I thought some of you might get a kick out of this.
 
The other night, Rhode Island basketball coach Al Skinner was on an
evening sports talk show in Boston (forget which station, WEEI or
WRKO).  He was talking about the failure of Proposition 42 (to
reinstate the 14th scholarship for basketball) and complained
vociferously about how basketball needs that scholarship because,
well, they just don't have enough players to practice against without
it.  This was the main argument he put forth.  Read that again.  He
just doesn't have enough players in practice.
 
It's pretty hard for me to find sympathy for him when hockey programs
can't even give out enough scholarships to cover all players that
typically play in a hockey GAME.  Not to mention injuries.  If
Skinner's URI team has one...or two...or three, four, or five players
go down with injuries, he still has 8 other players to choose from to
put together a team.  But if you're a DivI hockey coach and five
players go down, you might as well go down to the intramural league
and see if you can find somebody.  Or lace them up yourself.
 
Let them boycott Saturday.  Instead of coaching in the gym, maybe they
can take a walk over to the hockey rink and find out what it's really
like for an athletic program to be under adversity.
 
I also find it sadly amusing but not surprising that the media are
taking this story and running with it, while we heard nothing from
them after hockey's scholarships were yanked.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
<<<<<< Color Voice of the (9-9-1) Merrimack Warriors WCCM 800 AM >>>>>>