Letters to the Editor

Enough of land-swap half-truths

Winter Park's Mayor Ken Bradley succeeded in keeping quiet the exact number of citizens who signed the petition regarding the CNL/Progress Point land swap. While 234 residents signed the petition, the mayor allowed the minutes to only read "numerous signatures." There is a difference!

When Commissioner Cooper spoke to correct the minutes to reflect the exact number of taxpayers that want their voices heard, she was, as usual, outvoted by the mayor, along with Commissioners Steven Leary and Sarah Sprinkel.

Half-truths are not accurate, or are they afraid of the significance of the numbers?

Speaking of numbers, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as time ran out on obtaining even more names on the petition.

—Sally Flynn

Winter Park

Tar-ific

It would be hard to agree on the best college football program in Florida now that all of our traditional powerhouses have been kicked out of the top 25 for the first time since 1982. It is a sad moment when the world sees Boise State and West Virginia towering over the University of Florida, Florida State and the University of Miami. But this year’s Gators seemed toothless during their four-game losing streak, while the preseason favorite Seminoles (5-3) have apparently gone to ground in the Okefenokee Swamp and the often-puzzling Hurricanes (4-4) look more like a morning drizzle. Even the state’s aspirational teams don’t seem to be aspiring to much, with USF’s Bulls (4-3), FIU’s Golden Panthers (5-3), Bethune-Cookman’s Wildcats (5-3), and UCF’s Knights (4-4) all struggling to avoid losing seasons. FAU’s hapless Owls (0-7) have already lost that battle.

If we can’t determine the best team, it’s at least easy to identify the one with the most joy: the Rollins College Tars. After losing for the first time in 62 years last Monday night to Webber International, the 28 members of the Rollins club football squad were ecstatic. Of course, it was also the first game in 62 years for the Winter Park school, which is better known for its liberal arts program and its U.S. News and World Report ranking as the best college in the South. (President Paul Wagner canceled the college’s football program after the 1949 season only to be permanently sacked himself the following year.)

For a team with no athletic scholarships, no training table and no physical education majors — or even minors — the thrill of the game was all that mattered. When 6-foot, 175-pound lineman Chris Alvarez took on Webber’s 6-foot-4, 350-pound Handell Orange, he may have looked like Gulliver in the land of giant Brobdingnagians. But Chris, an English major and amateur boxer, and the rest of the squad, led by founder and quarterback Jeff Hoblick, felt more like the Green Bay Packers. They are, after all, students who love athletics and were willing to raise all the funds necessary to field a team.

And their fans loved the game, despite the 48-17 final score. Before the massive Webber players wore down their opponents in the last quarter, the Tars showed their fellow philosophy and biochem majors what pure determination can do by intercepting three passes and making a goal-line stand. The crowd erupted loudest when their classmates took a brief 7-6 lead in the first quarter.

Actually the Rollins football tradition, which started when the team played its first game in 1904, is older than either UF’s (1908) or Miami’s (1926), both of which chose what were then the mighty Tars as their opponents for their first home games; 1908 proved a tough year for the Gators, since Rollins beat it consistently in becoming state champion in football, baseball and basketball. And when George Merrick, the developer of Coral Gables, decided that a college might attract buyers to his new project, he founded The U in 1925 as a little sister school to his alma mater, Rollins.

Unfortunately, Rollins never had a chance to teach FSU any pigskin lessons, since the Seminoles didn’t field a team until 1947, the year Gov. Spessard Holland decided to change its name from the Florida State College for Women and open its doors to returning World War II vets.

In the semi-professional world of college sports where Ohio State alone spends $115 million on athletics and almost every school seems to be facing an NCAA investigation, it’s time to give the indomitable Tars credit for playing football purely for the joy of playing and for showing what college athletics could and should be.

—Maurice J. O'Sullivan

Kenneth Curry Professor of Literature

Rollins College

Rollins blinks and Phi Beta Kappa takes notice

In June 1977, a month after my graduation from Rollins College, I penned a letter to the Rollins president who had handed me my diploma the month before. In my letter to former Rollins President Jack Critchfield, I asked if Rollins had applied for Phi Beta Kappa membership, which would cement the college's reputation for academic rigor … or words to that effect. Critchfield responded with an enthusiastic "Yes!" and promised to keep me abreast of the college's progress as much as possible. He would go on to be one of my career references and insist that I'd make an excellent Rollins trustee one day.

You can imagine how I felt when I read in The Rollins Sandspur that the handling of the formation of a new College of Professional Studies at Rollins "had a negative effect on the college's reputation in the decision by Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's most prestigious honor society, to terminate Rollins' candidacy." The article implied that the current Rollins president, Lewis Duncan, was completely responsible, which is a laughable assertion when one considers that nothing approaching this magnitude could ever be done unilaterally without the trustees being on board. And only the president and his trustees know how this played out. But what we do know is that nothing could be worth causing a Phi Beta Kappa candidacy to be terminated.

I urge all alums and supporters of Rollins College to let the Rollins leadership know how vitally important that Phi Beta Kappa candidacy is to the college, and to make whatever changes are necessary to get back in the good graces of Phi Beta Kappa.

Many individuals have worked ceaselessly over a period of decades to land a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Rollins, including one Rollins president in particular who made major inroads.

Let's get going on a new application!

—Will Graves

Winter Park