A Letter to TJ (Simers)

Really? What are you trying to do here? Anger the blue and gold faithful? If that's what you are going for, I would say that you are doing quite the job. Is there a history of bad blood with Coach Neu or something? Maybe you lost to him in that infamous basketball pool earlier this decade or something and now you have to chance to revenge that lose, or maybe not. Perhaps you are still angry to see a guy not unlike your "butt buddy" Petey, except Rick admits his mistakes, takes the high road (In a couple years if Prince decides to go pro, he would shake his had at a press conference), and even won a lawsuit against the NCAA. Perhaps T.J you are envious of the golden boy. I mean he is a rags to riches story as far as college football goes and you are an angry disgruntled old sportswriter who as the fine folks at BruinsNation pointed out, will be left unemployed in no more than five years. You are such a noname that you don't even have a wikipedia page (below)!

Now, when you say that James Washington is going to be UCLA's MVP, is that because unlike you, he has done something with his life? Maybe. Is it because UCLA lacks talent? I mean, two top-10 recruiting classes sure seems bad, doesn't it? Or the multiple guys on preseason awards list? How about being picked by Kirk Herbstreit to be the sleeper in the Pac-10? I mean that guy doesn't work for any legitimate media right (trick question: ESPN loves U$C, but do cover others fairly well). And lastly, as an engineer, I cannot finish this post without some concrete numbers. You say Coach Neu's charisma has not been showed? that his sideline yelling sessions with Kevin Craft have been negative?

To make one last point here, I will have to call on none other than Mr. Bill Plaschke (ironic, I know) to give us some insight on how even towards the end of the Toledo years (begining of the Carroll era), UCLA was outdrawing the Trojans in attendance by 15,000!!! Now, even with all their (ineligible success) U$C outdraws UCLA by around 10,000. But... In Carroll's first year, the Trojans were still drawing blanks in attendance, having 43,000+ (according to Plaschke) at a game against ASU. UCLA averaged 72,794 (according to ESPN.com boxscores) in 2008, who's got the charisma now TJ?