19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

FIGHTING GAMECOCKS
Sirs:
Congratulations on your article The Toughest Kid on Anybody's Block (Jan. 4). You couldn't have picked a better man to feature than John Roche or a better team than the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Gamecocks may have bad tempers, but you have to admit that they're good.

All I can say is that UCLA had better watch out when NCAA title time comes. The Gamecocks are going to be there.
DEAN McTINDAL
Belmont, N.C.

Sirs:
Curry Kirkpatrick captured the spirit of Coach Frank McGuire and the South Carolina basketball team. Unfortunately, some of South Carolina's players seem to feel that it is smart to unload a left on a counterman or kick an opposing player when he is down. Worse than this is the apparent attitude of Mr. McGuire in recruiting this type of person or condoning these actions by his players. Whether valid or false, this is the opinion many people developed when Mr. McGuire was coaching at North Carolina and hold now, while he is at USC.

If a coach is to be judged solely by the number of wins, then Mr. McGuire is an unqualified success. If he is to be judged by his ability to assist young men to grow, then he is apparently less successful.
JERRY N. PHILLIPS
Raleigh, N.C.

Sirs:
Please have Curry Kirkpatrick explain more clearly in a future article what " New York basketball" is all about. It has to be more than a coach who claims he isn't Jesus and a boy who picks on soda jerks. Whatever it is, it doesn't work against North Carolina players who know how the game should be played. Witness Jan. 4: North Carolina 79, South Carolina 64.

It is clear now that your beer parlor hero (Ribock) can handle nine drunks but he can't hold a candle to a player half his size on a basketball court.
CARROLL D. PAYNE
Madison Heights, Va.

Sirs:
Mr. Roche and the Gamecocks came to Chapel Hill and were soundly beaten by the North Carolina Tar Heels. Several technical fouls were called on South Carolina. Displaying the most unsportsmanlike conduct on the court will not get a team anywhere. The Gamecocks have an excellent team, but their actions of the past have caught up with them.

North Carolina still has the best basketball around, and it will continue to have it despite the actions of John Roche and South Carolina.
ED RANKIN
Raleigh, N.C.

Sirs:
Mr. Kirkpatrick's article on John Roche and South Carolina basketball gives the impression that the team is involved in fistfights as often as possible (on and off the court). South Carolinians take great pride in their basketball team, their university and their state. We are not appreciative of someone sitting at a desk telling the readers how mean the team appears to him. If you have taken it upon yourselves to inform your readers about the bad guys, why not tell them about coaches who become personally involved in riots. Or about officials who are either so biased or blind that they call the infractions of playing rules as they want them to be—not as they are? It has always amazed me that millions of people watching the games on TV can see this but not the officials.

We have worked hard to build a basketball power at South Carolina and to build a beautiful new coliseum in Columbia. It appears to me that it gives SI acid indigestion to write about USC, but since we are rated No. 2 in the country you feel you must give us some coverage every now and then, and so you make it as unflattering as possible. Yes, we have a good team and we are proud of it.
Mrs. J. C. WOFFORD
Edgefield, S.C.