Letters To The Editor

Not so fast

Norm Chow has had many outstanding accomplishments during his long career, but that is no excuse for the mindless cheerleading of the MidWeek triumvirate of Steve Murray, Bob Hogue and Bobby Curran.

Mr. Murray says that since leaving USC after the 2004 season, Chow “has done nothing to damage” his reputation. The truth is a little more complicated.

After Chow left USC, that team was banned from postseason play, it lost 30 scholarships, and it had to forfeit wins from the 2004 season in which it illicitly won the national championship while Chow was offensive coordinator because Reggie Bush was being paid like a professional while performing in the offense that Chow coached.

Mr. Hogue says that Chow is “the master at developing great quarterbacks.” But let us consider what happened to Chow after he left USC.

He first became offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans, and he was fired three years later, not least because the quarterbacks he coached threw a grand total of nine touchdown passes during the 2007 season. Chow then became offense coordinator at UCLA, which has dozens of promising high school quarterbacks in its own backyard. In Chow’s three seasons at UCLA, the offense consistently sputtered and the Bruins had a cumulative record of 15-22. When the offense he led in 2010 finished 118th out of 120 teams nationally in passing efficiency, he left the team under much the same “leave or else” circumstances that Greg McMackin recently encountered at UH.

Mr. Curran says he is sure that “the UH hiring process worked” because it brought Chow back to Hawaii. Recent history suggests that we should wait for Chow to coach UH for a game or two before breaking out the party hats.

Mr. Curran also claims that head football coach at UH is “arguably the most important” position in the state. I do not know what to say about such silliness.

I wish Norm Chow well. I also wish these three guys would do a little more thinking before they write.

David T. Johnson
Professor of Sociology,
UH-Manoa

Who’s entitled?

Jerry Coffee wants to criticize the entitlement of a man who went from a broken home in Hawaii to the Harvard Law Review, when his party’s last president’s only achievement was being born into a rich, politically connected family that set him up for wealth and a job in politics. And even then he barely got his MBA, couldn’t finish his Naval Reserve commitment and “screwed the pooch” in Iraq. It took the “entitled” Obama to get Osama, and clean up Bush’s mess in Iraq. Come on, Mr. Coffee.

Merle Goodell
Manoa

Send your letters to MidWeek Letters, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 500, Honolulu, HI. 96813; by fax to 585-6324, or by email to dchapman@midweek.com. Please include your name, address and daytime and evening phone numbers. We print only the letters that include this information, but only your name and area of residence will appear in print. Letters may be edited for clarity and space.

E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (1) | Archive | RSS Comments (1) |

Most Recent Comment(s):

For all comments click here.

Posting a comment on MidWeek.com requires a free registration.

Username

Password

Auto Login

Forgot Password