Letters To The Editor
Email: editor@ gcnews.com

Incorrect Information

To The Editor:

Thank you for taking the time to print my letter. I wanted to start by saying that I was called by a friend yesterday asking me if I was aware that both my wife's name and my name had been printed in your paper under a Notice of Tax Lien. Upon further investigation I discovered that the section block and lot listed were not reflective of the home we currently live in but rather that of our previous home which we sold on October 5th, 2005. I contacted our lawyer who handled the closing and he assured me that all taxes had been paid on the dwelling. In fact, we had given the buyers title insurance company payments well in excess of the nine hundred dollars in question on the date of the closing. If nine hundred dollars is owed to Nassau County for any reason it is probably due to some mistake on their part, or on the part of the title insurance company. I hope that in the future a system can be put in place where information can be verified as true before simply passing it from Nassau County books to our hometown newspaper. Since October 5th, 2005 the home has changed hands for a second time, I have elected not to list its address or the new owners names because we have learned first hand how false newspaper articles can be hurtful to people's reputation.

Sean R. McCoyd

"Silver Is For Losers"

To The Editor:

Apparently the [...] Team is continuing the great tradition of Garden City sports success. The GC community is mostly comprised of successful people who want the best for their families and have the resources to provide it. The sports programs seem to be a microcosm of the community: hard work equals success and a strong work ethic leads to winning, but is it winning at any cost?

A February 2nd article [...] might just show the dark side of a win at all costs attitude. The [team's] performance at the Oceanside tourney was described in the article as, "total domination," "full scale robbery," "grand larceny," and "slaughter," - and keep in mind some [team members] are as young as 7 years old. As is often the case with local sports articles, one of the parents in attendance usually writes the article and sends it to the paper. That probably happened here. Either that or maybe this one was written by Hulk Hogan. I understand that this is a hometown article and mostly the only people who are interested are the [athletes] and their families, but I found the overall tone disturbing. Reading it did not make me feel patriotic towards Garden City. Instead it left me with the impression that the attitude on the team might be that winning is everything and the only thing.

As a kid I was proud to read about myself in the local Little League newsletter, but the descriptions were always the same: "great defense," or "timely hitting," or if neither of those then at least a mention of how you demonstrated good sportsmanship. There was nothing more aggressive than that and always a nod to the team you either beat or played hard against. The GC News article seemed to lack respect. The non-Garden City resident [team members] were never given a name. They were just referred to as "opponents." The captions under the photographs were equally harsh" This opponent "ain't going nowhere" and GC [team members] are, "pinning this dude" and, "doing a great job stuffing this boy's head."

I'm sure most every [athlete] in the tournament (even the ones from Oceanside and Valley Stream) has a family that is proud of his sports efforts and each boy was probably looking forward to trying his best in this tournament. Maybe one of the Valley Stream [athletes] even has a great head coach and works on strategy with his former county champion [...] father, and just maybe he even has an uncle who lives in Garden City who was basically shocked to see his nephew's greatest sports achievement to date, a dramatic victory over one of the [team's] best [athletes], described as "a suspected referee mistake," and "a raw deal" that was caught on tape and that "the tape don't lie." Is it so terrible that a 6th grader who really excels in [the sport] was beaten by another excellent 6th grade [athlete]? And is it really even a loss? In a tournament if you lose the gold medal match don't you still "win" silver? or maybe it's gold or nothing for this team. Instead of putting forth an excuse that professional boxers use in order to protect their egos from the idea that on a certain day somebody actually was better than them, maybe they could have included a photograph of this great match too - arguably the best match of the tournament and wrote something like this: After easily winning his first two matches, young [team member] had a hard fought match with Keith Donovan, an equally good [athlete] from Valley Stream. With both [athletes] demonstrating first-rate defense, Hernandez tied up the match with only 5 seconds left in regulations, forcing the match into overtime. They each countered the other's moves forcing a second overtime period. Finally Donovan was awarded victory in the closest fought and most exciting match of the day." Instead a controversy was reported in order to explain how one of just a few team members actually came away without gold. Having high standards is one thing, but it is possible to demonstrate how good you are without having to win top honors every time.

If the tone of the article matches the attitude of the team then this might be why some high schoolers see Garden City team as teams like the NY Yankees or maybe even the Russian Olympic hockey team from the '70s and '80s great teams who seemed to have it all, but that you enjoy seeing knocked down a peg or two,

My young son will probably be interested in joining the [team] in a few years. He'll have a great advantage: he'll be joining a great winning sports tradition with a coach who obviously knows how to win, he'll have an uncle to work strategy with, a cousin who works very hard at the sport, and a father who above all else will make sure that along with great [...] moves his son also learns good sportsmanship and respect for other athletes.

J.D. Donovan

Editor's note: After a great deal of consideration, we decided to eliminate the name of the team which is being criticized in this letter. Words that appear in square brackets above are sections that have been edited.

As the letter writer notes, submissions to the sports section are usually made by volunteer parents or coaches, and we don't think it is fair to pillory them in the public square for their efforts. We very much appreciate the amount of time and energy that these parents contribute.

On the other hand, the points of the letter are of a serious nature, and are certainly worth public discussion, and we didn't feel it would be appropriate to censor that discussion.

We hope to hear from other writers on this topic, and will be happy to print more letters discussing it.