Battle of the Brazos

I was disappointed by the behavior of some Baylor University fans at Saturday’s game in Waco against Texas A&M University. Baylor fans should know better than:

* Talk, cheer or boo while a player is injured on the field (this should go without saying)!

* Cheer or boo when another band is playing their school song.

* Being crude. The line between good and bad heckling is quite fuzzy, and people will always disagree on just where it is, but not all heckling is appropriate.

* To treat the football team as a ticket to a better seat. This is directed at the Baylor Line: I would guess that most of you either lined up by the tunnel and then ran to the seats when the first person exited or formed a little pod in front of your seats without bothering to line the tunnel at all.

Passion is great, heckling is fine, but there comes a point at which cheering and jeering cross the line and become little more than tacky, classless behavior. That happened on Saturday.

This is a fun year for Baylor athletics, and a great year to be a Baylor football fan. Floyd Casey Stadium should be a place that road teams view as intimidating, but it should not be a place that road teams view as hostile or rude.

There are other Big 12 schools whose fans have the reputation of being particularly rude or hostile or classless, and I’d hate to see Baylor added to that list. A reputation like that is hard to shake, and we owe our teams better than that. We owe them a crowd that is passionate but classy because the truth is that there are boundaries to what is considered decent behavior, and those boundaries need to be respected even in the midst of a heated game.

Kenna Lang Archer, lecturer, Angelo State University

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Why did the Trib choose to run a negative story on the front page on Saturday, [“Baylor, A&M’s bloody history,”] prior to the big game between the Bears and Aggies? It was sure to be a beautiful day with a packed stadium and a great game between two teams on the move.

I notice you did not list this story in the headlines of your online version. Second thoughts?

Chris Hansen, Waco

Leftist tendencies

The left-leaning tendencies of Trib senior editor Bill Whitaker were demonstrated in his Nov. 7 column “An Election Day massacre.” He alluded to outgoing U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards as being one of the “conservative and moderate Democrats.”

The mainstream press has consistently turned a jaundiced eye regarding the factual ratings of the liberal left. Here are ratings from two well- respected organizations that have been rating lawmakers for more than 60 years. The American Conservative Union (ACU) provides a “Conservative Quotient” (CQ) and the Americans for Democratic Action provides a “Liberal Quotient” (LQ).  Chet’s ACU conservative rating for 2009 was 16 (out of a possible 100). His 19-year lifetime CQ is 30. Chet’s ADA liberal rating for 2009 was 75. His lifetime LQ is 67. As Democrats go, Chet may be considered conservative, but in relation to the entire congressional body, he can definitely be regarded as a liberal.

Vic Russell, China Spring