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

DATE: SUNDAY, February 14, 1993                   TAG: 9302150289
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: D-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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FOOTBALL NEEDS MORE HONEST MEN

I WRITE this letter in regards to the Salem-Richlands cleat controversy. I am a coach in Virginia.

I am disappointed in how the Virginia High School League handled this incident and how they treated Coach Willis White for being honest. The Code of Interscholastic Athletics, in the league's handbook, states: "Teach athletes that it is better to lose fairly, than to win unfairly." This was not the message of the executive committee.

The Richlands coach used illegal cleats, denied it emphatically to the public and then, when caught with his "hand in the cookie jar," shifted some of the blame to his athletic director, an assistant coach and Salem. Not only were his accusations unfounded and untrue, he did not even have the character to apologize to the Salem players, whom he cheated. Then the league says it cannot reprimand or censure a coach.

Coaches in our area have been censured and reprimanded! The executive committee blasted White because he insinuated that the league would do nothing. Who do they think they are that they cannot be questioned? In our country, our president, Congress and Supreme Court are questioned daily.

It seems to me that we need more honest men with character and integrity like White in coaching and in the league - men who will dedicate themselves to keeping high-school football pure from corruption. HAL ADAMS SALEM

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