Letters

Wrestling, one of the world's oldest and proudest sports, is unheralded by most Americans, but it is the life of the minority who embrace it.
CHRIS JACKSON, COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS

Wrestling
Leigh Montville's report on the championships was the next best thing to being there (All Guts, No Glory, Nov. 3). Stories about true athletes like wrestlers are more interesting than those about pampered millionaires in the NBA, the NFL and major league baseball.
NEAL DOROW, Cambridge, Mass.

Thank you for your coverage of the wrestling world championships. America thinks this sport is peopled by Ric Flairs and Hulk Hogans. The real wrestlers are the Zeke Joneses and Tom Eriksons. Wouldn't it be wonderful to watch Erikson and the Hulkster step on the mat for one minute without ropes?
FRED BAUER, Mount Pleasant, S.C.

I loved Leigh Montville's article on the World Freestyle Wrestling Championships in Siberia, but I was left hanging. After taking a very interesting look at the meet and heavyweight wrestler Tom Erikson, Montville left out the end of the story: What happened to Erikson after he lost the heartbreaker to the 19-year-old Cuban? Did he get the bronze?
HERB BUWALDA, Muncie, Ind.

?Erikson came in fourth. The bronze went to Russia's David Musolbes.—ED.

Major League Soccer
Anglos Stay Home might have been a more fitting headline for Michael Bamberger's report on the Major League Soccer Cup (United They Stood, Nov. 3). The article makes MLS sound like some weird niche league whose players and spectators are exclusively Spanish-speaking people and therefore not quite deserving of attention from real American sports fans. Soccer, however, is a world sport. Its audiences are more cosmopolitan than those found at most American sporting events. Indeed, that diversity is one of the things that make attending MLS games such a delight.
JOHN DORSEY, Washington, D.C.

I suspect the inclination to put a foreign face on soccer is part of a lingering media bias against the sport. But soccer is now American. More U.S. kids play the game today than any other organized sport. My three young sons don't ask me about Emmitt Smith, Dennis Rodman or Cal Ripken. They want to know about Eddie Pope, Marco Etcheverry and Tony Sanneh. They didn't care who won the World Series. They wanted to know whether the U.S. was going to qualify for the World Cup.
ED FOSTER-SIMEON, Woodbridge, Va.

Confederate Flag
We applaud William Nack's acumen, candor and perception in assessing the ongoing Mississippi Rebel flag controversy (POINT AFTER, Nov. 3). It's time for Ole Miss to look forward, not backward, and certainly not away from the negative image that the Confederate flag conveys.
DEAN FAULKNER WELLS and LARRY WELLS
Oxford, Miss.

It is unfortunate that most of those who wave the Rebel flag don't recognize what it means. It is even more unfortunate that there are those who wave it who do recognize what it means.
JAMES SCHLABACH, West Lafayette, Ind.

Not everyone who displays the Confederate battle flag is a racist, although William Nack clearly implies otherwise. The great majority wave the flag not only to celebrate a unique heritage but also to honor the men who fought and died defending that banner. I concede that "symbols, like pointed sticks, can hurt." Just ask Native Americans whose ancestors suffered at the hands of the U.S. Army that proudly flew the good old Stars and Stripes.
TY GOODWIN, Jackson, Tenn.