
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992                   TAG: 9203090187
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ONE-SIDED TO LABEL ATHLETES AS GROUP

THIS IS IN response to Hilda Hamilton's defense of Elvis Presley (letter, Feb. 17). The fact that an athlete is famous and doesn't give to charities does not make him less a man than an overweight superstar singer on drugs.

That also doesn't mean that athletes are not as loving as others. I will admit there are some athletes whose life may be disruptive. Yet to generalize and label athletes as a group is one-sided.

Those athletes did not get where they are for free, and did indeed work their tails off to reach the "high" they did not resort to drugs to attain. I'm 16 years old, and if I didn't know any better, I might want somebody to look up to. It is getting hard to do so when people generalize about athletes as "greedy, grabbing people." CHRISTOPHER W. STANLEY MEADOWS OF DAN

by CNB