let the newspaper police itself and I guess he will have to chalk up this damaging ethical lapse up being an educational experience.

Bock’s column had several problems – she showed little knowledge about the sports she was writing about, she didn’t gather a variety of opinions, she didn’t gather knowledgeable opinions, she forsook ethics for sensationalism, and she may be letting personal feelings cloud her judgment.

Other athletes, current and past, will dispute Bock’s claims that Rob Mallinder is riding Matt Candrl’s co

6. Rare injuries suffered by a few runners have not injured an entire team’s chance of succeeding any more than a preseason injury affects any other team. No one is tracking our wins and losses in September like they do in many other sports to determine conference standings. Our conference standing will be decided in less than an hour on Nov. 1 when all of the conference teams go head-to-head. As long as we have five cross the line on that day, our chance of succeeding is fine. While eight runners is fewer than Mallinder would probably like, that is due to having a few late drops during the summer.

Hopefully the inaccurate and unethical column did not permanently damage Coach Mallinder’s reputation on this small campus. In the future, we ask that your columnists get the facts straight before writing such a scathing column that should have never been approved by the editors.

3. Columnists are not assigned topics by editors but instead write about whatever he or she feels like, and that is prone to being about personal grudges and not news. There is no reason to state “the tradition of success Baker has seen for the past few years” is about to diminish when it is only September and there has been no evidence. The cross country teams are not even halfway through their season, and the track teams have just started practice and won’t compete until January. Something else must have prompted Bock to write this column, either a personal grudge of her own or an acquaintance’s personal grudge. Perhaps she is running low on column ideas since she has to write one for the front page of the sports section every week. This column could have been written now and stored until there was solid proof Mallinder’s program was fading, or cut if no such proof developed.

Some topics in this essay:
Matt Candrl’s, Kirk Kirk, Baker Orange, Mallinder Mallinder, Jerry Baker, President Lambert, Kristin Bock’s, cross country, Blair Spencer, Coach Mallinder’s, Brett Weir, cross country team, country team, women’s cross, bock’s column, women’s cross country, track team, women’s team, recruiting class, assistant coach, seen past years”, seen past, practice cross, ‘riding coattails’” sep, coach ‘riding coattails’”,