Dear Mr. Littlepage,
I am writing this letter to you to formally complain about your hiring of Mike London.
Although everyone else may be thrilled by your choice, I think you forgot to consider one major group while making your decision: sports columnists. You could have made my first year as a columnist so easy by hiring the right guy. It would have been simple.
But Mike London is just a really decent guy. After having a successful playing career at Richmond - and being signed as a free agent by the Cowboys, which I won't hold against him - he became a street crime detective for the Richmond Police Department. While on duty one night, he was chasing a van full of suspects fleeing a fast-food joint. He followed them to an alley, where he blocked the van in with his squad car. He left his vehicle, badge raised, and suddenly the van tried to make a break for it. London reached his hand through the window of the van to try to turn off the ignition - only to find the driver with a gun pointed at his head. The driver pulled the trigger. But for whatever reason, the gun didn't go off. London decided to become a football coach the next day.
How on earth do you make fun of that?
While I know you didn't hire Al Groh, columnists had it good with him. After all, Groh read a poem during his last press conference.
A poem? Are you kidding me?
There were plenty of better candidates available to hire who would have made my life easier.
Mike Leach, for example. The jokes are endless. We could have even had an official line of U.Va. Storage Sheds, sponsored by Leach for "all your storage and punishment needs." How's that for an endorsement deal?
Or Mark Mangino, the whale of a coach who got fired after eight years with Kansas. He weighs somewhere north of 400 pounds - and that's pretty far north to begin with. I could have made plenty of jokes with that. For example: "That wasn't the train on the railroad bridge - coach Mangino just moved three steps to the left."
But no, Mr. Littlepage, you had to go out and make the perfect hire. London becomes one of only 13 black coaches in Division 1-A football. How am I supposed to make fun of a coach who makes people proud to attend the school?
Maybe I will have to write a bunch of columns about field hockey. Of course, that would actually require actually going to a field hockey match, so maybe not.\nI guess I will have to find some players worth writing about.
Like how senior cornerback Ras-I Dowling's name sounds suspiciously like Ras-Al Ghoul, the bad guy from Batman Begins.
Or senior Marc Verica, our new starting quarterback, who during his only year as a full-time starter threw eight touchdown passes and 16 interceptions. It's going to be a long season.
Or Connor Miles, a senior fullback, who was "a two-year member of the co-ed cheerleading team before walking on to the football team during 2010 spring practice." Bet he doesn't get made fun of for that at all ...
Or freshman quarterback Miles Gooch, just because he has a funny name.
To sum it up, Mr. Littlepage, I think you picked the right coach to lead us out of mediocrity and maybe into respectability.
Can't you see why I'm so perturbed?
Sincerely,\nWill
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